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How is Starcraft 2's story even possible in a post ME 3 world? (SPOILERS obv)

G

Ghostmaster

Member
Ok, so let me make something clear right away, the ending of Mass Efffect 3 is probably one of the most disappointing endings I've ever had the chance to experience in any medium ever. The ending of Starcraft 2 isn't even close to that because to be fair the overall story in all of Starcraft 2 has been disappointing.

However, how the hell did Blizzard manage to copy not only just the story beats but also pretty much all the flaws of one of the most infamous story endings ever. How did none realize - "wait this sounds familiar, isn't this the same ending as the one that was so bad that they had to adjust it post launch".

So what are the actual endings - The precursor race (Xelnaga/ Creator of Reapers) are at their last legs and their final gambit is to (of course) transform one of the heroes (Shephard/ Kerrigan) into pretty much a God in order to stop one of their own who has betrayed them (Amon/ Reapers(this is kind of different but not by much, since the Reapers are actually doing what they are supposed to)). And by doing so the Hero manages to break the CYCLE (which is mentioned very clearly in both games) of creation and destruction.

And yet....in both games this resolution comes out of nowhere, seems to completely supersede the far more logical and at least coherent solutions and endings and is met with complete acceptance by all characters, even though there is zero reason for it. Shepard fought two INDOCTRINATED foes as final bosses in two games, but he sees a ghost child and he's like yeah...seems legit he is obviously telling the truth/ Kerrigan who has been betrayed(and has betrayed a bunch of people) is suddenly OK with giving up her life to right the wrongs of someone else (she even mentions how she doesn't care about the Xel Naga, but she has to right the wrongs).

How did this happen, did Metzen seriously look at ME3's ending and thought "Yeah, that looks great, let's do it"

Starcraft 2 ending
https://youtu.be/gCISR0T3grE?t=11780 Oh yeah, they both also use a ghost of a familiar character to communicate with the hero.
 
D

Deleted member 47027

Unconfirmed Member
ME3's original ending was great.

SC2's is good, funny ass shit.
 
A

antitrop

Member
Metzen has been complacent for a while. He clearly put very little effort into the stories of both StarCraft II and Diablo III.
 
L

LPride

Banned
Those tropes are nothing new in sci fi, and even in video games you see this sort of stuff all the time.

Mass Effect is just a modern retelling of Star Control 2, all the story beats are pretty much the same.
 
I

Incandenza

Banned
LPride said:
Those tropes are nothing new in sci fi, and even in video games you see this sort of stuff all the time.

Mass Effect is just a modern retelling of Star Control 2, all the story beats are pretty much the same.
Click to expand...
See also Assassin's Creed 3 and Halo 4.

Christ figures, precursor races, and cyclical destruction/renewal are basically the video game sci-fi cookbook.
 
G

Ghostmaster

Member
LPride said:
Those tropes are nothing new in sci fi, and even in video games you see this sort of stuff all the time.

Mass Effect is just a modern retelling of Star Control 2, all the story beats are pretty much the same.
Click to expand...

Oh, I know these are very old story tropes.

I'm just amazed that after such a poor reception of Mass Effect's ending, Blizzard did the same thing and did nothing to at least make it somewhat better.
 
A

A Dead Diehard

Member
Big difference. You're not supposed to
agree with Amon who's taken the shape of a kid you met for twenty seconds and had two lines.
 
A

Akuun

Looking for meaning in GAF
Every episode of Starcraft 2's story has reeked of very low effort and ambition. They clearly just wanted something to push out a bunch of missions gameplay-wise and didn't care much about telling a decent story to go with it.
 
L

LPride

Banned
Also its not like Blizzard has ever been in the business of making master crafted stories.


How many times has someone gotten corrupted in thier stories? A million? A zillion?
 
D

Deleted member 47027

Unconfirmed Member
LPride said:
Also its not like Blizzard has ever been in the business of making master crafted stories.


How many times has someone gotten corrupted in thier stories? A million? A zillion?
Click to expand...

That reminds me, how long until Deckard Cain is in Heroes of the Storm?
 
Spukc

Spukc

always chasing the next thrill
guys i never like the protoss in starcraft .
loved the terran and zerg.

do you guys still think the third part in the story is any good for me ?
 
S

Sulik2

Member
Starcraft 2's story is just silly over the top garbage/hilarity. Its just a generic evil precusor alien race. You are thinking too hard about it.

Spukc said:
guys i never like the protoss in starcraft .
loved the terran and zerg.

do you guys still think the third part in the story is any good for me ?
Click to expand...

The campaign is fantastic. Its well worth playing.
 
B

Boogdud

Member
Ghostmaster said:
Oh, I know these are very old story tropes.

I'm just amazed that after such a poor reception of Mass Effect's ending, Blizzard did the same thing and did nothing to at least make it somewhat better.
Click to expand...

Blizzard lives in a vacuum. The only thing they pay attention to with other games, are features they decide to rip-of... I mean "refine".
 
G

Glitchesarecool

Member
I think Starcraft has the advantage of no one believing their actions meant something in the story, other than advancing the story. You have to remember that the reason everyone got really hardcore mad about the ME3 ending was not only because it was a cheap copout, but because the story and world of the games had been so influenced by the choices made by the player.
 
P

PSqueak

Banned
Haunted said:
Mass Effect 3 did not invent the deus ex machina.


bad sci-fi writers are gonna bad sci-fi
Click to expand...

I don't think the point is that ME3 "invented" that cliche/trope, but more that Blizzard decided to use it despite the fact that ME3 was a very recent example of another videogame using it and it infamously blew up and was met with massive backlash, the precedent that ME3 provided was not "the first use of the trope" but rather the fact that even gamers had standards for writing and Blizzard somehow seemed to think, after the backlash for ME3, to keep going with the exact same trope.
 
D

Deleted member 47027

Unconfirmed Member
Sulik2 said:
Starcraft 2's story is just silly over the top garbage/hilarity. Its just a generic evil precusor alien race. You are thinking too hard about it.

The campaign is fantastic. Its well worth playing.
Click to expand...

Yes. When you revel in how bananas and ridiculous it is, it's great

SansFortress said:
You mean the dark matter things that leaked, or the ending pre-extended cut? I think extended cut makes it a bit better but also kinda ham-fisted.
Click to expand...

Pre-extended cut

wildfire said:
Sorry Vince. I'm not a fan of this opinion especially after how much better the original Starcraft story was.
Click to expand...
YKbUR80.png

seriously though, Starcraft never had a great story imho, but we're all different
 
D

DouglasteR

Member
Paches said:
What about Hearthstone and Overwatch
Click to expand...

I really liked hearthstone, but its just another card grind game. Its fun factor really only lasts two days tops.

Overwatch is pointless.

After Diablo 3 and SC2-2.1-2.2 i really can´t see Blizz winning anymore.
 
S

Scotch

Member
Spukc said:
guys i never like the protoss in starcraft .
loved the terran and zerg.

do you guys still think the third part in the story is any good for me ?
Click to expand...
The story won't be. The mission design might. It's worth playing if you find it cheap.

The way Legacy of the Void ended kinda soured me on the entire trilogy, similar to ME3. But like OP said, the entirety of SC2's writing was poor.

I don't know what happened to Metzen. Rewatch some of the original SC dialogue, that was actually properly good stuff.
 
P

Planeswalker

Neo Member
StarCraft 1 and Brood War and WarCraft III are two of my favorite games of all time.

With StarCraft 1 and Brood War, the way the plot was represented was great.

The simple fact that Blizzard games were one of the first to let you play as the antagonists and sometimes made them seem like the right guys all along (giving you a new perspective) is one of the reasons why I like them both.

I agree though that the recent Blizzard stories are kind of generic but to be fair, Blizzard usually just emphasizes gameplay over story.

Like in the original games, there was always some excuse to fight an existing faction just for gameplay. Like the Protoss mission where
Aldaris decides to simply attack your guys out of no where and only at the last minute explains that Kerrigan is actually using them is really silly for the fact that Aldaris could have just told them that in the beginning to avoid all the trouble
. That mission is contrived and only there just as an excuse to have a protoss vs protoss mission (for example).

Still, I appreciate the stories of the older Blizzard games (SC1 and WC3) for at least giving you perspective and doing a good job at giving everyone motives and giving you a chance to play as most of the factions. Where as most games back in the days simply had to as the good guy just fighting some baddie, Blizzard games had you play the baddie sometimes to try to explain their motives and reasoning.

The stories recently though have been kind of generic "but" IMO, they're still kind of entertaining for the silliness.
 
L

LegendofLex

Member
One of the great things about OG StarCraft was the multiple viewpoints offered by the multiple factions. One faction's heroes would be the other's villains, and in the end it's up to the player to decide how they feel about the whole thing.

That all went out the window with StarCraft II. All the playable factions inevitably just became one big faction against Amon, and all the heroes were fighting for the same goal.

Really lame.

I'm getting this vibe from the WarCraft movie as well.
 
S

Syf

Banned
Blizzard's writing has been poor for a while now, and the SC2 epilogue was a new low. Thankfully the rest is still great.
 
S

Silver-tongued

Banned
As someone who considers the entire ME trilogy to be badly written, I don't understand why people act as if ME3's ending was somehow the worst ending of any work of fiction ever. An ending that consists of a deus ex machina saving the day is par for the course for video games. I suspect the backlash came about because Bioware had spend years building up to it by advertising that your choices would have consequences throughout the entire ME trilogy.
 
P

PSqueak

Banned
Silver-tongued said:
As someone who considers the entire ME trilogy to be badly written, I don't understand why people act as if ME3's ending was somehow the worst ending of any work of fiction ever. An ending that consists of a deus ex machina saving the day is par for the course for video games. I suspect the backlash came about because Bioware had spend years building up to it by advertising that your choices would have consequences throughout the entire ME trilogy.
Click to expand...

Because the writers hyped the fuck out of the ending and promised it wasn't going to be the typical VG bullshit, the fans ate that up and their expectations sky rocketed, when the game failed to deliver it felt like the worst thing ever.
 
S

Steejee

Member
Silver-tongued said:
As someone who considers the entire ME trilogy to be badly written, I don't understand why people act as if ME3's ending was somehow the worst ending of any work of fiction ever. An ending that consists of a deus ex machina saving the day is par for the course for video games. I suspect the backlash came about because Bioware had spend years building up to it by advertising that your choices would have consequences throughout the entire ME trilogy.
Click to expand...

That's pretty much the case.

I called (and I imagine many other did) the deus ex machina ME3 ending at the end of ME2, so it's not like it was totally unexpected it would end like that. As much as I loved ME1 (and enjoyed ME2), I never felt the storyline was very good in either. I thought the end of ME1 was kinda hilarious in that you spend the entire game searching for the big artifact or whatever it was, and all it did was send you back to the Citadel. ME1/ME2 always seemed to be better at building characters and ME1 was just a great SciFi romp.

I haven't played any of the SC2 games, but that whole universe seems tailor made for out-of-nowhere plot elements.

On a related note, the Cliffhangers thread made me think about the parallels of Freespace 1/2 and the ME series. The Reapers are very similar to Freespace's antagonists: the Shivan. The Shivan appeared to show up whenever a species developed subspace travel, wiped out a super-powerful ancient civilization, and FS2's storyline has you defeating what you think is the ultimate, singular Shivan ship early on, and then going into full panic when it's found they have hundreds of those inbound. One big difference is you never talk to the Shivans (one person does, who then becomes the only person taken alive by the Shivans, but his fate is left unknown), so you don't know exactly why they do what they do.

The big difference between FS2 and ME series, is that the impossibly powerful race isn't beaten at the last minute with a God button (FS1 is closer, but makes sense in the context of the universe), rather FS2 ends with a full on retreat and the sacrifice of an entire system to save the rest. FS2 knew they made an impossible to beat enemy, and followed the logical path. ME tried to have its super enemy but still give you a sorta victory.
 
T

TreasureHunterG

Banned
Starcraft 2 is to the Starcraft franchise what the prequel trilogy is to Star Wars. Chris Metzen blew it hard with the story. No problem with the ancient race creating a monster to destroy the whole universe, this was pointed way before Mass Effect even existed, in the Brood War secret mission Dark Origin, as it featured hybrids and Samir Duran revealing being an agent of an ancient race.

The problem is how poorly executed and awfully connected to SC1 and Brood War is the SC2's story.

- Kerrigan transformed into a messiah/chosen one destined to save the universe after being of the most hateful villains in a game in Brood War. Really, terrible, terrible decision. This destroyed the character in my opinion. Kerrigan was a sociopath maniac in Brood War and made you hate her by the end. She killed Aldaris (ok, not the most likable character), Stukov, Fenix, General Duke, used Duran to manipulate UED and infected Raszaghal to manipulate the Protoss and forced Zeratul to kill her. Really, all you wanted was to kill the bitch in SC2. I can't really accept her as "messiah" after all the crap she made in SC/BW and everyone simply forget that all of a sudden. Character disfigurement at best. It's like transforming King Joffrey of Game of Thrones into a hero that would save the Seven Kingdoms from destruction, no one would buy that.

- Her retcon origin was stupid as fuck. To me, she was and always will be a fallen Terran ghost in the hands of Overmind, infested and turned into it's finest agents. Transforming her it into Overmind's hope of freedom from Amon's influence doesn't make sense at all. Overmind never made any claims about that in the Episode II. Besides, if Overmind was mind controlled by Amon, why didn't Zeratul found that when he read his mind after killing Zasz? He was able to know what Overmind was after and even it's origins, then why didn't he found nothing about Amon? Or Kerrigan? This can't mesh with SC2's events.

- Amon being behind everything bad in the series was also a lame idea. Transforming both Overmind and Kerrigan into Amon's pawns were both stupid decisions. This made SC1 and Brood War events to look cheap and took away the menace and villainous from both. Ok, Samir Duran was an Amon's agent and was manipulating Kerrigan in Brood War, then why he was absent during all SC1's events?

- Raynor falling in love with Kerrigan. Please... this is the same man who said he would kill her after killing Fenix in Brood War. It's amazing. Raynor never mention Fenix at any moment in SC2 as far as I remember. His grudge simply disappeared. Hating Mengsk? Okay. That's totally understandable. But his felling of loss toward Kerrigan in Wings of Liberty were totally out of continuity with Brood War events.

- Why Samir Duran/Dr. Emil Narud have such a small role in SC2 when he had a pivotal one in Brood War? The incredibly intelligent, manipulative and scary sociopath from Brood War is completely gone here. We're talking about someone who made one of the most epic dialogs ever with in a game with Zeratul in the Dark Origins mission. He feels cheesy in SC2 and doesn't pose as threat the way he was in Brood War. Since 1999, I was expecting him to be one of the major foes in SC2's story. Not even close to that.

- Arcturus Mengsk got way too much importance in the story. He was beaten hard, twice, by Kerrigan by the end of Brood War. His treatment as a main villain in both Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm was excessive. Yes, he could be a villian, but not with the excessive attention he got to the point of being the force to be reckon with in two episodes. Raynor or Kerrigan could have taken him down in Wings of Liberty, his importance on Heart of the Swarm was exaggerated. He overshadow the hybrids and Amon in importance in WoL and HotS, the main threat of the story overall.

- Wings of Liberty is mostly filler to the overall story. Gabriel Tosh and Dr. Ariel Hanson missions adds nothing useful. Mengsk isn't overthrown. Rescuing Kerrigan and obtaining the Xel'naga artifact are the only really important events of this episode.
 
M

Morat

Banned
While Starcraft never had a great story, it was reasonably decent and competently told...up until legacy of the void. I found LotV actually embarrassing with its sub saturday morning cartoon nonsense.
 
P

peakish

Member
Nevermind ME, the SC2 storyline itself got enough flack from gamers that they should have taken a second look at what the hell they were writing.
 
S

Steejee

Member
As mentioned I haven't played SC2, but that writing does sound pretty awful.

SC1's writing wasn't exactly deep or complex, but it was competent and logical, at least going from memory.
 
R

Ralemont

not me
OnimaruXLR said:
It has a literal one
Click to expand...

The Catalyst isn't a Deus Ex Machina. He doesn't resolve the plot or save anyone. The plot is already resolved by the time he is introduced: Shepard opens the Citadel and the Crucible is docked and Shepard "activates" it. The only reason it doesn't fire is because the plot thread involving the Catalyst needs to be introduced. It's introduced, the Catalyst presents a dilemma, and then Shepard "solves" it. The only commonality here is that the Catalyst appears to come from nowhere, but this is by no means a sufficient quality to consitute a DEM.
 
Whompa02

Whompa02

Member
post Warcraft 3 Metzen has been on a crusade to ruin what I liked in Blizzard narrative.

That being said, SC2 is still a great trilogy of games. Fun gameplay, but yeah...dude needs someone to mask the crappy sapfest writing.
 
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