Not making a Single Player Campaign is a huge mistake

You're not very good at this. Let me help.

Comparing PA to Counterstrike is like comparing a spaceship with 5/7ths of a Roman chariot.

See? Now it's amazing.

League of Legends is the most popular game in the world.

And it does have a story, the story is that people play the multiplayer:

I'm not sure if you're being serious, in which case I'll just say that PA also has lore to justify the fighting. That's quite obviously not what the OP meant though.

I know, I was being silly for your example....kinda, LOL's story is entirely based on playing the MP to settle political disputes.

Not being able to use every building is simply their way of training people to play the game.
Sure, a veteran player might find it constrictive. But somebody who never played before can be eased into the game and learn it's specifics before being overwhelmed by the options.
Like Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis and ArmA 3's campaigns start you off as a simple soldier following orders, before eventually letting you take control of your own squad. You need to understand the fundamentals of the game first before you take on too much responsibility which is frustrating because it's overwhelming.

And while I generally agree that most RTS campaigns have been unfulfilling (Age of Empires, Empire Earth) etc. that is mainly because they are simply skirmishes with an intro and an outro.
Things CAN be done differently though, as proven by Starcraft 2. The campaigns Wings of Liberty and Hearth of the Swarm are simply brilliant and highly enjoyable, because each scenario has it's own unique spin on the gameplay. The campaign is elevated above simple skirmishes with a backstory, because one mission might have you defend a base at night against swarms of infected units, while venturing out to destroy their nests during the day while they are dormant. Another one has you racing ahead of a wall of fire that is burning through everything, caused by the planet flying too close to the sun. Another one has the lower area's of the map being flooded by lava, like an ebb and tide, where everybody has to retreat to higher ground.
These add unique and interesting twists that are a lot of fun to play. It is highly creative, and the story on the background is very fun to follow too because of the advanced cinematics, and then there is the metagame where you can upgrade units with units or resources you earn while playing missions or simply finishing missions. It is a highly engaging game, so there is hope for the RTS genre to have fun single player campaigns.

If that is possible for PA yet... I don't think so. Maybe for an expansion, or a PA2?

You do realize that all that was was an opinion right? Anyway just for the sake of debate I will reply.

That is what a tutorial is for and not a campaign. Why would a player want to play a campaign that is basically a 4 to 10 hour long tutorial when he/she can get that same information in a few minutes from a well thought out tutorial.

Yes there are ways to do things different that can be engaging to the player, but I feel that most players that play these types of games want to play with all the units in a balanced environment vs the AI or another human player to improve/prove their skill. Those "cinematics" that add unique gameplay could be done by custom maps or in this case planets. Then the player can play those in many different scenarios with or with out another human player.

Yes I think that those types of maps would only come out after release.

As far as the metagame, who knows what will be in the galactic war seing as it is a metagame in of itself.

Chess never had singleplayer campaign but it's with us for over 1000y and still refuse to die . Truth is that most important is multiplayer and game ability to be played over and over again and still feel challenging for the player - single player campaign is for one, max two playthroughs and then it's going to the bin.

You're judging replayability as key to a game's success, but I don't think Blizzard invest huge sums of money into their campaign cinematics for no reason.

Well Blizzard is far from hurting when it comes to cash flow and the cinematics make for great marketing material as well so it works 2-for-1 in some cases as well.

Mike

you've got the main bullet points of the development, what to expect, and why from the previous posts.

I'm just going to bring you in from the cold a little bit and agree with you. I feel the same way. I'm mostly a single player kinda guy, be it vs. the AI or a campaign. I really enjoyed C&C campaigns too, esp with the campy cutscenes. It was fun!

But this is a different game. Still a lot of fun to be had, if you let go your expectations and open yourself up to something new. Westwood is gone. Forever. (thanks, EA).

There is some lore around here, somewhere. Doesn't interest me, I haven't looked for it and personally don't care about it... but if you're looking to find something to hang your hat on to help get you invested in the game, just forum search for "lore"

A single player campaign may impact considerably on the budget, specially if involves cinematics and possibly a top notch plot.