RTS Starcraft

[POOPERSCOOPER]

I played Starcraft for like 8 years before even trying to finish the single player, the game play was like crack for me but I gave zero fucks about the story.

 

[Storyfag]

Again, sorry I sound unhinged.

No worries. You will fit in!

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Again, sorry I sound unhinged.

No worries. You will fit in!

Thanks for the understanding.

I’ve been called a fake fan and a hater, but the truth is that I’m passionate about consistent worldbuilding and faction cultures/ideologies. I criticize SC from a place of caring: while I don’t like the scripts, I still love the overall aesthetics and I love the early attempts at detailing alien cultures like the terran colonies, protoss tribes and zerg broods. That puts me in a strange position, I suppose. I haven’t found many others who cared for that. (With the Westwood RTSes I have the opposite problem. While they clearly have factions with cultures and ideologies over which they fight, which is good, they’re just too vague for fandom to really attach too. Because the games used FMVs to carry the plot, they have no recurring characters to convey the faction dynamics aside from Joe’s Kane. Kane has always more of a plot device than a character.)

Anyhow, What are some things you didn’t like about OG? How do you think it could’ve been improved?

 

[Storyfag]

With the Westwood RTSes I have the opposite problem. While they clearly have factions with cultures and ideologies over which they fight, which is good, they’re just too vague for fandom to really attach too. Because the games used FMVs to carry the plot, they have no recurring characters to convey the faction dynamics aside from Joe’s Kane. Kane has always more of a plot device than a character.

First you badmouth Starcraft OG, now you badmouth Kane. Boy are we gonna have to have a serious talk at the Confessory. Please do not resist the Tiberium-based truth serum. It is a futile and ultimately self-destructive gesture.

Anyhow, What are some things you didn’t like about OG? How do you think it could’ve been improved?

As previously stated, I'd much rather side with Mengsk than Raynor for the final mission of the Terran campaign. The Protoss civil war could have been handled better. Tassadar allowing himself to be arrested and then Fenix and co. deciding to spring him from prison was pretty dumb, especially since Tassadar did not make any further comments on how they did exactly what he wanted to avoid by going peacfully.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Tassadar allowing himself to be arrested and then Fenix and co. deciding to spring him from prison was pretty dumb, especially since Tassadar did not make any further comments on how they did exactly what he wanted to avoid by going peacfully.

I was actually going to point that out before deciding not to. Glad we agree on that.

The Protoss civil war could have been handled better.

I think a lot of things could have been handled better.

 

[trais]

Anyhow, What are some things you didn’t like about OG? How do you think it could’ve been improved?

As previously stated, I'd much rather side with Mengsk than Raynor for the final mission of the Terran campaign. The Protoss civil war could have been handled better. Tassadar allowing himself to be arrested and then Fenix and co. deciding to spring him from prison was pretty dumb, especially since Tassadar did not make any further comments on how they did exactly what he wanted to avoid by going peacfully.

Cerebrates being vulnerable only to Dark Templars' space magicks is also jank. Same with Overmind needing crystal macguffins to move its spiky, fat ass to Auir. There are plenty of details like that to nitpick if you want to.

But that doesn't change the fact that story and writing serves it purpose, that is it gives plausible explanation for all sorts of missions, with various objectives, without breaking suspension of disbelief too badly. Sure, if it was a plot of a sci-fi novel it would suck, but for an RTS game, where story is secondary if not tertiary, it's great good for what it is.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Anyhow, What are some things you didn’t like about OG? How do you think it could’ve been improved?

As previously stated, I'd much rather side with Mengsk than Raynor for the final mission of the Terran campaign. The Protoss civil war could have been handled better. Tassadar allowing himself to be arrested and then Fenix and co. deciding to spring him from prison was pretty dumb, especially since Tassadar did not make any further comments on how they did exactly what he wanted to avoid by going peacfully.

Cerebrates being vulnerable only to Dark Templars' space magicks is also jank. Same with Overmind needing crystal macguffins to move its spiky, fat ass to Auir. There are plenty of details like that to nitpick if you want to.

But that doesn't change the fact that story and writing serves it purpose, that is it gives plausible explanation for all sorts of missions, with various objectives, without breaking suspension of disbelief too badly. Sure, if it was a plot of a sci-fi novel it would suck, but for an RTS game, where story is secondary if not tertiary, it's great good for what it is.

I’m not convinced it’s even that passable. I’m not just nitpicking plot holes and plot devices here and there. I fundamentally disagree with the whole writing direction. I think it’s actively terrible as an RTS story specifically.

 

[kinzadza]

You're actively terrible as a shitposter

 

[RaggleFraggle]

To be candid, I didn't originally care too much that the story was terrible, the sequelitis, etc. What really gets my goat is that this writing is hugely overrated by fans. I've gotten pulled into so many stupid flame wars that completely soured any lingering goodwill I had towards this franchise. I just want a scifi RTS franchise with writing/lore that isn't completely stupid that I can discuss with likeminded people of discerning tastes. SC hinted at that kind of potential with its old lore dumps on the website and in the manual, before Blizz squandered that in favor of bad soap opera.

if it was a plot of a sci-fi novel it would suck

Fun fact, it was adapted into two scifi novels. Liberty's Crusade and Queen of Blades. As you would expect, they're terrible.

Liberty's Crusade is barely passable because the author Jeff Grubb (not the same person as the game script writer) clearly tried to plug various plot holes but could only do so much without outright changing the events. The zerg invading only when it's convenient for Mengsk rather than being depicting as an existential threat to humanity is still a huge issue here. The basic issue is that the plot tries to weld together the rebellion from Star Wars (except this time the rebels are evil because 90s gritty nihilism I guess) with the bug invasion from Starship Troopers when those plots simply don't fit together. Realistically, the terran civil war should leave them wide open for the zerg to swoop in and kill everyone, but that's ignored because it would be inconvenient I guess.

Queen of Blades is... dear God, I do not envy Aaron Rosenberg's job here. The original campaign is a meandering mess, and even though Rosenberg tries to explain various things the campaign didn't and trim the fat he ends up inadvertently showcasing the weaknesses of the plot. It's clear he wasn't an SC fan to begin with and Blizzard clearly provided him with substandard reference materials. The depiction of the zerg in particular is just... ugh. It's easy to see why the rest of the campaigns never received novelizations after this one.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Had an unpleasant "conversation" this past week with a fanboy who called me a "fake fan", "troll", and "idiot who doesn't get it" when I expressed some frustrations with SC's writing. I hate this fandom. To be candid, I think most of those fanboys who haven't jumped ship years ago have shit taste in literature, are blinded by nostalgia, and don't understand media criticism. I wouldn't mind if they left me alone, but they're compelled to attack me whenever we're in the same venue. Fuck those people. It's been absolutely terrible for my mental health.

I wish there was an RTS fandom which had the same premise as starcraft but with writing that isn't shit and fans who I can talk to without being insulted. I've looked for years without success.

40k just doesn't interest me anymore. The tyranids are actually cool, unlike the zerg who have become insulting stupid jokes, but they're also unfortunately boring and I say this as someone who was a huge tyranid fan in the 2000s. The tyranid campaigns in DoW2 and BFGA were terribly boring compared to the Overmind's speechifying. I like my bugs with personalities (while still being bugs, don't get me wrong).

I don't have the skills or funding to make an RTS, so I decided to try my hand at writing prose after my previous SC fanfiction (yes, I wrote some) got ignored because it wasn't Kerry/Raynor garbage. The SC fanfiction scene is just garbage because the foundation is so shitty. While I have a few dozen pages of worldbuilding notes and ideas, I haven't been able to write an actual story. It's a lot more difficult to pull off some of the same ideas in prose compared to RTS.

Namely: writing a Overmind-esque species. They wouldn't understand and interact with the world the way that humans do. The closest I have been able to find pre-existing examples has been the Vang in the Starhammer/Vang trilogy by Christopher Rowley (which inspired Halo btw) and MorningLightMountain in Pandora's Star. Unsurprisingly, it's not a popular idea in scifi to write from the perspective of the horrible hivemind swarm. That only ever happened in SC in the first place because Blizz correctly predicted that giving the bugs personalities would make their campaign more interesting than "on nom nom" (altho Blizz naturally botched the execution).

I've tried getting into Immortal: Gates of Pyre. I've have many illuminating conversations on their official discord. I can't get into their lore because I'm too burned out on all those other shitty video game lores, even though it's an amazing lore with a ton of depth and work put into building the nations and environments and blah blah blah. Some of the civs are even loosely comparable to SC civs, except with way better lore because the IGP writers can actually write worth a darn and give a fuck about their world building. Still, I can't bring myself to care.

I'm angry, frustrated, and lonely.

 

[kinzadza]

And a virgin

 

[Marat]

People play Starcraft for the story? I thought that was a joke. MP all the way.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

People play Starcraft for the story? I thought that was a joke. MP all the way.

80% of RTS players don’t play MP. It’s an untapped market.

 

[Storyfag]

I decided to try my hand at writing prose

it's an amazing lore

 

[ELEXmakesMeHard]

I think I've played the single-player campaign thrice, and hardly touched multiplayer.

Multiplayer requires a kind of playstyle that I don't enjoy. Rush to scout the map, rush to claim expansions, rush to secure chokepoints, and do autistic micro-management of units, while also trying to defend against being zerged.

Extensive base building, a healthy dose of turtling, and gradual consolidation of territory, is just more satisfying to me.

 

[Marat]

80% of RTS players don’t play MP. It’s an untapped market.

What a bunch of

















C U C K S

 

[RaggleFraggle]

I think I've played the single-player campaign thrice, and hardly touched multiplayer.

Multiplayer requires a kind of playstyle that I don't enjoy. Rush to scout the map, rush to claim expansions, rush to secure chokepoints, and do autistic micro-management of units, while also trying to defend against being zerged.

Extensive base building, a healthy dose of turtling, and gradual consolidation of territory, is just more satisfying to me.

Yeah, SP and MP require very different skillsets even if the tools are the same. I think SP (and co-op) has been extremely underutilized in RTS design. Even SC2 didn’t really do much with it, but the devs were floored by the popularity of co-op.

I think chasing MP/esports is a huge part of what drove RTS genre into the ground. RTS is not going to compete with MOBA. I think it’s better to focus on SP and co-op, as that’s what most players will play. There’s so many ways to monetize it too and you don’t have to worry about breaking MP balance in the process.

 

[Catacombs]

Had an unpleasant "conversation" this past week with a fanboy who called me a "fake fan", "troll", and "idiot who doesn't get it" when I expressed some frustrations with SC's writing. I hate this fandom.

How did you even put yourself in this situation?

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Had an unpleasant "conversation" this past week with a fanboy who called me a "fake fan", "troll", and "idiot who doesn't get it" when I expressed some frustrations with SC's writing. I hate this fandom.

How did you even put yourself in this situation?

No clue. It was on a discord whose creator made videos mocking plot holes in BW. Most of the chat are happy to acknowledge the poor writing in all Blizz games or agree with me when I suggest where Blizz should’ve went. Hence why I joined. But a rare few members like to fight me.

I don’t even like complaining or arguing or defending my existence. I want to do something constructive, like write and discuss original scifi where I implement ideas I like such as an Overmind-esque species that isn’t turned into a mindless zombie army for a psychotic succubus. Unfortunately, I can’t really find anyone interested in discussing that and my own writing efforts are held back by my own self-doubts. If nobody but me is interested in these ideas, then why should I even bother writing?

Hence why I wish I could go back in time and tell Chris Metzen not to work at Blizz.

 

[Curious_Tongue]

People play Starcraft for the story? I thought that was a joke. MP all the way.

 

[Marat]

Today SC2 is as old as SC1 was when SC2 came out.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

You guys might find this interesting:


As the title implies, Five Nations is about interstellar war between five nations: the United Earth Federation (generic united humanity), the Sylon Collective (basically Borg but wholly robotic), the Athrael Theocracy (basically the Asgard from the Stargate franchise), the Thorun Empire (Game of Thrones in space with yautja), and the Zhogarn Symbiosis (space whale tyranids). There’s a discord server and a wiki.

 

[jackofshadows]

By the way, absolutely by random watched pretty decent tvz today https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1307512926

 

[catfood]

Today SC2 is as old as SC1 was when SC2 came out.

Isn't graphics supposed to improve over time?

 

[RaggleFraggle]

I can’t wait to see Starcraft 3. It will probably be about Amon’s ex-girlfriend seeking revenge on humanity or the creators of the xel’naga coming back for revenge or something similar. Amon will probably be retconned as being a good guy all along. Exactly the kind of storytelling that fans look forward to… /s