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I'd rather just... ignore all of that extra-game stuff. Aside from the creepiness it just doesn't make any sense. Nova certainly doesn't look like a teenager, or act like one, nor does her position in the Dominion make sense for one.
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Oct 16, 2023 04:22
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I see a manga for Starcraft and I think "nope, that was a loving terrible idea for Warcraft, and it's just as terrible here. It doesn't exist"
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Oct 16, 2023 04:34
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Gonna be a no from me on killing Tosh as well, seems pretty clear that Blizzard's writing team struggles with math as well as writing. I don't think it's meant to imply that Tosh is a creepy pedo, just that nobody has considered any of the dates.
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Oct 16, 2023 04:36
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Yeah none of the dates in Starcraft make sense, I don't see why character ages would be any different.
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Oct 16, 2023 04:41
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Staltran posted:I'd rather just... ignore all of that extra-game stuff. Aside from the creepiness it just doesn't make any sense. Nova certainly doesn't look like a teenager, or act like one, nor does her position in the Dominion make sense for one. So she’s basically been a full fledged Ghost for less than a year at this point and somehow already risen all the way through the ranks.
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Oct 16, 2023 05:08
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Pretty sure that manga isn't canon, anyway.
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Oct 16, 2023 05:09
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Staltran posted:I'd rather just... ignore all of that extra-game stuff. Aside from the creepiness it just doesn't make any sense. Nova certainly doesn't look like a teenager, or act like one, nor does her position in the Dominion make sense for one. Yeah, the ages (and a lot more) are absolutely stupid EU stuff that nobody probably ever did the math on except for wiki editors.
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Oct 16, 2023 05:13
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Kith posted:i'm willing to cut tosh some slack because it looks like he's a teenager/young adult along with nova in the comics and nova looks like a grown-rear end woman in SC2. it's loving blizzard, the left hand never knows what the right is doing because they're all a bunch of dumb-rear end partyboys who think they're the ROCKSTARS OF VIDEOGAMES and consistency is for losers, stop being a nerd we're doing coke in the bathroom and stealing breast milk Know what else rock stars are known for? Dubious relations with underage fans. Maeks u tink
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Oct 16, 2023 05:16
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Warmachine posted:Know what else rock stars are known for? in blizzard's case, it's wishful thinking
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Oct 16, 2023 05:39
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I'm not blaming Tosh for yet another sin of the writers
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Oct 16, 2023 11:38
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Nova doesn't look, sound or act like a teenager. This is just another case of the time gap since Brood War being shown as way shorter than it should have been.
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Oct 16, 2023 11:43
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Aces High posted:I see a manga for Starcraft and I think "nope, that was a loving terrible idea for Warcraft, and it's just as terrible here. It doesn't exist" "Why We Fight" wasn't bad. Haven't touched any of the other stuff though.
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Oct 16, 2023 12:23
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If Cythereal's thread has taught me anything it's that you don't come out of a deep dive into blizzard EU writing without some additional percentile points in Mythos lore. I'd prefer to keep max sanity high, thank you, we haven't hit Heart of the Swarm's flaming writing wreck yet. I actually used to own the Starcraft anthology, which was the first four novels. I remember nothing about it except that liberty's crusade was basically just a novelization of the game script, Tracy Hickman's book was completely inconsequential but at least entertainingly written, and Kevin J. Anderson has blackmail on someone which is the only way he keeps getting work.
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Oct 16, 2023 14:45
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bladededge posted:I remember nothing about it except that liberty's crusade was basically just a novelization of the game script I'll at least give Liberty's Crusade points for doing more than just a straight novelization of game events (looking at you, Halo: The Flood!) and actually tries to flesh things out. Like, I think the only mission that gets fully covered is, what, The Jacobs Installation? Most other missions that do show up tend to only get a quick pass for the actual in-game stuff. Like Backwater Station instead focuses on Mike and a military handler checking out an abandoned village only to get surprised by the zerg before he gets saved by Jim, and the actual mission is condensed down to them stumbling upon the Infested Command Center and razing it on the way back. BisbyWorl fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Oct 16, 2023 |
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Oct 16, 2023 14:58
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It helps a bit that Jeff Grubb is, while not an amazing author, pretty good at taking disparate messes of lore and gameplay elements and disjointed stories, and drawing something relatively strong and consistent out of them. His Warcraft and Magic: the Gathering novels were also consistently among the best, even when he was working with stuff that didn't have a particularly coherent central plot in mind when originally devised. (Low bar, I know. But still.)
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Oct 16, 2023 17:02
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bladededge posted:and Kevin J. Anderson has blackmail on someone which is the only way he keeps getting work. He turns out books on time and on budget. By my understanding, that's the trick to authors like him and Michael Stackpole. They're contracted to write books on short deadlines, and they do. They probably won't be good books, but that's not what you're hiring them for. They reliably churn out cheap crap on short deadlines because enough people will buy it because of the setting logo on the cover and that's a valuable and marketable professional skill.
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Oct 16, 2023 17:04
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I think the only Starcraft EU I read was the Dark Templar Trilogy, which always tickled me because Jake Ramsey is clearly the Dash Rendar to Jim Raynor's Han Solo. Oh, you wrote a dashing Terran rogue with a heart of gold who befriends some Protoss, Christie Golden? Wherever did you get that idea?
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Oct 16, 2023 17:12
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Cythereal posted:He turns out books on time and on budget. It has to be something like this; I didn't know he ever wrote any books except the truly terrible Dune prequels which he ghostwrote for Frank Herbert's son. Unfortunately after bladededge's comment I had to look him up and now know the terrible truth: He has written a lot of books.
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Oct 16, 2023 22:11
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It's the same for Rob Liefeld, terrible drawing, terrible plot, terrible dialogue, terrible art, on the other hand, apparently, personally he's pleasant and polite and he's never phoned in to push back a deadline, the flip side is that in order to achieve that he phones in and starts drawing without a plan and just lets everything go where the scribbles lead.
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Oct 16, 2023 22:32
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aniviron posted:It has to be something like this; I didn't know he ever wrote any books except the truly terrible Dune prequels which he ghostwrote for Frank Herbert's son. Unfortunately after bladededge's comment I had to look him up and now know the terrible truth: He has written a lot of books. I think you'll find this with a LOT of the writers who operate in other people's IP's. They can sit down and churn out 20k words in whatever setting you give to them, it just won't always be great. Basically any writer you find at Barnes and Noble who's books are in the series grouping rather than the author organization. Unless they're considered the Marquee writer for that series (Like Dan Abnett). As the person above me posted, in Comics a LOT of lovely artists keep getting work just because they're able to get it done and on time. Like Gregg Land. Jeff Grubb is another name to toss in this list. His works are considered some of the better options for their IP, like Liberty's Crusade (a novelization of SC1 from the perspective of a reporter who gets attached to Raynor). ALso, to reeel this further back on topic, I think that cinematic of the Fall of Tarsonis/New Gettysburg also featured pretty heavily in the marketing materials for Wings of Liberty.
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Oct 17, 2023 01:42
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 One of these days you won't be able to delay Haven.  Also Tosh gets to stick around. ...for the three remaining missions in Wings you can talk to him and the two times it gets mentioned in HotS.
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Oct 17, 2023 15:38
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Unit Spotlight: Medivac Overview:
In skirmish, the Medivac is the only healer Terrans have so you're forced to make them to support a bio army. In campaign, you have Medics for healing and Hercules for the handful of times you need transport, so... why use the Medivac? Abilities  Heal
The Medivac's heal has one crippling flaw: Two Medics can heal each other, two Medivacs can't. Combine that with the fact that anti-air defenses can take potshots on them when you push into a base, and a Medivac becomes a lot more fragile than their improved health implies. Also, it becomes effectively worthless if you're going for a mech army, giving you even more incentive to make a Hercules instead. Armory Upgrades  Advanced Healing AI
Never again will you be saddened by the sight of a squad of dead Marines and a live Medivac with half of its energy reserves. I can see what they're going for here, making Medivacs the quantity to Medic's quality. The problem is that healing two targets means you're burning twice as much energy, which opens up the risk of running dry much faster in a prolonged fight. If you're that desperate to heal a group, just eat the supply cost and make more Medics. That way you can heal multiple people with a stronger and cheaper heal.  Rapid Deployment Tubes
There's, like, two missions that demand any kind of drop play. One of them is The Mobius Factor itself, which is before you can buy their Armory upgrades. It's dirt cheap, at least? Field Manual Artwork 
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Oct 17, 2023 15:40
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Development detail - the medivac was one of the last units added to SC2 before launch. Originally Terrans had just plain medics, but Blizzard noticed that Terran players were skipping reapers because players kept putting medics with all bio comps and medics can't keep up with reapers. So the medivac was created to encourage reaper play and a more aggressive style.
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Oct 17, 2023 15:47
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I know I’m saying this with benefit of hindsight but lol, this starport tech dropship will totally encourage players to use our barracks tech infantry that sacrifices firepower for mobility
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Oct 17, 2023 16:13
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You're not supposed to support reapers with healing, you're supposed to send them in one by one at odd angles to die almost immediately but make your opponent anxious and distracted with constant "we are under attack!" notifications. I should admit that I never got past gold rank before giving up in SC2 standard multi.
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Oct 17, 2023 16:27
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Also, if you're wondering about Margin Guy's comment on the afterburners, Medivacs got a new active ability starting in HotS called Ignite Afterburners that gives a short boost to movement speed.
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Oct 17, 2023 17:18
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Chillgamesh posted:I know I’m saying this with benefit of hindsight but lol, this starport tech dropship will totally encourage players to use our barracks tech infantry that sacrifices firepower for mobility I mean, yes? Medivac drop play is (or at least was) a pretty constant part of terran matchups
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Oct 17, 2023 20:05
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Xarn posted:I mean, yes? Medivac drop play is (or at least was) a pretty constant part of terran matchups Don't see it happening with Reapers much though. I thought using Medivacs instead of Medics was more to shake up the unit composition, to give bio a key weakness in the need for flying mech that can be exploited and countered in interesting ways.
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Oct 17, 2023 20:19
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Tenebrais posted:Don't see it happening with Reapers much though.
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Oct 17, 2023 20:46
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I'm not 100% sure if this was a custom campaign thing, but GiantGrantGames' streams have shown reapers have a super regen passive anyways which makes it kind of moot.
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Oct 17, 2023 20:56
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Shastahanshah posted:I'm not 100% sure if this was a custom campaign thing, but GiantGrantGames' streams have shown reapers have a super regen passive anyways which makes it kind of moot. This is at least true in multiplayer, yes. It's a key part of early-game harrassment strategies with them.
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Oct 17, 2023 21:33
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They didn't have that back in WoL skirmish. No idea whether it was added in HotS or LotV, I stopped paying attention before HotS came out.
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Oct 17, 2023 23:35
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The Reaper's gimmick in WoL was their insanely strong anti-structure attack. Reapers were intended to be tricky suicide squads that could blow up key production buildings, but Blizzard realized it sucked to get pushed back that far, so instead they made Reapers the same kind of mineral line harassment units that every faction gets. Please do not look directly at the fact that Terrans already had one of those in the form of the Hellion.
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Oct 18, 2023 01:42
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bladededge posted:You're not supposed to support reapers with healing, you're supposed to send them in one by one at odd angles to die almost immediately but make your opponent anxious and distracted with constant "we are under attack!" notifications. I mean, you're not wrong, but eventually you transition into things a bit hardier such as banshees, liberators, or the good old fashioned drop. They even go rid of the reapers' tech lab requirement, but people still pretty much just build 1-2 during the initial build order for scouting and some initial harass and then that's it. Kith posted:The Reaper's gimmick in WoL was their insanely strong anti-structure attack. Reapers were intended to be tricky suicide squads that could blow up key production buildings, but Blizzard realized it sucked to get pushed back that far, so instead they made Reapers the same kind of mineral line harassment units that every faction gets. The reaper has a neat gimmick at least. It's still feast or famine (if your opponent puts units on the jump point it's GG for the reapers) but you can catch people with their pants down pretty good and have more options to juke with than a hellion. On the other hand, hellions transition into mech and reapers... camp watchtowers I guess?
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Oct 18, 2023 05:29
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DTurtle posted:Mass reapers was nerfed numerous times because it was too powerful. I don't know if they were ever combined with Medivacs back then though. That was before the time I started watching competitive SC2. Mass Reaper would have been an early all in build, any resources not spent building reapers would almost certainly have been spent on +1/+2 Weapons for a timing push rather than teching to Starport. Kith posted:The Reaper's gimmick in WoL was their insanely strong anti-structure attack. Reapers were intended to be tricky suicide squads that could blow up key production buildings, but Blizzard realized it sucked to get pushed back that far, so instead they made Reapers the same kind of mineral line harassment units that every faction gets. Current SC2 strategy often hits expansion to the natural before you even get a factory out, so Hellions have a pretty significant gap where harassment would be useful but they aren't in sufficient numbers to be effective. And Reapers would actually be the third mineral line harassment unit for Terran behind Hellions, who transition into hellbats and are at least a believable frontline for mech and another unit who actually has a place where you do see medivac play... widow mine drops
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Oct 18, 2023 18:46
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I am eternally pained that they replaced the Vulture with two units that are just a lovely version of half a Vulture
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Oct 18, 2023 21:09
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Chillgamesh posted:I am eternally pained that they replaced the Vulture with two units that are just a lovely version of half a Vulture Honestly I feel like I might have been one of the only people not deeply attached to the Vulture.
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Oct 18, 2023 23:04
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Warmachine posted:Honestly I feel like I might have been one of the only people not deeply attached to the Vulture. Same, though mainly because I never really saw any need for them in campaign and never played MP
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Oct 18, 2023 23:33
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Warmachine posted:Honestly I feel like I might have been one of the only people not deeply attached to the Vulture. Regalingualius posted:Same, though mainly because I never really saw any need for them in campaign and never played MP Same as you, but also because I hate having to work with units that can only attack air or ground; I suck at combined arms. Gimme Marines, Dragoons, Hydralisks, etc.
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Oct 18, 2023 23:51
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I think a lot of the Vulture nostalgia comes from how much character the pilot had.
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Oct 19, 2023 01:29
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