StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Its a bit long, but hear me out.

Blizzard Entertainment had achieved a great triumph in videogame history by creating for us a strategy game series which is not only balanced in terms of gameplay and other stuff, but also contains a complex and interesting storyline filled with twists and turns, colorful characters, drama, action and intrigue.

And that series, obviously, is Starcraft

In the first game, we saw how the Zerg, led by the hive intelligence the Overmind, invaded the Koprulu sector, decimating all in its path, while the local species, the industrious Terrans and ancient Protoss, desperately try to halt their advance, culminating in destruction of the Overmind by a joint Terran/Protoss assault. We saw along the way the rise to power of dictator Arturus Mengsk and his Terran Dominion amidst the chaos with the unwilling aid of Jim Raynor, the fall of his psychic love interest Sarah Kerrigan into a Human/Zerg hybrid and the struggles of Tassadar and Zeratul to unite the two bickering factions of the Protoss, the High and the Dark Templars, in arms while the Zerg destroy their homeworld Aiur.

In Brood War, in one of the best storylines ever written for a videogame, we saw the Protoss under Zeratul's leadership escape to the Dark Templar homeworld to regroup, while the sector is brought to its knees by the expeditionary forces of the United Earth Directorate, only for the leaderless Zerg, under new management, reunite into a force powerful enough to crush all other sides. In the process we saw how far Kerrigan fell from grace with her vicious betrayals and sinister manipulations allows her to become leader of the Zergs as they destroy the UED and become the dominant faction of the Koprulu sector, the Terrans surviving to fight another day with Jim Raynor making his oath to kill bring her down no matter what, and above all, Zeratul's discovery of a sinister attempt by outside forces to create a Zerg-Protoss Hybrid, a twisted fusion of the two greatest creations by the ancient precursors Zel'Naga that hold a dark potent for the future.

In Starcraft II, the plot thickens, beginning four years later in Wings of Liberty with Jim Raynor and his revolutionary movement trying to overthrow the Terran Dominion, and later search for Xel'Naga artifacts that may hold the key to defeat Kerrigan and her Zergs, which had appeared to resume the offensive.
Spoiler Spoiler So by the end of Starcraft II we would see the Zerg re-emerge under Kerrigan, Terrans rebuilding itself with or without overthrowing Mengsk, and the Protoss reunited again. The storyline is reaching its epic climax with the inevitable confrontation the Protoss / Zerg hybrids and its leader? How should the storyline end in the most epic, heartwarming, awesome way possible? How should the final missions, including the final battle, be like? What changes and improvements do you gamers want in the final Starcraft game?

I'm more wondering where the Terrans fit in. Were they planned by the Xel'naga as the Protoss and Zerg were, or is humanity a wrench tossed into their plans?

A disappointing non-ending followed by making the franchise into another cash-cow MMORPG where no progress towards a satisfying conclusion ever happens.

Yeah sorry, but my faith in Blizzard's storytelling abilities has been thoroughly spent.

My bet is for the Terrans to be ignored/used as padding/scenery for some kind of lame 'epic' battle between the Zer/Protoss/Last Miniute revealed true evil guy.

Maybe with Jim and the Hyperion making a cameo as a hero unit.

Heart of the swarm is shaping out to be interesting. Kerrigan shows two conflicting sides (on one hand, she seems to feel genuine guilt for her crimes, but on the other hand she wants to take mengsk down hard. She's essentially on the knifes edge between redemption and damnation, and that's fairly interesting.

Did anyone catch the leaked starcraft heart of the swarm ending by any chance? Spoiler I honestly think that at some point two things will happen

a.) Kerrigan interacts with the overmind's corpse; the overmind helps her fully come to terms with his plan and shows her what happened when the xel'naga were destroyed (finally revealing the Dark Voice's identity. maybe a xel'naga who lost faith in the mission after the protoss massacred many of the xel'naga. Kerrigan fully absorbs the overmind's essence, becoming zerg once more, but this time of her own free will while also gaining the overmind's powers (thereby becoming purity of essence in mind body and soul).
b.) Kerrigan suffers some guilt which Duran tries to use to break her. Kerrigan ultimately is able to transcend it and kill Duran
c.) Kerrigan and the Dark Voice have a one on one battle (by this point Kerrigan will probably have gained the powers of purity of form in addition to purity of essence.
d.) Humanity does play a large part in the final battle.
And Metahive, warcraft hardly was inconclusive; Arthas finally faced justice for his crimes, the Blood Elves achieved Redemption, and the Twilight's hammer is most likely going to have their arc concluded. the dark voice was also hardly a last minute badguy. Duran mentioned a hidden power in "Dark Origins" and the hybrids were also shown then. This was in 98 mind you.

Probably some huge cheesy teamup between the three races to take down the True Evil About To Eat The Universe.

Darth Yan wrote: And Metahive, warcraft hardly was inconclusive; Arthas finally faced justice for his crimes, the Blood Elves achieved Redemption, and the Twilight's hammer is most likely going to have their arc concluded.

See that's the thing. None of that happened in the Warcraft series proper. The last ending of a Warcraft RTS game was Arthas defeating Illidan and ascending to the Lich King's throne. If any of the fans of the Warcraft series want to see the ending of those plotlines, they have to buy blizzards money-sucking MMORPG, a genre which not every Warcraft fan enjoys.

I suspect Metahive's just worried they'll do the same with Starcraft.

Blizzard has said they are working on an MMO-like project, which some have suspected would become "World of StarCraft", but Blizzard also has said that it won't be like any game they've made before, which leaves my hopes up. Suffice it to say, while I do want to see how the StarCraft series ends, I'm more interested on what happens on the way there rather than the ending itself, since when you get down to it, the ending is just one event.

And frankly, so far as WoW has been mentioned, I don't consider the lore of WoW to exist in the same universe as WarCraft proper. For me, the WarCraft story has ended until they make a WarCraft IV. Not to mention that the way they killed off Arthas in Wrath of the Lich King was just pathetic.

Imperial528 wrote:And frankly, so far as WoW has been mentioned, I don't consider the lore of WoW to exist in the same universe as WarCraft proper. For me, the WarCraft story has ended until they make a WarCraft IV. Not to mention that the way they killed off Arthas in Wrath of the Lich King was just pathetic.

Thank you, that's exactly how I see it as well. For me WoW is all fan-fiction, Arthas Lich-King is still sitting high atop Ice Crown, awaiting a satisfying conclusion to his storyline and so does the rest of the Warcraft universe.

I really, really hope they're not trying to repeat this with Starcraft. If there's ever something like "Galaxy of Starcraft" I'm going to cry silent tears, slit my wrists and write bade poetry.

Metahive wrote:

Imperial528 wrote:And frankly, so far as WoW has been mentioned, I don't consider the lore of WoW to exist in the same universe as WarCraft proper. For me, the WarCraft story has ended until they make a WarCraft IV. Not to mention that the way they killed off Arthas in Wrath of the Lich King was just pathetic.

Thank you, that's exactly how I see it as well. For me WoW is all fan-fiction, Arthas Lich-King is still sitting high atop Ice Crown, awaiting a satisfying conclusion to his storyline and so does the rest of the Warcraft universe.

I really, really hope they're not trying to repeat this with Starcraft. If there's ever something like "Galaxy of Starcraft" I'm going to cry silent tears, slit my wrists and write bade poetry.

Somebody already got that idea back in 2009.

i think the mmo was good; there was a large amount of lore they needed to tie up, and the mmo allowed them to do so without making more and more games (and possibly risk being repetitive.)

The Lore in WoW didn't tie up loose ends and possible plot holes, it shoved crap at them in hopes to make them go away. If you're going to end a game series, do it correctly, in its original incarnation. Then you can start your crappy MMOs.

there were at least three massive plotlines they needed to tie up; the foresaken, the redemption of the blood elves, Illidan's fall, and the fall of the lich king. that would take at least 3 games at the very least. and the mmo did have some truly awesome fight sequences and materials (the battles against kil'jaeden and yogg saron, the cataclysm plot arcs, and the battle with arthas was by all accounts quite good. The light of dawn quest chain, the manipulations of onyxia.) The mmo isn't for everyone but it's hardly bad.

Imperial528 wrote:The Lore in WoW didn't tie up loose ends and possible plot holes, it shoved crap at them in hopes to make them go away. If you're going to end a game series, do it correctly, in its original incarnation. Then you can start your crappy MMOs.

Stop conflating two ideas. If the WoW lore is crap (doesn't seem unlikely) that is a separate issue to whether or not a story needs to be completely in 'its original incarnation'. Just because you don't like MMOs doesn't mean it's the 'wrong way' to 'end' a 'game series'.

Beyond 'nerds dislike change' I mean.

The combined ideas that any Blizzard game had a compelling story, but that games one doesn't like don't count is absolutely fascinating.

I expect the ending to Starcraft to do two things, at least.

1.) Kerrigan somehow wins again.
2.) OH THE ZERG WERE NOBLE SAVAGES ALL ALONG.

I suppose we'll just have to see.

actually it's implying that the zerg are grey at bast; they consume and assimilate shamelessly but they don't actively seek to killinate all life.

Turning the Zerg into something remotely like Warcraft Orks is fucking terrible. That just ruins the best thing about the Zerg, the fact that they are ruthless mindless acid-blooded chitinous killing machines out to consume and assimilate and ruin shit. Ugh.

Well we haven't seen Heart of the Swarm yet so we really don't know what's going to happen.

But... yeah, it made sense in Warcraft 3 with the orcs but the zerg are... completely different.

Darth Yan wrote:actually it's implying that the zerg are grey at bast; they consume and assimilate shamelessly but they don't actively seek to killinate all life.

Raping the bodies and minds of people and animals, turning them into monsters who do the same to others is not "morally gray". I'd argue that's even worse than if they just murdered everybody. They're an organi-wank version of the Borg and I think nobody seriously suggests the Borg are "morally gray" either. You could say they're not actively malevolent, doing what they do because they think it's the best for everybody and not because they enjoy the ensuing misery (questionable), but that's another issue.

The Overmind was good all along! Lamest moment ever.

It's more the overmind was amoral. It doesn't care about life, but it does view the dark voice as getting in the way of it's plan and as far as ovy is concerned NOTHING gets in the way of the plan. even the leaked ending i saw implied that the zerg aren't neccissarily going to be noble. Though that ending earns points Spoiler . Kerrigan's metamorph is simply allowing the zerg to exist without having a guiding consious at least that's my take. Metahives assement of my comment is probably more correct.

I know they were trying to make the zerg more "noble" like all the shit they pulled with the Orcs, but the sense that I got from the whole thing was that the Overmind was still pretty damn evil, I.E. it wanted to consume every living thing in the universe into the swarm, but it didn't like playing second fiddle to this "Dark Voice" or whatever the hell it's called, so it created Kerrigan as a means to break it's control.


At least that's how I'm rationalizing it. If they pull more of this "noble Zerg" crap in HoTS, I'll be pretty pissed

Darksider wrote:I know they were trying to make the zerg more "noble" like all the shit they pulled with the Orcs, but the sense that I got from the whole thing was that the Overmind was still pretty damn evil, I.E. it wanted to consume every living thing in the universe into the swarm, but it didn't like playing second fiddle to this "Dark Voice" or whatever the hell it's called, so it created Kerrigan as a means to break it's control.


At least that's how I'm rationalizing it. If they pull more of this "noble Zerg" crap in HoTS, I'll be pretty pissed

Your above statement suites well with me and it would be a surprising refreshing break if Blizz ACTUALLY went that route.

When Blizz did the "Nobel Savage" route with the orcs, I could believe that. It made a weird sort of sense and it gave back story to the orcs instead of just being mindless ravaging brutes.
But the Zerg IS a mindless ravaging brute. Ok not "Mindless" but it is a ting created to consume and destroy, nothing more.

The entire set up of a Kerrigan as a "Backup" works well for me in the context of the Overmind feeling "The Voice" coming and wanting to give it a healthy 'Fuck you!'

my take was that ovy's plan was

1.) consume everything as possible until we have fully achieved purity of essence, then seek with the protoss and merge with them the way our creators wanted (namely where they merged into a hybrid species that gave rise to a new xel'naga race.) It was amoral and evil, but it's end plan was slightly different.

Darksider wrote:I know they were trying to make the zerg more "noble" like all the shit they pulled with the Orcs, but the sense that I got from the whole thing was that the Overmind was still pretty damn evil, I.E. it wanted to consume every living thing in the universe into the swarm, but it didn't like playing second fiddle to this "Dark Voice" or whatever the hell it's called, so it created Kerrigan as a means to break it's control.


At least that's how I'm rationalizing it. If they pull more of this "noble Zerg" crap in HoTS, I'll be pretty pissed

I don't think they were pulling for evil zerg. Or even noble zerg. At least not until Kerrigan came along. The zerg are basically wild animals. Animals whose nature is to basically assimilate everything. This vastly different from the borg commentary earlier as they don't strike me as a fundamental nature so much as a choice they made to shift how they function millenia ago. The zerg evolved, and their methods were their fundamental nature.

Like many naturally wild predators(at least conceptually as might be expected from a story), the Overmind didn't want something controlling it. Enter the assimilation of Kerrigan. This is where the evil comes in. She's a human who basically had the predatory nature of the zerg, combined with its sheer lack of human morality and ethics, imprinted on her brain, but she still had her human thoughts, at least as a personality. She is where the evilness of the zerg comes in I think. Largely until she took over, there actions were all about assimilating the next useful organism into the Hive. She took over, and it became about a cross between revenge and ruling the universe(until she disappeared for half a decade after Brood War).

Blizzard has an opening to be interesting now that they have Kerrigan back in human form, and largely without the sheer zerg nature impressing down on her like after she was infested. But she still has her ability to control the Zerg(if only to an extent in the beginning). Noble Zerg? No. Especially not with the rumor above on how Mengsk is just going to go down int he most appropriate way possible. More human due to a human Kerrigan's control? It's a possibility.

That isn't to say Blizzard won't totally fuck it up like they've done in the past. But that's another rant altogether. I liked the WoL story so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt until I play it.