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"Nuke Cola". Reference to Fallout, or just a generic dystopian sci-fi thing? Edit: Images on the previous page, sorry.
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Aug 11, 2023 05:02
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painedforever posted:"Nuke Cola". Reference to Fallout, or just a generic dystopian sci-fi thing? Starcraft has its own history with nuclear soda. Thank god for cold fusion!
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Aug 11, 2023 11:03
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painedforever posted:"Nuke Cola". Reference to Fallout, or just a generic dystopian sci-fi thing? At this point, I'd rightly say both. There's also "Nuke Noodles".
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Aug 11, 2023 11:22
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Kith posted:The SuperNova Men's Club dancing hologram uses Nova's model, and it's implied that the SuperNova dancer is, in fact, Nova herself. There's also the Hologram Dancer unit that was added later and uses Nova's model and has some... animations. Chris Metzen got that big early-00's-internet obsessed with his OC vibe. Wonder if he was an SA lurker.
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Aug 11, 2023 16:06
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Prophecy 3: Echoes of the Future Video: Echoes of the Future      Pay close attention to those Hydralisks to the right of the Overmind, and how big it is compared to them.   And suddenly the Overmind is several times bigger! Like, I know Starcraft has always been loose with scale for the sake of gameplay, but come on!       We open with a quick no-build segment.  A better look at the Void Seeker, now that I'm not running from Kerrigan.  Bizarrely, it has the highest DPS in the game, at 1000 damage a second. At no point, in any campaign, do you get to see it attack.  Much like The Dig, I just have to fight my way over to the base.  We get Observers here, but Lurkers got removed until LotV so the only thing they're good for is revealing burrowed units for Zeratul to smack.  Also like The Dig, this area remains open after this segment so I make sure to clear it out for easy Pylon space later.  The starting base this time is less developed than last time.     The base flips to my colors.   And we get our own Colossus!  Like Reapers, Colossi can climb up cliffs instead of needing a ramp.   The goal for this mission is a bit of a mix between the last two Prophecy missions. Zeratul remains on the field, and I have to bring him to each point.  The Overmind has received a bit of a makeover since its days as a 4x3 blob.  The zerg are very strict on attack timings on this mission, so I send Zeratul out to take the first point while my Probes build.  There are also some handy resource caches scattered across the map.  The first base only has a Spore and an Overseer for detection, so Zeratul can handle it easily.   Like the last mission, there are unpowered buildings that will give me free units when powered.  I take my time clearing things out so I can take the expansion later. Zeratul gets a full heal after each tendril so damage doesn't matter here.    At this point the zerg will periodically launch an attack. This one is just a handful of Zerglings, but after this they'll hit both sides at once. This first attack is why I left my Colossi at home, as they excel at dealing with hordes of enemies.  The game is polite enough to both give me an exact timer on when the next attack hits, and also puts a sizable gap between attacks. This makes moving towards the objective a lot more forgiving than dealing with Maar respawning every minute.  This Obelisk is the bonus. Power it and get one research!  Outside of the timed attacks there's not really much aggression on this mission, so I can just take my time and get my economy going while Zeratul nabs free money.  It is neat to see all these Infested Terrans just sitting here, leftovers from the war.  Gateways also silently get a new option in this mission.   Clicking it converts it into a Warp Gate.  I mentioned this back in Welcome to the Jungle, but this lets me warp any infantry unit to any place on the map with Pylon coverage.  There's a small delay while the unit warps in.  And there he is! Warp-ins are initially faster than building them normally, but the Warp Gate itself goes on cooldown after. This makes Gate micro much more important, as you can't just queue up five guys and call it good, but Warp Gates have their own dedicated hotkey on W next to the mission timer, which tells you how many Gates are ready to go.  I finally go grab that free Warp Gate and the Obelisk.  And take the expansion.   I get 3 Stalkers and a High Templar for my troubles.  Just in time for the first major attack to hit.  A Nydus pops in at each entrance to my base, and will spawn in waves of zerg until I kill them.  Thankfully, Void Prison works on Nydus Worms just fine.  And the Worms themselves will leave after a few moments, so you don't have to worry about an endless stream crushing your base if you lose track of time and have your army halfway across the map when they show up.  And then the timer comes back up.  The solution to Warp Gates being unable to queue units is to make a ton of 'em.  Considering I need a Robotics Facility, and a Robotics Bay, and 200 gas a pop, it takes a while before I can make more Colossi.  So I fend off another attack before starting to push.   I hit the Infested Terran side, mostly to clean up any resource pickups I left last time.  There's also another expansion here, if I needed it.   Ultralisks are scary.  But I'm fiiiiiiiiiiiiine.   More Gates.  Sadly, only the pre-placed Warp Gates give freebies here. Everything else gives jack.  I pull back to base to deal with another attack wave before moving out again.   This time I push north.  While a single Zergling finds that free Robotics Facility.  Up the ramp is a second Robo and Gate, plus the other Obelisk.  And yet another expansion.   While all this has been happening, that Zergling managed to take out a building all on their own! You go, little buddy!  Now that the Creep's receded I go grab those buildings.   The Warp Gate just gives another three Stalkers and a High Templar.  I have no idea how, but three Mutas found my base. They're not part of the attack wave either, that had a few seconds on the clock when they showed up.  There's the attack wave. The research is permanent once an Obelisk goes up, so letting the Pylons get destroyed at this point is fine.  Once that's been taken care of I can go finish the mission.    The funny thing is that I didn't really have to do all this.  The objectives are fairly close together, fully heal Zeratul on use, and make him invulnerable so it breaks aggro. I could have just quickly rushed the two Obelisks for research, then used Void Prison and Blink to hop from one tendril to the next and be done in under 10 minutes.    And what does Zeratul find at the heart of the Overmind?  Tassadar's loving ghost, that's what!  No build up, no warning! We just go straight up Star Wars! But wait!  It gets worse!    Oh hey, a big bad retconned into being merely the pawn of a bigger bad! drat if that doesn't sound familiar in 2023. And it also, you know... Zerg 09: The Invasion of Aiur posted:
Completely runs counter to the original game. You can't even try to claim the Overmind is doing the old, 'lie to all the servants before you screw them over,' trick, since the Overmind has full control over the Swarm! They could order an Ultralisk to tap dance on Daggoth's bloated body and all the cerebrate would be able to do is complement the groove! The only possible reason for the Overmind to lie there is specifically to misdirect the player.         And this makes no sense in the context of Tassadar's own story. The Overmind is brainwashed to destroy the protoss, and physically cannot resist the orders. So it... makes someone who can? That doesn't fall under defying orders? Is the mastermind the most incompetent brainwasher ever?        The Quick and the Dead - Activate 2 Tendrils in the "Echoes of the Future" mission within 4 minutes on Normal difficulty. BisbyWorl fucked around with this message at 05:04 on Feb 5, 2024 |
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Aug 12, 2023 03:29
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My children, the hour of our victory is at hand. For upon this world of Aiur shall we incorporate the strongest known species into our fold. Then shall we be the greatest of creation's children. We shall be…
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No, not corruption by an outsider force, anything but that! 
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Aug 12, 2023 04:09
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Void Seeker: Prioritizes speed and subtlety over weaponry Also Void Seeker: Does 200 damage per shot Should we stop saying "En Taro Tassadar" now? The noble sacrifice that made him a rallying cry was apparently neither noble (Overmind was on our side all along!) nor a sacrifice (he can never die?).
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Aug 12, 2023 04:14
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This is the mission I always forget exists
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Aug 12, 2023 04:20
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MagusofStars posted:Should we stop saying "En Taro Tassadar" now? The noble sacrifice that made him a rallying cry was apparently neither noble (Overmind was on our side all along!) nor a sacrifice (he can never die?). En Taro Overmind 
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Aug 12, 2023 04:26
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quote:No! This vision! I cannot bear it, make it stop! 
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Aug 12, 2023 04:33
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It’s really quite impressive how they managed to slam dunk the previous game’s entire plot directly into the trash in one cutscene. SC Terran: Raynor, the player, and Kerrigan are convinced to do horrible things in the name of freedom by Mengsk, but it’s a ploy for him to seize power, and Kerrigan pays the price. Sike! None of that poo poo mattered, the zerg were just in the area to kill the Protoss and the Overmind coincidentally ran across Kerrigan and decided she was The Chosen One. SC Zerg: The Zerg, who seemed like mindless bugs driven by hunger, are revealed to be led by a terrifyingly calm alien intelligence with unknowable plans, and Kerrigan is to play some dark part in them. Sike! The Overmind’s just a brainwashed pawn of some offscreen bad guys, and its entire plan is “get killed on purpose and let Kerrigan fix poo poo.” SC Protoss: The Protoss, who seemed to be shallow glorious space elves, are shown to be the squabbling remnants of a decaying empire, blinkered by prejudice and bureaucracy, until Tassadar breaks with tradition, reaches out to his exiled brethren, and sacrifices himself to slay the Overmind. Sike! The Overmind wanted that to happen, and all this tragedy and death was necessary to save the universe, and here’s Tassadar’s loving literal-rear end ghost to remove all doubt of that. e: And that’s not to mention Brood War, because if we look at BW in light of this cutscene, it’s as if they followed up Revenge of the Sith - with Anakin murdering a bunch of children and innocents and destroying galactic civilization - with a movie revealing that he was the hero all along megane fucked around with this message at 04:57 on Aug 12, 2023 |
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Aug 12, 2023 04:51
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megane posted:Accurate and thorough overview of precisely how badly SC2 dunked SC1's writing into the gutter Did we start playing some old Yahtzee games at some point because It Hurts
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Aug 12, 2023 05:25
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And here it is: the exact moment the rest of the series takes a sharp nosedive into Shitsville.
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Aug 12, 2023 06:05
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lmao, I forgot this even happened. Who were the loving hacks that wrote this poo poo?
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Aug 12, 2023 06:52
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So yeah, Spooky Ghost Tassadar and this retcon is probably the most hated plot element in SC2 by an absolutely massive margin. Interesting note about Tassadar here, in StarCraft 1 he was voiced by Michael Gough, who has voiced plenty of other Blizzard characters such as Deckard Cain and Mal'Ganis. So it should be easy to bring him in a for a few lines for this game, right? Seeing Tassadar is one thing, but hearing his old familiar voice would make the reveal even better. But no, Blizzard's weird disdain for their own voice actors around this time reared its ugly head again. They don't need that nobody, they need more celebrity cred! Like how Kerrigan is now played by Tricia Helfer, to hook all those Battlestar Galactica fans who are totally going to buy this game just because she's in it. But we can do better! Who do we get to play Tassadar this time around? They got Michael Dorn, aka the guy who plays Worf in Star Trek. Huh, okay. That's uh, cool, I guess. I like Worf, but was it really necessary to bring in a celebrity for these few lines? He's not exactly a cover star you're gonna be advertising among the cast, the character he's playing is a complete secret and a supposed plot twist. Was it really necessary to go the celebrity route in this case? What's the point? I guarantee they way overpaid to get Michael Dorn in to do this generic rear end voice than what they would've paid to have Michael Gough do it. They were working on Diablo 3 around the same time too, so you know they had that dude on speed dial. Fortunately, when they go the celebrity route in LotV, they choose an original character and man does it pay off.
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Aug 12, 2023 07:21
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I think that remains the absolute worst retcon I have personally experienced. Something not nearly as bad that still bother's me somewhat is wondering why collosi on Aiur went unused prior to this. Of course, there's a significantly more egregious thing in the same vein much later on.
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Aug 12, 2023 07:27
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Fuckin' AAA just does not get context sometimes. A corruption arc works once in Warcraft 3, because the orcs as they had been written up to then were generic bad guys, and then they gave them a proper culture that had been "suppressed" or whatever. So clearly the corruption and redemption thing is what sold it, and not... just fleshing out a group to make them more interesting. And for some reason they can't loving stop until they figure out why it's not working anymore. The zerg were not boring. The zerg were fascinating. So to throw all that in the garbage and pretend they were simple pawns doesn't make the new puppetmaster more interesting, it makes people realize that you don't know what is interesting, to a borderline psychotic degree.
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Aug 12, 2023 07:31
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Hey now, don't worry, we've only just started on making the Zerg less interesting.
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Aug 12, 2023 07:55
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NewMars posted:Hey now, don't worry, we've only just started on making the Zerg less interesting. I am going to write so many words once we get to Heart of the Swarm.
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Aug 12, 2023 08:49
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megane posted:e: And that’s not to mention Brood War, because if we look at BW in light of this cutscene, it’s as if they followed up Revenge of the Sith - with Anakin murdering a bunch of children and innocents and destroying galactic civilization - with a movie revealing that he was the hero all along I have some bad news for you about the original trilogy (I kid, I kid). But HOO BOY is this only the start.
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Aug 12, 2023 09:12
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I can't help but wonder how those protoss buildings were still fully functioning despite being right next to the freaking overmind. One of the buildings is almost in danger of falling over on top of the rotting corpse (the whole area must smell wonderful). Also the random colossus suddenly hiding in that very very deep nearby lake.
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Aug 12, 2023 09:25
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Me too buddy, me too.
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Aug 12, 2023 10:40
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It's not just that this retcon shits on the entire plot of the celebrated first game. This wouldn't be a good setup even in an original one. The retcons to the Terrans are pretty galling but if you're not familiar with (or don't care about) how brood war ends it's setting up a serviceable space rebellion plot, at least of what we've seen so far. But "the horrifying all-devouring swarm is actually a good guy setting up to fight an apocalypse prophecy" is just plain bad. There's no satisfying way to spin that. You can make sympathetic zerg characters with good motivations, but don't try to retroactively justify everything they were before. Tassadar hinting at how this is not the time to talk about his condition makes me think they were originally planning to make him part of LotV, but dropped it after the force ghost thing went over so badly. Would fit with hiring a celebrity voice for him. The colossi appearing here don't bother me too much. I think even in Starcraft 1 it was hinted Aiur had stronger defences that the Conclave didn't care to activate because they didn't take the zerg seriously until it was too late. They'll be getting retconned in LotV anyway though.
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Aug 12, 2023 10:41
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You probably could have gotten the same effect by saying "the overmind somehow discovered a galaxy ending evil and made preparations to fight it because he lives in the universe too and would like to continue existing that he may continue devouring everything and becoming perfect". It'd still be a lame "greater evil" deal, but it wouldn't poo poo on all the characters' motivations from the previous game.
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Aug 12, 2023 10:55
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Tenebrais posted:"the horrifying all-devouring swarm is actually a good guy setting up to fight an apocalypse prophecy" is just plain bad. There's no satisfying way to spin that. You can make sympathetic zerg characters with good motivations, but don't try to retroactively justify everything they were before. There's a lot here going on, some of which is stuff that I will not talk about because it's stupid spoilers, but suffice it to say that that's not exactly what Blizzard are going for here. Instead they're very much going for a retread of the Warcraft 3 era Orcs. SirSamVimes posted:You probably could have gotten the same effect by saying "the overmind somehow discovered a galaxy ending evil and made preparations to fight it because he lives in the universe too and would like to continue existing that he may continue devouring everything and becoming perfect". It'd still be a lame "greater evil" deal, but it wouldn't poo poo on all the characters' motivations from the previous game. You can't do that, every redeemed race of (ugh) 'Noble Savages' (gently caress this trope) has to have an evil guy who dies doing something good to save the race. That's how redemption works at the species level. The Overmind has to be a load-bearing Grommash Hellscream.
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Aug 12, 2023 11:31
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Tenebrais posted:You can make sympathetic zerg characters with good motivations, but don't try to retroactively justify everything they were before. Sadly, the Blizzard writing team have exactly one hammer. And somehow, playing the next mission in the chain only makes this one more annoying, especially if you play them back to back (like me yesterday, because I decided to pick up SC2 campaign again  ).----------------------------- Onto gameplay, I absolutely love warp gates, and how much cheese they got used for during the brief time I played WotL multi. Everything you know about attacks being disadvantaged because their reinforcements take longer to arrive? Straight out of the window.
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Aug 12, 2023 12:33
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SoundwaveAU posted:Blizzard's weird disdain for their own voice actors This note is something to remember. I still remember in the days before Wings of Liberty released... from what I remember, they were originally not going to bring Robert Clotworthy back to play Raynor! They brought him back because of the backlash they got for changing his voice! Though I don't remember if it was stated to be a temporary voice or not, I do remember backlash over his voice when they had footage that involved Raynor with a different actor playing him.
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Aug 12, 2023 12:34
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Xarn posted:somehow, playing the next mission in the chain only makes this one more annoying, especially if you play them back to back (like me yesterday, because I decided to pick up SC2 campaign again The next mission in the chain is loving terrible. I’m playing SC2 for the first time and just did that mission last night.
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Aug 12, 2023 12:38
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Wow, I loved the next mission when I first played it. I still like it, though it can be a bit tedious on later playthroughs.
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Aug 12, 2023 12:46
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Tenebrais posted:Tassadar hinting at how this is not the time to talk about his condition makes me think they were originally planning to make him part of LotV, but dropped it after the force ghost thing went over so badly. Would fit with hiring a celebrity voice for him. tassadar isn't even in lotv??
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Aug 12, 2023 12:56
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ilmucche posted:tassadar isn't even in lotv?? That's right, but then he isn't in Wings of Liberty, either, if you go by LotV revelations. Which isn't really a thing to discuss yet I believe?
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Aug 12, 2023 13:05
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Mate I've got no idea, I never played past wings of liberty and forgot most of what happens since I played it on release
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Aug 12, 2023 13:10
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Jimmy Ray blows up the enemy base
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Aug 12, 2023 13:11
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There's been a lot of discussion about the use of prophecy in fiction in this thread, but I think this is the point where Blizzard misses its last chance to do anything interesting with it. Prophecies can be used for a number of purposes, like setting a mood without giving instructions to the characters ("The Lord of Murder shall perish, and in his doom he shall spawn a score of mortal progeny. Chaos will be sewn from their passage. So sayeth the wise Alaundo."). Or giving us insight into a character by showing how they react to knowledge of the future ("Beware the Ides of March!"). Or deceiving us about what will happen next while appearing to inform us ("You must surrender yourself to your greatest fear, knowing that it will destroy you."). There are a bunch of things you can do, but the most boring and useless of them is to hand the characters a copy of the script in advance. Nevertheless, there is still one thing they could have done with the prophecy as-is: building tension for the characters. Imagine a James Raynor who still had his Brood Wars characterization. He comes into this game out for Kerrigan's blood. Obsessed with it! Even the other people around him, who also hate her, are a little weirded out by how much he hates her, wants her dead, and takes any excuse to strike at the Zerg on the off chance it might hurt her. He could have chats with other characters about how he needs to pull back before he wrecks himself. And then we get to some point between halfway and two thirds of the way through the game (probably where this revelation belongs) and he's told that he cannot, under any circumstances, murder Kerrigan, because if he does, everyone is hosed. That's an interesting thing to do to a character! He could have all kinds of conversations with other characters who agree that maybe killing the Chosen One is a bad idea. There's tension between his different motivations: his anger towards her and his desire to help and protect others. It may be not be the best use of a prophecy, but it could absolutely create drama. Instead? The prophecy is telling him to do the thing he wanted to do anyway. We already saw him pining for Kerrigan and wanting to save her! He doesn't want to kill her at all, and now he's got a divine blessing on this desire. There's no tension anywhere! Frankly, Zeratul completely wasted his time dropping this crystal off, because the only person who receives its message already would have done the thing that Zeratul wants him to do. Anyway, I liked playing the actual missions because Protoss units are rad. Shame about the plot.
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Aug 12, 2023 13:15
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Torrannor posted:Wow, I loved the next mission when I first played it. I still like it, though it can be a bit tedious on later playthroughs. The second objective for that mission makes it clear that it's going to do nothing but waste your time from the point the first objective is achieved onwards.
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Aug 12, 2023 13:24
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I kinda like the prophecy from Dark Messiah of Might and Magicquote:Ten century shall the fortress stand.
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Aug 12, 2023 15:58
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idonotlikepeas posted:Instead? The prophecy is telling him to do the thing he wanted to do anyway. We already saw him pining for Kerrigan and wanting to save her! He doesn't want to kill her at all, and now he's got a divine blessing on this desire. There's no tension anywhere! Frankly, Zeratul completely wasted his time dropping this crystal off, because the only person who receives its message already would have done the thing that Zeratul wants him to do. this makes me wonder about cutscene pipelines, because Raynor's reaction when Zeratul shows up seems to imply that he's a hankering for a murdering and Zeratul telling him to look at the crystal will reveal that he's gotta leave her alive. not that it makes a huge difference, in the grand scheme of SC2, Kerrigan and the Zerg just get poo poo all over them IN THEIR OWN GAME
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Aug 12, 2023 16:05
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ulmont posted:The second objective for that mission makes it clear that it's going to do nothing but waste your time from the point the first objective is achieved onwards. Because for anybody who likes the basic concept of the mission and is trying to do their best to live up to it, you're likely to last well beyond the targets for both objectives unless you're way over your head on difficulty level. The challenge isn't in simply meeting the objectives, it's seeing just how much beyond that you can go.
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Aug 12, 2023 16:06
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MagusofStars posted:If you think it's "wasting your time", I'm guessing you just don't like the entire basic concept of the mission Yes, this was my basic original complaint. MagusofStars posted:you're likely to last well beyond the targets for both objectives unless you're way over your head on difficulty level. The challenge isn't in simply meeting the objectives, it's seeing just how much beyond that you can go. Yes, I did keep making the number go up for a while, I just don’t find that mission type fun and I wished I had a button to say “end mission now” after meeting the objectives.
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Aug 12, 2023 17:07
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MagusofStars posted:If you think it's "wasting your time", I'm guessing you just don't like the entire basic concept of the mission (totally fair, it's not everybody's cup of tea). Ooh! That's me! I'm terrible at these hold the line missions. I just stalled until void rays and desperate spammed them until my base held. Which apparently was good enough to get what I needed for brutal by the skin of my teeth. Incidentally I hate the fact that Blizzard used to love Making these hold out missions in the beginning and end and never the middle. In the beginning your tools are so limited even I snooze through them. In the end, I get brutally murdered unless my opening actions are just so because early damage snowballs hard.
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Aug 12, 2023 17:20
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