Starcraft 2: Disappointing Story?

[ArmorArmadillo]

*Wings of Liberty Spoilers*

Spoiler

So, when I started playing SC2, I had high hopes. I've always thought Blizzard has had pretty good storytelling, and it started off pretty well. I mean, you had a familiar character, an understandable goal, and all the right players. Then, I started playing it, and, well, BLECH! I'm sorry, but the ending to SC2, turning on a magic MacGuffin and turning Kerrigan back to normal, is just the absolute bottom of the barrel as far as stories go. And then, to top it off, it seems like half the story ignores the other half. We go through a whole subplot about Kerrigan as Zerg Queen being the last hope for the universe, but then when Raynor is looking into saving her it doesn't even come up.

What really is bothering me with SC2's story is how magical it's becoming. I get the Clarke principle, but "sufficiently advanced technology" doesn't explain how humans can pick up the 5 pieces of a MacGuffin, put them together, and have them zap a DNA hybrid back to normal.

What I'd really like to see is a story that focused on the Terrans, because they're the only ones who I can kind of understand. I get that it's kind of boring to just see warp-capable white trash when there are aliens around, but I need to attach some motivation to what the characters doing, and Zerg have no motivation beyond "kill everything" and Protoss are so insanely vague that it is impossible to relate to them...it seems like they have no culture besides what's plot relevant.

I don't know, this is kind of a rant, but I really feel like Blizzard dropped the ball on Wings of Liberty compared to their other stories.

 

[Wayneguard]

Personally, I don't buy rts games for their single player campaign. Idk if i'll even touch it when I get it, at least until I've played mind numbing amounts of mp.

 

[Liberaliter]

This is what you get for expecting things out of Blizzard.

 

[NinjaKiwi]

This is what you get for expecting things out of Blizzard.

they're no Bioware, that's for sure.

 

[Radeonx]

I love the Starcraft 2 story.
It isn't as good as the first, but I still think it's great.

 

[Gxas]

Lets wait for the Protoss and Zerg campaigns to finish the story before we say that it sucks. Remember, this is a three-part campaign spanning three full games. Right now, we only saw a third of the entire story. It isn't finished until the Protoss campaign (or is it the Zerg that is the last one?) is over.

You may as well have read The Fellowship of the Rings, stopped there, and then complained about the story.

 

[ArmorArmadillo]

Personally, I don't buy rts games for their single player campaign. Idk if i'll even touch it when I get it, at least until I've played mind numbing amounts of mp.

Well, in fairness the priority for this game was obviously multiplayer. That said, Blizzard has traditionally had good story modes attached, particularly in Warcraft 3.

 

[sogortheogre]

Technically, the Xel'naga artifact draws energy from the races they created / accelerated, i.e. Protoss and Zerg, which would have destroyed them; there was a mentioning of this somewhere in the campaign, meaning it would destroy the zerg part of Kerrigan, but not the human part because the Xel'naga didn't create them, or something like that.

 

[Phyroxis]

We

*Wings of Liberty Spoilers*
So, when I started playing SC2, I had high hopes. I've always thought Blizzard has had pretty good storytelling, and it started off pretty well. I mean, you had a familiar character, an understandable goal, and all the right players. Then, I started playing it, and, well, BLECH! I'm sorry, but the ending to SC2, turning on a magic MacGuffin and turning Kerrigan back to normal, is just the absolute bottom of the barrel as far as stories go. And then, to top it off, it seems like half the story ignores the other half. We go through a whole subplot about Kerrigan as Zerg Queen being the last hope for the universe, but then when Raynor is looking into saving her it doesn't even come up.

What really is bothering me with SC2's story is how magical it's becoming. I get the Clarke principle, but "sufficiently advanced technology" doesn't explain how humans can pick up the 5 pieces of a MacGuffin, put them together, and have them zap a DNA hybrid back to normal.

What I'd really like to see is a story that focused on the Terrans, because they're the only ones who I can kind of understand. I get that it's kind of boring to just see warp-capable white trash when there are aliens around, but I need to attach some motivation to what the characters doing, and Zerg have no motivation beyond "kill everything" and Protoss are so insanely vague that it is impossible to relate to them...it seems like they have no culture besides what's plot relevant.

I don't know, this is kind of a rant, but I really feel like Blizzard dropped the ball on Wings of Liberty compared to their other stories.

I'll see when I play. Also.. *spoiler* isnt enough. Tag the juicy bits, please.

 

[Mogg01]

I won't lie and say I wasn't a it disappointed, but there is one thing that you have to keep in mind; Wings of Liberty isn't a story, it's one-third of a story. The two planned expansion packs are supposed to finish it off, and will hopefully fill out the whole Kerrigan plot. I totally agree about the 'magic MacGuffin', though... they needed to explain it better. It's really unclear how the Terrans knew it would cure Kerrigan.

 

[The Amazing Tea Alligator]

Lets wait for the Protoss and Zerg campaigns to finish the story before we say that it sucks. Remember, this is a three-part campaign spanning three full games. Right now, we only saw a third of the entire story. It isn't finished until the Protoss campaign (or is it the Zerg that is the last one?) is over.

You may as well have read The Fellowship of the Rings, stopped there, and then complained about the story.

I enjoyed Fellowship of the Rings. Sure it was incomplete and clearly so, but it was enjoyable. That's (to pick a too-easy example) like saying: "It's not fair to say that you didn't like Twilight, because it's only the first of 4 movies."

 

[ArmorArmadillo]

Lets wait for the Protoss and Zerg campaigns to finish the story before we say that it sucks. Remember, this is a three-part campaign spanning three full games. Right now, we only saw a third of the entire story. It isn't finished until the Protoss campaign (or is it the Zerg that is the last one?) is over.

You may as well have read The Fellowship of the Rings, stopped there, and then complained about the story.

It's more like saying the Phantom Menace was bad before the next two prequels were released. SC2 isn't that bad, but still.

I'm open to the idea that the next two campaigns pick everything up, but that doesn't change the fact that what they've already put out has huge problems...mainly a plot increasingly driven by "artifacts" and "It just works this way" logic. It's fine in theory, but I feel completely out of the loop as a player. As a gamer, I like to feel like the hero whose decisions drive the story, not just as the courier for magic MacGuffins.

 

[The Amazing Tea Alligator]

It's more like saying the Phantom Menace was bad before the next two prequels were released.

It was (and still is) bad.

 

[ArmorArmadillo]

Technically, the Xel'naga artifact draws energy from the races they created / accelerated, i.e. Protoss and Zerg, which would have destroyed them; there was a mentioning of this somewhere in the campaign, meaning it would destroy the zerg part of Kerrigan, but not the human part because the Xel'naga didn't create them, or something like that.

I guess, and I guess it's sort of believable that that would somehow revert her instead of killing her. But here is where we get to the problem. We can only be told that it's happening, not why or how, and we're not contributing to making it happen. It's always possible to have an "I Win" that turning on will somehow undo what you want undone, but that's kind of a problem because it takes agency away from the players. We just end up watching the plot happen instead of taking control and doing things ourselves.