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So, again, the Raiders managed to sneak in the giant mech that they had hijacked, and no one in the Dominion ever thought to, say, have the pilot pop out of the cockpit to visually verify his identity? And it somehow took them five minutes to communicate to their forces that the giant mech rampaging through the city was not, in fact, all part of the show? …Frankly, they deserve everything that happens to them from the sheer incompetence of it all.
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Sep 30, 2023 06:13
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To be fair, that's all Matt Horner calling in favors from all of his old buddies still in the Dominion to get folks to skip checks, look the other way, call in sick to work, and otherwise have their palms greased. From my time interning at a physical penetration firm, I can tell you that if you know what to say, when to say it, and who to say it to, you can absolutely bullshit your way through all manner of security. It doesn't necessarily have to be truthful, either:
Basically everything that happened to make this mission possible is this comic writ large: 
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Sep 30, 2023 06:34
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BlazetheInferno posted:Guess it only had the one, and no one thought to restock it. Everyone thought about it and then looked at Tychus.
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Sep 30, 2023 06:47
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Tychus never built a Shadow Ops
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Sep 30, 2023 06:48
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Tychus’s secret orders from Mengsk didn’t specifically say he couldn’t pilot a massive stolen war machine to level a Dominion city. They just implied it.
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Sep 30, 2023 07:07
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Maybe it's Mobious that handles everything Tychus, including monitoring (if they even bother), and they probably don't give the tiniest poo poo about what he does unless it were to go against THEIR plans.
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Sep 30, 2023 08:48
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I feel like a classic videogame fuckup that WoL makes is just how little Mengsk is present as an actual enemy actor. He doesn't call you up to go "y'all boys are hosed, I'm gonna send my big explody mans at you." Outside of the first mission you don't really see any visceral war crimes to get upset about even if he isn't physically present. Mengsk is never the opposing general in a fight(say he has clones! Mengsk-bots! Always escapes at the last moment!). Despite ostensibly being the main villain of the campaign, he's very non-present, which I always finds prevents me from feeling particularly excited about any eventual showdown.
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Sep 30, 2023 10:10
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Getting Tychus and the Odin into the middle of Augustgrad isn't a plot hole, the nuclear-blasted desert planet Korhal being a big black and blue Trantor-type world city after only four years is a plot hole. Something that stands out about this mission is that I remember it as one of very few, possibly the only, missions in all of the SC2 trilogy which is a classic Blizz rts mission. The goal is to build a big army of your fightan mans and clear the board of all existing cpu structures. It's got the thing about towers and the Odin sneak attack but the core of mission is 'build base, attack-move all enemy bases'. I liked sometimes to intentionally let the Odin get destroyed just for a little added challenge, because like Bisby shows, if you prioritize targets during the sneak attack the mission can be very easy, even on Brutal.
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Sep 30, 2023 13:16
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bladededge posted:Getting Tychus and the Odin into the middle of Augustgrad isn't a plot hole, the nuclear-blasted desert planet Korhal being a big black and blue Trantor-type world city after only four years is a plot hole. I'd call it less of a plot hole than Mar Sara getting rebuilt, since we all know Mengsk is the type of guy to throw infinity dollars into the revival of Korhal just to spite the Confederacy one last time.
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Sep 30, 2023 13:18
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Poil posted:Maybe it's Mobious that handles everything Tychus, including monitoring (if they even bother), and they probably don't give the tiniest poo poo about what he does unless it were to go against THEIR plans. -Mobius is the one in charge of Tychus and they're secretly undermining Mengsk, which explains all sorts of things about why Mengsk isn't stopping Tychus, the kill-switch, etc. -Tychus not being aimed at Raynor personally suddenly makes sense since Mobius sees Raynor's Raiders as a useful pawn and doesn't have the personal history like Mengsk does. -It even helps explain how Matt is able to pull off this mission, because a wealthy corporation with powerful connections is quietly smoothing the path in front of Matt.
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Sep 30, 2023 13:51
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PurpleXVI posted:I feel like a classic videogame fuckup that WoL makes is just how little Mengsk is present as an actual enemy actor. He doesn't call you up to go "y'all boys are hosed, I'm gonna send my big explody mans at you." Outside of the first mission you don't really see any visceral war crimes to get upset about even if he isn't physically present. Mengsk is never the opposing general in a fight(say he has clones! Mengsk-bots! Always escapes at the last moment!). I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out that this was something of a  -wide overreaction to the community complaints of Arthas showing up so often in Wrath to shake his fist at you and exclaim that he’d get you next time that he started to look like a kid’s cartoon villain.
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Sep 30, 2023 14:21
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the simpler answer is that Mengsk has a boss who won't let him burn the asset to stop a fairly ineffectual operation. Blizzard were correct that evidence-based politics matters less than we think
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Sep 30, 2023 17:36
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Lt. Danger posted:Blizzard were correct that evidence-based politics matters less than we think Worth noting that this mission isn't critical path. You can get to the end of WoL without playing it, so for the other campaigns the Dominion will be in the same state whether this happened or not.
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Sep 30, 2023 17:42
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That, and him just screaming “FAKE NEWS” is probably an actually plausible defense for him in-universe. For people who already disliked him, it’s a tipping point for revolt, but for the scared and easily impressionable folks who worry about having two hostile enemy races to contend with, he might be a total bastard, but he’s also the closest thing they have to a centralized defense (even though we, the audience, know that he’s pretty rapidly becoming ineffectual at even that).
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Sep 30, 2023 18:00
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Mengsk is obviously an evil dictator, but he promises stability and security for humanity for the low price of "keeping your head down" and "occasionally kidnapping psychic children". In a universe with two alien races, one of which is omnicidal and the other exterminates planets sometimes, that's a small price to pay for most people.
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Sep 30, 2023 18:57
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I forget, was the Confederacy basically a democracy in name only (that was actually ruled by the oligarchs), or did they not even bother with the pretense? Because to the average Dominion citizen, all Mengsk really did was redistribute power almost solely to himself.
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Sep 30, 2023 23:31
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Regalingualius posted:I forget, was the Confederacy basically a democracy in name only (that was actually ruled by the oligarchs), or did they not even bother with the pretense? Because to the average Dominion citizen, all Mengsk really did was redistribute power almost solely to himself. According to the fan wiki, the former. Though extremely thinly-veiled. There was a senate of elected representatives from the planets of the Confederacy and a council which in theory cooperated with the senate but was not actually elected and thus not accountable to the people in any fashion. (Nothing on how the council members were appointed, though.) The council was apparently mostly an appendage to the "old families" of Tarsonis who originally ran the colony ships that shoved all the undesirables off to Koprulu. Council and senate were both seen as wildly corrupt and people generally knew all the power was in the oligarchs' hands. Then the Confederacy was decapitated at Tarsonis and Mengsk was the most prominent force on the spot. And during a crisis, people love a strongman.
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Sep 30, 2023 23:56
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disposablewords posted:And during a crisis, people love a strongman. Hence why Mengsk is working so hard to play up Raynor as a big bad dangerous threat at the start of the game; the Zerg have been quiet for too long to be the current Boogieman keeping people scared and compliant, and the Protoss are keeping to themselves. Mengsk needs someone to scare the population with.
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Oct 1, 2023 00:05
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Regalingualius posted:I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out that this was something of a which feels weird because in diablo 3 they notoriously quintupled down on that exact problem of all the badguys popping up and laughing about their evil plan and how they'd totally kick your rear end, which contributed a large part toward the writing being absolute dogshit.
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Oct 1, 2023 01:44
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Intermission 17 Cinematic: Hearts and Minds     Hey look, it's Michael Liberty! He finally got into a game!          Things aren't going well for Mengsk.   Cameras start going off non-stop.     He's right you know. By the time Heart of the Swarm rolls around everything will be back to normal for old Mengsk. Oh well, at least Tychus got to pilot a massive death machine.                 And they laugh together as the scene fades out. It is nice to see Matt relax a bit.    Tychus has gone off elsewhere today. >Examine Media Mogul. You can barely see it under the Credits counter.  >Watch news.  For those of you who haven't been watching the news ticker for these broadcasts, this one in particular is just repeating Mengsk's quote on loop.  Donny, what's the situation where you are?     And Mengsk finally remembers the tyrant playbook and just starts forcibly silencing the media. If he did that a bit earlier he wouldn't be in this mess to begin with.  >Talk to Swann.    Got some work to do on the chassis still, but I got to thinkin' about upgrades and variants, y'know? They ain't gonna be cheap, cowboy. Big honkin' thing like that never is. But they'll be worth it, you'll see. That's what I like to hear! I'll take a look and see what's affordable.>Use Armory Console.  The Thor is bizarrely small on the Armory screen.  Its upgrades consist of a boost to its Barrage attack, upgrading it from a single target attack to the Odin's AoE version.  And a really unique ability to revive itself after death.  You know what? I'll take both. I'm sure I'll find a use for them somewhere.  >Talk to Tychus.   I'm glad you're part of all this, Tychus. You did real good today.>Talk to Horner.   I assume that doesn't mean 'firing' them... But why would Mengsk wanna' kill a whole research staff? I don't know, but it seems like something we should check out. It does, indeed.   Blah blah blah old poo poo.  Ooooooooooor I could finally get the last bit of protoss research I need. 
BisbyWorl fucked around with this message at 17:00 on Oct 3, 2023 |
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Oct 1, 2023 03:32
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I'm pretty sure a sniper just took out that camera. Seriously though, Mengsk seriously cracks under scrutiny here. This is a far cry from the man who was so good at keeping his cool that a Class Twelve Psionic Telepath couldn't read his true intentions.
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Oct 1, 2023 03:44
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BlazetheInferno posted:I'm pretty sure a sniper just took out that camera. ...I actually think it's reasonably well-executed. Shame about....everything else.
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Oct 1, 2023 05:06
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You know what? I'm actually voting for Tyrador next. I think it's actually the most interesting of the three options for possible commentary.
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Oct 1, 2023 05:23
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The Secret Mission is basically a showcase of the Weird poo poo You Can Get Up To In The Galaxy Editor, so that's 100% my vote.
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Oct 1, 2023 05:49
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Kith posted:The Secret Mission is basically a showcase of the Weird poo poo You Can Get Up To In The Galaxy Editor, so that's 100% my vote. I'm also voting Secret Mission because delaying Haven is a meme and it'll get us the last bit of research we need for Tech Reactors.
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Oct 1, 2023 06:47
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Warmachine posted:I'm also voting Secret Mission because delaying Haven is a meme and it'll get us the last bit of research we need for Tech Reactors.
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Oct 1, 2023 06:55
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As long as we don't go to Haven.
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Oct 1, 2023 06:56
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Secret mission!
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Oct 1, 2023 07:04
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Wings of Liberty doesn't actually tell you that this mission chain is optional, and I always did it because it in many ways feels more like the main plot than the actual main plot, so until I finally played Heart of the Swarm I sort of just assumed that Raynor's Raiders had won the war and that sometime soon after WoL the Dominion would either collapse or undergo other substantial change under Valerian.
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Oct 1, 2023 08:08
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I figured it out this playthrough, because I wanted to delay the "main" mission chain until I do everything else. To my surprise, the story progressed without it 
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Oct 1, 2023 08:32
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I'm voting Tyrador, mainly because the post-mission cutscene for that is hilarous to have directly after this one.
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Oct 1, 2023 08:35
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Anywhere but Haven please, I heard the place is a shithole.
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Oct 1, 2023 09:40
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BisbyWorl posted:And a really unique ability to revive itself after death. Another cut ability from alpha. Originally, thors had to be built by SCVs and would leave behind wrecks that could be scavenged for minerals and gas by other players or rebuilt by Terrans. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 17:35 on Oct 1, 2023 |
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Oct 1, 2023 13:36
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Cythereal posted:Another cut ability from alpha. Originally, thors had to be build by SCVs and would leave behind wrecks that could be scavenged for minerals and gas by other players or rebuilt by Terrans. Huh. That's very Supreme Commander, that would have been kind of cool. Here I thought actiblizz's designers were deliberately ignoring what Relic and Gas Powered had been doing since Brood War's release. Imagining sc2 now with no queue limits and effectively infinite army waypoints.
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Oct 1, 2023 16:31
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bladededge posted:Huh. That's very Supreme Commander, that would have been kind of cool. I think that ultimately they accepted that with such a gap between the old and new they could either try for new and gamble or just toss the old in the pan again and have a sure hit.
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Oct 1, 2023 17:32
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BlazetheInferno posted:I'm pretty sure a sniper just took out that camera. The stress of micromanaging an empire could be taking its toll... One of the great problem of this cutscenes is that they are not in a chronological order, so you have the pro Mengsk reporter having a crisis one moment and then, the next mission, he's still spouting propaganda.
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Oct 1, 2023 19:54
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Guy Fawkes posted:The stress of micromanaging an empire could be taking its toll... IIRC a few news reports change slightly if played after this mission, including Haven.
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Oct 1, 2023 19:57
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Tychus' sudden but inevitable betrayal is gonna really suck
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Oct 2, 2023 06:46
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The thread moved past the discussion, but I want to bring up the question whether campaign should prepare you for skirmish games once more. I think it is naive that expect the campaign to truly prepare you for skirmish games, just because the skirmish games WILL have balancing changes that aren't in the campaign (thank god), and it WILL have its own meta, and it WILL have early timing rushes based on the fact that people are generally better at executing a rush than defending them. Still, when I play campaign games, I expect to be shown all the different mechanics for skirmish games, rather than finding out that I just spent 10-20 hours playing a faction that works completely differently when I try to play it in a skirmish. (I am looking at you HotS Zerg) I don't think I've ever played a modernish RTS game with the expectation that after I finish the game I won't play skirmish, even if just offline against AI.
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Oct 2, 2023 09:47
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 drat, who could have seen this coming?
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Oct 3, 2023 14:18
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