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yesssss someone got it i feel so loving powerful this morning
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Mar 3, 2024 15:19
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he do a big steppy
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Mar 3, 2024 15:33
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aberrations may be powerful, but also, they real ugly I never used them because all the other zerg units are tastefully slick and/or off-putting in a more deliberate, cooler way, aberrations are just ugly human-esque bugtaurs
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Mar 3, 2024 16:43
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Omobono posted:That's what abominations are? Followup questions, what actual use case do abominations have in gameplay? I still remember the short story that explained the origins of banelings in universe. A small colony ended up in an amazing natural defensive position, the only entrance being a narrow canyon in the mountains while there were no Zerg air units. The colonists thought they were standing a chance, as the mining rigs/SCVs were able to kill the zerglings forced to move in 1-2 abreast through the canyon with no issues. They held out for weeks/months, with a local plant that developed explosive nodules of acid for defence. Turns out the Zerg had Spore Cannons the entire time that they could have used to bombard the survivors/colony to nothing, but instead used the unique situation/problem to evolve the swarm. They ate/took the essence of the plants, applied it to the zerglings, and the canyon was opened up via acid explosions in a matter of minutes. Then the Spore Cannons shot the results up into orbit, to spread the new adaptation/evolution around the swarm. The story was from the POV of a Medic who was in the colony, being debriefed after she was rescued at the last minute. She rightly guessed that the Dominion, like the Zerg were ALSO testing them, to see how long an under supplied/desperate colony could hold out. Once the line was breached they saved the medic for debrief. She was not happy at that, and revealed at the end that she had saved a large nodule of the explosive acid plant in her armor, took it out in the interrogation room, and gave it a squeeze. Chaosbrain fucked around with this message at 16:47 on Mar 3, 2024 |
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Mar 3, 2024 16:45
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Broken Wide. The originals were on the Blizzard website, but they're long gone, and this is the only comprehensive collection of them I could find.
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Mar 3, 2024 18:46
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vyelkin posted:This is a pretty funny exchange if you remember Kerrigan getting all offended at that Protoss prisoner with her "sure I may massacre refugees but how many Zerg have you killed, hmm?" line It's funny, but at some level isn't it also just wrong, too? Sure, Zerg drones have no individuality and you'd never spend as long training then up like a terran marine, but surely even the Zerg doesn't have magically infinite resources. The planet might be mostly broken at this stage, but it's still expending biomass that she might want to conserve for the showdown with Mengsk.
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Mar 3, 2024 19:07
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That's assuming she's not planning on going on a pizza run on, I don't know, the giant algae laden ocean world two systems over. Also it's Blizz, war always makes a species stronger and isn't an input -> output industrial process but a battle of the mighty wills of leaders.
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Mar 3, 2024 19:11
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JackSplater posted:Broken Wide. The originals were on the Blizzard website, but they're long gone, and this is the only comprehensive collection of them I could find. Okay I read a few of those and I liked the one where a lady manages to tame a few Hydralisks, only to find out the hard way that the Queen of Blades has been loving with her from day 1.
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Mar 3, 2024 19:52
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Aeble posted:It's funny, but at some level isn't it also just wrong, too? Sure, Zerg drones have no individuality and you'd never spend as long training then up like a terran marine, but surely even the Zerg doesn't have magically infinite resources. The planet might be mostly broken at this stage, but it's still expending biomass that she might want to conserve for the showdown with Mengsk. Biomass doesn't really get expended unless it's chemically altered. In the land of reality it slowly gets eaten by microorganisms or plants which use it and get eaten in turn. Even burning doesn't really stop this, ash can be excellent fertilizer. It's not really clear how the zerg do it, but presumably it's a similar but much faster sort of process where old molecules are broken down and glued back together even if it's not necessarily accomplished by things eating things eating things over generations.
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Mar 3, 2024 20:28
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40k Tyranids lore explicitly mentions that after battle is won Tyranid units that survived are assimilated back into Hive Fleet collective biomass (except some elite ones), I assume Zerg do something similiar. In fact, there is a mod that adds "biomass" resource that is carried over between missions and possibility to dissolve units in Spawning Pool back into biomass
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Mar 3, 2024 21:02
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aniviron posted:Biomass doesn't really get expended unless it's chemically altered. In the land of reality it slowly gets eaten by microorganisms or plants which use it and get eaten in turn. Even burning doesn't really stop this, ash can be excellent fertilizer. It's not really clear how the zerg do it, but presumably it's a similar but much faster sort of process where old molecules are broken down and glued back together even if it's not necessarily accomplished by things eating things eating things over generations. I'd say 'getting exploded' would count as being chemically altered (point being that in any sort of 'real' recycling, you lose energy in the process), but fine, I know I'm nitpicking. It's space magic, I'm just wondering what the stakes are if there's no downsides at all to just generating infinite zerglings to throw at the fortress.
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Mar 3, 2024 21:53
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JackSplater posted:Broken Wide. The originals were on the Blizzard website, but they're long gone, and this is the only comprehensive collection of them I could find. Old Blizzard made a point of maintaining classic battle.net for years, as is, bonus maps and downloads of wallpapers and frames and optimized for 1024x768 res and silly bits and all, and I assume they're only still available because sone heroic low-level sysadmin working at Activision has made a pet project of preserving them after his bosses forgot they were still there. That SC-related creative work that's only about a decade old can just vanish apparently, makes me sad. Even as much as I hate everything about SC2's lore retcons.
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Mar 4, 2024 03:22
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Archival of culture goes back almost three millennia and was first done seriously by one of the most awful empires to mar the Earth, Ashurbanipal's library was an archive of practical texts: rituals and knowledge, yes, but also culture, it was one of the first state disbursements for things other than perceived survival such as land improvement and appeasing and honoring the gods, military and or economic spending on infrastructure, and selfish (or state driven for diplomatic impression on internals and others) luxury pomp and circumstance. (Well, as far as I know.) It's galling to see pieces of culture, even if genuinely bad, disappear down the cracks in a day and age where archival is more trivial than ever. SIGSEGV fucked around with this message at 03:42 on Mar 4, 2024 |
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Mar 4, 2024 03:38
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Man, the characterization of Kerrigan is all over the fuckin' place. It's capital B bad writing.
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Mar 5, 2024 15:56
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I really like the previous mission just because in a meta sense that's kind of how Battlecruisers sometimes often work in TvZ in Brood War: Terran will produce just one, and then Zerg says "Man, I guess I've gotta drop whatever I'm doing and deal with this, huh. What a pain."
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Mar 8, 2024 16:24
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Char 3: Old Soldiers Video: Old Soldiers  Can you believe they introduced a major character in Wings, gave him like 10 minutes screentime in total, then immediately kill him off in the sequel?       For whatever reason, Zagara's personal faction color has switched from red to a really bright green.    An army comprised of 147 mixed Zerglings and Banelings, Primal Kerrigan at the helm, and 2 minutes 40 seconds to destroy as much of Warfield's base as possible.  If Char was your first planet and you picked Swarmlings over Raptors you'd probably have a tough time doing a lot of damage here.  But with a massive army of Raptors and a level 45 Kerrigan? This will be a slaughter.    The two marked points past the gate are both expansions. Clearing one out makes it easy to claim it once this initial blitz is over.  I'm constantly getting more reinforcements during this.  Despite the Zerglings' low life, Mend is still putting in a lot of work. While most of the burst heal is wasted, the lingering regen helps them shrug off other attacks and survive just a few seconds longer.  And now to go clear out the second expansion.     They do, in fact, send an evac ship out.  The northern expansion is much harder to crack, with multiple Thors and a far larger base occupying it. In exchange, it has the rich mineral fields we've seen in Devil's Playground and In Utter Darkness, giving a massive economy boost if you're able to take it.   And in the literal last second, I finish off the base. That Starport will get sniped by Kinetic Blast, and the Missile Turrets just need a few seconds to clear out later so they don't go after my Overlords.   Now for the usual terran strategy: Nukes.   He even nukes my base!   Warfield will drop more nukes on us as his arsenal comes online.   Sequences sloppy. Yet... effective.Zagara you created poo poo. We've seen the Aberrations several times in Wings.    More mineral nodes than a standard base, three geysers, and two starting Hatcheries gives Old Soldiers a much faster build up compared to most missions. Combined with the two expansions I've cleared out, and Warfield's last stand is little more than a speedbump.  The Aberration got a bit of a glow-up since their days as an enemy campaign exclusive. In Wings they had more health and the Light tag to make them easy Hellion bait, but here they've swapped to Armored and Massive. The really interesting thing is their Towering passive, which lets them ignore the collision on a sizable chunk of the zerg roster. This neatly sidesteps the normal issue of two types of melee units where they'll be fighting each other for space around a target, as Zerglings can simply run underneath the Aberration and team up!  I'll destroy them if I get the chance, Zagara.The bonus pops here. There are bridges leading to them that aren't extended during the opening, so no getting sneaky and rushing them down early so you can beeline for Warfield as soon as the blitz ends.  I take a moment to finish off these Turrets.  After a bit the base gets tagged with a Scanner Sweep.   The 'assault team' is a few Medivacs backed by Vikings. You have no flying units if you haven't done Zerus, remember.  And a bit later we get a good ol' Nuclear Launch Detected.  Warfield will, in fact, nuke the hell out of you as time goes on. There's no Ghost around or anything, so no aborting the launch, but he'll only hit the outskirts of the base so you don't have worry about your workers getting obliterated. Some nukes will be dropped directly on your army instead.  Each Science Facility has a few token guards. Also Warhounds are here. Did I mention those before? Since this is their proper debut in Heart.  Aberrations have a hefty mineral cost.    Now to push south to hit the other bonus.  Surprise nuke!  The only people killed by it are his own troops.  Immediately followed up by another nuke!   Clearing out this little area nets me three free Aberrations.     I hope those bugs are good company, because they'll join you in hell! You should have left Char to me, Warfield.I've finally remembered to make Spine Crawlers!  And now for Warfield's main base.  You can see how nicely Aberrations fit into an army. Despite being big and bulky, they don't interfere with pathfinding at all.  Kerrigan, naturally, has no response to being called out in any way.   There are a few Ghosts standing between me and Warfield. Except they don't bother with cloaking or trying a last ditch nuke.  There's a bit more of his production down here.  The Ops Center itself can put that cannon to good use, but it won't be nearly enough.  Warfield himself takes shots at the Swarm, using the arm cannon he got in Wings! He can't be selected, but he deals 10 damage a shot.  Warfield, how do you propose the SCVs reach the drat thing?  Immediately after he tries to drop a nuke right in front of the Ops Center.  But it dies seconds later, and Warfield runs inside.   The funny thing is that the nuke marker will continue shrinking like normal, but the nuke itself will never come due to the cutscene starting.    And a cinematic to cap things off.     Warfield isn't doing so hot.  But the man got into a fistfight with two Hydralisks, he's not going down without a fight.   He's able to pull the beam out a few inches.  But he just doesn't have the time, and the Raiders aren't here to bail him out again.     There are, in-fact, two separate versions of this cinematic for pre and post-primal Kerrigan.      Yes, actually! The line also doesn't change if done pre-Zerus, so this isn't a snipe at her becoming the Queen of Blades again.   He tries to shoot her, but all his cannon can do is spark.  At least one planet's worth! Maybe several more after this!   Then Warfield makes the last mistake of his life:  He hit the Jimmy Button.   And Kerrigan psionically grabs the beam impaling him and drives it home.      But hey, Kerrigan had a change of heart and let the survivors escape!  I'm sure Warfield struck deep enough to make Kerrigan turn over a new leaf and make her cease any and all atrocities!   Old Soldiers - Complete the "Old Soldiers" mission in the Heart of the Swarm campaign. Nuclear Launch Rejected - Destroy 20 enemy structures before the 1st Nuclear Strike in the “Old Soldiers” mission. Recalled Down the Thunder - Complete the “Old Soldiers” mission in less than 20 minutes on Normal difficulty. Home Wrecker - Destroy the Planetary Fortress in the “Old Soldiers” mission before the nuclear strike on Hard difficulty. Early Retirement - Complete the "Old Soldiers" mission in less than 14 minutes on Normal difficulty.
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Mar 9, 2024 05:23
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Kerrigan is just rejecting the sunk cost fallacy that says if she's in for a penny of war crimes she's in for a pound of war crimes.
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Mar 9, 2024 05:36
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Calling off the zerg at the end to spare the wounded is something that works for me - it's something that the Kerrigan of Brood War and Wings likely wouldn't have done, and it lines up with the idea that Kerrigan will eventually save all life in the universe and we really should be thinking of her as a "good" character, something we could stand to be reminded of from time to time - but it certainly stands out in contrast to the excessively violent "Kill all the Protoss!" Kerrigan of Kaldir.
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Mar 9, 2024 05:56
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Zerg Killed by Nukes: 2 gj terrans
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Mar 9, 2024 06:25
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biosterous posted:Zerg Killed by Nukes: 2 General Tsing Shi Tao looks on in silent disapproval. 
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Mar 9, 2024 07:06
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Oh hey, what with the nonstop hilarious drama going on elsewhere in LP-land this past week I almost forgot to check up on this thread. Thematically I actually like this mission, where you've got massive waves here to go all horror movie on an entrenched position in a sort of reverse Desperate Alliance. In an alternate universe where the writers went all in on this being the Villain Campaign I think this would slot in mostly unchanged just fine. The design really would have benefitted from some kind of scaling to make it harder if you're coming here later, I think. Also a better character to assassinate. Warfield just does not hit the way taking out Duke did. Duke was a character with a personality that you had history with, Warfield is like a "grizzled old soldier" asset flip bought off the unity store.
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Mar 9, 2024 07:06
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biosterous posted:Zerg Killed by Nukes: 2 this isn't TOO far off from how many zerg get killed by nukes in pvp, warfield is just terrible at taking the space after he fires it off.
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Mar 9, 2024 07:48
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Yeah in TVZ it's something like Combat zerg killed: 2, Drones killed: 16, Hatcheries damaged: 5, Creep tumors killed: 100+.
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Mar 9, 2024 08:42
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Fun fact about aberrations, they also tower over the enemies. So if you have a single strong melee enemy like the hybrid, packs of aberrations are hilariously strong against them, because you can trivially micro them into hitting a different aberration every swing. For bonus points, add in queens on higher difficulties. The hybrid will aggro on queens due to healing, run through your pack of aberrations and get hit by every single one in quick succession as he goes through their melee range.
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Mar 9, 2024 09:26
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Only Abathur's allowed to do that!
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Mar 9, 2024 10:51
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I can only imagine Zagara getting into Abathur's labs while he's napping or whatever the Zerg do, splashing together the Aberration, and then him waking up to a lab that's just a complete mess.
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Mar 9, 2024 11:03
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biosterous posted:Zerg Killed by Nukes: 2 
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Mar 9, 2024 11:11
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Poil posted:Hey it's a step up from zerg killed by gorgons. Do scourge count though?
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Mar 9, 2024 13:43
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gohuskies posted:Calling off the zerg at the end to spare the wounded is something that works for me - it's something that the Kerrigan of Brood War and Wings likely wouldn't have done, and it lines up with the idea that Kerrigan will eventually save all life in the universe and we really should be thinking of her as a "good" character, something we could stand to be reminded of from time to time - but it certainly stands out in contrast to the excessively violent "Kill all the Protoss!" Kerrigan of Kaldir. Yeah, in isolation the scene is pretty solid. It's well shot and decently written. A good promo scene. If only it cohered with the rest of Kerrigan's characterisation. If the story was doing anything to sell Kerrigan having some sort internal conflict between being an unfeeling monster and a deeply hurt human being, it might have been able to untangle. Maybe she wants to be an unstoppable force of carnage again but can't ignore her reawakened sense of human empathy making it all hurt for her. Maybe she doesn't have that empathy, but is tempted by the idea of having people care for her without having to be mindslaves. Once again we're in a position where Blizzard opened the path for a lot of good stories and told none of them. Fun mission though. Leading the charge with a doom swarm like that opening is a place where Kerrigan as a hero unit really works. I wonder what a version of the campaign where she's only present on the field for missions like this one or the Zerus boss rush would feel like.
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Mar 9, 2024 13:48
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In case anyone is wondering, it IS entirely possible to win in the opening attack. Once you break in hang a left and take out the Rich Mineral base, then go for Warfields upper base and then the objective. You lose out on the research, but for speedrunning/on repeats its not too bad. I say hang a left, because that means you fight through the Opening, The Rich Mineral Base, Warfields upper base, and the Objective. Going right means hitting the Opening, the Mineral Base, Warfields LOWER Base, the Upper base, and the objective. So thats more bunkers/siege tanks/marines and so on to move through. A tactic I tend to use for the nukes is to keep my army out of the base entirely, rally-pointing them down to a slightly more forward position. It seems like 100% of the time Warfield targets the army, so you get the warning, move your forces out of the death circle, and move back after the nuke misses. Also this mission might show how much of a dick Mengsk is, because I bet Warfield REALLY would have appreciated the Artifact right around this mission.
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Mar 9, 2024 14:03
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Omobono posted:Do scourge count though?
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Mar 9, 2024 14:13
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I'm still wondering why Desolate Hell-World Char is such a priority for the Terran Dominion to hold.
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Mar 9, 2024 15:47
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GunnerJ posted:I'm still wondering why Desolate Hell-World Char is such a priority for the Terran Dominion to hold. That one makes sense. It's a symbol of the Dominion's supremacy over the Zerg. Having a presence there would also help keep an eye out for any developments that might lead to the Swarm becoming a threat again, or possibly a staging platform for trying to wipe them out completely.
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Mar 9, 2024 15:52
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I think part of why Warfield falls flat here is that his outrage at Kerrigan coming back with the zerg after he saved her is mostly reduced to him calling her a monster when he is the general of an equal monster. Which could work and be good, except Kerrigan and the game never call him out despite Kerrigan's motivation here being a seething hatred of mengsk because he killed Jim. Nor does she ever throw the fact that the much bigger side of the "we saved you" equation is dead at the dominions' hands. Also, I never noticed at the end that Warfield actually gets an attack and isn't cosmetic. That's great.
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Mar 9, 2024 16:01
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   theeeeeeeee protagonist
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Mar 9, 2024 19:28
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Man I hate blizzards thing of having women villains just snap hysterically and do bad things for reasons they don't even seem to understand. Warfield brings up her boyfriend and she just can't control her emotions! Kerrigan never seems to know why she's doing what she's doing. Major shades of what they would later do with Sylvanas imo bladededge posted:Oh hey, what with the nonstop hilarious drama going on elsewhere in LP-land this past week I almost forgot to check up on this thread. What's the drama, gimme the goss. Probably not the best place but you can't drop a line like that on SA without a link
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Mar 9, 2024 19:41
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Communist Thoughts posted:What's the drama, gimme the goss. Probably not the best place but you can't drop a line like that on SA without a link The short of it is this: Remember The Dark Id? The funny Drakenier LP guy? Turns out he's been lying about Literally Everything About His Life For Years. The house of cards collapsed after he claimed to be dying of cancer in the immediate future and slowbeef called him out. It all starts here, if you have a few hours to kill. BisbyWorl fucked around with this message at 19:59 on Mar 9, 2024 |
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Mar 9, 2024 19:44
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BisbyWorl posted:The short of it is this: 
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Mar 9, 2024 20:07
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quote:For whatever reason, Zagara's personal faction color has switched from red to a really bright green. This is actually pretty simple. Dominion are Red, have been since they were the Sons of Korhal in SC1.
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Mar 9, 2024 22:31
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Zagara was red because she was the enemy.
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Mar 9, 2024 22:40
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