Warcraft III: Refunded General - How one company managed to mess up a remaster of a 17 year old game.

[Fougaro]

Kerrigan went from a really fun villain in Broodwar to the most insufferable character in any Blizzard game. Waifufags were a mistake.

I can actually get behind the idea if you want to give her sort of a redemption arc in face of a greater threat. In Heart of the Swarm I even liked her interactions with her zerg minions and allies. I'll even go as far and say that some of the missions were fun. But dear God was everything else a mistake. Kerrigan was the Queen Bitch of the universe, responsible for millions if not billions of deaths, including OG characters like Aldaris, Duke and Fenix. But not even Kerrigan deserved the treatment she got from the writing staff.

I'm also miffed about how they retroactively ruined the Errverrmind and almost ruined Tassadar had it not been for Legacy of the Void.

 

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

As they're already planning with Diablo IV.

Diablo IV Is Online-Only

You can play Diablo IV on your own, but Blizzard insists a connection is maintained at all times for the game to function.

www.pcmag.com

So basically they learned nothing from Diablo III.

 

[Fougaro]

So basically they learned nothing from Diablo III.

Under normal circumstances I'd say that Blizzard actually learned the right lesson as in no matter how Jewish and anti-consumerist they get, they'll still have a substantial legion of consooming paypiggies. Given the latest developments however, they might have circumcised themselves prematurely.

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

The contrast between Path of Exile and Diablo 3 is embarrassing as hell for Blizzard and I don't know how Diablo 4 will compete with a Path of Exile 2.

I can actually get behind the idea if you want to give her sort of a redemption arc in face of a greater threat.

Only if it still has realistic consequences for her actions and doesn't just absolve her with "lol she was infested so it doesn't count" despite changing her having free will from a mere implication to an explicit plot point in the very same game.

 

[Fougaro]

(...) "lol she was infested so it doesn't count" despite changing her having free will from a mere implication to an explicit plot point in the very same game.

"Let her go, Zasz. The greatness of her spirit has been left to her; that the Swarms might benefit from her fierce example."

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

Then of course the second the Overmind is dead she goes full "fuck it I'm queen now" and screws over everyone that was on her side. I mean, yeah, that's something ebul corrupted infested lady would do. But it's also something brainwashed childsoldier assassin who got betrayed multiple times would do. And flying in the face of the CORRUPTION thing, she actually feels kinda bad about fucking over Raynor. Though it doesn't even come close to stopping her.

Then in SC2 the whole plot introduced in Wings of Liberty is that the Overmind deliberately left her totally free so she'd be immune to Xel'naga influence. Though why he didn't just do that to the rest of the Swarm I dunno.

 

[Fougaro]

Then of course the second the Overmind is dead she goes full "fuck it I'm queen now" and screws over everyone that was on her side. I mean, yeah, that's something ebul corrupted infested lady would do. But it's also something brainwashed childsoldier assassin who got betrayed multiple times would do. And flying in the face of the CORRUPTION thing, she actually feels kinda bad about fucking over Raynor. Though it doesn't even come close to stopping her.

Then in SC2 the whole plot introduced in Wings of Liberty is that the Overmind deliberately left her totally free so she'd be immune to Xel'naga influence. Though why he didn't just do that to the rest of the Swarm I dunno.

I remember reading in the manual that Kerrigan was the Confederate assassin that killed and beheaded Mengsk's father, which Mengsk paid her back by leaving her on Tarsonis to get gangbanged by the zerg, which in turn backfired spectacularly and lead to her becoming the Queen of Blades taking revenge on a universe that wronged her, which finally lead to Jim Raynor, the only man that ever genuinely loved her, becoming a mortal enemy. It's almost like Elfen Lied if it wasn't complete and utter garbage.

Kerrigan retaining her free will after her rebirth into the swarm does actually fit perfectly well in the theme of the Overmind and the zerg as a whole, which is evolution for evolution's sake. The Overmind's goal was to finish what the Xel'Naga had started, which he states at the end of the zerg campaign. As for Wings of Liberty, while I think it makes sense for the Overmind to pick Kerrigan as the successor in case something happens to him and the cerebrates, Amon's influence was so unnecessary and needlessly mutilated the plot.

But as it has been stated, the writing took a backseat because muh eSports and Metzen's potential George Lucas syndrome.

 

[Jaimas]

I got a friend who absolutely loves Starcraft 2's story, but fucking hates the character inconsistency.

He's brought up on a few occasions that he doesn't know how much of that is Metzen losing his mind and how much was intended pandering that just failed.

EDIT: This is fucking amazing.

 

[Harvey Danger]

I.... Holy shit, you need to see this.

https://archive.li/wip/DvJzp

....It's entirely possible to load the UI via any browser window and you could load malicious code this way.

That's moronic if it's still how it was on release. The tweet is from October, it might have just been a debug setup; I haven't seen a followup by that account.

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

I remember reading in the manual that Kerrigan was the Confederate assassin that killed and beheaded Mengsk's father, which Mengsk paid her back by leaving her on Tarsonis to get gangbanged by the zerg, which in turn backfired spectacularly and lead to her becoming the Queen of Blades taking revenge on a universe that wronged her, which finally lead to Jim Raynor, the only man that ever genuinely loved her, becoming a mortal enemy. It's almost like Elfen Lied if it wasn't complete and utter garbage.

Kerrigan retaining her free will after her rebirth into the swarm does actually fit perfectly well in the theme of the Overmind and the zerg as a whole, which is evolution for evolution's sake. The Overmind's goal was to finish what the Xel'Naga had started, which he states at the end of the zerg campaign. As for Wings of Liberty, while I think it makes sense for the Overmind to pick Kerrigan as the successor in case something happens to him and the cerebrates, Amon's influence was so unnecessary and needlessly mutilated the plot.

But as it has been stated, the writing took a backseat because muh eSports and Metzen's potential George Lucas syndrome.

Come to think of it the way the Overmind is portrayed in the original Zerg Campaign I'd think he'd actually be fine with getting consumed by some uber zerg/protoss hybrid if it was actually just a superior way for the Swarm to advance.

And yeah pretty much, Kerrigan has a cool story and arc and everything and it's completely thrown away. Mengsk is fucked too in Starcraft 2, with all nuance and even basic competence removed from him. What happened to the charismatic terrorist that overthrew the strongest Terran power in the sector only to replace them? Why can't he handle a simple news conference?

 

[Marissa Moira]

Purple hair icon lady is apparently called Maxine Virtue(that's her given name in the credits).

No experience in games and she was literally just put on the team for brownie points.

She formerly was a marketer.

Anyways this is the quality of people that Blizzard is hiring.

 

[CIA Nigger]

So basically they learned nothing from Diablo III.

It's not like it has to be online only because the console ports featured an offline and splitscreen mode. They just want more money because using DRM will totally stop those filthy pirates. There's been a mindset from PC game developers since around 2007 that "we'd make more money if it weren't for those pesky pirates" to the point where previously PC centric developers like Epic and Crytek became console developers too.

On a related note I fired up GameRanger (a service used for playing shutdown or pirated games online) and there are literally tons of Warcraft III Frozen Throne lobbies. I wouldn't be shocked if the player count went up thanks to the fact that the remake is a piece of shit.

 

[Fougaro]

Come to think of it the way the Overmind is portrayed in the original Zerg Campaign I'd think he'd actually be fine with getting consumed by some uber zerg/protoss hybrid if it was actually just a superior way for the Swarm to advance.

And yeah pretty much, Kerrigan has a cool story and arc and everything and it's completely thrown away. Mengsk is fucked too in Starcraft 2, with all nuance and even basic competence removed from him. What happened to the charismatic terrorist that overthrew the strongest Terran power in the sector only to replace them? Why can't he handle a simple news conference?

I disagree. The OG Overmind would have most likely tried to consume and assimilate Amon and his hybrids. It was basically more or less an alien eldritch horror version of Skynet. It turned against its creators, but it still continued with the directive it was programmed. This is why Amon corrupting the Overmind was so painfully unnecessary. If you take that little tumor away, you'd still have something presentable if not good: The Overmind's sole reason to create Kerrigan was for her, due to her massive psionic potential, to become the Queen of the Swarm should something happen to him and the cerebrates, especially when Zasz was permakilled. Her, the greatest genocidal mass murderer in recorded human history, being instrumental to saving the universe from Amon was according to Bob Ross a happy accident.

But I fully agree with what they did to Mengsk. He almost became like Scar from the Lion King, as in he exchanged a functioning brain for the crown.

I got a friend who absolutely loves Starcraft 2's story, but fucking hates the character inconsistency.

He's brought up on a few occasions that he doesn't know how much of that is Metzen losing his mind and how much was intended pandering that just failed.

EDIT: This is fucking amazing.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=G3uYm8RUuCc

I actually share your friend's sentiment to a degree. The problem with Starcraft 2's writing is that you have character inconsistencies that completely fuck up the story and rob it of its amazing potential. To bring up Heart of the Swarm again, the ideas and direction on their own were actually good, such as Kerrigan starting to feel genuine guilt, asking herself if it was all worth it and most ironically expressing her human side through her interactions with other zerg characters. God help me, I even unironically loved the mission where Kerrigan and Duran had the Dragon Ball Z laser beam struggle like a reenactment of the first Goku vs. Vegeta fight. It was so retarded it was awesome. Starcraft meets Dragon Ball Z, it was like I was 16 again.

If I had to rewrite the entirety of Starcraft 2, I'd only make some minor changes. But as you can see, even minor changes can be very impactful.

And finally, the one good thing to come out of the Warcraft III remake's disaster are the memes.

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

I think this is the first instance of a company literally coming for your old game and fucking with it. This is worse than what EA pulled with Darkspore and if it's not it certainly ranks up there.

You're going to need to unplug the internet to play games. What's to stop Bethesda for fucking with morrowind and removing all the problematic content? You're going to need to invest in an OG Xbox Copy of the GOTY edition. Even GOG isn't safe after what Gearbox did with the Duke Nukem collection.

I hope Ross puts up a video about this since he's pretty well versed in software rights.

The GOTY edition of Morrowind for PC is still very easy to get. There's also the TES Anthology that came out in 2013. They can't tamper with the discs. Maybe newer printings of the Anthology, but not the older GOTY ones.

A better example would be Skyrim. That one has tons of stuff that is unwoke for a game from 2011 and is hard to get without internet connection on PC. This is excluding piracy.

 

[GethN7]

On the Starcraft 2 story part everyone else has discussed, my personal changes:

Wings of Liberty: Mengsk's little fallback plan to kill Raynor should have happened sooner and not after he had gotten a ton of his own troops and resources killed or ganked from him. Preferably before his own words came back to haunt him.

Heart of the Swarm: Mengsk being an utter moron here enraged me. His ultimate plans in this game baffle me in their sheer idiocy.

Legacy of the Void: I can live with Amon, they were hinting at him as early as that secret mission in the first game's Protoss Brood War expansion, but the writing was otherwise convenient shit pulled out of the writer's asses. The Spear of Adun was a total "and they never bothered to hint at it before?" And that was the tip of the iceberg of crap pulled out of writer's asses.

Overall, I enjoyed SC2 on a gameplay level, but the writing was utter shit in the areas mentioned above.



On WC3 remaster fail, they had one damn job if they wanted to keep fans: Make a remaster of a beloved game and not screw up all the good things said game did, and they managed to fuck it up anyway out of sheer hubris, greed, and arrogance.

 

[Tealeaf]

Honestly all I wanted from SC2 is Brood War all over again. Backstabbing and conspiracy pileups, planetary genocides, nuclear fire from orbital platforms, all that jazz. A little sprinkling of lore here and there if you want to look for it. Written in the familiar 90s way where the player is a grunt that barely gets straight info and mostly follows orders from people with dishonest or obscure motivations, up until his exceptional capacity to command armies earns him enough reliable allies for the final mission of the campaign. And some things are made clear, with many more questions raised.

I didn’t finish the WoL campaign and never got the expansion packs.

To me, the WC3 blunder is just one more disappointment in a long series of disappointments. And it was shaping up well, as Blizzard actually did do long overdue engine updates to classic WC3. Only to throw the whole thing away lmao.

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

I disagree. The OG Overmind would have most likely tried to consume and assimilate Amon and his hybrids. It was basically more or less an alien eldritch horror version of Skynet. It turned against its creators, but it still continued with the directive it was programmed. This is why Amon corrupting the Overmind was so painfully unnecessary. If you take that little tumor away, you'd still have something presentable if not good: The Overmind's sole reason to create Kerrigan was for her, due to her massive psionic potential, to become the Queen of the Swarm should something happen to him and the cerebrates, especially when Zasz was permakilled. Her, the greatest genocidal mass murderer in recorded human history, being instrumental to saving the universe from Amon was according to Bob Ross a happy accident.

But I fully agree with what they did to Mengsk. He almost became like Scar from the Lion King, as in he exchanged a functioning brain for the crown.


I actually share your friend's sentiment to a degree. The problem with Starcraft 2's writing is that you have character inconsistencies that completely fuck up the story and rob it of its amazing potential. To bring up Heart of the Swarm again, the ideas and direction on their own were actually good, such as Kerrigan starting to feel genuine guilt, asking herself if it was all worth it and most ironically expressing her human side through her interactions with other zerg characters. God help me, I even unironically loved the mission where Kerrigan and Duran had the Dragon Ball Z laser beam struggle like a reenactment of the first Goku vs. Vegeta fight. It was so exceptional it was awesome. Starcraft meets Dragon Ball Z, it was like I was 16 again.

If I had to rewrite the entirety of Starcraft 2, I'd only make some minor changes. But as you can see, even minor changes can be very impactful.

And finally, the one good thing to come out of the Warcraft III remake's disaster are the memes.

De-infesting Kerrigan was retarded from the start.

 

[Fougaro]

De-infesting Kerrigan was exceptional from the start.

I can actually see something workable done, but for most part you're right. I personally kinda liked the primal zerg arc.

On the Starcraft 2 story part everyone else has discussed, my personal changes:

Wings of Liberty: Mengsk's little fallback plan to kill Raynor should have happened sooner and not after he had gotten a ton of his own troops and resources killed or ganked from him. Preferably before his own words came back to haunt him.

Heart of the Swarm: Mengsk being an utter moron here enraged me. His ultimate plans in this game baffle me in their sheer idiocy.

Legacy of the Void: I can live with Amon, they were hinting at him as early as that secret mission in the first game's Protoss Brood War expansion, but the writing was otherwise convenient shit pulled out of the writer's asses. The Spear of Adun was a total "and they never bothered to hint at it before?" And that was the tip of the iceberg of crap pulled out of writer's asses.

Overall, I enjoyed SC2 on a gameplay level, but the writing was utter shit in the areas mentioned above.

I'd have a similar approach, but most important aspect would be to remove Amon's influence from the zerg swarm - especially Kerrigan, which would make Kerrigan's redemption arc more emotional and memorable.

On WC3 remaster fail, they had one damn job if they wanted to keep fans: Make a remaster of a beloved game and not screw up all the good things said game did, and they managed to fuck it up anyway out of sheer hubris, greed, and arrogance.

To keep it in the spirit of Starcraft's theme of cruel ironies, can you imagine if as a result of this debacle the devs who worked on the remake that got fucked over by Blizzard pack their shit and not only make their own studio with blackjack and hookers, but also a similar game that is actually good and becomes stupidly popular? Blizzard would get their second Dota scenario, but not in the way they intended.

And if that wasn't cruel enough, may God help them if Diablo IV flops.

 

[GethN7]

De-infesting Kerrigan was exceptional from the start.

Thing is, she was never COMPLETELY de-infested. She got most of the changes reverted, but still retained some Zerg DNA, she just had the sociopathy from her initial infestation removed.

When she got re-Zerged back to her old self (only purple this time), this time she retained her conscience and this time she didn't have to worry about her connection to the Swarm being used against her.

That's logical. Granted, I can see where people would hate what happened to her character after that, but the logic behind that does hold.

 

[Smug Chuckler]

Purple hair icon lady is apparently called Maxine Virtue(that's her given name in the credits).

Associate Producer, ah another bullshit affirmative action role.