Quoting TorinReborn, reply 31Can you give me a few better stories from RTS games?
Happy to:
Starcraft.
Homeworld.
Battle for Middle Earth.
Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos.
Dawn of War II.
These are just the few that I've played. Starcraft II's story is the weakest story Blizzard have ever told, however it features the highest production values Blizzard have ever produced.
I am sorry, but only Starcraft 1 on that list is legit. All other games have a crap story with 0 character development or choice that affects future (well I cannot remember the story for Homeworld). Even the raynor that decided to save Kerrigan is more believable then the death knight story from WC3, and Xel'Naga arc is so much more interesting then Burning Legion one.
Can you name me one RTS that has more interesting and more diverse missions?
This all depends on your definition of "interesting" and "diverse". Starcraft II's single player campagin featured a variety of mission designs... all of which lacked any real strategic requirement. You never out-thought anything or anyone - you merely did what the mission told you to do. Seige Tanks here. Bunkers there. Build this missions new Unit to counter the Units the mission throws at you. When in doubt, build Marines and Banshees and you'll win through sheer force.
Starcraft at the very least required the player to play the strategy card a few times throughout the course of the game. Starcraft II spends more time setting up gimmicky missions with arbitrary requirements on the player than it does allowing the player to stretch their strategic muscle.
Again, it featured very gimmicky missions that didn't require a great deal of thought to get through. Compare that to something like Rome: Total War or ever the original Starcraft, and Starcraft II is essentially a collection of the kind of maps players would make using the World Editor rather than a series of 'missions'. They're simply very polished.
Maybe try to play it on higher difficulty? I played all missions on all 4 difficulties and you certainly need to "outhink" to win. Starcraft 1 had either similar missions as SC2 with limited team or limited time or it had turtle and build 200/200 of carriers/BCs/Guardians and win. SC2 has maybe one mission that promotes get 200/200 BCs and win (and that one has a interesting twist with damage over time in most of the map). Every mission was unique in some way and asked for a different approach to finish. Nothing like that was ever seen in any RTS before.
Rome: Total War is not a RTS like SC2. That game is a different territory.
Sterile multiplayer? Are you kidding me? It has a extremely competitive MP and a whole system to support it. Then it has many modes and user made maps for more casual players. There is nothing like it except other Blizzard RTS games.
The gameplay is fine - and it would want to be, being it's copy and pasted whole sale from Starcraft. The multiplayer environment is devoid of social interaction. The chat rooms are terribly implimented and clearly shoe-horned in after the massive backlash they received for not putting them in the first place. Apart from the chat rooms, the "GG" messages you get during the game, there is no social interaction of any kind. It's sterile; they might as well populate the regionally restricted servers with bots, because you'd never know the difference. They billed Battle.net 0.2 as a social network, and it has NO social features. No profile customisation, no community to interact with - nothing. You click "Find Match", cannon rush your opponent, rinse and repeat. They had 10 years to get this right, and what we get is a gimped version of Xbox Live coloured Space-Cliche-Blue.
Well, it is a sequel. What fans wanted fans got. I would hate to have got a completely changed game (see what happened to DA2). They changed enough to make the game different but still similar (actually I see competitive players arguing all day that game was changed to much in comparison to SC1 and lost the greatness of SC1 because of it). As for social interaction It is a RTS game, if you want social interaction go to Facebook. Or better go to Team Liquid website.
My issues are all reasonable issues to have. Yet, no professional review reflected this. Why? Because it's a major entry in a major franchise from a major publisher who spent major bucks on major production values at the cost of everything else. For example, Tychus was added into the game after the reveal trailer went public. Considering the time frame involved, and how many cut-scenes feature Tychus, it's clear Blizzard spent more time ensuring their regional restrictions worked and couldn't be circumvented than they did on ensuring the single player campaign was entertaining. It was thrown together. Blizzard spent one hundred million dollars on Battle.net 0.2 and Starcraft II, and it received massive review scores despite being a mere copy paste from Starcraft with better graphics and cut-scenes, and a multiplayer component that is devoid of social interaction. An 8/10 in my books. Not 10/10, and certainly not better than Starcraft.
Production values = review score. This is the issue.
Well reviewers thought like many many fans that story and single player missions are great and like me didn't see a problem with social part (- lack of chat). I agree that the game is not worth 10/10 but 9.5 it is.