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GunnerJ posted:Wait, they were loving? I don't think they imply anything about that one way or the other but it's what people call him, and Kerrigan trusts him enough to make him part of her inner circle.
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Mar 30, 2024 14:46
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This mission is the only one I actually used impalers on. A dozen impalers with a handful of hydralisks for anti-air can defend all of the temple waves no problem. Not like they're much of a problem in the first place, but still.
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Mar 30, 2024 15:11
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infested Duran doesn't make much sense in Brood War. did he just show up one day, say "hey I'm an infested terran just like you" and Kerrigan made him her closest ally? then he infiltrates the UED, only he's totally asymptomatic so no one notices he's got a zerg growing inside him? and then he just disappears to run his secret hi-tech hybridisation program and Kerrigan's just like "easy come easy go"? also I think it's ok for women to be in fights if they want to
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Mar 30, 2024 15:54
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Duran joins the UED first, and joins Kerrigan second. He's not ACTUALLY infested - given his shapeshifter powers, he can appear to be whatever he wants to be. He can seem completely clean to the UED and learn stuff about them, and then seem completely infested to Kerrigan, and have all kinds of useful information to share with Kerrigan to make her trust him as an ally. Then he disappears and Kerrigan is like "where the gently caress did Duran go?" She did specifically mention that he was gone and she didn't know. Rythian fucked around with this message at 16:08 on Mar 30, 2024 |
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Mar 30, 2024 16:06
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I think Infested Duran was just a plain ol' lie. Dude's a shapeshifter, he can pretend to be whatever will make someone liable to hear him out. though that's just off the top of my head, I honestly don't remember him being in Brood War at all e: yeah, what they said
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Mar 30, 2024 16:11
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Chaosbrain posted:Okay, so, Headcanon time. You know what? I'm not big on headcanons but I think this works.
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Mar 30, 2024 16:19
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There is probably a lot to say about how weird the plan is and why it took this long to happen and in the way it did, but if you accept the basic concept there is text in place to make it work. Narud was the man in charge of Mobius Corp, and set up Valarian as a secondary frontman. He through Mobius was the one to set off the gathering of the Artifact fragments, telling Jim through Mengsk/Tychus where they all are. Jim is the one to gather them because he is the most likely one who would go to Char to de-infest Kerrigan instead of just nuking her to oblivion after clearing the way or something. One final push to Jim telepathically, and the plan succeeds.
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Mar 30, 2024 16:33
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Lt. Danger posted:infested Duran doesn't make much sense in Brood War. did he just show up one day, say "hey I'm an infested terran just like you" and Kerrigan made him her closest ally? then he infiltrates the UED, only he's totally asymptomatic so no one notices he's got a zerg growing inside him? and then he just disappears to run his secret hi-tech hybridisation program and Kerrigan's just like "easy come easy go"? Considering Kerrigan was big on Terran infestation research from BW till Wings I always assumed Duran engineered to be captured and then pretended to have been successfully infested. Basically, infiltrate a Terran Ghost Academy a few days before a Zerg strike, have your ghost persona survive to be captured, then pretend the infestation experiments worked and you're under Kerrigan's control.
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Mar 30, 2024 16:39
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Chaosbrain posted:There is probably a lot to say about how weird the plan is and why it took this long to happen and in the way it did, but if you accept the basic concept there is text in place to make it work. Narud was the man in charge of Mobius Corp, and set up Valarian as a secondary frontman. He through Mobius was the one to set off the gathering of the Artifact fragments, telling Jim through Mengsk/Tychus where they all are. Jim is the one to gather them because he is the most likely one who would go to Char to de-infest Kerrigan instead of just nuking her to oblivion after clearing the way or something. One final push to Jim telepathically, and the plan succeeds. Which in turn would mean he encouraged those Tal-darim Protoss to get blitzed off their rear end so that they'd fight to defend the artifact, so that it would never feel "too easy" at any point. Goddammit that would actually fix several of the plotholes, wouldn't it.
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Mar 30, 2024 16:42
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You can tell it's a plot hole because if it had been planned Blizz would have hosed it up.
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Mar 30, 2024 16:45
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For BW Kerrigan, I figure it was a combination of factors: -She’d been in the swarm for all of, what? A few months? Before the Overmind went and got himself kamikaze’d. For all she knew, it was entirely plausible that he had been working on a strain of deep cover Infested like Duran that she never got to find out about. -The one group that had better knowledge of the inner workings of his mind were all currently trying to kill or enslave her, and so weren’t interested in setting the record straight for her. -Related to the last point: she needed all of the help she could get against the Cerebrates, UED, and everyone else, and wasn’t going to look a gift horse too closely in the mouth… and also figured that she could stomp him if or when he tried to pull a fast one on her.
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Mar 30, 2024 16:46
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Regalingualius posted:-She’d been in the swarm for all of, what? A few months? Before the Overmind went and got himself kamikaze’d. For all she knew, it was entirely plausible that he had been working on a strain of deep cover Infested like Duran that she never got to find out about. You're recruited into middle management in a sprawling, millennia-old corporation with no formal rules but a lot of old, bloated assholes sitting at the top with no concern for the welfare of anyone below them. A group of terrorists then suddenly take out everyone in the hierarchy above you, leaving you the new person in charge of everything, including these centuries-old inboxes full of unread mails, memos that have calcified into laws, grumbling dickheads that consider you an upstart and insist you're not doing things the old way. I think it's very reasonable to assume Kerrigan just went insane for a while.
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Mar 30, 2024 16:58
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PurpleXVI posted:You're recruited into middle management in a sprawling, millennia-old corporation with no formal rules but a lot of old, bloated assholes sitting at the top with no concern for the welfare of anyone below them. A group of terrorists then suddenly take out everyone in the hierarchy above you, leaving you the new person in charge of everything, including these centuries-old inboxes full of unread mails, memos that have calcified into laws, grumbling dickheads that consider you an upstart and insist you're not doing things the old way. Also another company is in the middle of a hostile takeover.
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Mar 30, 2024 17:01
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so has there been any news on Jimmy's whereabouts during all of this? he's presumably being held captive and tortured right?
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Mar 30, 2024 17:11
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titty_baby_ posted:so has there been any news on Jimmy's whereabouts during all of this? he's presumably being held captive and tortured right? still trying to beat the high score on Lost Viking
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Mar 30, 2024 17:17
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Rythian posted:Duran joins the UED first, and joins Kerrigan second. he joins Kerrigan first - he coordinates with the zerg to foul up the attack on Aiur and lets them into the Psi-Disruptor after assassinating Stukov. Stukov says Duran is "infested" of course, we know what infested terrans look like and they don't look like Duran - they have a zerg worm in their head controlling their every move. Duran looks like Kerrigan, and Kerrigan isn't infested. she's a zerg-terran hybrid produced with great effort by the Overmind itself. apparently, Duran was too, along with all his hybridised terran friends laughing just off-screen. Kerrigan has zero curiousity about any of this it's bad writing. I don't know* why we're being so charitable about this *I do know
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Mar 30, 2024 17:17
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titty_baby_ posted:so has there been any news on Jimmy's whereabouts during all of this? he's presumably being held captive and tortured right? jimmy was kidnapped by interdimensional beings and is currently fighting over the raven lord's dirty laundry with nine other assholes *finger goes to earpiece* what do you mean that's the wrong HOTS Kith fucked around with this message at 17:28 on Mar 30, 2024 |
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Mar 30, 2024 17:26
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All of those theories seem way too complicated and advanced for blizzard's level and ability of writing.
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Mar 30, 2024 17:49
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Jimmy is still presumed dead, and Kerrigan has expended zero effort into investigating the one dubious broadcast she saw earlier. which might be read as a statement on how invested she is in the actual Raynor versus the idea of permitting herself to kill people in order to avenge him, if you somehow still think the writing is capable of having layers
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Mar 30, 2024 17:54
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Zulily Zoetrope posted:Jimmy is still presumed dead, and Kerrigan has expended zero effort into investigating the one dubious broadcast she saw earlier. Nah we know he's alive because Mengsk is using him as a hostage to keep Kerrigan away from Korhal.
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Mar 30, 2024 17:59
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oh okay, i forgot about that
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Mar 30, 2024 18:44
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Sooo, how many missions in Swarm are vs Protoss and Zerg as opposed to Terran, who are narratively the big baddies?
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Mar 30, 2024 23:02
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wedgekree posted:Sooo, how many missions in Swarm are vs Protoss and Zerg as opposed to Terran, who are narratively the big baddies? Off the top of my head, we've had: The intro missions, three against Terrans Kaldir, three missions against Protoss Zerus, three missions against Zerg Char, one against Zerg and two against Terran and now Skygeirr, two against Terran and one against Protoss So Terran is ahead by two missions, although I think there's like six more Terran missions to go in the rest of the campaign. This isn't counting evolution missions.
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Mar 30, 2024 23:27
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I enjoyed the DBZ beam fight gimmick
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Mar 30, 2024 23:29
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Lt. Danger posted:he joins Kerrigan first - he coordinates with the zerg to foul up the attack on Aiur and lets them into the Psi-Disruptor after assassinating Stukov. Stukov says Duran is "infested" Sure, he's sabotaging the UED from the very beginning, but he's definitely working his own plans and not just working for Kerrigan the entire time. I sincerely doubt they had the whole Amon-wizard thing planned back in Brood War, but as evident in the secret mission, he's clearly more than "just" an infested Terran, and had the ability to fake being a clean normal human, and fake being an infested Terran. Which by the way, infested Terran probably comes in all shapes and sizes. I don't think it's quite so easy to say "we know what they look like". We've seen Dr Ariel Hanson in Wings of Liberty, for one, and I bet there's been infested characters in novels/comics and the like that don't all look and act exactly the same way. Whatever deal went down between Brood War Kerrigan and Brood War Duran, we don't know. By the time we play from her POV, they're already allied and working together - who knows how Duran introduced himself. All that said: Of course HotS's writing is lacking. All subtlety has gone out the window. I just think we don't need to poo poo on everything just because it's not obviously stated exactly how it happened. Is "he was a shapeshifter wizard" a lazy explanation for how Duran worked? Sure. But it does work, and makes sense.
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Mar 30, 2024 23:44
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While the DBZ beam fight was absolutely awful and murdered any tension that managed to exist, you have to give Narud *some* respect for remaining so smug throughout getting the poo poo beaten out of him by the most powerful psionic in the known universe. Not a lot of respect, but he at least puts up a front.
Numbus26 fucked around with this message at 00:03 on Mar 31, 2024 |
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Mar 30, 2024 23:59
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Nissin Cup Nudist posted:I enjoyed the DBZ beam fight gimmick  It may be completely ridiculous in the story, but it was a lot of fun to play.
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Mar 31, 2024 00:07
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Intermission 13    Why... aren't you... trying to... Take the Swarm for my own? Because I still have much to learn from you, my queen.This line plays even if you go Char -> Zerus, where Zagara's already had a chance to yoink the Swarm.    We immediately cut to Kerrigan back on the bridge, perfectly fine. >Talk to Stukov.    Hah! Where would I go? Half man, half zerg? A monster. I understand, believe me. Stay with the Swarm and perhaps the way will become clear. If nothing else, it will be interesting.Stukov sticks around for the rest of the game, and is the last person that'll be joining us on the Leviathan. Which makes a major issue with Heart's cast obvious: There's no real source of inter-cast conflict. Izsha and Abathur are wholly subservient to whoever's running the Swarm, Zagara might try to usurp the Swarm down the line but there's not enough game left for that to happen in Heart, Dehaka is only here for the essence, and Stukov has literally nowhere else to go. No one can ever really call Kerrigan out on anything and get more than a quick 'shut up' from her in response. Wings at least had stuff like the mission splits and the Raiders getting pissed about working for Valerian. >Talk to Izsha.    Of course, my queen.And now Kerrigan has shifted from 'kill Mengsk, everything else second,' to 'kill Mengsk, then kill Amon to save the universe,' in record time. >Examine Skygeirr Station.  >Talk to Zagara. I cannot control Stukov.At this point I realized something important.  Characters can have multiple lines to play through.  Hybrid are an abomination. The creature Stukov is unlike any zerg I have encountered.I'll start getting everything they have to say, but I'm not going back through the entire game to get all the ones I missed. >Talk to Dehaka.  I want to taste terran essence.Essence count: 83 I am content. Too much metal and stone.>Talk to Abathur.   Perfection. Deep in the core, in strands. Pain valuable feedback for organism. Organism with heightened pain receivers? Must experiment.The Ultralisk is the final unit to show up in the Evolution Chamber.  They can choose between a new active ability.  Lifesteal.  Or a huge boost to their AOE damage.  The lifesteal equates to a minimum of ~10 life per swing, and they have an attack speed of 1. That's a hefty amount of survivability on my most expensive unit!   A cutscene starts before I can leave.  I saw Amon. Older than the universe, more powerful than I can understand. And now, he's alive again. Then he shall fall before the Swarm, like all the rest. We don't even know where he is. We must prepare for his coming, but I have a few scores to settle first.  Now to go save Jim! I'm sure he won't absolutely lose it when he finds out what Kerrigan has been up to!   We cut to the boys, after not seeing them since Umoja.    'Cuz the Queen of Blades was a class 12 in All In, see.    There's no time. Listen carefully, Jim is alive and I can't find him.  The man raises a good point! The last time Valerian saw her he got strangled for daring to abandon Jim!   Hacking the Dominion security network will prove difficult.  Oh boy!    Not exactly. It's... complicated. Let's just get this done.    And now we're in space. >Talk to Stukov.   I know. I have no place on Earth now. I mean I won't let you. Your return would be noticed by the government of Earth. They might consider another expedition to our little corner of space. They will come back someday, you know. I do. And I will be ready for them.Shame Blizz pulled the plug before that could happen. >Talk to Izsha.   Will this give us some special advantage my queen? Should Abathur be ready for new essence?Essence count: 84 I'm almost wondering if Izsha is intentionally messing with Kerrigan at this point. Silence, Izsha. This is a personal matter. It will end badly, but I must see it through.>Talk to Zagara. Let us land on a world and devour it! I dislike space. It is cold and empty. Give me a turgid, wet hatchery.>Talk to Dehaka. There will be much essense in those planets. But they are far.Essence count: 85 We will go and gather essence. We will go soon?Essence count: 86 Many cycles I lived on Zerus. Much essence I collected. I never saw anything like this.Essence count: 87 >Talk to Abathur. Space slightly colder than Kaldir. However, vacuum does not conduct heat. No moisture. Different conditions. Dislike staying in space. Very little biomatter. Lack of essence.Essence count: 88 Swarm not good enough. Not! Swarm not evolving here. Lack of evolution deadly. Spin strands backwards? No. Inside-out zergling. Not efficient.I'm not sure if it happens at a specific place or if it's just random chance, but Abathur has a line mentioning trying to fix the zergling lemon juice allergy as a callback to Wings.  And now, for something completely different.  Unfortunately, he's being held captive by Mira Han. One of the meanest and craziest mercenary leaders alive.Matt, that's a horrible way to talk about your wife.
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Mar 31, 2024 03:30
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For the record, the lemon juice line has a very low chance of playing when you change your Zergling evolution upgrade. And YES, BEST MISSION INCOMING! BEST MISSION Also, having Stukov around to reminisce about The Good Ol' Days™ is one of the reasons I insist on going to Skygeirr before rescuing Jim.
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Mar 31, 2024 03:39
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Intra cast conflict is not really necessary and the unneeded intra cast allergy that the LotR movies injected annoys me a lot. And here, you could have nice and friendly Zerg slice of life, that'd be neat. All hail Sarah Kerrigan, divorce lawyer.
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Mar 31, 2024 03:41
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I mean... couldn't Kerrigan just... infest some Terran hacker or something? Or commit some more war crimes to figure out where Jim is? Maybe infest some high-ranking Dominion official for intelligence? Or hold a planet hostage until Mengsk lets Jim out of jail? Doing horrible things to get what she thinks she wants in the moment has been more or less her entire Heart personality, and I like to think everyone on the Leviathan is trying to predict what mood she's in and give her the response that doesn't get them boiled down to green goop to turn into Zerglings. I also feel so despondent whenever something hints at a way more interesting Starcraft 2, like Stukov's little aside there. SIGSEGV posted:Intra cast conflict is not really necessary and the unneeded intra cast allergy that the LotR movies injected annoys me a lot. Conflict doesn't necessarily mean screaming arguments and drama, but just occasionally different views on things, either for comedy or just for... conversation and character building. PurpleXVI fucked around with this message at 03:46 on Mar 31, 2024 |
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Mar 31, 2024 03:43
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"Abathur, spin me up a hacker lifeform."
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Mar 31, 2024 03:44
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asking abathur to make an excellent hacker would result in a lot of bladed edges and not a lot of intelligence
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Mar 31, 2024 03:58
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SIGSEGV posted:Intra cast conflict is not really necessary and the unneeded intra cast allergy that the LotR movies injected annoys me a lot. The problem is Kerrigan needs someone to check her poo poo, and I don't remember Jim doing a very good job of it beyond a stern look when we get there. PurpleXVI posted:I mean... couldn't Kerrigan just... infest some Terran hacker or something? Or commit some more war crimes to figure out where Jim is? Maybe infest some high-ranking Dominion official for intelligence? Or hold a planet hostage until Mengsk lets Jim out of jail? Doing horrible things to get what she thinks she wants in the moment has been more or less her entire Heart personality, and I like to think everyone on the Leviathan is trying to predict what mood she's in and give her the response that doesn't get them boiled down to green goop to turn into Zerglings. I mean, it's a stretch, but it's also not exactly an odd trope "we need this one specific expert to break into the super secure whatsit." Every heist movie ever has it. How is she going to get close to a high ranking Dominion official who actually knows poo poo? Mengsk capitulating to Kerrigan over a planet? He'd just as likely throw a fleet at her, and while gameplay wise we could theoretically beat back fleets for days, story wise... stalemates don't get you very far without a specific end in mind for the stalemate. Honestly, this is one of the least offensive plot beats in HotS. If you want to crank the warcrimes, have Orlan be unable to do it without some 'enhancements' from Abathur. I'm sure Matt and Valarian would love that.
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Mar 31, 2024 04:11
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Big bonus points to Abathur for calling out my least favorite sci-fi trope re: space being cold.
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Mar 31, 2024 06:58
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BisbyWorl posted:
This angle on the Ultralisk really makes them look like the masc equivalent of Swarm Queens. BisbyWorl posted:>Talk to Stukov. Stukov is a big fan of the Sonic series. Poor guy Zomborgon fucked around with this message at 08:02 on Mar 31, 2024 |
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Mar 31, 2024 07:55
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BisbyWorl posted:
I think this is my favorite Abathur quote.
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Mar 31, 2024 09:28
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BisbyWorl posted:Characters can have multiple lines to play through. On a whim I've been quickly going through Wings and the current progress on Heart to see what lines were missed, of which there is quite the sizeable amount. There are of course some by the main characters reacting to the missions. After Welcome to the Jungle posted:
However there are also a hell of a lot of crewmembers wandering around the Hyperion's bridge or cantina with a line or four. Even Cooper, the bartender, who according to one crewman makes a mean Mai Tai. He defects for the Dominion in a stolen Wraith during Flashpoint for the money. Of course he vanishes off the face of the series after that. Also many of these lines, particularly Jimmy at the start in JoeyRay's, and sometime after Tosh joins, are about Raynor's problematic drinking, in reference to that half-abandoned subplot of his. It makes me wonder what would have happened if Blizz did go through with it and if it would make things better. My guess is not much, but it would be SOMETHING.
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Mar 31, 2024 10:37
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"So, we're pirates ourselves these days. Hey Kachinsky! Got any rum? Aargh."
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Zomborgon posted:This angle on the Ultralisk really makes them look like the masc equivalent of Swarm Queens Imagining some Zerg chud "There's only two genders, Swarm Queens and Ultralisks!", while a bunch of Muta or Hydra cocoons are cooking right behind it.
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Mar 31, 2024 11:11
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Serperoth posted:Imagining some Zerg chud "There's only two genders, Swarm Queens and Ultralisks!", while a bunch of Muta or Hydra cocoons are cooking right behind it. Only two genders? Inefficient, easily exploited weakness. Spinning a dozen new genders now, will overwhelm any species clinging to outdated gender binary with superior gender spectrum.
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Mar 31, 2024 11:22
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