Stormgate - sci-fi/fantasy RTS from ex-Blizzard devs

[Harthwain]

Raynor stole the plans for the psi-emitter and placed emitters on multiple inhabited planets specifically to lure the zerg there, where the zerg went on to kill about 90% of the human population of the entire sector (alongside Tassadar glassing the planets and their inhabitants after the zerg arrived).

A few corrections:

Spoiler

1) Raynor did no placing of emitters (and stealing the plans was accidental, by the way). The first emitter is planted by Kerrigan under Mengsk's orders. She doesn't like it, but ultimately the goal is for Sons of Korhal to escape the Confederate blockade. The second emitter is planted by Duke under Mengsk's orders and everyone else learns about it post-factum (and both Kerrigan and Raynor voice their protests to that).

2) Zerg were already invading the Terran sector. The Terran campaign opens with the wall of text about the Protoss doing exterminatus on Chau Sara colony out of the blue (as humans weren't aware about the Zerg there at the time). By the way, Tassadar "glasses" only one planet, as far as I am aware (the Zerg's campaign opens on Tarsonis, so it didn't get the same treatment as Tassadar decided against destroying the whole planets).

3) Where you got the stats about how many were killed in the entire sector? Just curious if I missed something in the game about it.

After the terran campaign ended, Raynor contributed nothing meaningful to the plot besides cameos in the following two campaigns. He was written to be the main character, but because the perspective shifted in each campaign, he was shoehorned into unnecessary cameos.

In the Zerg campaign he tries to save Kerrigan (Mengsk, too, sends general Duke to retrive her, after getting her "psionic call"). It may not be "meaningful" in terms of actually accomplishing anything, but it fits pretty well with the character, especially considering the ending of the Terran campaign. I suspect it was also supposed to show that Kerrigan is not entirely Zerg-ified yet because a full-blown Zerg would just kill Raynor on the spot, instead she actually recognizes him and allows him to live. It is also a good setup to fight two human factions at once.

In the Protoss campaign he "tags along" so that humans and Protoss can sort-of destroy the Overmind together and show that Protoss and Terrans can get along. Was it needed? From the story perspective, not really. However, it resulted in giving the player a joint mission, allowing him to control two races at once. I wouldn't dismiss that as an important factor is Blizzard shaping the bits of the story that way.

In BW, he helped Kerry take over the zerg despite knowing she would betray him. He literally says she would betray him in one mission.

He is - in Kerrigan's own words - "siding with the evil he knows over the evil he doesn't [know]". Helping the Zerg looks stupid, but it is not like the UED are the good guys either (or Mengsk, for that matter). Raynor doesn't really have many options there.

She publicly murdered a protoss head of state in front of hundreds of witnesses, specifically because he discovered her treachery, and somehow got off with a slap on the wrist (wtf?).

Aldaris was no "protoss head of state". He was a leader of the splinter group of Protoss' survivors from Aiur. He refused the offer to join forces after his defeat, so it is not unreasonable to assume he would've been killed anyway (as Artanis says: "Right now we have a friend to kill. May Adun forgive us..."). Did the Protoss have the means to kill Kerrigan? They were still in the middle of cleaning up Shakuras, and odds weren't in their favour. So it may have been a necessity more than anything else.

Then when she does predictably betray Raynor, he acts surprised and has to run away with his tail between his legs. He and his protoss friends took zero precautions even after she revealed her true colors multiple times. She then proceeds to butcher millions more terrans and protoss for funzies. (How many people even live in the sector? These numbers make no sense.) He never chose to stop the zerg, he chose to be faithful to Kerry over his own species and his protoss friends. He's an idiot.

I wouldn't say he acts surprised. More like enraged. Which makes sense. But I do agree that Raynor or Fenix (or both) having some sort of backup plan would've been more interesting, especially when they knew Kerrigan may turn on them.

By contrast, the UED were trying to stop the zerg from invading other planets like Earth by enslaving them. The protoss had already killed the previous Overmind, but still got overrun anyway, so their plan has a point here. Indeed, the UED deploys psi-disruptors at the same time specifically to prevent the zerg from running amuck even though this makes their slaves way less efficient. The UED doesn't actually do anything particularly evil on screen, but Raynor allies with Mengsk (who he hates for previously betraying him) against them anyway because of some bad stuff that happened centuries ago and clearly isn't relevant anymore. Plenty of fans think the UED are cool good guys even though they're supposed to be evil, since they never actually do anything villainous or unjustifiable by the circumstances. They tell the protoss and dominion to surrender peacefully and allow anyone who wants to join them to do so, such as the confederate remnants. It's the protoss and dominion who attack them first.

I wouldn't call the UED "cool good guys". More like "cool guys" who also happen to be some sort of dictatorship. It makes sense for Mengsk/Dominion to fight them. For Raynor to have more sense to fight them, the UED must have been made more apparent that they are the bad guys/the Evil Empire, because all we see is them destroying a colony in the intro for experimentary purposes.

Raynor is an asshole. He is directly responsible for billions of human deaths, but never takes responsibility or expresses remorse. He doesn't even hate Mengsk for being involved in the genocides, but only hates him for betraying his girlfriend. Raynor would've gladly run away with his girlfriend and let Mengsk burn the sector to the ground if Mengsk hadn't betrayed her, as he explained in briefing before Mengsk betrayed them.

"Directly responsible"? More like "indirectly responsible". Otherwise I agree.

He's an idiot, because he choses to ally with known enemies instead of the diplomatic UED.

You really consider "We're here to take control" or "power down your ships and weapons' systems" to be a diplomatic approach? To me it sounds more like "Surrender or we will attack you". The UED's very first mission is an attack on the Terran Dominion. It is dipomacy via the barrel of a revolver.

This writing is terrible. While writer Metzen might've intended to say one thing, the text actually says quite another. You have to ignore the actual events in order for Metzen's intent to be valid here.

No idea what you're talking about here. What Metzen intended to say? What "actual events" are being ignored?

I think the same of the game script it is adapted from. It’s a weak story that doesn’t stand on its own.

I would say the problem lies slightly elsewhere: the book has to follow the plot of the game while at the same time using an investigative journalist's POV. This restrictive corset of a plot is hampering the book's narrative as a result as the protagonist is too close to the events to take a more distanced approach to the story of the game.

I would say it does so very rushed and poorly. The manual painted the broad strokes of a much longer and larger war. The game script rapidly burns through all the plot hooks introduced, does not give proper breathing room, then starts making shit up and retconning things when the expansion rolls around.

The manual marks the beginning of the war. The game "burns through all the plot hooks" probably because it wasn't intended for there to be Starcraft 2 (or an expansion). Frankly, I think Blizzard did a decent job at salvaging the story for the expansion, even if it did some retconning in the process. It also helps that the missions in general have greater variety and are more challenging.

At the end of day, starcraft 1 is a mediocre story and a poor execution of its universe’s potential. It was always a terrible foundation for a franchise and always would’ve turned out poorly in sequels.

More like decent story and good execution. And Broodwar proves you wrong about any followup inevitably turning out poorly. Chris Metzen worked with James Phinney on both Starcraft and Broodwar (he is credited as the second creator for the story, script and scenario design). He didn't work on Starcraft 2. Makes me think how much of an impact he really had on how the story turned out, and how much the lack of his presence hurt the development of Starcraft 2's story (which is evident).

Okay, but that’s not gonna convince me that anything I said is wrong.

I didn't expect anything less.

I’ve spent the years since LotV released examining the scripts and coming to the conclusion that they’re terrible.

 

[DoWhocares]

Like, what kind of story do you expect/want?

I guess it all goes back to the "hacks" argument. My key idea is that you can tell a "bad" (as in not deeply detailed, with plot holes, etc.) story in an enjoyable and relatable way. Which is what happens in SC1, WC3. The RTS mission format helps stomach that story because it makes it easy for your mind to fill in the blanks and build up a complete picture in your head that will actually make sense. The limitations of old tech also help there. You get 3 lines from Uther and you imagine this cool paladin dude with a lot of backstory with Arthas. And because you accept they can't give you all the details in a game about building armies and killing orcs, you don't mind that the actual relationship between the two as shown in the cutscenes is far from amiable and more bitchy than anything. What later RTS games do, is they go all in on the cinmeatic experience and fill in those blanks for you. When they do, it's hard not to focus on their shortcommings. And that's the key problem with them.

If you consider that to be nostalgia goggles, then count me guilty.

The entire point of RTS is that you play competing factions. It makes no sense to ignore them when they’re the point of the game.

See, and this is where you and just about everyone else diverges. Because this intrinsic connection between RTS and factions exists only in your head.

Still, like I've mentioned before, this deep dive into the storytelling of these games has merit. Pointing out flaws and putting more thought into it than the writers themselves did is good. Even if it points out those flaws in something I personally enjoy (SC1 for example). But then you turn around and sabotage yourself when you base a lot of your criticisms on this idea that RTS = factions.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

I watched a video recently that explained how the typical scaling in RTS doesn’t make much sense.


You’re rarely controlling more than a few dozen units, but the briefings expect you to believe you’re single handedly saving the universe. A solution suggested is to focus on small scale stories that fit the scales shown in gameplay.

Which brings me to my point…

Saying “RTS stories were better in 2000 A.D.!” isn’t solving anything. Writers are taking their cues directly from those stories, outright ripping them off in many cases, and still disappointing you. The sequels are all terrible despite being written by the same guys in many cases. Emulating past stories just isn’t working.

Clearly, a different approach is needed.

I think I have some idea of why these writers aren’t writing well. They’re not writing military and political stories that suit the RTS premise of competing armies or the scales involved. As long as RTS “writers” continue to be completely ignorant of military history, political and military fiction, and think you can glue together a dating sim or a schlocky rpg story to a galactic war premise and call it a day, then they’ll continue to disappoint you.

I have some suggestions to address that. Hire writers who actually write military fiction and who like world building military organizations, politics and cultures. Tell smaller scale stories that better suit the gameplay. Put effort into world building the factions as actual organizations and cultures with consistent ideology and history. Write the characters as actual people with consistent motivations and reasonable intellect, and who are members of these organizations and citizens of these cultures. Plan ahead so you don’t burn through plot hooks and have to contrive increasingly flimsy excuses later.

In other words, Write a good foundation that can stand on its own, whether it’s for an RTS or a book or a movie. Don’t treat it simply as an excuse to string together missions. Don’t treat the factions as worthless. Don’t treat character consistency as worthless. Otherwise you’re just gonna keep being disappointed.

I think a good example of the right direction would be the upcoming RTS Immortal: Gates of Pyre. While it doesn’t have as big a budget as its competitors, the team has put tremendous effort into world building and planning ahead. While they do have characters (i.e. the titular “immortals” who command the armies and have support superpowers to explain the co-op mechanics), these characters are written with consistent motives and are written as members of their factions. Said factions are given deep lore so that they can stand on their own, regardless of what characters are involved. The aliens have radically different needs and drives compared to humans, which is reflected in their behavior and actions. They’re not interchangeable with humans. For example, the angels (it had angels before Stormgate did) live for many thousands of years, so they plan on such scales: they’ve spent the last few millennia building a empire of human vassal states using diplomacy and the occasional invasion using legalistic pretense, relying on the short lifespan of humans to prevent the humans from realizing what’s happening. It’s so simple that I’m surprised this is the first time anyone thought to write that.

I wish more RTS put even a fraction of that effort into their stories.