Was Storyline a secondary objective?

After playing the game I must say the gameplay is epicly fun. However, I do not play starcraft just for online gameplay or the fun maps I can create or these nifty new challenges (all of these are quite fun and cool) but I played Starcraft 1 and Brood War because the storyline was just so awesome. Now I will try not to spoil anything but did it feel like to anyone that of the 26 or so missions that about 6+ were just pointless fillers/side missions?

What did tosh contribute to storyline?

What did all the artifact missions contribute to storyline? (sure one but however many?)

maybe I missed something but it just felt that all their effort was put into multiplayer and the storyline was thrown to the side. At most I felt as though I played those first set of terran missions from SC1 and a bunch of other little missions that meant very little. I know they are coming out with the two expansions but couldnt they have done a little more with the storyline?

 

I only read the first paragraph of your post (I've only played up through The Outbreak, don't wanna spoil anything for myself) but I think the "filler missions" are a necessary evil that comes with the choice system. Some will seem almost completely inconsequential to the main plot and do nothing more than net you some cash. I don't really mind it though - we have two expansions coming up for StarCraft II, which will amount to a truly epic campaign once they're all released.

 

Yeah, you should notice that the missions that seem like filler are the ones that end up in a choice. That's so Blizzard doesn't have to make multiple story lines, where one major character may be alive in one story but dead in another, so everyone will know the same canon story for the main characters like Jim Raynor and Tychus Findlay.

 

I think that most missions are filler.Only the invasion on char is actual storyline,as well as zeratul's memories.
What I mean is that there is no twisting storyline like in the previous versions.it was just mercenary missions that end up in an invasion completely out of the blue.

I was dissapointed by the story.Most of the things that are presented we could imagine that would happen.

 

The fillers are for character development and to help get to know the plight of raynor and his companions. They fill in background information about the starcraft world, and are like side missions in any other game seeing how all of them are not even required...

When someone reads a book or see a movie think about how much of that was essential to getting to the ending and climax of the story. In a 2 hour movie maybe 45 minutes of it has a DIRECT impact on the main plot point. However, the rest of the story allows you to find reason to care for the characters involved and see what makes them tick and get a clue into what their world is like.... Sure they could have told the story in starcraft 2 in about 5 missions, but if they had would you have cared? Would you have felt like it had been a trying and difficult process going from a burnt out rebellion to the saviors of the galaxy?

I thought the story was superbly well done and aside from a few instances of poor dialogue and voice acting it was one of the best video game stories I have seen in a while. If you think storytelling is only furthering the main plot points and there is nothing else involved I am very sorry...

 

About 8 of the missions really led to nothing in Wings of Liberty... I don't think Blizzard intended that. Looking at the previews and videos of the development process, I think they really tried to make the choice system work for the game (which I think is part of the reason they separated SC2 into three games in the first place), but I don't think it was executed as well has they hoped.

There are a couple filler story arcs that end with you choosing the outcome at the very end. In retrospect, I think this was a terrible idea, because Blizzard can't return to these characters/stories, weave them into the main story, or even build off of them. So players see this as filler and a waste of time, they don't really develop important characters - not as much as a sidestory or a main plot point cant ... They're just there... To consume time - As filler.

The way I see it, Blizzard tried something new, and some players didn't like it - myself included - because it took away substance from the story. I was hoping to see more missions focusing on (or flashback missions since I don't read the books) Matt/Raynor, Tychus/Raynor, the Dominion, or perhaps some of the other Hyperion characters that I didn't recognize from the first game. Oh well ... Mistakes happens when you experiment, unfortunately Blizzard didn't have a the luxury of open beta to get feedback from its community.

I just really hope Blizzard doesn’t create another “choice” system in HotS or at least have the consequences be less dramatic so they can weave the story arcs together, because 8-10 missions is a lot of time - and can build a lot of story. I’d rather play out missions that drive a story than a mission that allows me to choose one unit over the other – or choose one side of tech points over the other… I'd rather be dragged along like cattle - like in SC1, BW, and the last 2/3 of WoL, because those missions knocked my socks off.