[Spoon]

Im looking to buy WOL, if the storylines poo is the gameplay at least good? I don't remember the storyline of SC1 being all that great.

The gameplay is great
The campaign itself has a lot of variety in its missions and never gets stale

[Scourge of Ages]

Spoiler:

And then comes the whole "I give you the chance to make Kerrigan human again"-thing and Raynor obviously forgets who the Queen of Blades is/what she has done/etc etc pp and just thinks about humping Kerrigan again.
HotS puts a bit of logic back into him by following the lovestory pattern established at the end of WoL but again cares nothing for connecting back to SC or BW but in shout-out "you killed my friend" without any strings attached.

[An4ximandros]

 That comic. Fecking genius.

As for the off-topic C&C story disc. It ends in the Nod ending of Tib Sun, so I do not get the problems here. (Could it be moved to a new thread please?)

[wistler]

My favourite story in a RTS is still World In Conflict. That was a RTS that made me care.

[Spoon]

My favourite story in a RTS is still World In Conflict. That was a RTS that made me care.

As a non american, I found it hard to really care.
And the (voice)acting kinda became tiresome after a while in WiC.

Doesnt take away that it was a great game imho though.

[An4ximandros]

 It is hard to find any RTS/RTT game that makes you care for the characters or the setting. There is a huge disconnection caused by the way the gameplay is done: "They blew up that factory with all the workers inside? No problem! Just queue up another one."

 The gameplay & the story must work together to make us want to care. RTS/RTTs are bad at this simply because of their mechanics, or at least their execution is not well done.

[General Battuta]

It is hard to find any RTS/RTT game that makes you care for the characters or the setting. There is a huge disconnection caused by the way the gameplay is done: "They blew up that factory with all the workers inside? No problem! Just queue up another one."

 The gameplay & the story must work together to make us want to care. RTS/RTTs are bad at this simply because of their mechanics, or at least their execution is not well done.

Homeworld, Ground Control 2, MechCommander, XCOM

[BloodEagle]

Ground Control 2 had terrible gameplay compared to the first.  I actually couldn't finish it because it was so bad.

[IronBeer]

XCOM (old, but especially new) is one of the few strategy games that truly made me care for the lives of my troops, above and beyond simple loss management. The only other strategy/tactics game I can readily recall that also has that "caring potential" is the Fire Emblem series.

OT: StarCraft definitely doesn't have that same feeling, except for the hero units in the campaigns. Hell, some matchups basically require sacrificing your units to win (Zerg v. Protoss, anybody?).

[An4ximandros]

Homeworld, Ground Control 2, MechCommander, XCOM

 Homeworld: Only cared about banana ship.
 GC2: Never played it so I can't say.
 MechCommander: Never gave a damn except about m1n3 l33t p1lot5
 XCOM: Never played it. From what I've seen it's one of the games that pulls it right, with the full customization the players they develop a bond to their squads.

[General Battuta]

Ground Control 2 had terrible gameplay compared to the first.  I actually couldn't finish it because it was so bad.

I finished them both! Your definition of 'terrible' is unfortunately pretty terrible - they each had their strengths

Homeworld, Ground Control 2, MechCommander, XCOM

 Homeworld: Only cared about banana ship.
 GC2: Never played it so I can't say.
 MechCommander: Never gave a damn except about m1n3 l33t p1lot5
 XCOM: Never played it. From what I've seen it's one of the games that pulls it right, with the full customization the players they develop a bond to their squads.

In other words 'point conceded'; thanks

[An4ximandros]

 They are exceptions over the rule. You get that, right? 4‱

[Scourge of Ages]

Oh, also Cyberstorm was a mech tactics game that made you start to care about your pilots, in much the same way that XCOM did.

[General Battuta]

They are exceptions over the rule. You get that, right? 4‱

The 'rule' is wrong; there are no structural impediments to an RTS making you care about its characters or story. In fact they're ripe for the kind of emergent narrative that really gets people attached to their units. The problem is simply that most designers don't leverage this space.

[NGTM-1R]

They are exceptions over the rule. You get that, right? 4‱

Even something as impersonalized as Harpoon you can get very attached to effective or lucky units. (And Harpoon is ultra-impersonalized.) The little computer guys, they're fighting for you, and that's a very powerful motivator to make you care. RTS/TBS/RTT have a huge advantage to make you care about such things.

[BloodEagle]

Ground Control 2 had terrible gameplay compared to the first.  I actually couldn't finish it because it was so bad.

I finished them both! Your definition of 'terrible' is unfortunately pretty terrible - they each had their strengths

I suppose if I'd played them out of order I would have given the second one more of a chance.  But I was expecting good, in-depth, tactically sound gameplay as per the first and got rote C&C/SC/Whatever ZERG-****ING-RUSH instead, which is something I've never enjoyed.

So, yeah. The second game's gameplay sucked compared to the first.  (yay, opinions!)

---

On the topic of getting the player to care about characters (or units) in RTSs, the first Ground Control did that pretty well.

[Suongadon]

Oh, also Cyberstorm was a mech tactics game that made you start to care about your pilots, in much the same way that XCOM did.

Care like 'yo, this cloned-cannon-fodder-slave-soldiers **** is a really really bad idea', or care like 'I can't lose Naj-Zero cause he's the bestest cybrid slaying superman ever, i'ma gonna throw the rest of them at that Nihilus so he doesn't die?'


Also: No mention of dawn of war? Speess Mariness!

[General Battuta]

They are exceptions over the rule. You get that, right? 4‱

Even something as impersonalized as Harpoon you can get very attached to effective or lucky units. (And Harpoon is ultra-impersonalized.) The little computer guys, they're fighting for you, and that's a very powerful motivator to make you care. RTS/TBS/RTT have a huge advantage to make you care about such things.

Nanuchka III Glint o7 o7 o7

[General Battuta]

Ground Control 2 had terrible gameplay compared to the first.  I actually couldn't finish it because it was so bad.

I finished them both! Your definition of 'terrible' is unfortunately pretty terrible - they each had their strengths

I suppose if I'd played them out of order I would have given the second one more of a chance.  But I was expecting good, in-depth, tactically sound gameplay as per the first and got rote C&C/SC/Whatever ZERG-****ING-RUSH instead, which is something I've never enjoyed.

So, yeah. The second game's gameplay sucked compared to the first.  (yay, opinions!)

They weren't as spectacularly different as you want them to be. In comparison the first was notable mostly for being staggeringly easy once you had its basic loop down. The second wasn't super hard either but at least wasn't as trivially broken over your knee.

I spent a lot of hours on both of them but would have trouble picking a clear favorite.

[StarSlayer]

I was super mournful when one of my M60 Rise Pattons, who had fought hard and leveled to max veterancy over the course of the entire multi match, ate an ATGM in the last minute of the game.  AH-64s burninated the som'***** responsible and the match was won but my enrampagement for Sgt. Lopez and his tank crew was not slaked.