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I don't think anyone's missing the point that the old Queen of Blades was tainted with corruption and the new Primal one is not, it's just terribly written for many, many reasons.
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Feb 10, 2024 17:49
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Torrannor posted:Terran Kerrigan. Terrigan Kerrigan
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Feb 10, 2024 17:52
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I remember tuning into WCS and very upset casters who were three hours into a stalemated game. Can’t remember if it was a zvz or zvp but it definitely ran over 3h20m Think there was an off-stream tournament game that ran over eight hours Swarm Hosts were not a good design
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Feb 10, 2024 17:53
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Hwurmp posted:Terrigan Kerrigan Terrigan Kerran
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Feb 10, 2024 17:58
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I personally thought de-zergifying Kerrigan was pretty lame, so it's better that she goes back to being a cool monster lady basically immediately. Unfortunately, they removed her sense of fun with Amon, I guess. That was the best part of Kerrigan in Brood War. She was having such a great time doing her thing! In HoTS it's just another day at the office for her. "Ugh. Don't talk to me, I've got deliverables. I gotta have Mensk's head by the end of the week, and Abathur just requested another meeting that could have been an email."
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Feb 10, 2024 18:04
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Octatonic posted:and Abathur just requested more essence that could have been an email." I liked the swarm hosts in the campaign, they're pretty great on Normal. It is very frustrating that they need two of the pick-one-of-three upgrades to be good, though. A lot of mod campaigns just give them one of them for free.
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Feb 10, 2024 18:07
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If nothing else, I view it as simply more of Kerrigan stealing power from her enemies to make herself stronger. In this case, the "enemy" is the monster she was turned into. She's stealing that absurdly powerful form from the Queen Bitch, and using the evolutionary catalyst of the Primal Zerg's Spawning Pool to direct her own evolution - and let's be honest, at this point, as far as we know Jim is dead. He was her last moral connection to her Humanity, so she has no real reason left to hold onto it over seeking revenge against Mengsk. It's no accident that she's taking back her old look - it's a look that Mengsk knows and remembers, and him knowing that she was de-zerged, only for her to show up again wearing that look, except now it's SARAH in control and not the Queen Bitch, and she's also more powerful than the old Queen ever was? Taking back her old look isn't just for aesthetics or convenience. It's an Intimidation Tactic. The Queen is back, and stronger than ever. But this time, she's not out for indiscriminate chaos and carnage. No, this time all of that power is a single, unstoppable bullet aimed squarely at Arcturus Mengsk's head, and gods have mercy on any poor, stupid, soul idiotic enough to try and jump in its path. Be afraid, Dominion. Be Very Afraid.
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Feb 10, 2024 18:15
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Some heroic attempts being made in this thread to defend the re-zergification of Kerrigan but all for naught. Blizzard could have made the story point work if they'd done a bunch of things differently, but as it is actually presented in the game it's really really bad.
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Feb 10, 2024 18:23
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So, I think it's fair to say that what's happening in this scene isn't just hitting an "undo" button of the WoL story, but otoh, I don't think it makes sense to downplay the aesthetic impact of the scene - the "pretty pictures." First of all, this is a Blizzard game, the aesthetic is a huge part of the experience. Secondly, the story of HotS is told cinematicly and in good cinematic storytelling, the visuals work to uphold the point of the story. Visually, this scene tells us really bluntly that Kerrigan is back to how she was before everything we did in WoL: she looks the way the Overmind made her, but purple now. This design throwback does not contribute to telling a story of Kerrigan doing something different and liberating and empowering on her own terms (though in fairness lots of other things in the scene do communicate power and freedom so it's a mixed bag).
GunnerJ fucked around with this message at 18:35 on Feb 10, 2024 |
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Feb 10, 2024 18:29
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There are plenty of explanations for this development that make a lot of sense, emphasize what might be considered the themes of the game, provide dramatic tension, and create interesting character development. But Blizzard didn't use any of these explanations. They might have even had them in mind, but they didn't sell them in the game. You have to at least gesture in the direction of the plot at some point if you want people to understand it, and there are only maybe two or three moments later in the game that do that, long after the point at which the player has already come to their own conclusions about it.
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Feb 10, 2024 18:38
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GunnerJ posted:So, I think it's fair to say that what's happening in this scene isn't just hitting an "undo" button of the WoL story, but otoh, I don't think it makes sense to downplay the aesthetic impact of the scene - the "pretty pictures." First of all, this is a Blizzard game, the aesthetic is a huge part of the experience. Secondly, the story of HotS is told cinematicly and in good cinematic storytelling, the visuals work to uphold the point of the story. Visually, this scene tells us really bluntly that Kerrigan is back to how she was before everything we did in WoL: she looks the way the Overmind made her, but purple now. This design throwback does not contribute to telling a story of Kerrigan doing something different and liberating and empowering on her own terms (though in fairness lots of other things in the scene do communicate power and freedom so it's a mixed bag).
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Feb 10, 2024 18:38
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It'd be one thing if they did literally anything, even a single throwaway line, to justify why she's now the Purple Queen of Blades. But they can't even be bother to do that so now we have to believe that Abathur, the Evolution Master of the Swarm that was handcrafted by the Overmind, came to the same conclusion as a bunch of pool goo. Like, she's the super special chosen one destined to save the universe! If anyone deserves the cash and man hours needed for a redesign, it's her!
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Feb 10, 2024 18:46
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can't believe we're arguing Blizzard were too subtle and understated in their writing
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Feb 10, 2024 19:41
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There's a difference between being subtle and just wholesale forgetting to include the plot.
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Feb 10, 2024 19:51
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I can sorta see the double bind Blizzard put themselves in here. They came up with their redesign of Kerrigan for Starcraft 2, probably as one of the first pieces of concept art for it, since she's far and away the most beloved surviving character. And they also come up with the de-zerging plot for Kerrigan in Wings of Liberty. There's a good argument to be made that the real problem with this re-zerging situation is that she got de-zerged in the first place (since this is basically just putting her back where she was before after learning nothing). But, on the other hand, Kerrigan ends Brood War as the undisputed hegemon of the sector - they have to do something to knock her off her throne and this way at least ends with her surviving to lead her own campaign. Now, one approach they could have taken is save this redesign for after Zerus, as the form she built for herself (high heels and all) while having her WoL appearance be much more faithful to her Brood War look with the green skin and shredded ghost suit. But then they're stuck with not actually being able to market the new-look Kerrigan for the new game, it would take years for her actual design to show up. Conversely if they come up with a second design for this point, all their marketing of her original redesign goes out the window. The suits wouldn't be happy. Honestly for my money I'd have rather not have Kerrigan in this campaign at all. Make the Zerg campaign be about one of the Brood Mothers trying to re-unite the swarm after the Terrans take Kerrigan down. She can still be a pivotal character, just in the same way Mengsk is, as a distant figure motivating the protagonists. You could sidestep a lot of writing pitfalls by coming in with a clean slate. ...but, that's not exactly the marketable approach, and I'm sure a ton of players were keen to play as Kerrigan again and would have been disappointed to find out they couldn't.
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Feb 10, 2024 19:53
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For me, that's the problem: HotS isn't the Zerg campaign, it's the Kerrigan campaign. This entire plotline is just Kerrigan's personal vendetta, and nothing that happens in it has anything to do with the Swarm itself at all, really. The Zerg are reduced to Kerrigan's roadies - or, if you like, one of her superpowers. They have no relevance except being the primary tool Kerrigan uses to destroy stuff. We're not here on Zerus to improve the Swarm, we're here to get Kerrigan, individually, more power. As mentioned in the LP, this is even true mechanically: half of your progression is upgrading Kerrigan herself, and Kerrigan-the-unit is so staggeringly powerful she almost pushes your entire actual army into a supporting role.
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Feb 10, 2024 20:36
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megane posted:she almost pushes your entire actual army into a supporting role. No almost about it, after this mission Kerrigan can solo the entire rest of the campaign with the exception of 1.5? missions. I remember only one further mission that doesn't let you use her at all, the half is there because one missions requires you to complete segment with different units before you can use her to solo the rest.
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Feb 10, 2024 20:50
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Maybe it's just that this is an incredibly uncharitable place for the LP to cut, because it gives absolutely nothing about post transformation Kerrigan so speculation is free and disproving it would be invoking spoilers. To be clear, these are the kind of takes I'm arguing with:Tenebrais posted:(since this is basically just putting her back where she was before after learning nothing) BisbyWorl posted:
gohuskies posted:All those missions we spent in WoL turning Kerrigan into a human feel like a super productive way to have spent our time now that she's been turned right back into the Queen of Blades again! Like, it's pretty clear from the context throughout this game that it is not just going back to the same of Queen of Blades we fought in WoL. There is no suggestion that she's losing Kerrigan's will anywhere in anything anyone's said to or about her. The character's motivations are primarily revenge, rather than the broader push for power and survival that the QoB was going through. Plot aside, it's a video game and she's colour coded differently so you know she's not on the same old side. Like, this undoes the surrender of her scary powers, and it undoes the bit where Jim can have sex with her, but in terms of who she is, this new Kerrigan is far more like the humanised one than the QoB. There's plenty to dunk on here (the zerg heels and boobs, the laziness of keeping the model, Blizzard's whole corruption obsession, the general concept of the primal zerg, the puddle as a reinfestation vector, the mission design itself), no need to make stuff up.
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Feb 10, 2024 21:28
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James Raynor, you must turn your girlfriend into a human again or the universe dies!
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Kerrigan has to be the Queen of Blerrigans again because it's like poetry, it rhymes
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Feb 10, 2024 21:33
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People can try to justify the rezerging arc as much as they like, it's still a hilarious copout and it's immediately obvious how dumb as hell it is
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Feb 10, 2024 21:45
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Yeah, it is stupid no matter the justification.
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Feb 10, 2024 22:02
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Heck, you could keep this exact arc and have it work so much better if the leadup was changed. Have Kerrigan assault Korhal and get absolutely trashed because she doesn't have the same level of connection to the zerg she did before, so in desperation she goes actively searching for a way to get her power back. The missions play out basically the same but now there's an actual reason that's connected to her personal vendetta. Instead we're told to do it because PROPHECY.
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Feb 10, 2024 22:09
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God. I loving hated how stupid it was that we worked so hard to dezerg her and then she just rezerged herself and lazily enough she looks the exact loving same. It would've been a notably more interesting arc if she was reluctant to do it or it involved some major sacrifice on her part, perhaps abandoning her human form in some way. Becoming more of an ideal predator or a nasty, Cerebrate-like creature intended only to lead other Zerg lifeforms. But no, of course not, it's just some stupid loving DBZ powerup in the hyperbaric slime chamber.
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Feb 10, 2024 22:14
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Deformed Church posted:Maybe it's just that this is an incredibly uncharitable place for the LP to cut, because it gives absolutely nothing about post transformation Kerrigan so speculation is free and disproving it would be invoking spoilers. Also, not meaning to cherry-pick (I do agree with your post), but I would like to comment on this: Deformed Church posted:There is no suggestion that she's losing Kerrigan's will anywhere in anything anyone's said to or about her. I feel like this may be a prime disconnect. For a lot of people who played Brood War and saw Kerrigan revelling in her power and freedom, her convenient amnesia and supposed non-culpability has a real hard time sinking in. We spent over a decade (or for some of us, up to a quarter century) thinking of Kerrigan as the Queen Bitch of the Universe, and the claim that it was some other entity simply puppeteering her body with all of her knowledge and memories and preferences etc., feels pretty weak without anything to back it up. Fighting that impression, particularly as gen X and Y grow older, is gonna take more effort than a single mention at the start of the campaign that could just as easily be taken to be her repressing the memories of what she did when freed of her shackles and given massive power. And notably what she has been doing again without the excuse of being zerg'd (until now). So I can kind of understand people talking about how this is back to square one, because where she is right now is just about where she was during Brood War, and what people remember from 1999. I'd be relieved if they actually bloody address this now that she's been re-zerg'd by choice, and "primally" for however much that will mean. Having more than a throwaway line for...well, frankly anything so far, would really help the story. Hell, maybe even make her actions line up with the story too! Oh wait, it's a sandboxed RTS; scratch that then.
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Feb 10, 2024 22:22
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Karia posted:Heck, you could keep this exact arc and have it work so much better if the leadup was changed. Have Kerrigan assault Korhal and get absolutely trashed because she doesn't have the same level of connection to the zerg she did before, so in desperation she goes actively searching for a way to get her power back. The missions play out basically the same but now there's an actual reason that's connected to her personal vendetta. Instead we're told to do it because PROPHECY. a harsher version of this already happens - the Dominion go to Char, kick her teeth in, forcibly de-zerg her, chase her to her hideout and capture her love interest the prophecy stuff is boring old hat but it's part of Starcraft DNA (specifically, the protoss' bit). I would suggest in Heart of the Swarm it exists mostly to give Zeratul (representing the main protoss cast) something to do - a reminder that yes, the protoss are still in this story, even though they have no goals or ambitions. you could just cut it entirely and have Izsha introduce Zerus and Zurvan
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Feb 10, 2024 23:08
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Felinoid posted:Agreed. I wonder how many people missed my post on the bottom of the previous page about wanting to wait until at least the intermission update before passing judgement. I just want to reiterate that this is a timed 25-minute long mission. There was a lot of opportunity to insert some dialogue that helped this scenario make more sense. Instead almost all of the talking was devoted to having the characters do Tutorial Mission Tier hand-holdy call-outs as if the player doesn't have eyes or any ability to read the User Interface. Like I said in my effort post above, there's no reason in principle to be opposed to Kerrigan returning to the form of the Queen of Blades. The power was originally forced on her, and now she's choosing it. Earlier in the game she clearly feared and loathed the part of herself that was capable of doing what the Queen of Blades did, but now she's embracing it. But the moment feels totally unearned. If they had forced the player to go through both the Ice Planet set AND Char before going to Zerus, and written both of those stories in a more fleshed-out way so they could be significant legs on the character arc for Kerrigan, building on the groundwork they set out for her in the first few missions, AND they had actually done something substantive with the Primal Zerg and Kerrigan in that first Zerus mission to truly justify her decision to go for it in this one, it MIGHT have all come together and made this moment something special. Instead it falls flat. The best they can do with whatever dialogue comes next in the mission briefing room is bandage up the mess they've made.
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Feb 10, 2024 23:13
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I don't even understand why we need Zerus in any way. You could as easily have gone, "ah, yes, on this planet full of horrible monster creatures there are some SUPER monster creatures with SUPER monster DNA that we want to harvest" and made the space dragons completely unrelated to the Zerg but just full of delicious Essence for making new and powerful creatures for the Swarm, or maybe some sort of very specific siege dragon creature to bust through Dominion defenses on Korhal.
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Feb 10, 2024 23:31
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I also don't really buy the whole amnesia thing, this angle that no, the old queen of blades had no agency and was a different person and the newly made queen of blades looks exactly the same and has the same powers but this time it's different because she has agency. She sure seemed to have agency throughout all of Brood War, and in fact gets chastised by the cerebrates more than once for being too individualistic and headstrong. At the end of Brood War she's the main driver of the plot, not as a force of nature but as a person with goals and motivation; she exacted her revenge on everyone. I don't buy that she's just a drone going through the motions and doing her best to survive when the second half of her entire campaign arc in BW was about one of the most powerful people in the setting exacting her revenge. Yes, there's the line in SC2 about how she was another person. I understand that if you take this at face value, it makes the new vs old QoB make more sense. But that's some first-class bullshit right there; the writers are asking me to weigh most of the writing of BW and all of the characterization of Kerrigan in that game against a single line in SC2 and say that the SC2 line matters more. Nuh uh. If you write a whole-rear end book and then put one sentence at the end, "By the way it was all a dream." don't expect your audience to take it well, and don't be surprised if they largely ignore it. Because that's what the SC2 retcon regarding the QoB being a different person is, it's asking you to ignore everything that the writers spent an entire work of media writing about. So does it make sense that the new and old QoBs are different? Sure, if you accept the writing of this game as authoritative then the motivations make sense. But the issue is that the writing for this game is bad, so a lot of us are rejecting the authority of this game's writing to override the old writing.
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Feb 10, 2024 23:51
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Lt. Danger posted:can't believe we're arguing Blizzard were too subtle and understated in their writing This is not the first time this has happened. Blizzard consistently writes 'subtle' things, and like most times, their fuckup is that they aren't 'too subtle', it's that they expect no writing to do the work of good writing. The pieces are there but Blizzard will not spend one iota of effort to focus on them when threes a bigger (blander, more boring) story to tell, and thus players are simply expected to 'figure it out'. Leading to where we are now. PurpleXVI posted:I don't even understand why we need Zerus in any way. Because the power isn't the point, the swarm taking that power to bust Korhal isn't the story beat that Blizzard wants here, and unironically if they weren't connected to the Zerg it would look like an even bigger asspull than it currently does due to Kerrigan's previous human dezerged state. Or the things you'd have to give the super monsters would render them so close to the Primal Zerg as to be meaningless.
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Feb 11, 2024 00:39
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The real crazy part is the implication that Kerrigan is even stronger now than ever before. The full calculating might of the Overmind and whatever CORRUPTION Amon added into the mix was weaker than taking a nap in the Primal Zerg’s origin pool. Also that the rest of the galaxy is going to stand aside and let the Queen of Blades harvest and tear apart the seat of the biggest Terran government in the sector instead of everyone without knowledge of the PROPHECY immediately calling Mengsk up and saying “you suck but you’re not that, truce?” the Orb of Zot fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Feb 11, 2024 |
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Feb 11, 2024 00:41
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"Gaining power by going back to the Source" is thematically understandable, like I never had a problem with Zerus on the basis of "but wait, why are the prototypes that never left the lab better than the production model Zerg that've been kicking rear end all over the galaxy" because that's scifi thinking, and by now I'd accepted that this is a fantasy story with some scifi people (the Terrans) wandering through it.
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Feb 11, 2024 01:06
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Kerrigan: Hey, there's one thing I don't get, though. When my face was crushed, why did it go back to my old face? I mean, shouldn't it have turned into some kind of third face that was different? Heh. Don't make no..
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Feb 11, 2024 01:16
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Shoot someone bringing up the awful poo poo she does/can do on char and ice world while still human made me think of something. You would really think the protoss would have had an exceptional interest in good now*, human Kerrigan that can still control the swarm. If they had gotten on her good side, they might have been able to convince her to just... ask the zerg to leave aiur. Or designed a super hive mind emulator from studying her and have the tech do it. No having to assemble a giant army, no comical casualty amounts, just everyone gets to go home. Why weren't they all over the place during the lab rats missions? *value of good changes on a writer to writer basis.
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Feb 11, 2024 01:21
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did the same writers work on both Wings and Heart or even talk to each other
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Feb 11, 2024 02:25
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Nissin Cup Nudist posted:did the same writers work on both Wings and Heart or even talk to each other
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Feb 11, 2024 03:08
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the Orb of Zot posted:The real crazy part is the implication that Kerrigan is even stronger now than ever before.
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Feb 11, 2024 04:28
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Intermission 6 Video: Meeting Dehaka    The Zerglings all bow and take a step back.  On top of the new paint job, Primal Kerrigan also gets some vocal effects thrown in.   All Zerus fears it, and you.Essence Count: 35 Dehaka is the Strange Creature that was poking around during the last two missions, and is the main guy I had in mind when I started the Essence Count because holy poo poo he does not shut up about essence.  You shine. You will bring more essence, and I will follow. When you do not, I will not.Essence Count: 36  Well, I've forged alliances on shakier ground than that. Very well, you can stay. Betray me and I'll collect your essence.Essence Count: 37 See! Not even on the Leviathan for a minute and the count has already shot up by three! Yes.  The Kerrigan menu is locked out for the next mission. >Talk to Dehaka.   And you? I am a river, I will flow. I seek essence.Essence Count: 38 Well the pack leaders have no chance against the Swarm now. They gather essence for thousands of years. They are blinded. But they are not foolish.Essence Count: 39 Thousands of years of hunting, killing, and evolving. The absolute pinnacle of the Primal Zerg's philosophy. And all it will take to kill them is one woman on a revenge quest. >Talk to Izsha.    One might even call her the... Heart of the Swarm. Talk to Zurvan.  He still does the roar.    And are you the equal of Amon, who once controlled you? He never controlled me. I felt... an influence. A trace of something dark, but long gone. Amon must have died before I was infested. I hope it is so. For he truly could rip worlds apart. >Talk to Abathur.   Yes, I am different. I am my own master. When the xel'naga artifact made me human again, It cleansed me of Amon's influence. And that allowed me to become... something greater.And that was the entire loving reason for this back and forth: to get any lingering Amon goo off of Kerrigan and the Swarm so he can't try to hijack them later.  Must take sample. Study new sequences Difficult to admit. New structure beyond understanding. Will return to work.>Examine Swarm Host.  Essence Count: 40 The Swarm Host can choose to get the same ability every other zerg has.  Get a slight boost to spawn speed, letting you double up on Locust waves a bit.  Or give Locusts the ability to shoot up. Swarm Hosts are a bad unit in the campaign because it needs both burrow and the ability to hit air. By only being able to have one they'll always feel heavily limited.  Now to finish up this mission chain and get off this garbage planet.  Take what is theirs. Embrace the destiny of all zerg.drat, I wonder who I'm going to fight here.
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Feb 11, 2024 04:29
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If you read the flavor text for the three upgrades there, we see Abathur continuing to complain about the Primal Zerg. He hates them so much, even when working with stuff he stole from them, it's honestly my favorite quirk of his, it's hilarious. They're either stealing his work, or being a pain in the rear end to work with.
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Feb 11, 2024 04:44
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Collect Essence Essence Collect
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Feb 11, 2024 04:46
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BisbyWorl posted:
So she was a completely different person and can't remember anything about it, except she was still in control and can remember it. They're really gonna keep trying to ride this vague borderland where they have a foot on each side, aren't they?
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Feb 11, 2024 05:05
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