Hey guys, I'm WasteusTimeus from the offical forums, recently I've interviewed the YouTuber Ryhkker and the maker of the popular starcraft video "Starcraft: 7 years in 7 minutes", Rob Gresimer (luckyfool) ( ) about the lore, story, game play and atmosphere of the original Starcraft vs SC2 and it's expansions. This franchise means so much to me, in fact I even said in the original thread on the battle.net forums that I would probably cry after I see the pro-louge at the end of LoTV. So without further ado, here are the questions:

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1. The art-style of SC2 has received some criticism, some of which say that the game's aesthetics too closely resemble that of World of Warcraft, being that they are cartoony and proportions are less realistic. In contrast to the original StarCraft which to many seemed more realistic, dark, and gritty. How do you feel about the game's art-style and aesthetics? And how do you feel they compare to StarCraft 1?

2. Many have criticized SC2's storyline as being of less quality than StarCraft 1's. How do you feel about the story and the characters in SC2? Do you think SC1's story was of similar quality, less quality, or better, and why?

3. Do you feel like SC2 delivers properly on fantasy and immersion? How would you compare that success or lack thereof to StarCraft 1?

4. Dustin Browder had envisioned SC2 to be a game for competitive e-sports (to my knowledge). Do you think that SC2 is a very high paced and stressful game? If so, do you think this scares off new players and makes casual play difficult? How would you compare the game-play now to StarCraft 1? Do you think that it is usually the case that the game comes down to 1 or 2 big battles, and then it being difficult to come back from that, if at all possible?

5. Is the same depth and change in meta-game there? Would you say that SC2 has more "mechanical depth" (microing units, learning to optimize build orders, becoming faster and more effective in executing commands) then "strategic depth" (having a variety of strategies that feel and play differently from one another, and having to change and tweak your play-style to overcome your opponent)

6. What are your major gripes about SC2 (if any)? What are your favorite parts of SC2?

7. What are your hopes for Legacy of the Void, are you concerned about it's direction?

8. Is there anything else that you would like to add?

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Do you feel that SC2 far too often comes down to a giant deathball of units versus another giant deathball? Would you rather it be more like Brood War with many smaller battles happening across the map?

Dustin Browder has said (to my knowledge) that the team wanted to design the game around cool units, rather than to have specific plans for all of the races. Do you feel that each race in SC2 has a distinct play style? Do you think this is better or worse from Brood War?

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(OG Thread: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/18719273722)

Yeah I can agree with this. I especially don't like the new clean look for the terrans, I preferred that rusty-looking, space cowboys look. This loss of realism and grittiness is also most apparent with terrans (they used to be grimy, rolling around in heavy, robust machinery), then to a lesser degree zerg (they don't look as icky as before) and I can't detect much visual change in the protoss. But overall it is true that the visual style of SC has become more stylistic and rule of cool than before and I don't like that but I don't terribly mind it either.

I think the original SC had the benefit of the open canvas, as many Blizz fans know they do best when starting from scratch (it is adding onto that (good) base that they often fuck up, hard). The story was also well designed, the three factions fighting all have good motivations, good scale (their power levels, wins and losses make sense) and it was very self-contained (the actors of the story did what they did, their actions made sense, it came to a satisfying conclusion, in short it was a good story).

Brood War... I've never actually played, and from what I saw on youtube I didn't like it (I couldn't get through the silly, get magic crystals protoss campaign). I know people mostly praise it for the human and zerg campaings anyway but the UED is a little problematic for being this outside force used to drive the action (again the issue of adding onto a good base Blizz has), and I don't like the smarmy, manipulative, gets off Scott free 'cos I'm a troubled girl character so there goes the zerg campaign.

SC2's story has many faults, again more compared to SC original than Brood War. The overall, end of the world, we must unite, terrible evil super-powerful darkness descending story... yeah I don't like that, it's a rehash of WC3, it's cheesy, it's also very rule of cool which I don't like as much now that I'm older.

BUT that bad story is well presented, the missions are fun and well designed, the surrounding lore (talking to characters RPG-style, modding units, researching, short stories outside the game) is good and makes me overall content with the story. I'd even say the presentation and such is better than in the original, this segues nicely into the next question...

Original SC had good atmosphere, the tone of the intros, the factions, the story, the music... it all worked well together to produce that distinct SC flavor and compelled you to keep on playing. The into scenes in particular were very well done given how little they had (just some gifs and dialogue).

But that is just it, SC2 has so much more, maybe it's new tech, maybe it's a higher budget. But I thoroughly enjoyed all the little things you can do and see on the Hyperion or the Leviathan, talking to the various characters on-board, the research to be done, modding units and the tidbits of lore that come from that. Again the missions are much better designed and varied... the whole thing is just very colorful and appealing. Yeah, lots of it is rule of cool but at least it is done well (unlike say WoW) and can be appreciated for what it is.

Writing all of this I guess I am now of the opinion that they are equal but different, SC had a good overall feel and theme to it, the story and that atmosphere drove you onward. In SC2 the story may be of poorer quality but it is well presented, fun to play, very visually appealing. When you play both you get lost in the game and that is the most important thing, that is why both are good.

I'd say so. I've actually bought SC2 because at one point I really enjoyed watching games of SC2 on youtube and I thought "well time to stop watching and have fun myself" buuut it didn't really work out, the games were far too competitive to be fun and I realized I'd have to put in more effort than I was willing to become good. Take my opinions with a grain of salt though, as I grow older I become more and more casual as a gamer.

Still I don't think original SC was any better. In fact it may be worse because I recall getting wrecked in skirmish mode by bots. Maybe it was more fun to play before it became a huge deal?

Can't really say, I was never too much into multiplayer.

I think I mostly covered this, the main minus is the poor story and the main plus is that the game is mechanically well done (speaking primarily of single player here), immersive, fun to play, high budget... all the stuff I've mentioned before.

I think the ending will ultimately be a disappointment but I look forward to the gameplay, the bonus campaign units, exploring the Spear of Adun (IIRC?). I don't have too big of an opinion here, I am just waiting for the game to come out and play it before commenting.

I'd say the biggest mistake SC2 devs made was this immense focus on e-sports, some of that effort and energy could have gone to an even better single-player (better story and more missions primarily) and cool features that will bring in the bulk of the players like improvements to the arcade, helping out the modding community, archon mode and similar fun stuff... they did learn this I feel but had they gone with this mindset from the start (i.e. make a great game and the e-sports will come naturally) we could have had a much better experience.

Again not much of an opinion on this but yeah sure, that sound more fun.

I would prefer a bigger focus on race thematics over individual units being cool (of course both combined is best), but honestly I think SC2 does this better than SC1 or BW so this is kind of a moot point imo.

HOTS stumbled because it tried to do two things it once; It wanted Kerrigan to be sympathetic but it also wanted her to be obsessed with vengeance. In the original version she would have not only spared Lassara's life but also befriended her. If they stuck to the "conflicted woman trying to do good" I think it would have been more well received.

It's absurd how many parallels you can draw between SC2 and other Blizzard works. The writing for the entire trilogy was trash. No nuance, no subtlety, no intrigue.

SC1 worked beautifully because it was a mexican standoff. The characters were written in a believable and intelligent fashion. In SC2, they started this shit with over-arching enemies and gods and blah blah blah.