Starcraft 2 - Is this representative of its writing?

[Skeleon]

Well, hello there.
Okay, so first things first: I played Starcraft 1 and Broodwar several times, primarily the singleplayer campaign, and I loved it. That's probably why I noticed this thing that I'm going to talk about in a moment. Now, with Heart of the Swarm coming out, I watched a video by a fellow who calls himself TotalBiscuit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjT1mlf1Kag

So, in it he demonstrates one of the later campaign levels. Spoilers: Kerrigan needs to enter a laboratory and kill Protoss/Zerg-hybrids and hunt down their creator, a shapeshifter called Narud...

Okay. Hybrids-research. Shapeshifter. Narud.
Something seemed odd to me and it didn't take long. At all.
Seriously, Blizzard? You couldn't even be bothered to flip the letters around some if you wanted to use an anagram or, hell, give him a different name entirely? You know? Something a bit more subtle?!

More spoilers, assuming I'm right, of course: Narud. Duran. Duran. Narud.
You know, that mysterious Terran from Broodwar? Who first helped out the UED-forces, only to later join Kerrigan? Only to even later be discovered by Zeratul, doing research on Protoss/Zerg-hybrids?

Are you kidding me? That's the kind of thing an eight-year old would do to trick his friends. Boy, they'll never figure that one out.

Now, TotalBiscuit does mention that the writing is somewhat odd throughout the game. And as you can tell from this post, I haven't actually played it. But this little thing alone bodes fairly badly, doesn't it?

I guess I'm wondering: Is the Narud/Duran-thing representative for the, let's say, complexity and depth of writing that Heart of the Swarm manages to muster?

Sorry. Blizzard has never been particularly great at writing stories[footnote]Although I'll give Blizzard North specifically props for the dark tale of Diablo 1 and the way in which they presented it; already not anywhere near as well done in Diablo 2 or any of their later work, including the Torchlight games which I love immensely but that aren't very interestingly presented when it comes to their story, either.[/footnote]. It's just that this is particularly... I mean... seriously?!

 

[Zhukov]

Yeah, pretty much.

The writing is... well, it's a bloody RTS from Blizzard. Story is not their thing and never has been. The writing is just a thing that happens between clicking your zerglings around.

I haven't played Heart of the Swarm myself. Just watched a playthrough on Youtube, skipping through all the clicking and watching the cutscenes.

A lot of it only barely made sense and the ending was a bit of a let down.

 

[synobal]

Their writing has never been top shelf but hey the cutscenes look nice.

 

[5ilver]

It's definitely a huge step down from W3
Don't get me wrong- I enjoyed the game. But the writing, oh man, the writing and the story and all those plot holes ;(
Let's just say my forehead hurts from all the facepalms and leave it at that.

 

[Smertnik]

I don't really see that as such a horrible thing, it's just a name. Most people won't notice this, or even care in the first place (myself included). What did bug me about HotS (and WoL, for that matter) was how Raynor and Kerrigan got coupled together out of nowhere and suddenly it's the major plot point of the game.

But yeah, the story probably won't knock off your socks.

 

[Ryotknife]

?

How does this bode badly?

Narud was in WoL, and yet i didnt hear anyone speculating that he was Duran. He looks completely different and does not have the same accent.

It was only when you discovered that he is a shapeshifter, researches the hybrids, "has gone by many names", and serves a master that the pieces start falling in place. Even then, I bet a lot of players still did not make the connection. When an infested Terran first contacts Kerrigan, my first thought was that it was Duran. Granted, I was pleasantly surprised who it was.

 

[Skeleon]

Narud was in WoL, and yet i didnt hear anyone speculating that he was Duran. He looks completely different and does not have the same accent.

It was only when you discovered that he is a shapeshifter, researches the hybrids, "has gone by many names", and serves a master that the pieces start falling in place.

You assume I played WoL. I didn't even know he existed there, to be honest. So, no, this is based on Broodwar and the video I linked to. If he was in WoL as well, then it's very sad indeed if the people who played it didn't pick up on it then.

Anyway, it bodes badly because it's such a pathetic way to "hide an identity" and such a weak plot-twist when he's finally "revealed" to "really have been Duran all along".

 

[Ryotknife]

Narud was in WoL, and yet i didnt hear anyone speculating that he was Duran. He looks completely different and does not have the same accent.

It was only when you discovered that he is a shapeshifter, researches the hybrids, "has gone by many names", and serves a master that the pieces start falling in place.

You assume I played WoL. I didn't even know he existed there, to be honest. So, no, this is based on Broodwar and the video I linked to. If he was in WoL as well, then it's very sad indeed if the people who played it didn't pick up on it then.

Anyway, it bodes badly because it's such a pathetic way to "hide an identity" and such a weak plot-twist when he's finally "revealed" to "really have been Duran all along".

technically he was not revealed in the game either. The player has to connect the dots themselves. In fact the interactions between the characters themselves do not even hint that he is duran or that they know he is duran.

 

[Xeorm]

To be fair, it's never actually said that he was Duran. Just foreshadowed and they lead the player to think it was Duran. It's always possible there were two twins, Duran and Narud and their parents were just being funny.

The writing is on the lacking side though. Not very showy, bad vocabulary, and annoying voice acting. Though the last bit may be more on purpose, as they were going for a zergy feel. Still annoying though.

 

[Comic Sans]

Narud was in WoL, and yet i didnt hear anyone speculating that he was Duran. He looks completely different and does not have the same accent.

It was only when you discovered that he is a shapeshifter, researches the hybrids, "has gone by many names", and serves a master that the pieces start falling in place.

You assume I played WoL. I didn't even know he existed there, to be honest. So, no, this is based on Broodwar and the video I linked to. If he was in WoL as well, then it's very sad indeed if the people who played it didn't pick up on it then.

Anyway, it bodes badly because it's such a pathetic way to "hide an identity" and such a weak plot-twist when he's finally "revealed" to "really have been Duran all along".

In Wings of Liberty he showed up in one mission simply as a scientist giving you information for the mission. Hardly something one would notice. And in Heart of the Swarm there's no reason to pay attention until you see his work with the Hybrids, and learn from another character that he is an ancient being who can change form and works for an ancient Xel'Naga. So yeah, when looking at it in a vacuum it's obvious, but you are checking it when it becomes apparent who he is, and even then it's never explicitly stated. You probably wouldn't have thought about it seeing him beforehand.

As for the writing of the game, Wings of Liberty's story was pretty bad. By far the game's weakest point. It's been greatly improved in Heart of the Swarm, but still isn't great. The Zerg are much more interesting than the Terrans, who were pretty cardboard. The game's are still fantastic though. Blizzard fluff material for their games was always good, but the actual stories themselves were never great so I don't hold it against them.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

This is the gaming series where the big bad for the better part of the first game and its' expansion was turned into a Damsel in Distress by the end of the second game and had to be rescued by the Good Guy. You'll forgive me if I don't put much stock in Blizzards ability to craft good stories when they turn a genuinely good antagonist into yet another Damsel in Distress and then basically does an "is she/isn't she" for all of Heart of the Swarm.

But yeah Narud/Duran was just stupid.

 

[Terrible Opinions]

SC2 has awful writing. Period. The sooner you accept that, the better.

 

[Legion]

This is the gaming series where the big bad for the better part of the first game and its' expansion was turned into a Damsel in Distress by the end of the second game and had to be rescued by the Good Guy. You'll forgive me if I don't put much stock in Blizzards ability to craft good stories when they turn a genuinely good antagonist into yet another Damsel in Distress and then basically does an "is she/isn't she" for all of Heart of the Swarm.

But yeah Narud/Duran was just stupid.

Yet again, somebody who doesn't understand what a Damsel in Distress is.

Kerrigan could slaughter Jim Raynor without blinking. She commands the most powerful army in the galaxy and can single handedly rip through tanks. If she needs saving at one point in the story that doesn't make her a Damsel in Distress.

She is not weak, she is not helpless.

She got attacked by an enemy using a weapon designed to attack people with psychic abilities. She was affected because she had them, not because she was a woman. She was saved by Jim because he wasn't affected, not because he was a man.

Not forgetting that she saved him earlier.

A woman being defeated and needing help does not automatically make her a Damsel in Distress. It's actually more sexist to assume that if a woman ever need a man's help that it makes her one.

 

[Ferisar]

This is the gaming series where the big bad for the better part of the first game and its' expansion was turned into a Damsel in Distress by the end of the second game and had to be rescued by the Good Guy. You'll forgive me if I don't put much stock in Blizzards ability to craft good stories when they turn a genuinely good antagonist into yet another Damsel in Distress and then basically does an "is she/isn't she" for all of Heart of the Swarm.

But yeah Narud/Duran was just stupid.

Yet again, somebody who doesn't understand what a Damsel in Distress is.

Kerrigan could slaughter Jim Raynor without blinking. She commands the most powerful army in the galaxy and can single handedly rip through tanks. If she needs saving at one point in the story that doesn't make her a Damsel in Distress.

She is not weak, she is not helpless.

She got attacked by an enemy using a weapon designed to attack people with psychic abilities. She was affected because she had them, not because she was a woman. She was saved by Jim because he wasn't affected, not because he was a man.

Not forgetting that she saved him earlier.

A woman being defeated and needing help does not automatically make her a Damsel in Distress. It's actually more sexist to assume that if a woman ever need a man's help that it makes her one.

All this. All kinds of this.

Not only is this not a trope, but Raynor gets rescued by her, and gets captured by Nova. Stop drawing up "sexist tropes" when they have almost nothing to do with it. She isn't a Damsel in Distress, she's pretty much Queen ***** of the Universe.

OT:
OH NEH AN RTS DOESN'T HAVE A DERP SENSE OF STORYH
LET THE MASSES KNOW

It's fluff and it's entertaining, it hasn't ever been good. The only Blizzard game where their writing fits like a glove is probably Warcraft, and even there it slips ALL THE TIME.

I honestly didn't even notice the connection until his name was physically in front of me in the subtitles. It's probably because I wasn't specifically looking for it, either.

 

[Comic Sans]

This is the gaming series where the big bad for the better part of the first game and its' expansion was turned into a Damsel in Distress by the end of the second game and had to be rescued by the Good Guy. You'll forgive me if I don't put much stock in Blizzards ability to craft good stories when they turn a genuinely good antagonist into yet another Damsel in Distress and then basically does an "is she/isn't she" for all of Heart of the Swarm.

But yeah Narud/Duran was just stupid.

Yet again, somebody who doesn't understand what a Damsel in Distress is.

Kerrigan could slaughter Jim Raynor without blinking. She commands the most powerful army in the galaxy and can single handedly rip through tanks. If she needs saving at one point in the story that doesn't make her a Damsel in Distress.

She is not weak, she is not helpless.

She got attacked by an enemy using a weapon designed to attack people with psychic abilities. She was affected because she had them, not because she was a woman. She was saved by Jim because he wasn't affected, not because he was a man.

Not forgetting that she saved him earlier.

A woman being defeated and needing help does not automatically make her a Damsel in Distress. It's actually more sexist to assume that if a woman ever need a man's help that it makes her one.

All this. All kinds of this.

Not only is this not a trope, but Raynor gets rescued by her, and gets captured by Nova. Stop drawing up "sexist tropes" when they have almost nothing to do with it. She isn't a Damsel in Distress, she's pretty much Queen ***** of the Universe.

OT:
OH NEH AN RTS DOESN'T HAVE A DERP SENSE OF STORYH
LET THE MASSES KNOW

It's fluff and it's entertaining, it hasn't ever been good. The only Blizzard game where their writing fits like a glove is probably Warcraft, and even there it slips ALL THE TIME.

I honestly didn't even notice the connection until his name was physically in front of me in the subtitles. It's probably because I wasn't specifically looking for it, either.

This guy pretty much nails it. Kerrigan is not a damsel in the slightest. She's pretty badass and has no problem taking care of herself in most situations. Having her being in peril and needing help a few times doesn't make her part of that trope. She's more Ripley than Peach.

And I honestly didn't catch the Duran/Narud thing either. I played without subtitles so while I figured out who he was, I didn't see it spelled out for me to visually get the connection. While yeah it's dumb, I find it kind of funny now. The entire story of Starcraft is pure cheese and fluff. Embrace it and you'll have much more fun with it. There's no subtlety here. The story is an excuse to put you into missions. The missions are fun and in HotS the writing manages to be better than WoL so having dumb stuff doesn't kill the game.

 

[Shodan1980]

Does it matter? The writing is more than good enough for an RTS and the game is very good fun. If you can't get past the fact that they've put in a clumsy nod so people can work out the link for themselves before its officially revealed then its a shame, but thats your right. All power to your elbow as they say in parts of Scotland

 

[Exterminas]

Could somebody please provide some actual arguments as to how the Starcraft Story is "bad"? I just see people waving the statement that it is, with no arguments at all.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I thought the story was your average revenge-vs-love-thing. Sort of like the count of Monte Christo, just with more chitin. But that didn't really make it bad for me.