|
There's a second easter egg in the Roachvolution missions. In the Vile half, if you go to the left from spawn, there's an area full of rainbow crystals where a woman and two wolves come out of a cave. The girl's name is Maye, and the wolves are Onyx and Diamond. The internet doesn't seem to have an explanation for what exactly this is referring to, but it's there.
|
# ? Jan 28, 2024 21:05 |
|
|
# ? Jun 5, 2024 06:36 |
|
Kith posted:Also, now that we've got some Evolution Missions under our belt, Would that include drones? Sounds silly but there are a few variations of how to handle vespene harvesting in campaign and co-op so I can see it.
|
# ? Jan 28, 2024 21:10 |
|
JackSplater posted:There's a second easter egg in the Roachvolution missions. In the Vile half, if you go to the left from spawn, there's an area full of rainbow crystals where a woman and two wolves come out of a cave. The girl's name is Maye, and the wolves are Onyx and Diamond. The internet doesn't seem to have an explanation for what exactly this is referring to, but it's there. If the internet doesn't have an explanation then my assumption is some developer's SO and pets. Which is actually better than a reference to something tbh.
|
# ? Jan 28, 2024 22:16 |
I got no idea what's coming up, and I'm excited to find out. Kerrigan seems psychotic already. +1 for the strangeness if the anime punching fight against Zeratul showing up and doing nothing. And lolling at the Dino Zerg (no longer a parasite) instantly evolving. It looks like a wow dragon to my untrained eye, which, Fair, I guess, but nothing about that look really screams Zerg.
|
|
# ? Jan 28, 2024 23:08 |
|
JackSplater posted:There's a second easter egg in the Roachvolution missions. In the Vile half, if you go to the left from spawn, there's an area full of rainbow crystals where a woman and two wolves come out of a cave. The girl's name is Maye, and the wolves are Onyx and Diamond. The internet doesn't seem to have an explanation for what exactly this is referring to, but it's there. The face looks like something out of Dragon Age: Origins.
|
# ? Jan 28, 2024 23:18 |
|
I just forgot all about the Zerg backstory from the manual so I didn't even notice there was a retcon.
|
# ? Jan 28, 2024 23:29 |
|
Let’s get stupid!
|
# ? Jan 28, 2024 23:34 |
|
I see glowing and I think.. NEXT TIME ON DRAGON BALL KERRIGAN!
|
# ? Jan 28, 2024 23:40 |
|
JackSplater posted:There's a second easter egg in the Roachvolution missions. In the Vile half, if you go to the left from spawn, there's an area full of rainbow crystals where a woman and two wolves come out of a cave. The girl's name is Maye, and the wolves are Onyx and Diamond. The internet doesn't seem to have an explanation for what exactly this is referring to, but it's there. "Inside you are two wolves, a lady, and a rainbow cave. ...What's a metaphor?"
|
# ? Jan 29, 2024 00:28 |
|
Tenebrais posted:All that said, they had a very easy out that they could have taken to keep things consistent - if there were simply zerg left behind when the Overmind moved to the Koprulu sector. Either then or after it died, they lost all control or structure and started multiplying and evolving rapidly. That the entire jungle is all zerg, no longer being kept geared toward being an effective army and just filling every possible ecological niche as a free-wheeling ecosystem. At least that would have been kind of cool. The idea that every blade of grass on the planet is a Zerg sounds super neat. I'd have loved to see what kind of creativity they could muster up art-wise around that kind of idea. You can still keep the Dinosaur Apex Predator Guys as the main enemies for Kerrigan to fight too.
|
# ? Jan 29, 2024 01:23 |
|
Tenebrais posted:All that said, they had a very easy out that they could have taken to keep things consistent - if there were simply zerg left behind when the Overmind moved to the Koprulu sector. Either then or after it died, they lost all control or structure and started multiplying and evolving rapidly. That the entire jungle is all zerg, no longer being kept geared toward being an effective army and just filling every possible ecological niche as a free-wheeling ecosystem. At least that would have been kind of cool. So... Mordremoth from Guild Wars 2. Who was an awesome concept that that game simply did not know how to write or use. I don't think Blizzard could have done the idea justice, either, but it could in theory have been neat.
|
# ? Jan 29, 2024 01:25 |
|
Blizzard decided to take a break from "borrowing" liberally from the Tyranids, and for the Primal Zerg instead lifted from the Kroot.
|
# ? Jan 29, 2024 01:27 |
|
The original concept for the Zerg is quite, quite close to the Yeerks from the Animorphs book series. Those were being written around the time of Starcraft's development, 1996-1997ish, so I've always wondered if it was a direct "inspiration" or not. Alien parasite worms controlling the brains of bigger animals to puppet them is a fairly common trope in sci-fi writing going back decades, so I'd believe both yes and no on that.
|
# ? Jan 29, 2024 07:19 |
|
Sanguinia posted:I legit don't remember most of this game between the start and the end, but I do remember really enjoying the Zerus arc. Super Jungle Dinosaur Planet is a much more fun idea than Char But Its The Original Version on its face. And if the original version of the Zerg backstory is that they were something similar to the larvae that parasitized onto local species, then the Xel'Naga modified them to consume, assimilate and evolve new forms based on what they ate, this doesn't seem like all that radical a departure on the surface. They just found their own evolutionary path to what the Xel'Naga made their cousins and kept doing their own thing when the rest of the swarm left. Yeah, this is how I read it. I honestly like the Zerus stuff. The only thing that squinting and tilting your head doesn't fix is the Char-but-the-first-one. Primal Zerg are fantasy dinosaurs now, but starting as the worms? That could work pretty good! Little wrigglers came a long way! Grand Fromage posted:I just forgot all about the Zerg backstory from the manual so I didn't even notice there was a retcon. This too. It's been so many years since I physically had the SC1 manuals. Like, over 20 years. Oh god.
|
# ? Jan 29, 2024 07:41 |
|
Sanguinia posted:The idea that every blade of grass on the planet is a Zerg sounds super neat. I'd have loved to see what kind of creativity they could muster up art-wise around that kind of idea. You can still keep the Dinosaur Apex Predator Guys as the main enemies for Kerrigan to fight too. Zerg as that bit in Gremlins 2 where the Gremlins are in the genetics lab, they're still super primed to hoover up and implement any genes they touch, but they no longer have the Overmind and cerebrates doing any sorting and picking to angle them towards being predators, so you get Zerg cattle, Zerg fruit trees, Zerg kelp, Zerg capybaras, etc. Warmachine posted:Primal Zerg are fantasy dinosaurs now You know, I'm just going to put a pin in this comment and return to it when we get a bit further so I can complain about how and why I disagree with it, because it won't make sense for a bit yet without being what I'd feel is slightly spoilery. PurpleXVI fucked around with this message at 09:39 on Jan 29, 2024 |
# ? Jan 29, 2024 09:37 |
|
Zomborgon posted:Would that include drones? Yep. The plan was to have a choice between "drones morph two at once" and "vespene harvests itself", but since Evolution Missions for drones were cut (and I also imagine that such a mission wouldn't be particularly interesting to play), those choices were put elsewhere.
|
# ? Jan 29, 2024 12:53 |
|
Tenebrais posted:All that said, they had a very easy out that they could have taken to keep things consistent - if there were simply zerg left behind when the Overmind moved to the Koprulu sector. Either then or after it died, they lost all control or structure and started multiplying and evolving rapidly. That the entire jungle is all zerg, no longer being kept geared toward being an effective army and just filling every possible ecological niche as a free-wheeling ecosystem. At least that would have been kind of cool. That's a bit like Westwood were doing in Tiberian Sun and Firestorm, suggesting that the Tiberium wasn't just spreading green stuff everywhere, it was actively Tiberiumforming everything, new life forms were being created, new types of plants, animals and alge, mutating what was there into being able to survive and thrive alongside it, and it was very compelling. Then EA changed it so that all the Tiberium was doing was making everything else into more Tiberium so that aliens could mine it and all the interesting storytelling went away.
|
# ? Jan 29, 2024 13:49 |
|
And now the proverbial ball has dropped. I was going to say the colony ship wasn’t the nadir and say “the worst is yet to come” but I forgot Zerus opens up after the first planet is done so welp Here we are The entire backstory of the Zerg has been retconned from “alien parasite from a volcanic wasteland engineered by long dead super aliens to evolve and consume that then ate their creators” to “HYPER EVOLUTION DINOSAURS ON JUNGLE WORLD THAT ARE ALSO THE TRUE ZERG”. No explanation for the Overmind or how they went from “dinosaurs and also bad ripoff of green Phyrexians from MtG” to “the Zerg you actually remember”. Just spitting on the lore in such a blatant and obvious way it’s insulting. Also it still gets dumber from here but at least I can stop having to bite my tongue about this particular stupidity. Anyways, vote Zerus. Something special happens at the end of Zerus which is truly…something that happens.
|
# ? Jan 29, 2024 16:15 |
|
I've said before I never played SC1. I saw the Zerus cutscene. And I thought it was probably one of the stupidest things I've ever seen. How are the Zerg, who have been fighting loving space wars for god knows how many years, in need of the basic bitch rear end zerg that they left on Zerus. Like if the gimmick is that the zerg adapt super fast to survive in space then how have the zerg somehow grown weaker than if they'd just sat on their home turf doing nothing but eating the same creatures they'd grown off of.
|
# ? Jan 29, 2024 16:44 |
|
Natural 20 posted:I've said before I never played SC1. the communist water fluoridation conspiracy has corrupted their essence so now they need to start over
|
# ? Jan 29, 2024 16:48 |
|
Natural 20 posted:I've said before I never played SC1. I figured that the point of the trip was less "The Primal Zerg are better than the Space Zerg," and more "Go back to the Primal Zerg are learn some kind of important metaphorical lesson about life from the Zerg perspective. And also you don't need to be defined by what the Xel'Naga made the Zerg since they're now the badguy. Go learn what you can be without their guardrails."
|
# ? Jan 29, 2024 16:53 |
It gets explained. The explanation itself, on the other hand, is dumb. Dumb. Dumb.
|
|
# ? Jan 29, 2024 16:53 |
|
Oh it's very simple: Metzen is trying to turn the Zerg into Starcraft's very own noble savages and it's time for Dances With Zerglings.
|
# ? Jan 29, 2024 16:54 |
|
Sanguinia posted:I figured that the point of the trip was less "The Primal Zerg are better than the Space Zerg," and more "Go back to the Primal Zerg are learn some kind of important metaphorical lesson about life from the Zerg perspective. And also you don't need to be defined by what the Xel'Naga made the Zerg since they're now the badguy. Go learn what you can be without their guardrails." The cutscene shows a primal zerg eating another one and getting eyes. It's pretty loving strongly implying that it wants you to eat the primal zerg rather than hinting at some sort of metaphor about redefining what Zerg are.
|
# ? Jan 29, 2024 16:56 |
|
Zeratul does mention that "here the Dark One altered them" and some were "left behind" Which leaves the possibility open that the Primal Zerg are at least partially the result of experimentation. Hell they could be a control group. (No, not the hotkey kind) Can't recall if that's contradicted later.
|
# ? Jan 29, 2024 17:08 |
|
So... is nobody else going to comment on the fact that we had a perfect definition of exactly how evolution works in the Roach mission, followed up by how idiot's think evolution works in the cutscene?
|
# ? Jan 29, 2024 17:52 |
|
that was metamorphosis because it was cells
|
# ? Jan 29, 2024 18:16 |
|
My favorite part of this revelation is that it is once again thrown at us through Zeratul just dropping in out of nowhere in a cutscene to protossplain some crazy bullshit retcon he found out through magic.
|
# ? Jan 29, 2024 18:29 |
|
I always thought Primal Zerg was so that if they ever decide to do Koprulu Sector of Starcraft, the Zerg PCs can be non hivemind individuals with evolutions as an equipment-esque gimmick
|
# ? Jan 29, 2024 18:37 |
|
Maybe they need some zerg essence that hasn't been corrupted by the xel naga, kind of like how there's some demand in the real world for steel made before nuclear testing contaminated everything slightly
|
# ? Jan 29, 2024 19:46 |
|
the Orb of Zot posted:And now the proverbial ball has dropped. I mean, on the one hand, they were trying to differentiate them from the Tyranids. On the other hand, they wound up turning them into Kroot (as I think someone else mentioned). On the gripping hand, they really didn't need to, because I thought the Zerg had become different enough because of the original games.
|
# ? Jan 29, 2024 23:16 |
|
Calax posted:So... is nobody else going to comment on the fact that we had a perfect definition of exactly how evolution works in the Roach mission, followed up by how idiot's think evolution works in the cutscene? The game certainly doesn't know what the gently caress is going on, what do you think we're going to add?
|
# ? Jan 29, 2024 23:18 |
|
Calax posted:So... is nobody else going to comment on the fact that we had a perfect definition of exactly how evolution works in the Roach mission, followed up by how idiot's think evolution works in the cutscene? No you're wrong. You eat a thing with 6 eyes and you get 6 eyes. It's why I currently have gills and a sword for a nose.
|
# ? Jan 29, 2024 23:42 |
|
Natural 20 posted:No you're wrong. You eat a thing with 6 eyes and you get 6 eyes. Is this why I feel so doughy and cheesy?
|
# ? Jan 30, 2024 00:18 |
|
painedforever posted:Is this why I feel so doughy and cheesy?
|
# ? Jan 30, 2024 01:17 |
|
I absolutely loathe literally everything about retconned Zerg origins, especially the 14yo white nationalist understanding of what evolution is.
|
# ? Jan 30, 2024 01:21 |
|
say what you will about blizzard, they knew their audience
|
# ? Jan 30, 2024 01:28 |
|
Natural 20 posted:I've said before I never played SC1. Didn't you know that the testing/prototype version of a thing is always, always vastly more powerful than the refined, mass-produced production version? It's been true in every mecha anime since Gundam in 1979. Just apply that logic to forced genetic engineering.
|
# ? Jan 30, 2024 04:49 |
|
Co-op Showcase 1: Jim Raynor (Ft. TeeQueue) Video: Jim Raynor Co-op Welcome to Co-op! The game mode where the meta is made up and the balance doesn't matter. While SC2 has been in maintenance mode for years now, Co-op managed to end with a respectable 18 Commanders. Now, a few bits of Plot to cover that Co-op assumes you know that the LP hasn't reached:
Each Commander has their own slimmed down unit list. Jimmy here, for example, has a bunch of basic units with the closest things he has to a spellcaster being Banshees and Battlecruisers. Where things start to pop off is the level system, which will give Commanders powerful buffs and further differentiate their playstyle from other Commanders of the same race. For Raynor, he has:
Right off the bat, we can see some wacky stuff. Orbital Strike gets buffed to work on all units, not just infantry, and we effectively get both choices of protoss and zerg T1 research at the same time despite them being mutually exclusive back in Wings proper. The Customize button, meanwhile, opens up the Masteries and Prestige menu. Masteries open up once a Commander hits level 15, at which point they start earning Mastery XP which is shared across all Commanders. Mastery levels are split into three sets of up to 30 points, and can be used to further strengthen your Commander. Mastery levels past 90 will instead work towards cosmetic unlocks. Prestiges give even stronger bonuses than Masteries, but each one also comes with a drawback to balance it out. They're is unlocked by resetting a level 15 Commander back to level 1, requiring three full resets to unlock every Prestige. Jim's Prestiges are: Backwater Marshal
The funny thing is that TeeQueue did a Nova prestige like 10 minutes before I hopped on and noticed him, so he's stuck at level 1. Co-op matches give you a much faster start compared to normal, with 12 workers right off the bat. You can also see the top bar a few of the level upgrades mentioned. The top bar is a major mechanic in Legacy of the Void, but most Commanders get it in some form or another. Jim, as babby's first Commander, only gets two buttons to play with. There's TeeQueue now! If you look closely at the minimap, you can see where his camera is pointed at. That Nova icon near my command card means he's using a Nova Prestige, so if you're playing with randoms you aren't surprised by a drastically different playstyle. Each Co-op mission has it's own announcer, and for Void Thrashing it's Sgt. Hammer from Heroes of the Storm. They like doing this kind of cross-promotion. Anyways, almost every mission has a pair of expansions for the players to take. Sometimes they're right next to your starting base and has rocks over everything to stop you from instantly taking it before you invest in an army, other times they start off held by an enemy and require you to beat them down first. Some maps have additional bases beyond that, but those are never required. Each run always starts off like this. Just a few minutes of getting your base up and running. Technically this mission is based on one from Legacy, but it has a coat of paint that drastically changes how things look so I don't mind using it first. While a lot of stuff in Co-op is utterly broken compared to campaign, some things do need to be dialed back a smidge. Orbital Commands have gone from being an innate bonus to an upgrade that requires a Barracks like in skirmish, and can't be done while SCVs are being made. This keeps Raynor from having an unstoppable early game economy compared to other Commanders. Co-op is nice and won't spring an attack wave on you with no warning, instead marking them on the map and having one of the Commanders comment on it. They're also directly spawned on the map instead of needing to be built, with each race using their relevant form of warping in. The Tech Lab has also regained its skirmish role of per-unit upgrades. A lot of Raynor's upgrades are straight from Wings: Marines get Combat Shields, while Stimpacks are now innate, Marauders get Concussive Shells but no life upgrade, and Firebats get a buff to Juggernaut Plating that gives them +100 life as well as +3 armor vs the +2 of Wings. Now, surely four Marines backed by a Medic will be able to defend us! Well then, our enemy is terran! Oooooooooooooooor not. We got unlucky and rolled an enemy composition that opens with Hellions. Jim's line clues you in to what race you're fighting for this run if you're letting your partner deal with the first wave, while the new icon under Nova's face lists the exact enemy composition. The full set of compositions are: Terran
However, I'm stubborn and will stick to infantry. Nova is a slow start Commander, so these Hellions get to run wild for a bit. Thankfully, the first attack wave is timed just before things start to come online. I'm calling down an air strike! The Dusk Wings start off with all their upgrades, unlike their Wings version that shared Banshee upgrades, and give a good anti-ground punch that can't be defended against early on in the mission when attack waves aren't packing Detectors. Even later on, they're still good for some free bodies. The Engineering Bay also gets some new toys, with the other upgrade being an armor bonus to all structures. It's worth it to pop the top bar even if you can fend off the first attack wave on your own, just so you can use it to clear out the expansion faster. Once a Void Thrasher spawns it'll constantly bombard Sgt. Hammer. But it'll focus on nearby enemies if you get close! I'm calling down the Hyperion! The cooldown reduction mastery for the Hyperion does not affect the initial cooldown, again to stop you from using it to get a leg up in the opening minutes. Every other use will have two minutes shaved off the timer. The Hyperion is strong. Both its normal attacks deal 20 damage a shot, the Yamato does 600, it has a stockpile of 4 Point Defense Drones, it (as well as stock Battlecruisers) can warp anywhere on the map without needing vision, and it has that aura that strengthens all nearby allies. Now that something is nearby, the Void Thrasher will bombard enemies with lightning instead of attacking the fortress. After the first Thrasher is dead, two more prepare to spawn in the top left. Here we have our first glimpse of the Warhound. A unit that was originally intended to be added to the terran arsenal in Heart as an anti-mechanical unit, the devs couldn't figure out a way to balance it and scrapped the whole thing, leaving it as a campaign enemy-exclusive unit. Even here in Co-op, the land of more broken poo poo than you can imagine, only one Commander gets a Warhound and even then it's treated as more of a hero unit than something you can make a bunch of. A fun thing Raynor can do is make a bunch of excess Command Centers for more MULE casts. Co-op is designed so that you never have to worry about mining out in normal play, but Raynor can do just that if you have enough MULEs flying. Hybrid also start showing up around the middle of any mission. In my defense, it's been a while since I played Co-op, and Raynor's never been one of my strongest Commanders. Also, Marauders (and Firebats, I guess) gain access to Stimpacks. Raynor's Co-op stims give a +75% attack/move speed bonus and only cost 5 life a pop. Three Thrashers on the right, although TQ's been pushing down that side already. This should help fix my headcount problem. Here we have a Hybrid Dominator, which is Maar but stronger and trades out Graviton Prison for Psi Storm. Which makes it strong against Marines, you see. However, I've hit the critical point where I have enough money to just point all my Barracks at a spot and hold A until I win. Each mission also has a timed bonus objective you can go for to get some extra XP. For Void Thrashing, you have to shoot down an Archangel. The Archangel has the same marked aoe attacks from Back in the Saddle, and has a bunch of friends to back it up. When it gets low, it'll fly off to just past where the second set of Thrashers were. If you can deal enough damage you can kill it here and save some time. And four Thrashers to close things out. If you get attacked by a cloaked unit like a Banshee one of your Commanders will chime in to let the players know. This is doubly important for Raynor since, if you'll recall his unit list, he has no Detector units. He has Missile Turrets, and he has Scanner Sweep. That's it. Thankfully, he usually has enough energy on at least one Orbital to deal with it. Late game Raynor turns into Wings.army, having a massive Marine/Marauder/Medic bioball that's constantly getting reinforced via drop pods. The Speed Increase for Drop Pod Units mastery also encourages you to turn your army into a meat grinder. Shame that he's my worst Terran Commander, with having to constantly manage MULE micro and rally points requiring a good deal more APM than the others. Things may have started off rough, but not much can stand up to Man With Gun. Hey look, more Hybrid! Co-op in general is the opposite of a sweat fest until you start doing missions on Brutal+, but Void Thrashing is a good first taste. It has some time pressure, but it's generous enough that you don't really have to worry about it, and there's enough time between Thrasher waves to let you build back up after a bad fight. And done. Every mission gives a flat 20K XP, which is boosted based on difficulty and if you're running a random map or not, plus a bonus for your first game of the day. And it tracks a few stats to compare yourself to your partner. But we're not done just yet. Masteries effectively open up two separate playstyles per Commander. For Jim, he can pick between specializing in infantry or in mech. So back in we go! Let's skip past the early segment this time. This time I remember to make a Bunker and put two Marines in for early defense before I can get a Factory going. And through sheer dumb luck, we end up with the exact same enemy comp twice in a row. While you can pick what mission you want to do, what enemy you fight is always random. This time things go much better. Vultures get both their Wings Armory upgrades from the Tech Lab, while Siege Tanks get an entirely new upgrade that makes using them in combat much easier. TQ, plus the Dusk Wings I called down to clear my rocks, handily take down the Thrasher. Here are those two unlockable upgrades in the Armory. Ignite Afterburners is a nice bonus but isn't mandatory, while +1 range is +1 range. Unlike in the campaign, where Vultures were just an inferior mineral dump compared to Marines, in co-op the amped economy gives them a good deal of use! Short maps with no real risk of mining out means I can make heavy use of their ability to make more Spider Mines, letting me get an opening blow in a fight by dragging the enemy into a minefield or even just mining the hell out of my base entrances (with a few Missile Turrets for anti-air) to deal with attack waves. Even if they have detection, the time it takes to shoot down each mine will give one of us time to double back and deal with them personally. All the Starport Tech Lab upgrades are straight from Wings. More MULEs. More. Sure, the only units I have out right now can only hit ground, but it'll be fiiiiiiiiiiine. Pay no attention to the fact that I have one Vulture and TQ is down to just his hero. The only upgrade for Battlecruisers is the Yamato. Hyperjump is an innate ability while Defensive Matrix and Missile Pods are nowhere to be found. Hey look, an attack wave! You can see the type of mineral bank Raynor starts to build up once you get enough Orbitals out. In hindsight, I probably should have made at least a few Medics to patch up my army, but by this point I sorta forgot I had a Barracks to begin with. Eh, I can always just spam out Vultures. An unlisted upgrade Battlecruisers got is the ability to fire while moving, like a Diamondback. TQ deals with the Archangel while I max out my army. An attack wave has a bad day. And everything explodes. Bio Raynor is a really simple playstyle for a new player to get started with: make dude, send dude at enemy. High end Raynor play requires a bit more finesse in having to constantly crank out more Orbitals to supercharge your economy. Mech Raynor takes that and also throws in having to deal with Vulture, Siege Tank, and Battlecruiser micro. Alas, he doesn't really have much flash to him, as the majority of his kit is just stuff we've already seen in Wings but slightly better.
|
# ? Jan 30, 2024 04:53 |
|
|
# ? Jun 5, 2024 06:36 |
|
The only real complaints I had with co-op was the inability to have hard difficulty enemies without the faster speed and the ridiculous amounts of grinding you would need to get any character to 15. Much less any character three times.
|
# ? Jan 30, 2024 07:00 |