Stormgate - sci-fi/fantasy RTS from ex-Blizzard devs - now on Early Access

[ghardy]

Blizzard before 2008-2010 and after are two completely different companies, and Stormgate appears to be made by people from the post-2010 era.

Interesting. Activision hit it really hard, it seems.

Given what you've seen of Stormgate, how would you, in principle, put it on the right track?

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Blizzard before 2008-2010 and after are two completely different companies, and Stormgate appears to be made by people from the post-2010 era. The direct comparison is SC2.

Do you remember the plots of “The Insurgent” and “Patriot’s Blood”?

 

[Lyric Suite]

BTW, one thing that makes Diablo 2 but especially Warcraft 3 feel a bit more insipid than their other games is the intrusion of left-wing politics. Funny how that goes.

WRT WarCraft 3, the biggest thing that strikes me is the casting of the Orcish Horde as noble savages or a hitherto misunderstood culture.
WRT Diablo 2, I see (1) the Rogue Encampment; and (2) the corrupted Zakarum religion being possible issues.

What particular things did you have in mind with these games?

Things i can remember out of the top of my head:

1) The noble hero shit for the Orcs, as you say.
2) Orcs being in a concentration camp (therefore humans bad though i don't recall if they stress this point in WC3 or later in WoW. They DID retcon Proudmoore as a Hitler type in WoW).
3) Humans being decadent and corrupt ('cause in fantasy games, humans = white people).
4) Muh Jaina fending off ogres on her own 'cause wombyn stronk and needs no white knights to save her.
5) Wombyn warriors in Night Elf army (this is so normalized now people don't remember that wasn't actually a thing even as far as the early 90s. Compare Thief 1 with Thief 2, where they made 50% of the guards female in the second game).
6) Tyrande being a crazy feminist cunt. There's a scene in WC3 where Malfurion is trying to "forbid" her from freeing Illidan and she literally pulls an Eric Cartman doing "whatever, i do what i want", claiming she only follows the "Moon Goddess" meaning no man is gonna tell her what to do, not even her "beloved" husband (and presumably her superior in Night Elf society, or at least i think druids are the rulers?).
7) In Diablo 2, there's a guy in act 5 who is trying to introduce science, technology and reason but his efforts are falling on deaf ears because the tribes are too obsessed with their "traditions" to change.

There should be more but i haven't played those games in a long time so i can't remember now. Warcraft 2 and Diablo 1 were completely free of leftist shit as far as i remember. It was there Diablo 2 and WC3 as well as WoW Vanilla (there's a female Orc warrior in the Barrens who has an unprompted women's libs moment where she tells the player that Thrall has decreed that women are now warriors in the horde and if the player doesn't like it he can take it up to him).

Compared to modern games you can even say this stuff is pretty minor but it was there and it was annoying already back then.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

While we’re airing out complaints, I might as well chip in with complaints about the plot of starcraft 1 that people forgot.

What frustrated me about starcraft 1 is that Blizz initially setup conflicts between and within the races.

Terran colonies are greedy miners who jockey with each other for power and wealth. They look greedily upon the rich protoss worlds.

Protoss are space police imposing their vision of order on the galaxy. They see humans as greedy destructive piggies. They also have their own philosophical schism between the light and dark templar sides.

The zerg are eating worlds to become better killing machines. Terrans and protoss are next on the menu. They’re basically tyranids at this point.

In the actual game, these plot hooks were immediately bulldozed in favor of bad soap opera drama revolving around Raynor. He and his drama is shoehorned into every campaign at the expense of any other possible plots. The writer was clearly obsessed with him and the story suffers for it.

The terran politics are simplified to “good vs evil”, with Raynor being the sole good guy and everyone opposed to him being evil, with the confederacy being a decoy and Mengsk the real villain for personally betraying Raynor. Raynor here is a dick who wouldn’t care what Mengsk did afterward if the betrayal never happened. Then Raynor never takes responsibility for being complicit in multiple genocides. Our hero, everyone!

The protoss politics are simplified to mean bigots vs oppressed minority, with Raynor naturally on the side of the oppressed despite having no dog in the fight since the zerg left terran space a while ago, and being a callous genocidal dickwad himself. The space police angle is forgotten and they become generic dying space elves trying desperately to stay relevant. Did I mention the protoss incinerated 90% of the population before Raynor decides to join them? Raynor is a heartless dickwad.

The zerg are turned into mindless cultists and zombies praising Raynor’s girlfriend when she gets inexplicably turned into space jesus bug girl because her midichlorian count is the bestest evah or whatever. The zerg are a fucking joke at this point. Raynor is sad his girlfriend is evil now, but I can’t really care because he’s a heartless dickwad to everyone else and she’s deep as a puddle herself. Did I mention in her official art she’s wearing lingerie? Why the fuck with the bug aliens make a succubus? They don’t care about the human fashion industry, they eat worlds!

Then in the BW expansion pack some guys from Earth show up to stop Mengsk and the zerg from wrecking things. You’d think Raynor would ally with them because “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”, but he doesn’t because they’re the designated bad guys despite not doing anything particularly bad. Their actions are very restrained and polite considering all their foes are genocidal monsters. They actually stop and ask the protoss and Mengsk to surrender so they can be captured and put on trial for war crimes. Isn’t that nice and civilized of them? Supposedly Earth was ruled by space nazis centuries prior, but the new UED is very diverse, with psychics and cyborgs readily deployed by the military. The only remotely questionable thing they do is enslave zerg, but that’s the only way they can prevent the zerg from regrouping and attacking. Raynor instead allies with his enemies, Mengsk and the succubus, which backfires when the succubus betrays them in a completely predictable turn of events that he is completely unprepared for. How shocking that his girlfriend would be evil after being physically mutated by horrible bug aliens!

This writing is mediocre at best. Even George Lucas is better at writing than this.

 

[ArchAngel]

While we’re airing out complaints, I might as well chip in with complaints about the plot of starcraft 1 that people forgot.

What frustrated me about starcraft 1 is that Blizz initially setup conflicts between and within the races.

Terran colonies are greedy miners who jockey with each other for power and wealth. They look greedily upon the rich protoss worlds.

Protoss are space police imposing their vision of order on the galaxy. They see humans as greedy destructive piggies. They also have their own philosophical schism between the light and dark templar sides.

The zerg are eating worlds to become better killing machines. Terrans and protoss are next on the menu. They’re basically tyranids at this point.

In the actual game, these plot hooks were immediately bulldozed in favor of bad soap opera drama revolving around Raynor. He and his drama is shoehorned into every campaign at the expense of any other possible plots. The writer was clearly obsessed with him and the story suffers for it.

The terran politics are simplified to “good vs evil”, with Raynor being the sole good guy and everyone opposed to him being evil, with the confederacy being a decoy and Mengsk the real villain for personally betraying Raynor. Raynor here is a dick who wouldn’t care what Mengsk did afterward if the betrayal never happened. Then Raynor never takes responsibility for being complicit in multiple genocides. Our hero, everyone!

The protoss politics are simplified to mean bigots vs oppressed minority, with Raynor naturally on the side of the oppressed despite having no dog in the fight since the zerg left terran space a while ago, and being a callous genocidal dickwad himself. The space police angle is forgotten and they become generic dying space elves trying desperately to stay relevant. Did I mention the protoss incinerated 90% of the population before Raynor decides to join them? Raynor is a heartless dickwad.

The zerg are turned into mindless cultists and zombies praising Raynor’s girlfriend when she gets inexplicably turned into space jesus bug girl because her midichlorian count is the bestest evah or whatever. The zerg are a fucking joke at this point. Raynor is sad his girlfriend is evil now, but I can’t really care because he’s a heartless dickwad to everyone else and she’s deep as a puddle herself. Did I mention in her official art she’s wearing lingerie? Why the fuck with the bug aliens make a succubus? They don’t care about the human fashion industry, they eat worlds!

Then in the BW expansion pack some guys from Earth show up to stop Mengsk and the zerg from wrecking things. You’d think Raynor would ally with them because “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”, but he doesn’t because they’re the designated bad guys despite not doing anything particularly bad. Their actions are very restrained and polite considering all their foes are genocidal monsters. They actually stop and ask the protoss and Mengsk to surrender so they can be captured and put on trial for war crimes. Isn’t that nice and civilized of them? Supposedly Earth was ruled by space nazis centuries prior, but the new UED is very diverse, with psychics and cyborgs readily deployed by the military. The only remotely questionable thing they do is enslave zerg, but that’s the only way they can prevent the zerg from regrouping and attacking. Raynor instead allies with his enemies, Mengsk and the succubus, which backfires when the succubus betrays them in a completely predictable turn of events that he is completely unprepared for. How shocking that his girlfriend would be evil after being physically mutated by horrible bug aliens!

This writing is mediocre at best. Even George Lucas is better at writing than this.

Writing is good enough for RTS. You are forgetting this was time of Humans vs Orcs and Nod vs GDI. Starcraft 1 compared to that looked like Shakespeare. And UED was shown as evil because they were shown to have no problems using ultimate evil (Zerg) to kill other humans. They didn't control them for survival, they were controlling them for power. They were shown similar to corporations in Alien series that would use Aliens as bioweapons and sacrifice anyone on the way to do that.

There is also a lot of other wrong things here. Protoss knew about Zerg and had a task to stop them from spreading as they considered them too dangerous to be left to live. They were happy to sacrifice some humans on the way to that task. Humans cared about nothing except making themselves prosperous and more powerful, Zerg only wanted to consume everything and become perfect being. From their point they were right.

If there could be any complaint, it would be that there was not clear Good guy in this setting which was also very cool.

But if you want more interesting and complex writing in RTS there is always Spellforce series, especially part 3 that went even more into RPG and storytelling.

 

[Lacrymas]

Raggle is correct ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Blizzard can/could create varying gameplay scenarios, but can't connect them in a coherent way narrative-wise. Plot points and McGuffins are dropped as soon as a mission ends, weird focus on character-driven drama in an RTS where the important elements should be the factions and armies, complete 180 on character motivations whenever convenient, there is always a Big Bad all factions have to band up together to defeat no matter how different and hostile towards each other they are, etc. etc.

 

[ArchAngel]

Raggle is correct ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Blizzard can/could create varying gameplay scenarios, but can't connect them in a coherent way narrative-wise. Plot points and McGuffins are dropped as soon as a mission ends, weird focus on character-driven drama in an RTS where the important elements should be the factions and armies, complete 180 on character motivations whenever convenient, there is always a Big Bad all factions have to band up together to defeat no matter how different and hostile towards each other they are, etc. etc.

Well in Sc1 gang up of factions would give you multiple faction armies to control which was interesting.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Writing is good enough for RTS. You are forgetting this was time of Humans vs Orcs and Nod vs GDI. Starcraft 1 compared to that looked like Shakespeare.

I disagree. Starcraft is the inferior story. It might try to tell stories with characters, but in execution it trips over its own feet and shoots itself in the face.
Kane’s Wrath does a much better job of tying together Nod’s politics. It has problems, but nowhere near as bad as starcraft’s. Namely, it doesn’t shit on Nod to get its point across.

Well in Sc1 gang up of factions would give you multiple faction armies to control which was interesting.

That doesn’t excuse the fact that Metzen is a bad writer who shits on the factions to force teamups.

Raggle is correct ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Blizzard can/could create varying gameplay scenarios, but can't connect them in a coherent way narrative-wise. Plot points and McGuffins are dropped as soon as a mission ends, weird focus on character-driven drama in an RTS where the important elements should be the factions and armies, complete 180 on character motivations whenever convenient, there is always a Big Bad all factions have to band up together to defeat no matter how different and hostile towards each other they are, etc. etc.

Exactly! Thank you! It’s bizarrely difficult to get people to notice these problems.

And UED was shown as evil because they were shown to have no problems using ultimate evil (Zerg) to kill other humans. They didn't control them for survival, they were controlling them for power. They were shown similar to corporations in Alien series that would use Aliens as bioweapons and sacrifice anyone on the way to do that.

Strange how they’re a fan favorite then.

Maybe that was the intent, but Blizz was terrible at communicating it. They come across as more heroic than either Mengsk or Raynor, because they’re actually willing to deal with the problems those two idiots caused in the first place.

There is also a lot of other wrong things here. Protoss knew about Zerg and had a task to stop them from spreading as they considered them too dangerous to be left to live. They were happy to sacrifice some humans on the way to that task. Humans cared about nothing except making themselves prosperous and more powerful, Zerg only wanted to consume everything and become perfect being. From their point they were right.

Yes, and? I wasn’t disputing this.

I pointed out that Raynor is dickwad because he allies with the protoss despite them killing 90% of the human population. He doesn’t care or feel the slightest bit of disgust for this. He’s inhuman.

Tassadar is a huge dickwad too. He acts all sanctimonious after murdering billions of people. The problem isn’t that he’s a dickwad, the problem is that the writers and humans in-universe think he’s an unambiguous hero. He’s killed more people than Hitler.

If there could be any complaint, it would be that there was not clear Good guy in this setting which was also very cool.

Raynor and Tassadar are supposed to be the good guys. They’re also complicit in genocide and have zero regrets, and the writer never holds them accountable. Real heroic, right?

The UED never do anything close to what Raynor and Tassadar did. Calling them evil is absurd.

But if you want more interesting and complex writing in RTS there is always Spellforce series, especially part 3 that went even more into RPG and storytelling.

I don’t want rpgs in my rts. That defeats the whole point

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Blizzard can/could create varying gameplay scenarios, but can't connect them in a coherent way narrative-wise.

Exactly. I have no idea why so many players don't notice this, even after I point it out. I'm gonna provide examples of each point.

Plot points and McGuffins are dropped as soon as a mission ends,

There are several plot points given in the manuals and the game that are dropped or inconsistent, leaning to a nonsensical universe without coherent consequences. For example:

• In the SC1 manual, it says that Earth was taken over by space nazis. They're racist, angloist, hate psychics and cyborgs, etc. Like, the colonists of Koprulu were mutants and cyborgs exiled as criminals! When the UED shows up in BW, they're ethnically and biologically diverse and not racist at all.
• In the SC1 manual, it was said that the colonists got lost in a negative space wedgie and were isolated 60,000 light years from Earth on the other edge of the galaxy. In the BW manual, Earth is retconned as using space magic to spy on Koprulu for centuries, do nothing in those centuries despite the wealth available in Koprulu and mining being the entire reason the colonists were sent in the first place, and then when aliens do show up they arrive in five minutes flat and thus the distances are rendered meaningless.
• In the SC1 manual... you get the point.

In SC1, it was a huge deal that Tassadar had to kill the Overmind to save the galaxy. In the very next campaign, the zerg make a new Overmind offscreen using bullshit space magic, invalidating Tassadar's sacrifice. Then everyone fights for control of the zerg, when five minutes ago they were the apocalyptic threat trying to kill everyone.

There's several macguffins too. The psi-emitter, dark templar killing cerebrates, the xel'naga temple...

• The psi-emitter is used to lure zerg to whatever planet is convenient, but since the zerg are actually intelligent it makes no sense that they'd waste time following it. They were already scouting the systems decades prior and were there to harvest humans by the millions for psychic mutations. It feels like the terran campaign was written before the zerg's actual motivation was written, or it was forgotten, resulting in irreconcilable contradiction. There's no indication that the psi-emitter can force zerg to follow against their will, otherwise it could've been used as a weapon to lure them into a trap like the replicators in Stargate SG-1.
• The dark templar killing cerebrates is a really hamfisted plot device to force the light and dark templar to team up, despite the light templar being prejudiced against the dark templar for almost destroying their homeworld that one time. Then at the end, Tassadar has to use his carrier to divebomb the Overmind, when it would make more sense to use the laser or send a dark templar to stab its brain from the inside. The cerebrate's immortality is also bullshit space magic that's not even once hinted at in the manual and has unclear limitations.
• The xel'naga temple is pure plot device. It has no purpose given, but the dark templar say they can use its bullshit space magic to kill the zerg. How does that even work? Is it a terraforming device like the Dakaran superweapon in Stargate SG-1? How can it arbitrarily kill zerg while leaving humans and protoss unharmed, despite predating the zerg? Why does it need two control crystals and why are they scattered on random planets?

There's also events that plain make no sense.

• When Zeratul defends the portals to evacuate the protoss, the next mission has them discover that the zerg are already on Shakuras and have garrisoned the temple despite not going through the portal! When did the zerg get there? How?
• The dark templar leader is indoctrinated by Kerry, but there's no point in time when this could have occurred. Aldaris discovers this... somehow... then starts a rebellion... without telling anyone why to rebel... then Kerry murders him in front of both armies... then the protoss let Kerry just walk away. Who wrote this slop?
• Duran betrays the UED in front of hundreds of witnesses, at least. Then in the next mission DuGalle has no idea Duran betrayed them, despite the hundreds of witnesses including the player character. Dugalle then listens to Duran's insane suggestion to murder Alexei for recovering the psi-disruptor, rather than writing a strongly worded letter like a normal admiral would do. Then when Alexei says Duran betrayed them with his dying breath in a nonsensical melodramatic scene, rather than back when it happened, Dugalle suddenly starts acting reasonable.

I could go on but this section is already getting long.

weird focus on character-driven drama in an RTS where the important elements should be the factions and armies,

Exactly. Rather than focusing on wider scale politics, which are given in the manual, the story focuses on soap opera drama.

The manual gives several motivations for the three races that don't involve the main characters. The terrans jockey with each other for power, the terrans invade protoss worlds for minerals, the protoss are space police who deal with threats like the terrans and zerg, the zerg eat worlds, the zerg invaded terran space to devour the terrans and make new monsters, the zerg want to destroy/devour the protoss, the protoss have an internal schism regarding how to deal with humans during the zerg invasion, some protoss want to defend the terrans against the zerg, some protoss consider the terran losses collateral damage, etc.

These conflicts are either never brought in the games or alluded to then quickly forgotten.

The main characters are also callous genocidal assholes for the most part, so I can't really bring myself to care about their soap opera drama. The only likeable characters are Stukov and Dugalle since they're actually trying to protect humanity's interests against genocidal aliens and mad dictators.

complete 180 on character motivations whenever convenient,

Yup. None of the human characters have consistent motives or personalities, aside from Stukov and Dugalle. The protoss are only slightly better.

For example, Raynor starts out wanting to stop the Confederacy, then commits some genocides, then wanting revenge on Mengsk, then working with the protoss for no apparent reason, then working with his psycho ex girlfriend who he knows is evil now, then working with Mengsk despite hating him...

Kerry starts out as wanting to defeat the Confederacy and save humanity, then commits genocide a few times and feels barely mopey about it, then gets betrayed for unclear reasons, then turns evil because biotech or something, infested Kerry is a completely different character who wants to kill the enemies of the zerg and talk smack at everyone who doesn't immediately fall over themselves to praise her, then in BW she inexplicably wants to take over the galaxy and somehow became a master manipulator despite having zero social skills before (seriously, she was mindwiped and trained to be an assassin, so she wouldn't have much social skills and demonstrates none during the terran campaign)...

Mengsk has a sad backstory where his family was murdered by the Confederacy and his planet was nuked, then he led the rebels against the Confederacy, then in the campaign he commits genocide multiple times, then becomes a transparently evil psychotic dictator, then rebels against the UED rather than engage in diplomacy (the UED likewise has no reason not to engage in diplomacy since from an outside perspective he's just an opportunistic politician and has no reason to rebel against Earth), then allies with his sworn enemies and aliens who previously killed billions of his own people...

Tassadar arrives in Koprulu and glasses Chau Sara, then feels sad about it and resolves to defend humans from the zerg, then immediately goes back to glassing inhabited planets, makes no attempt to ally with humans against the zerg threat until after he loses that campaign, allies with Raynor for no discernable reason, allies with the dark templar offscreen, explicitly says he doesn't regret any of his actions, is so sad about the light and dark templar fighting that he surrenders to prevent further bloodshed, when Zeratul slaughters a bunch of protoss to rescue Tassadar then Tassadar is elated at being rescued rather than offended that Zeratul invalidated his surrender...

there is always a Big Bad all factions have to band up together to defeat no matter how different and hostile towards each other they are,

It's especially clumsy in SC1 OG because the writers apparently think the zerg aren't a big enough reason to ally, so they add the additional stipulation that only dark templar can kill zerg leaders, which itself creates numerous problems. Namely, it turns their alliance into one of convenience rather than genuine understanding, undercutting Tassadar's whole subplot revolving around reconciliation.

The resistance against the UED makes even less sense because they never actually do anything that the situation doesn't call for. There's no reason for anyone, except the zerg obviously, to fight the UED.

How do people not notice this stuff? While individual scenes might feel sensical and elicit emotions due to convincing acting and good art direction, the whole is nonsensical and comically incompetent. When people say SC1 is better written than SC2, I feel like they don't actually remember SC1's writing all that well. Because this writing is not good. It's no more cohesive from scene to scene than SC2 is. I think what's happening is that people are confusing SC1's art direction with the writing quality. SC1 clearly has better art direction and general vibes than SC2.

 

[ArchAngel]

Reading this is like arguing with a guy that says Emperor in SW is actually good guy because they wanted to bring peace to the galaxy while evil Jedi killed millions of people by blowing up the Death Star twice..

 

[ghardy]

BTW, one thing that makes Diablo 2 but especially Warcraft 3 feel a bit more insipid than their other games is the intrusion of left-wing politics. Funny how that goes.

WRT WarCraft 3, the biggest thing that strikes me is the casting of the Orcish Horde as noble savages or a hitherto misunderstood culture.
WRT Diablo 2, I see (1) the Rogue Encampment; and (2) the corrupted Zakarum religion being possible issues.

What particular things did you have in mind with these games?

Things i can remember out of the top of my head:

1) The noble hero shit for the Orcs, as you say.
2) Orcs being in a concentration camp (therefore humans bad though i don't recall if they stress this point in WC3 or later in WoW. They DID retcon Proudmoore as a Hitler type in WoW).
3) Humans being decadent and corrupt ('cause in fantasy games, humans = white people).
4) Muh Jaina fending off ogres on her own 'cause wombyn stronk and needs no white knights to save her.
5) Wombyn warriors in Night Elf army (this is so normalized now people don't remember that wasn't actually a thing even as far as the early 90s. Compare Thief 1 with Thief 2, where they made 50% of the guards female in the second game).
6) Tyrande being a crazy feminist cunt. There's a scene in WC3 where Malfurion is trying to "forbid" her from freeing Illidan and she literally pulls an Eric Cartman doing "whatever, i do what i want", claiming she only follows the "Moon Goddess" meaning no man is gonna tell her what to do, not even her "beloved" husband (and presumably her superior in Night Elf society, or at least i think druids are the rulers?).
7) In Diablo 2, there's a guy in act 5 who is trying to introduce science, technology and reason but his efforts are falling on deaf ears because the tribes are too obsessed with their "traditions" to change.

There should be more but i haven't played those games in a long time so i can't remember now. Warcraft 2 and Diablo 1 were completely free of leftist shit as far as i remember. It was there Diablo 2 and WC3 as well as WoW Vanilla (there's a female Orc warrior in the Barrens who has an unprompted women's libs moment where she tells the player that Thrall has decreed that women are now warriors in the horde and if the player doesn't like it he can take it up to him).

Compared to modern games you can even say this stuff is pretty minor but it was there and it was annoying already back then.

I've not played WoW at all. I don't think I will ever play any multiplayer game. But that sounds awful.

Interestingly, did no female, Orc or otherwise, make a ruckus on this point: By what authority did Thrall, an actual male so far as we can tell, think he could decree this?

In WarCraft 3, Jaina is the one human, IIRC, who is persuaded by The Prophet Medivh's warnings and visions. It so happens that Jaina is female and the other human males in positions of leadership scoff at Medivh, dismissing him outright.

 

[ghardy]

I've dabbled in Command & Conquer with OpenRA, which gave me access to Tiberian Dawn, Red Alert and Dune 2000. The other day, I played a few missions and watched the associated videos on YouTube.

Take the Brotherhood of Nod. The faction and the story of Nod would fall down without Kane and Seth and the rest, but the story isn't about them; it's still about the Brotherhood and its fortunes.

Red Alert is fun. Westwood took the serious stuff not very seriously and the not-so-serious stuff quite seriously, which is why it all hangs very well, I think.

While StarCraft has excellent gameplay, sound, visuals and each aspect of it comes together to make something top-tier, I enjoyed Westwood's productions more.

(Waiting for a Steam sale to get the C&C collection.)

 

[ArchAngel]

C&C games have different gameplay that is also pleasureable. I still consider C&C Generals most fun MP RTS.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Reading this is like arguing with a guy that says Emperor in SW is actually good guy because they wanted to bring peace to the galaxy while evil Jedi killed millions of people by blowing up the Death Star twice..

Do you really not remember the plot of starcraft?

The supposed "heroes" of the story, Raynor and Tassadar, are personally responsible for killing 90% of the human population by planting psi-emitters to lure zerg to population centers and then incinerating the infested planets, respectively.

Raynor stole the plans for psi-emitters from the Confederacy and helped Mengsk plant emitters that condemned multiple inhabited planets to zerg invasion and protoss incineration. Planets inhabited by innocent civilians. 90% of the human population is dead directly as a result of Raynor's actions and he never demonstrates any care or remorse over it. He only cares about one woman he personally knows (and lusts after) and one guy who betrayed her (but strangely not him too), while not giving a flying fuck about anyone else. Then he allies with Tassadar, the guy who personally incinerated those planets, not caring at all.

The death star situation isn't even remotely comparable. In order for it be comparable, Luke would've needed to be responsible for giving the death star plans to the Empire in the first place, helped Palpatine use it to incinerate multiple inhabited planets, watched as Tarkin used the second death star to incinerate multiple other planets, then everyone forgot death stars existed, then Luke allies with Tarkin to stop the Yuzhan Vong.

In WarCraft 3, Jaina is the one human, IIRC, who is persuaded by The Prophet Medivh's warnings and visions. It so happens that Jaina is female and the other human males in positions of leadership scoff at Medivh, dismissing him outright.

Medivh doesn't do himself any favors by acting like a raving loon and then getting offended when nobody takes his insane rambling seriously. If he wanted to convince the council, then he should've given them a powerpoint presentation explaining what he knows, like a reasonable person would do. He doesn't do that because it would break the plot and isn't atmospheric. So basically all the subsequent civilian deaths are his fault for being an obtuse asshole. This is the sort of stupid shit you see in first time fantasy novels all the time. Why do people praise this writing again?

I've dabbled in Command & Conquer with OpenRA, which gave me access to Tiberian Dawn, Red Alert and Dune 2000. The other day, I played a few missions and watched the associated videos on YouTube.

Take the Brotherhood of Nod. The faction and the story of Nod would fall down without Kane and Seth and the rest, but the story isn't about them; it's still about the Brotherhood and its fortunes.

Red Alert is fun. Westwood took the serious stuff not very seriously and the not-so-serious stuff quite seriously, which is why it all hangs very well, I think.

While StarCraft has excellent gameplay, sound, visuals and each aspect of it comes together to make something top-tier, I enjoyed Westwood's productions more.

(Waiting for a Steam sale to get the C&C collection.)

Ditto. The story in C&C games is vastly more coherent than starcraft, and those games don't have deep character dynamics and don't really take themselves all that seriously. The reason why I don't get annoyed with C&C and its flaws, is because Westwood told stories about some RTS factions using some characters. By contrast, Blizz told bad stories about some characters, with RTS crudely tacked on.

I shouldn't cast aspersions here, but I feel like the intent bleeds through the entire production. Westwood enjoys making RTS and having fun doing so. Blizzard resents making RTS, and prefers to make RPGs, dating sims, or fantasy movies instead.

 

[ghardy]

Blizzard resents making RTS, and prefers to make RPGs, dating sims, or fantasy movies instead.

Now that one WarCraft movie is finished, I suppose they are looking forward to a StarCraft movie.

 

[ghardy]

Well, since this is (was?) a Stormgate thread. I think the story is passable and the gameplay looks fine. It is however a mish-mash of both Blizzard RTS *Crafts.

The overall look of the game is a bit dull. The sound is okay. It's still being made. At this point, it is as though we're looking into the oven, noting how much the cake has risen. If it takes too long to rise, though, we could have an inedible mess.

The three factions seem very different. And both StarCraft and WarCraft pros seem to enjoy playing it. I have no idea how attractive the single player will be.

I surmise it will be a success. Maybe not a huge, massive, unforeseen one like Brood War, but it'll do fine. It would be interesting to see how Tempest Rising fares, it being the other AAA project with a recognizable brand (3D Realms).

(Side note: I'm glad they didn't go for camel case with the name. Imagine typing out StormGate each time, like StarCraft and WarCraft.)

 

[ArchAngel]

Well, since this is (was?) a Stormgate thread. I think the story is passable and the gameplay looks fine. It is however a mish-mash of both Blizzard RTS *Crafts.

The overall look of the game is a bit dull. The sound is okay. It's still being made. At this point, it is as though we're looking into the oven, noting how much the cake has risen. If it takes too long to rise, though, we could have an inedible mess.

The three factions seem very different. And both StarCraft and WarCraft pros seem to enjoy playing it. I have no idea how attractive the single player will be.

I surmise it will be a success. Maybe not a huge, massive, unforeseen one like Brood War, but it'll do fine. It would be interesting to see how Tempest Rising fares, it being the other AAA project with a recognizable brand (3D Realms).

(Side note: I'm glad they didn't go for camel case with the name. Imagine typing out StormGate each time, like StarCraft and WarCraft.)

Tempest Rising seems to not be AAA, they even said they will be releasing with two factions and adding 3rd later. Their have gone a bit silent for a while now, only said that about factions and said they are doing that so they can improve the game based on feedback from the demo.
A real AAA would just delay and then do both. I do no expect much from them on MP front, Stormgate will have a much livelier MP front.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Blizzard resents making RTS, and prefers to make RPGs, dating sims, or fantasy movies instead.

Now that one WarCraft movie is finished, I suppose they are looking forward to a StarCraft movie.

The Warcraft movie was not the success they wanted. It was supposedly true to the lore for the most part, but got shredded by critics because the story just isn’t good. However, they are apparently trying to make a warcraft 2 movie, which will somehow be a reboot? None of it makes sense to me.

I don’t think they’re gonna make a starcraft movie any time soon since the brand isn’t popular anymore nor was it popular enough compared to other franchises like Mario. That’s before you run into problems like the weak story that would pose huge problems adapting into something watchable and coherent.

Well, since this is (was?) a Stormgate thread. I think the story is passable and the gameplay looks fine. It is however a mish-mash of both Blizzard RTS *Crafts.

The overall look of the game is a bit dull. The sound is okay. It's still being made. At this point, it is as though we're looking into the oven, noting how much the cake has risen. If it takes too long to rise, though, we could have an inedible mess.

The three factions seem very different. And both StarCraft and WarCraft pros seem to enjoy playing it. I have no idea how attractive the single player will be.

I surmise it will be a success. Maybe not a huge, massive, unforeseen one like Brood War, but it'll do fine. It would be interesting to see how Tempest Rising fares, it being the other AAA project with a recognizable brand (3D Realms).

(Side note: I'm glad they didn't go for camel case with the name. Imagine typing out StormGate each time, like StarCraft and WarCraft.)

Considering that most RTS players are dudes in their 30s, and Stormgate is seemingly aimed at children (who don’t play RTS in enough numbers to justify catering to specifically), I imagine that the story is gonna be torn to shreds because it doesn’t live up to the nostalgic idealized childhood memories of yesteryear. Story in a video game is as irrelevant as story in a porno, sure, but I would’ve liked having a new universe to invest in after the extensive rot in the current crop. New IPs are a rarity anyway and it’s disappointing to see this is just a kidified Doom Fortnite with generic Saturday morning cartoon villains and blah.

Maybe Tempest Rising will be better, but they’re basically doing a pastiche of the Command & Conquer universe anyway. It remains to be seen how well they’ll do compared to their predecessor. I’m definitely curious. I’m especially curious about the tone because they seem to going for the more serious tone seen in the first generation of C&C games (Tiberian Dawn, Red Alert 1), as opposed to the growing b-movie tone in the later generation games. The tech is also similarly grounded in more realistic designs, as opposed to the increasingly outlandish tech seen in the later generations.

 

[ghardy]

I do no expect much from them on MP front, Stormgate will have a much livelier MP front.

I agree with the second part. That looks more than likely.

 

[ghardy]

I don’t think they’re gonna make a starcraft movie any time soon since the brand isn’t popular anymore nor was it popular enough compared to other franchises like Mario. That’s before you run into problems like the weak story that would pose huge problems adapting into something watchable and coherent.

I've thought that both *Crafts have decent enough story and background to make limited series, if (note: if) someone competent was at the helm.

The same goes for the first Diablo, though that might simply fall apart outside of the context of a game.

But yes, no Blizzard IP is sufficiently solid to fit the constraints of a feature length film.

New IPs are a rarity anyway and it’s disappointing to see this is just a kidified Doom Fortnite with generic Saturday morning cartoon villains and blah.

Oh God. The "cartoon villians" phrasing reminded me of The Chosen in XCOM 2, which I played a while ago. That was not a fun experience.

I’m especially curious about the tone because they seem to going for the more serious tone seen in the first generation of C&C games (Tiberian Dawn, Red Alert 1), as opposed to the growing b-movie tone in the later generation games. The tech is also similarly grounded in more realistic designs, as opposed to the increasingly outlandish tech seen in the later generations.

The serious tone is precisely why I'm paying it attention. Honestly, this and Stormgate are the only RTSes I care about for the near future. As much it would be nice to see WarCraft 4, StarCraft 3 or a good C&C game (Red Alert or Tiberian, any of the two), the dreams of them will remain griefs without pangs in some developers' eyes.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

The serious tone is precisely why I'm paying it attention. Honestly, this and Stormgate are the only RTSes I care about for the near future.

There’s a difference between a serious tone in a grounded setting, a deliberately b-movie tone that knows exactly how silly it is, and a childish story that takes itself way too seriously without any self-awareness.

As much it would be nice to see WarCraft 4, StarCraft 3 or a good C&C game (Red Alert or Tiberian, any of the two), the dreams of them will remain griefs without pangs in some developers' eyes.

If Blizz or EA even tried that, then it would be a disaster. Firstly, who would make it? All the original devs have moved on. Secondly, what would it be about without being a completely unnecessary rehash requel? We already saw how World of Warcraft tried to squeeze blood from that stone.

I would rather see a new IP made by passionate people.

 

[ghardy]

Tempest Rising is "Coming Soon" on Steam, whereas Stormgate is Early Access with a month to go.

What's your general view on Early Access? Is it better for some genres and not others? I suppose RTS stands to benefit a lot, seeing all the tiny details that have to be taken care of.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

I suppose RTS stands to benefit a lot, seeing all the tiny details that have to be taken care of.

Only if the devs take criticism into account. A Year of Rain was in early access but failed because they refused to fix the pathfinding and other problems. They were terrified of being beaten to release by Warcraft reforged, so they rushed the release and bombed. Then Warcraft reforged bombed shortly after. The publisher hugely miscalculated. To add insult to injury, they still refused to fix their shit and fired the dev team anyway. They had an opportunity to repent and take advantage of the vacuum opened by reforged, but failed.

Oh well. Godsworn seems to be doing pretty good. The story still suffers from the "soap opera about unlikable assholes" problem, but the story actually acknowledges this. The protagonists, who btw are pagan gods and christian angels, are supposed to be psychotic unlikeable genocidal assholes. It's hilarious and I enjoy it as a breath of fresh air.

 

[lvl 2 Blue Slime]

I wouldn't say I like that soft, cartoony art style; looks like they're trying to make it look like DOTA 2.

 

[ghardy]

Only if the devs take criticism into account. A Year of Rain was in early access but failed because they refused to fix the pathfinding and other problems. They were terrified of being beaten to release by Warcraft reforged, so they rushed the release and bombed. Then Warcraft reforged bombed shortly after. The publisher hugely miscalculated. To add insult to injury, they still refused to fix their shit and fired the dev team anyway. They had an opportunity to repent and take advantage of the vacuum opened by reforged, but failed.

First time I've heard of this (game and its story). Wow. That's terrible.

The Reforged debacle still is the fascinating story of a great, grand trainwreck. This takes skill to accomplish.