With Starcraft they begin to make "each campaign is linked and nobody has a total victory with the destruction of the other factions". In older rts they did a campaign that progress until the enemy is destroyed and the capital razed or last territory captured, but then they get upset when they choose a canon ending when they develop a sequel.
Yes, and? SC1 ends with everyone destroyed, and BW ends with the zerg killing everyone else, so it's a distinction without a difference. This isn't progress, this is just a creative decision and it's hardly the only one. Arguably, it's a worse one.
Another option is for the stories to occur concurrently (at the same time), as in Tiberian Sun Firestorm and Tiberium Wars.
The problem with having them occur sequentially, as in Blizz campaigns, is that it weakens the individual stories by forcing them to continue the previous story rather than telling their own that happens to tie in with the others. In SC1, the alien campaigns suffered hugely because they were reduced to continuations of the terran story. They couldn't stand on their own and didn't really make sense because key details were omitted and you never saw their perspective during previous campaigns.
Clearly, having the campaigns occur concurrently and allowing you to play them in any order is the better option.
Really, what do you expect them to do?
Warcraft 1 hasn't a better style than 2? In 2 you have the book and the battles are chapters, in 1 you get the briefing by your bosses. Also in Warcraft 1 in the orc campaign you can betray the big boss to take the power that while has no effect is a cool concept. Dune 2 you had to choose the map, wasn't possible in any warcraft.
This is an LP of the WC2 campaign:
The briefings are a disembodied voice telling you what to do. It is crude and rudimentary compared even to games that came out around the same time, like Command & Conquer's FMV briefings.
Emperor Battle for Dune had a super cheesy story (and early 3d engine and bad design for some units) but still allowed to recruit mutually exclusive subfaction. Harkonne could even decide their baron. The ending battle was always the same but was cool. Only Age of Wonders did better but it wasn't a rts.
Ok? What is your point here? I am a Westwood fan and I have a soft spot for it, but I'll be the first to admit that nobody remembers that game outside of diehard Westwood fans. The story isn't actively nonsensical like Blizz stories are, but clearly it never got very popular. It doesn't even have a lore explained video anywhere on youtube. The mechanics are more complex than many other games at the time, sure, but since then other games used those mechanics and improved upon them. For example, Dawn of War Dark Crusade had more complex metamap mechanics, with territories granting distinct benefits.
Also did Starcraft started the trend or was Dark Reign? I remember that Dark Reign allowed to choose a faction but despite your results the winner and the historical outcome of the battle was already chosen.
In retrospect that comes across as stupid and insulting. "Oh, you like this faction? Fuck you, they got obliterated." It's one the reasons why I find Blizz stories so terrible. You invest in their struggles, then the writer arbitrarily kills them off for the sake of cheap drama, over and over again. Meanwhile, stupid annoying characters you want to see die horribly get favored by the writer.
In any case, storytelling and world building has never been a strong suit in RTS. The most memorable moments are Mengsk betraying Raynor and Arthas joining the dark side, which happened over two decades ago. Nobody remembers the other stories, even in the same game as those moments, and the storytelling and world building is nothing to write home about.
I guess the 40k games have deep lore worth investing in, but that's only because those games are spin-offs of a tabletop wargame that has been going strong for three decades and received hundreds of books. Even then, it still suffers from problems like the Ultrasmurfs and Robot Girlyman.
