Criticism of RTS Storytelling

In the opening cinematic of Warcraft 3, Medivh barges into King Terenas’ court, tells them to evacuate the continent, and then acts surprised when nobody takes him seriously. What was he expecting? This is a stereotypical cliché loony prophet trope. I know it’s meant to be mysterious for the audience’s benefit, but in-character it makes no sense. If he wants anyone to believe him, then he should be putting on a powerpoint presentation explaining the Legion’s plans and formulating a counterattack. But he doesn’t, because that would break the plot. This is just sloppy writing, and I’m not the first  to think so .

I know this blog was originally about Starcraft 1, but I've gotten bored of that and want to move on to other topics. Such as bad writing in Warcraft 3! (Terrible joke, I know). For example, Arthas' fall to darkness doesn't sit well with me. Ignoring all the hot takes about "he was a born sociopath" from Sylvanas stans, in the original game his arc is obviously intended to be a tragedy where a well-meaning hero is tortured and gaslit by the villains until he goes crazy and joins them. The problem is that key parts of this narrative undermine the emotional arc. When Arthas culls Stratholme, Uther and Jaina just leave rather than try and stop him. This goes against their personalities! But the writer forces them to act this way because it would break the plot. This is bad writing. (BTW, Stratholme was supposed to be an impossible situation. There was literally nothing Arthas could've done that would've made any difference. I have problem with how this makes ...

SC1 opens with a cinematic where the protoss incinerate Chau Sara. Throughout episode 1 the protoss pose an ever-present danger of planetary incineration. Several planets including Mar Sara and Antiga Prime are incinerated. After episode 1, however, the protoss seemed to forget they had planet glassing  lasers . They never use the lasers in later episodes where they would be convenient. Tassadar never tries to laser zerg positions on Char. The protoss never laser zerg positions on Aiur in the middle of an invasion. Tassadar kamikazes his carrier into Overmind rather than using the laser. They never explain why they cannot, either. Altho the lasers are used for destroying whole planets, we usually see this being done by dozens of carriers at a time. It is reasonable to deduce that the damage is proportional to the duration of the firing and the number of lasers used. So it could work as an orbital canon to strike strategically viable positions. The starcraft story was  develope...

To follow my older post about how the protoss had no reason to listen to Kerry, here’s some reasons why Kerry had no reason to help them either. Ignoring the nonsense logistics of how Kerry found Shakuras, got there in record time, compromised Raz before she arrived, and already knew about the relevance of the Khalis… Kerry had no reason to help the protoss refugees in the first place. What does she do? Tell them the location of Khalis. That’s all she does. What does she gain from this? Nothing. The protoss never actually trust her at any point. (I made the mistake of saying they “trusted” her before, but they really keep her at arm’s length. All Raz does is let her speak.) She burns any chance of building a bridge by publicly murdering Aldaris. The protoss benefit by activating the plot device temple. But Kerry doesn’t gain anything. The protoss don’t kill the second overmind for her. She doesn’t gain their trust. They only let her go free because of plot-induced stupidity, but even t...

One of the common criticisms of SC2 is that it alternately removes Raynor’s agency by making reliant on Tychus to tell him what to do and makes his few independent decisions driven by idiotic sociopathic horniness for Kerry. Thing is, this is also true of his character in SC1 OG and BW. It’s not a new thing. Raynor is passive, reactive, callous, sociopathic, and lacking in coherent motives or values. He’s pulled along by the plot, rarely makes independent decisions when given a choice, and his few independent decisions are usually nonsensical to drive the plot forward. Despite this, the writers expect us to think he’s the hero of the story (nevermind that he appears inconsistently across campaigns). Examples: In Raynor’s first appearance, he makes the decision to help Magistrate clear out the zerg. He doesn’t really have a choice, given that it’s a genocidal alien invasion. But it establishes he’s willing to put his life on the line for the greater good.  Later, Raynor is forced to...

 The UED were introduced via retcon in BW, and were not originally planned as part of the franchise. The BW website at the time of release made no mention of the UED, but only stated that "Terran Emperor Mengsk I...must now turn his attention to...a conspiracy deep within his own ranks."  In order to explain why the UED wasn't mentioned in the SC1 manual or OG campaigns, the BW manual states that  the UPL secretly spied on Koprulu for centuries and then reformed as the UED when they saw the protoss and zerg ravage Koprulu. There are several problems with this retcon. How did the UPL secretly spy on Koprulu for centuries and without being discovered? In order for this to work, they would need human agents to infiltrate the colonies and remain both loyal and undetected over multiple generations. This is simply unbelievable, but it gets even more unbelievable from there. The UPL decided not only to secretly spy on Koprulu, but to keep Earth's and Koprulu's existence...