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Tenebrais posted:Honestly hydrogen makes a lot more sense than helium for that. It's readily available in normal biological processes and even lighter. It would have the downside of implying overlords are explosive but I would argue that that's rad actually. I mean the original design did have Scourge spawn when an Overlord died... Also, Killtrane, JohnKilltrane posted:[timg]https://lpix.org/4029526/[ENG] AfreecaTV StarLeague(ASL) S11 Ro.24 Day2 (Tastosis) 1-1-22 screenshot.png[/timg] Broken image link in the Firebat spotlight.
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May 6, 2023 18:09
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Tenebrais posted:Honestly hydrogen makes a lot more sense than helium for that. It's readily available in normal biological processes and even lighter. It would have the downside of implying overlords are explosive but I would argue that that's rad actually. Yes, but helium let's you imagine they evolved psychic powers because the other bug aliens made fun of them for having permanent helium voice.
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May 6, 2023 19:24
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JohnKilltrane posted:Unit Spotlight: Overlord Overlords always looked much fatter and blimpier in the game than they do in this picture
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May 6, 2023 23:14
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Tenebrais posted:Honestly hydrogen makes a lot more sense than helium for that. It's readily available in normal biological processes and even lighter. It would have the downside of implying overlords are explosive but I would argue that that's rad actually. I mean, a noble gas as a waste product doesn't make any sense. Helium doesn't combine with anything, so it can't be produced by any chemical process. ... yes, there are exceptions at really high pressures. There's a compound with sodium, and it can enter into silicates, but it's really weird.
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May 9, 2023 00:24
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Overlords could maybe travel in space before joining the swarm, so maybe they fed on helium hydride?
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May 9, 2023 00:58
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I think they just hosed up The Lore and we can just point and chuckle for a bit.
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May 9, 2023 01:16
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Alright, let's begin with the vote results. For question 1, the winner by a wide margin was option A: The psionic defences the Overmind was concerned about thwarting aren't things like High Templar shenanigans but rather are being used to conceal Aiur. Plucking Aiur's location out of Zeratul's mind means that this is no longer a concern, so the invasion can proceed without Kerrigan, who gets left behind as a contingency. Question 2 was a lot closer, with the write-in vote just barely edging out Avram. Since Avram had a commanding lead until one suggestion led to a landslide of votes for D, I feel clearly the best option here is to go with that suggestion: Steve. Mission Ten: Full Circle.   You have done well, my Cerebrate. The Protoss can do nothing but flee before the onslaught of the Swarm. And so I bestow upon you the rarest of honours among Cerebrates: A name. Arise and be known... Steve. Few are those who have earned a name in such a short amount of time. You bear faithful manifest to our fury, Steve. But now you must assault one final site before our conquest is assured. Behold, there is a temple, not far from here, that lies upon ground most hallowed. Though I have born witness to the passing of countless millennia, the temple which you must assault is older by far. For it was constructed by my creators, the Xel’Naga, and it marks the site where the Xel’Naga first set foot upon Aiur. The temple must be cleared, and the Khaydarin Crystal set in its place. Only then shall the way be made ready. For it is upon that ground alone that I may be manifest.And so we discover the reason for harvesting the Khaydarin Crystals last mission: Apparently transporting the Overmind between worlds is an ordeal. I guess the idea is that the Overmind is a sufficiently powerful force that only a few places are capable of bearing its psionic weight, so to speak? This raises the question, though: Is the Overmind even on Char? Could it still be back on Zerus, directing its Swarm from across the galaxy? The speed with which it seems to plan to reach Aiur suggests the former, but you never know. Oh, also, something I meant to note last mission, but didn’t: With the arrival of the Carrier and the Arbiter, we’ve now seen every single unit in the base game. Only the expansion units are still unknown to us. Anyway. Our start:  Our starting force is looking a little skimpy, particularly for a final mission. Six Lings and three Hydras won’t survive for long, and the Ultra will be easy pickings without them. Looks like we’re going to have to focus on early military, then. The good news is that our start is fairly bountiful. We get 1000 of each resource (it says 480 in the screenshot but that’s because I took the shot too early and our resource banks were still filling up) and, well…  …a lot of mineral fields. The bad news…  Our gas is way out there, and given the shape of the minimap and how we’re in the bottom middle, it looks like our gas will also be right in the way of any attackers. So, what to do? Like I said, our first priority is going to be military. We already saw the Spawning Pool, and more importantly...  Hydra Den. Hydras are the go-to unit for our opening defense. They're just so versatile. I'm assuming (I don't actually remember this mission from past playthroughs all that well) that we'll be seeing something similar to last mission: Zealots, Dragoons, and Scouts, with maybe some Reavers, Archons, and Carriers sprinkled in. And Hydras do well against all of those but Reavers. So long as they don't send in their casters, we're good. So… no problem, right? Definitely not tempting fate here Okay, fine, I'll admit it, I'm a big fat phony and this isn't real foreshadowing. For some reasons we'll explore at the end we really do end up seeing almost nothing as far as Protoss spellcasters go. This mission is weirdly easy. Anyway, we've barely even started when the attacks pick up:    The last one there is the Observer getting exploded. So now if you're looking for a good party story you can say "Hey, you guys ever seen a dead Observer?" Things don't really let up:    Yellow's joined the fray, too, and we're getting tag-teamed by their air forces and teal's ground forces. As you can see, if we'd taken the approach we got away with earlier in the campaign, the "Just Drone up and let our starting units take care of our defenses," we'd be screwed. They must really want to stop us from reaching that temple. Oh, speaking of which...  We start with it revealed, so we know what our objective is. Right smack in the middle about two-thirds of the way up. Can anyone guess why there might be a beacon next to it? I do enjoy the way that the campaigns end with "Go destroy a big, fat setpiece." It's cool and makes the mission feel distinctive. A fun bit of trivia is that the temple here will sometimes be seen on multiplayer maps; it's a popular choice as a barricade, a way to have certain parts of the map walled off, typically a shortcut that players can exploit, but only if they're willing to dedicate the firepower to destroying it, first. Alternatively, you might see them occupying an expansion so that the player needs to destroy it before mining the expansion can begin. Starcraft 2 would formalize this by including rock and junk piles in their map design. ...But I digress. It's time to take a look at what we're dealing with here:    Teal's got a sizeable base here, and later scouting will reveal one on our right side as well. They aren't preventing us from reaching the Temple, but they're still going to be our top priority because we need more than one geyser. Yellow, meanwhile, is making it hard to concentrate on assembling an attack force:         Hydras, man. But we're lucky they were nearby - not much is scarier than watching a Carrier barrel down on your mineral line. Also it looks like Yellow has taken over Orange's mantle of being "the air guys." Hopefully this doesn't mean Arbiters are inbound. Man, could you imagine? Stasis Field most of my Hydras then just go ham on my Drones while I watch, helpless? What a grim thought.  And how goes the invasion of fabled Aiur? Kerrigan! You should not be here. Fear not, Cerebrate. I'm still here on Char, watching over your soft, frail body while your mind is occupied. But Zeratul hasn't shown his sorry carcass in some time now, and I'm curious. It's surprising that the Swarms haven't fallen apart, with you and the Overmind still here. Can you really control so many over such a vast distance? There is no need. We have but to command the Overlords, and they command the rest. Ahh, so that's how it works. Interesting. So if I could reach out and make contact with some Overlords as well... Kerrigan! Now is not the time for such experiments. Pursue and eradicate your charge, first. Allow Steve to handle the Protoss on Aiur. Steve? The Overmind has seen fit to bestow your cerebrate with a name. Steve... Hah! Very well. It would seem congratulations are in order. I will leave the invasion to you and hunt my quarry here. Together we shall give the Protoss a new understanding of dread... Steve.A brief foray...  ...reveals the problem. Teal's defences aren't too too serious, but that ramp creates a choke point that's gonna be tough for us to break through. In retrospect Mutas would have been a great choice here and I'm not sure why I didn't go that route. Oh well. Instead...  While that's happening, we need to do more scouting. Teal's got a Dragoon that's just hanging out on the map, so I go to Parasite it to use it as an early warning system:    ...but it follows me back to base and gets killed. Whomp whomp. Do note the stonebrick area in the middle of the last screenshot there: our creep can't spread there and we can't put buildings on it, which makes static defence difficult and gives our base this big bald spot. Incidentally, the lava version of this is what makes using static d to guard the beacons a chore back in mission 8.  You know, it's a little funny that even here, in the final mission of the campaign, they're still sending attack forces that's just a lone Zealot.   ...oh. Well, that's okay, the Ultra will...   Reavers, man.   Hydras vs Reavers are kinda like Mutas vs High Templar: they do well if you're careful and attentive and are all gonna die if you're not. Are you ready for the JohnKilltrane Brain Fart of the Century? Watch this:    Send in the Hydras, lay down a Dark Swarm, snipe the Photon Cannon. Everything's good, right? Hahaha wrong. You see, I, in my infinite wisdom, completely forgot about the Zealots there. So now they're in there under the Swarm where they can damage my Hydras but my Hydras can't hit them back. We beat a hasty retreat:    ...and this time I take a closer look:  Oof. Yeah. Fortunately...    There are very few problems that can't be solved by just throwing Zerglings at them. But while we were distracted with that...    Teal launched a counterattack. See how those Zealots had murdered our Extractor before I even noticed we were under attack? And then they dive straight for my mineral line while my stupid fat Ultras struggle to catch up. The last shot is there just to show they're gone - I didn't even catch how they died but I'm pretty sure it was the Sunkens that did them in. Well, Teal, an eye for an eye. Hey, that'd be a good name for a mission.     And at last...  We can finally take our second gas. Spoiler alert: We cannot, as it's already depleted. (I guess that could be confusing for those not familiar with the game. We can still take the gas, the game still allows you to build on depleted geysers. It just won't really help our income). Meanwhile...     Parasite-ing an Observer has led to big recon dividends. A High Templar is just about the scariest ramp guard there is. Fortunately, we know how to deal with those:     And look what bumps into one of our Alarm Overlords!  Oh hey! Did you forget Yellow existed? Well they sure didn't!       I love you, Defilers. Anyway...            Now Teal's out of the picture, and I have -  Again with the counterattacks? Okay, now Teal is out of the picture, and I can finally take another gas...  Dammit. All I want is a second vespene geyser. Is that too much to ask? Wait.  There's one. And it doesn't look like it's been previously-owned.  Yep. Nice and unspoiled. Perfect.  Does this mean we finally get two geysers? No, because our main base one has run out. But we'll be mining from one geyser and three depleted ones, which is almost two! Speaking of the main base running out...  This actually isn't a big deal. As you can see I've got a ton of minerals banked because vespene is our real bottleneck here (well, okay, vespene is Zerg's bottleneck always). There's quite a few healthy mineral patches within a stone's throw of our base as well, as you can see on the minimap. It's easier, though, to just bring them up to the Teal bases we've already claimed, and...  ...of course. We do have plenty of Hydras we can send over, but with more and more yellow air units popping up all, it might be time to be a bit more proactive:  Case in point, they run into another Scout on their way over:     Scouts are, in theory, solid AA units. But being this heavily outnumbered, not to mention doing explosive damage vs small units, makes for a quick and easy battle for the Mutas. Of course, there's other reasons why you'd never want to use Scouts for this - or indeed, anything - but we'll get to them in the Protoss campaign. Anyway, consolidation time:   That geyser there is both incredibly precious and incredibly vulnerable right now, so we want to be able to reinforce it ASAP. Beyond that, it's an ideal staging point for our invasion of yellow. Speaking of which, we've got almost no intel on them. Let's fix that:         Okay, it looks like the Temple's being protected by a fortification manned (...Protossed?) by plenty of Dragoons. You know what's good against Dragoons? Okay, yes, Zerglings. But you know what else? Fine, yeah, Defilers ruin their day. But you know what else?       Ordinarily Guardians would be an incredibly risky proposition for invading a high-tech Protoss base like this, but given how few spellcasters we've seen so far (I think one HT and no Arbiters) it seems very viable. Queue base razing montage. Oh, and you might be thinking "Hey, we're just seeing Dragoons and Zealots. Isn't yellow's thing (on this map) that they're the airforce? What happened to their ships?" Oh, they're still around.        Anyway... We're sending in an air force of our own:  We've got enough Mutas to take care of any Scouts easily, but the Scourge are there just in case. Actually, you know what? I've changed my mind. There's a more fun use for them. Let's go camp them out by the Stargate there (Protoss' aerial production facility).   Ah. Perfect.   BOOM! Taking down capital ships with Scourge is so satisfying. Not always terribly efficient, mind you, but a real blast. Okay, remember that base-razing montage we queued up? Let's cue it now:                  And with that, we've pushed through yellow's fortifications. We're on the Temple's doorstep:  That's a non-trivial amount of Archons guarding it, though. Let's bring up the ground forces to help us out:      And of course, who razes mighty Temples better than Zerglings?    Steve, the Protoss have launched a final offensive to keep us from the ruins. You must hold them at bay a while longer! It shall be done. The camera pans back to our base, where it shows that a Drone bearing the Khaydarin Crystal from last mission has been dropped off. New Mission Objectives: Bring the Khaydarin Crystal to the remains of the Protoss Temple. Unlike Terran 10, the mission doesn't end when we kill the Big Setpiece. We need to bring the crystal there, too. Of course, given that we've wiped out Teal and nearly all of Yellow, it's a pretty uneventful trip:       Now shall the events set into motion so long ago be made complete. For the Protoss too were created by the Xel’Naga. They were the first creation, gifted with a purity of form. And we were the second creation, blessed with a purity of essence. Indeed, our two species are but opposite facets of a greater whole. Soon shall our two races be made as one. Thenceforth shall all feel the wrath of the eternal Swarm… For the hour of judgement is come! And finally the Overmind's big plan gets fully spelled out - invading Aiur isn't just about quashing the biggest threat to the Zerg, it's about assimilating the Protoss into the Swarm to create an indomitable mega-race. I don't remember it coming up in this game at all, but Protoss are unable to be infested. Presumably, this is why we've been doing all this work to prepare the way for the Overmind - Protoss can't just be Zerg-ified the way Kerrigan could, but instead assimilated on a basic, cellular level, which I guess requires the Overmind to be physically present? Either that, or the Overmind needs to draw from the rich Khaydarin fields of Aiur to accomplish its goals. Either way... Victory. The end of the mission and the campaign. And of course, the end of a campaign means another cinematic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_dAriIMbxY We start by following the trajectory of a huge, fleshy object as it hurtles through space to land upon Aiur:             The impact clears to reveal...  Aiur, now a burning hellscape, sky thick with Guardians. An Interceptor (the little ships launched by Carriers) spinning out of control flies into view...   ...before exploding. We cut to the Guardians as they traverse the smouldering ruins of a Protoss city.          Mutas blot out the sun...     ...as Zerglings rampage through the wreckage.        (Those last three pictures are shots from underneath the Zerglings as they run, as that's not really clear in still images). We see where they're all going:   ...the crater from the start of the cinematic...    ...where the Overmind's massive tendrils unfurl. Not the game's most exciting cinematic, but I'm a big fan of the way that we get to see the different units and Protoss wreckage up close. I'm also a fan of the implication that the Overmind's method of travel is just yeeting itself through the stars. Thus endeth the Zerg campaign. ********************* Mission Ten Debrief ...okay, just what the hell happened there, anyway? This mission is much, much easier than the one that precedes it. Well, now that we've won, let's go back and take a look:   (I'm including shots of me typing in the cheat codes because I know that's gonna be a huge nostalgia blast for some of you). Okay, looking at the minimap there... Wow, check out the top. There's an entire third Protoss army that we never once encountered.    Yep, looks like they're all ready to bring the pain of high-tech Protoss shenanigans. In fact, in that last picture, is that...  It sure is. So what happened? My best guess is based on what Daggoth says about the Protoss launching one final assault - Red is probably set up to not actively attack the player until the Temple has been destroyed. Since moving the Crystal up to the Temple is very quick and easy, they didn't even have time to mobilize a probing attack before we'd won, hence why we (and likely many people who play this map) never saw them. I guess if someone were to try to cheese the mission by, say, suiciding a bunch of Zerglings in to kill the Temple real fast, having to fend off Red's attacks in addition to Yellow and Teal while you escort the Crystal would be a huge pain, but as it stands, they just kinda do nothing. You know, while we're at it...     Ah. That's why Teal's geysers were depleted when we took them. I thought I was going crazy, I was thinking "I know I've hardly been playing efficiently but there's no way it's taken me that long to take these bases. Turns out they just have almost no gas to begin with. Whoops. Ah well. A lesson learned (that I will almost inevitably forget the next time I replay this campaign). ******************* Voting Time! Now it's time to vote on who our player character for the Protoss campaign will be. Blizzard has already established a canonical one: Artanis, a character we'll be meeting in Brood War. But we're not confined by narrow things like "What Blizzard thinks is canon." This is a Let's Play! We can do what we want! So we're going to vote on it. I will say that if we don't go with Artanis, it won't actually have any impact plotwise, i.e. there won't be any inconsistencies with the story in Brood War. In fact, if anything, it'll make BW's story more logical. But if we do go with Artanis, it'll still work out, no worries. So, our options are: a) Artanis b) Selendis (a Protoss executor implied to be the protagonist of the BW Protoss campaign; if we use her for this we can still re-use her for BW if people want, it won't lock her out) c) Write-in vote JohnKilltrane fucked around with this message at 00:12 on Jul 10, 2023 |
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Jul 10, 2023 00:02
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Always a pleasure to see this LP back! a) Artanis It's canon, makes sense, and we'll see Selendis in Brood War (presumably) anyway.
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Jul 10, 2023 00:15
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BisbyWorl posted:Also, Killtrane, Thanks! There's a few of these I need to go back to fix. Screengrabs from Youtube that have square brackets in the title throwing off the link, though I could have sworn they worked when I first posted them.
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Jul 10, 2023 00:35
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JohnKilltrane posted:Queue base razing montage. JohnKilltrane posted:Okay, remember that base-razing montage we queued up? Let's cue it now  Congratulations to the mighty Steve for wreaking havoc on the Protoss! The protoss are my favourite faction (at least aesthetically, I never really got to grips with playing them effectively) so I'm looking forward to campaign 3. I played through the base game in Mass Recall recently, as well as part of the first campaign of Brood War, and while Blizzard might have officially declared Artanis to be the executor here that clearly wasn't their intention when they introduce him in the expansion. So to that end I'm going to vote for Selendis to be our executor. Plus it means there gets to be a woman anywhere in this campaign!
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Jul 10, 2023 00:38
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I too vote for a) Artanis. As said, it's canon, it makes sense, and I'm pretty sure Selendis is canonically Artanis' protege. I have thoughts about Protoss ranks in relation to Artanis, but I'll leave that for Artanis' more... "official" introduction.
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Jul 10, 2023 00:46
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Your LP made me come back to SC1, play Mass Recall, almost quit it after first few missions, git good, finish Mass Recall, finish Moebius Mod for SC2 and bingewatch most GiantGrantGames videos. It's good to see you back.
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Jul 10, 2023 01:34
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As much as I am tempted to nominate Matt Horner, it's Artanis.
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Jul 10, 2023 01:50
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Oh hey! Look who's back, and feeling Steve!
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Jul 10, 2023 02:58
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It’s Artanis. Let’s not overcomplicate things, that’s SC2’s job. That Red is a really strange design choice. I get wanting to have a surprise, but why not use mission triggers to spawn enemies? Or, if Red is supposed to be a last ditch effort, why not have it happen when you first attack the Temple so they can actually defend their holy site?
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Jul 10, 2023 03:17
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Let's stick with Artanis.
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Jul 10, 2023 03:44
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I'm gonna go with Selendis because the cannon choice never sat right with me. Artanis in BW just never felt like he's been through the entire vanilla protoss campaign. Selendis being the pc gor both made more sense.
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Jul 10, 2023 04:10
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I'm gonna write in Erwin
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Jul 10, 2023 04:52
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By strange cosmic coincidence the Protoss Executor is also called Steve.
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Jul 10, 2023 06:12
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If I remember correctly red is scripted to activate when you get far enough north on the map, I think. But I'm really not sure. Might even be past the temple? Or I'm getting it confused with another map.
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Jul 10, 2023 07:07
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I vote for Selendis to give her some more exposure, since SC2 shafted her significantly
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Jul 10, 2023 11:07
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Selendis
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Jul 10, 2023 13:01
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Artanis is fine.
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Jul 10, 2023 13:12
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Selendis
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Jul 10, 2023 13:35
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I vote Artanis
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Jul 10, 2023 15:24
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Gotta be Artanis
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Jul 10, 2023 15:25
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Poil posted:If I remember correctly red is scripted to activate when you get far enough north on the map, I think. But I'm really not sure. Might even be past the temple? Or I'm getting it confused with another map. Interesting! I'll see if I get some time to poke around and experiment a little. That is the trigger system used by the previous map so it would make sense if it happened here, too. Maybe they just didn't expect the player to stop scouting once they reach the temple?
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Jul 10, 2023 15:25
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Selendis sounds good
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Jul 10, 2023 15:37
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Gon' vote Selendis.
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Jul 10, 2023 15:44
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Artanis
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Jul 10, 2023 17:55
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Selendis Dunno why people think that Artanis is a logical choice here. Look at the dialogue about him (in the first mission, for example).
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Jul 10, 2023 18:20
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As much as I love the idea of another, completely unrelated Steve being the executor, I'll be voting for Selendis
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Jul 10, 2023 18:23
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Gun Jam posted:Selendis I do have opinions on reconciling his official introduction with him being the Executor of Episode 3, but I'll wait until his official intro to say so. Or possibly earlier if he gets voted into Episode 3.
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Jul 10, 2023 18:24
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Artanis.
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Jul 10, 2023 18:54
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Let's go with Artanis to make the retconning more obvious and possibly explain why he refuses to wear clothes in Brood War.
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Jul 10, 2023 19:04
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Gun Jam posted:Selendis Yeah, Brood War was specifically written with Artanis being a distinct character from the EP 3 Executor. Blizzard didn't establish that they were the same person until quite some time after and even then it was, as anilEHilated points out, a retcon. Although, as far as retcons go it's a pretty soft one, and if we go with Artanis for EP 3 it won't take much creativity to resolve the inconsistencies that arise. Ironically I think the non-canonical Matt Horner = Magistrate fits better than the canonical Artanis = Executor, although that's probably just because I've never read the books Horner is introduced in. But if you go just based on what we know of him from SC2 it's a smoother fit.
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Jul 10, 2023 19:17
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Artanis is a boring Boy Scout, Selendis has some attitude.
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Jul 10, 2023 19:18
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GunnerJ posted:Artanis is a boring Boy Scout, Selendis has some attitude. This is also very true. If Selendis had been the protagonist of LotV it would have solved at least 40% of the problems with it.
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Jul 10, 2023 19:25
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Tenebrais posted:This is also very true. If Selendis had been the protagonist of LotV it would have solved at least 40% of the problems with it. Depends on whether she kept her badass WoL design or her 'human with weird legs and no mouth' design from LotV.
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Jul 10, 2023 19:26
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Let's retcon the retcon and make it Selendis
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Jul 10, 2023 19:33
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