Which writer would you pick for a potential Starcraft 3?

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russianspy27
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Which writer would you pick for a potential Starcraft 3?

Post by russianspy27 »

Hello friends,

As bleak as it may be, some of us - idealistic and naive (speaking of myself) old fans have hope that one day in the not so distant future, a Starcraft game would appear where Blizzard would actually do what they were supposed to do in 2010 and hire a competent writer to write the script for SC2.

Alas, back in 2010, Metzen fell into the George Lucas prequels mode and did not do that, resulting in a very underwhelming story for the long-awaited amazing sci-fi franchise. Still, sometimes a franchise gets lucky. Force Awakens and Rogue One follow the weak prequels, or Days of Future Past (Rogue Cut) comes out and corrects some damage done by X3, etc. Anyhow, if SC3, or another SC game with legitimately good writing were to be produced, which writer(s) would you feel be good choices to create a solid, epic story that may somehow, potentially, make up for the underwhelming writing of SC2?

Examples:

(1) Christie Golden - who better than a person who wrote the most SC novels to date?
(2) Timothy Zahn - the acclaimed father of the true Star Wars "sequel" novels and the latest author of a SC novel - why not?
(3) Gabriel Sorrel - creator of one of the most interesting "sequel" campaigns during the original SC era of late 1990s who created amazing, though unfinished, "War of the Tribes" campaign.
(4) James Phinney - the man who probably wrote the story for the original SC.
(5) Have one of the "CD Project Red" writers try it out.
(5) Gradius from SC Legacy
(6) {your choice here}

~RS
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Re: Which writer would you pick for a potential Starcraft 3?

Post by IskatuMesk »

No one currently in the entertainment industry, and someone willing to scrap every single line of existing writing from the source and completely ignore input from the parent company.
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Re: Which writer would you pick for a potential Starcraft 3?

Post by Revolta »

I disagree that Force Awakens and Rogue One were markedly better than the prequels and I disagree that SC1 had legitimately good writing as you intimate in the second paragraph. A lot of easy fixes to SC1 make it a significantly better story, mostly starting in the zerg campaign but also better-defining the rules of the universe so the stakes feel more genuine.

I don't know anyone who would actually bite the bullet and redraft all of SC's universe and events from scratch, taking some inspiration from SC1 and forgetting most of BW and SC2, so there isn't anyone I'd actually choose. Out of the ones you listed I would probably just get someone from CD Projekt Red, not because of their own credentials but just because they're so far removed from the SC universe that whatever they come up has a much higher chance of being fresh to SC.
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Re: Which writer would you pick for a potential Starcraft 3?

Post by SteakofStake »

Didn't blizzard state that they weren't going to make another starcraft game again?

Also, I I agree with mesk that a lot needs to be removed to make it decent again. And that they steer away from copying warhammer so much and actualy make their own universe.
Like the xel'naga. Warhammer has space frogs that created some races ad have a shrouded past, so blizzard needed to put that into sc2 for....whatever reason??? I mean they could have tried to do something different but they just said loltentaclesmadetheseraces. and that fucking kerrigan becoming a god bs is gay.

The only thing I would condone straight up copying from warhammer is murderfucking a god into existence, but even metzen couldn't do that right
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Re: Which writer would you pick for a potential Starcraft 3?

Post by Krazy »

Starcraft 3 will be a mobile game. It's plot will consist of "start upgrading your command center! now wait 14 hours until it is finished upgrading OR pay $5.99 to finish now!"
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Re: Which writer would you pick for a potential Starcraft 3?

Post by Zilla- »

I can't name a writer off hand, but i think its not so much a question of 'who' as opposed to 'how'. What I liked about the original was all the interconflict and personal drama that was going on, the second one was 3 variations on "collect your own dudes while taking care of the 'evil' version of your race, oh btw there's a big bad that everyone is teaming up for, lets go be friends about that" [also trying to suppress most of kerrigans arc from my memory], whereas in the first one everyone was just fighting everyone, any alliances were temporary and usually with an element of betrayal or some kind of fuckery involved (with the exception of ambassador raynor, although i'd argue his role felt "earned") and oh yeah you just happen to have some new dudes.

also i'd argue the visuals played a part as well, sc2 felt very "shiny" and "polished", (not making a commentary on gameplay, just on the style). evrything looked "new", whereas in sc1 everything feels old and gritty and run down, even down to doodads and critters and stuff like that. and I feel like that grittiness helped paint the story in a similar light, it felt less like star wars and closer to something like firefly. I think I remember mesk making this comment way back when we first started seeing in-game footage come out and it didn't really make sense to me (i thought he was just nitpicking tbh, but hypetrain~) but having actually played the game (and especially after [albiet breifly] revisiting the first) its such a stark contrast, and not a change for the better imo.

I think at this point the best thing they could do is send the 3 races on their own ways. IIRC (not having bothered to play that epilogue sequence, and having a shitty memory) kerrigan ran off into the stars to do idklol, while the terrans and protoss basically resolved their differences and the koprulu sector is at peace. happy endings for everyone <3. good, fuck the koprulu sector, its boring now, lets go somewhere else. Maybe have the terrans do something similar to what the UED did on earth and shoot off a few ships into the void and see where they land, or follow kerrigan as she struggles with the psychological struggles of being a human transcended to god-hood, a-la dr. manhattan. maybe do a proper prologue on the protoss to see the aeon of strife or something, be kinda cool to see early plantpeople before they were the "advanced race" we encounter later. there are a lot of fun themes and tons of potential out there, just gotta try something new
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Re: Which writer would you pick for a potential Starcraft 3?

Post by Thalraxal »

Yeah, I kinda feel like in terms of story material, the StarCraft universe is kinda done. SC2, as questionably as they handled them, pretty much addressed most of the major plots leftover from SC1 and Brood War. We've dealt with the hybrids, Duran's mysterious master, the "dark force" that Kerrigan sensed, Raynor's vow of vengeance against Kerrigan, the tribal divisions within the Protoss, and the Terran's quest for good government. On top of that, they even got into the whole secrets of the Xel'naga thing, and got into what they were all about. The only real loose thread I can think of is the UED, and what their reaction to the destruction of their Expeditionary Force to the Korprulu Sector will be. Even then though, as interesting of a twist it might be to make the big threat everyone has to scramble the fight being a bunch of ordinary humans from Earth, they already did that in Brood War. It feels like that'd just be rehashing old ground again. Although, to be fair, Azeroth is on its like fourth attempted invasion by the Burning Legion, the fifth one we've seen if we count Alternate Draenor? So, eh, maybe there are ways to make that work. I suppose making them a "fourth race" would go a long way, since the UED/Humans really should have very different technology than the Terrans.

I think Zilla-'s right that the only way forward would be to send everyone out on their own. The galaxy's pretty undeveloped as is. IIRC, according to Brood War, the UED hadn't encountered any other aliens until the Terrans met the Zerg and Protoss, and the only non-playable species we know about, other than the Xel'naga, are those guys the Protoss accidentally destroyed. On top of that, the only really interesting conflicts left to explore, imo, are the internal ones. The Zerg need to figure out what they want to do going forward. They no longer have the imperative to consume life that they had, and they've finally got all those pesky humans out of their chain of command, so they finally have the chance to be, well, alien again. As for the Protoss, they've lost their communal link (at least for a generation anyway), and need to figure out how to reintegrate their caste-bound homeworlders, their exiled nomadic brethren, and their insane drug addicted cultist cousins back together again.

There's also the matter of "what" StarCraft 3 would be. The RTS genre is sadly in decline, and Blizzard seems increasingly unlikely to want to get back into that. Certainly, things might change in like ten years or so, but Blizzard's current design strategy seems contrary to that. They could always try and branch out into another genre, like they did with WoW, but they already tried third person shooter with SC: Ghost, and that failed to materialized. I don't see them going in that direction again any time soon with StarCraft, since that'd be competing with Overwatch. I dunno, Krazy might be right and the next foray into the StarCraft universe might be a mobile game.
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Re: Which writer would you pick for a potential Starcraft 3?

Post by Lavarinth »

God, I feel at times it's almost a sin to talk about the StarCraft 2 story. It was such a let down, but I do agree that StarCraft 1's story wasn't "amazing," but it was worlds better than its sequels. It had suspense (countdown to evacuate Kerrigan), surprise (betrayal, deaths), and mystery (Duran)... meanwhile everything in SC2 just felt expected. I think most of us felt a surge of disappointment the moment we're introduced to the lore's most disappointing moment of story development by their writers... Dr. Narud. It was so sadly clear where he was leading to that we all wished it not be true, much like when we hoped Belial's simple reveal of "hahaha the boy king was me all along, surprise!" was not the most shocking lie. Had he actually lied to us and made us think the boy was Belial and then we kill the boy- there's a twist. Or that, surprise, Azmodan was actually dead and Belial is him and he's been plotting everything to his ascension to power- twist! Nope, everything in StarCraft 2 and Diablo 3 has been the designed to be basically understandable and not convoluted in relations to alliances, coupes, etc. All to focus more on gameplay, perhaps, but regardless it all fell short for people looking to enjoy the story, which is all you paid for in the end when you bought StarCraft 2 and its two expansions considering you can play StarCraft 2 for free on the Arcade.

I do feel like we were cheated out of the reveals of the mysteries of StarCraft 1 when StarCraft 2 was called upon to answer them, which is likely why we feel the way we do. It wasn't "good enough" after a decade of waiting, we wanted more complex and deeper answers than "duh, she's just a demi-god" and then to have original lore be retconned by the sequel's writers after we spent a decade learning the tiniest nooks and crannies of details. A crystal that just undoes infestation by its pulse as opposed to a serum generated by Terrans that must be injected followed by a long process of your DNA reverting back to human, only to hope you aren't zombied from your brain being so effected by Zerg genes? Primal Zerg as opposed to the Overmind's lust for domination, knowledge, and power by devouring hundreds of alien species (including Xel'Naga) throughout the Koprulu Sector until he could evolve to the perfect being? And then the Xel'Naga... perhaps the saving grace of the story to have to face the creators of Zerg and Protoss... only to find out they were killed in their sleep by one of their own who woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Oh, and yeah, those were the ONLY Xel'Naga now, apparently there's just a few dozen, not an entire species of them as previously said. Oh, and this evil Xel'Naga dude also is now the creator of the Zerg, only himself, and told them to kill the Protoss as a jerk move and is also the reason that the Xel'Naga ship was destroyed.

I just don't understand how this came to be, and how their writers honestly have spoken so little about their opinion of the story. Did they think it wasn't good? Own up to it and tell us so we know we aren't alone. Did they think it's all they ever wanted? Let us know so we know to look at the credits of future games and make our own decisions based on their previous work. My childhood game was basically torn to shreds for a few million bucks of profit to craft an overly simplistic story set in a bright and vivid universe, gone was the grungy space western sci-fi with aliens.

What to do with it now? Zilla's right. Send them off on their own ways and see what happens. As much as I enjoyed the characters in SC1, I lost my love for them in the sequels. They were no longer the struggling characters trying to make a difference in their own way, now instead they were just power figures destroying things to get what they want. No more politics, no more long-term plans. Let their peace continue in the Korpulu Sector and see what other regions have in store for the lore. Will I be intrigued enough to learn about new characters and lore in StarCraft unrelated to the existing ones? Not immediately, not after the last few things they pumped pout, but sell me on it and I might be after I no longer blindly throw money at their games because it's rock-paper-scissors with the name of my favorite childhood game on it. They almost had me with Reaper of Souls. It started off so encouraging, so full with lore that just made me happy to experience... and then the last battles came and my eyes rolled out of their sockets. That alone has me more hesitant now for their products that include story.
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Re: Which writer would you pick for a potential Starcraft 3?

Post by Saladin »

That bad, huh?
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