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The Door Frame posted:Even on the cellular level the zerg are connected to the hivemind? I thought they need to be completely infecting a high functioning organism and be in broadcast range of a higher zerg like a queen or overlord otherwise they are feral. Or is that another BW retcon? Yes, on a cellular level Zerg are connected to the hive mind, but only if they are within the area of psionic dominance spread by Overlords, Queens or Cerebrates. Indeed in HotS it is revealed that only some of the Zerg were enslaved by the Overmind and many still live wild and free on the Zerg homeworld. Lore-wise any Zerg that is not within range of an Overlord, Cerebrate or Queen goes feral and indeed feral Zerg featured in Brood War and will again in HotS. Cerebrates and later Queens can retain control over broods should the Overmind be dead, but Overlords are just relays for Cerebrates (and later Queens) and so they too go feral without a guiding mind. That said, even unconnected Zerg are still constantly undergoing a kind of directed evolution; Raldan hasn't been checking up on the Zerg\Protoss tanks in the lab as far as I've noticed but if he had I think one of Egon's notes about the Zerg tank by now should have been his discovery that Zerg tissue is made up of Alpha and Beta cells, Alpha cells are constantly throwing off random mutations and by constantly I mean at a rate measured in minutes while Beta cells prowl throughout the system culling Alpha cells that have developed unsuccessful mutations. Any living Zerg is therefore guaranteed to evolve into the perfect state to exploit its environment and will typically do so in a matter of weeks; only the mental enslavement of the Overmind prevents this as the Overmind basically manually controls the Alpha and Beta cells to prevent the cycle from occurring outside of Evolution Chambers so that 'useful' strains remain stable. It's something that will be worth talking more about in HotS as the devs have stated that they're not at all happy with some of the compromises they had to make with the depiction of uncontrolled Zerg mutating, but the Alpha\Beta cell dynamic along with the fact that the Overmind can control those cells through the hive mind is how Zerg upgrades work; Alpha cells in Evolution Chambers basically mutate like crazy until a useful mutation is found via 'natural' selection thanks to Beta cells and when a useful stable mutation is developed the Overmind then sends orders out through the hive mind for the Alpha cells within the Hive to develop that specific mutation and for the Beta cells to not cull that mutation. Note that since the events of Brood War Kerrigan is the new Overmind and does all the things the Overmind do up to and including opening gigantic wormholes into warp space with incredible accuracy for FTL travel. But unlike the Overmind she's not the size of a large industrial complex and she is mobile, unfortunately she also seems to be a bit more fragile than the Overmind. I don't think it's ever really talked about either but Queens are Kerrigan's replacement for the Cerebrates; she basically wiped out all the surviving Cerebrates because they were ultimately loyal to the original Overmind and not her (with one notable exception). Queens have independent minds and can control Broods like Cerebrates but similar to Kerrigan are both mobile and a lot more fragile than Cerebrates were; this is because Kerrigan wants to be able to kill them if they try and go rogue. Kerrigan in general has developed a lot more independent Zerg than the Overmind ever did because while she is psionically powerful enough to control the Zerg Hive she's just straight up not as smart as the Overmind and needs other brains to assist her in being smart enough to keep everything running. There's also been some suggestion of a theoretical 'apotheosis' of Zerg known as a Metamorph. Such a Zerg would be able to manually control its own Alpha and Beta cells; allowing it to mold its own body as it desires. This would be pretty loving scary if it ever happens. Nalesh posted:Looking at the trailer, that power armor looks like it's be like 50 times worse than plate armor to take off/put on again, so they probably just stay in it. Hell you could probably just lock all the joints and sleep standing up. The power armor you see going on Tychus in the trailer\intro is the 'convict' power armor and it simply does not come off; being literally a mobile armed prison. The power armor that Raynor uses for example is 'normal' in that it can open and close and isn't literally built around the wearer like the convict models are. Neruz fucked around with this message at 12:49 on Jan 13, 2015 |
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Jan 13, 2015 12:35
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Samuel posted:This is a really cool effort post! Doubt it, I don't think mutation and cellular change at the rate that the Zerg do it is even remotely possible with Earth biology. It is interesting though as it means that all Zerg actually have two distinct sets of genetic code, meaning every single Zerg is in fact two organisms operating as one in a kind of extreme chimerism. There's actually a lot of interesting little details in Starcraft that never get pointed out; like the changes in the Zerg Swarm from SC to Brood War and SC2 are the result of Kerrigan bringing her own ideas about how the Swarm should be as well as her own limitations; the Overmind was basically a gigantic brain and had absurd amounts of thoughtpower to put to use micromanaging many aspects of the swarm and the Cerebrates were built to this same pattern so the Zerg in SC are a lot more 'manual' with drones having to build creep colonies to spread creep and soforth. Kerrigan on the other hand doesn't have enough brainpower to micromanage like that and she doesn't trust minds smarter than herself so during the time skip between Brood War and Wings of Liberty she has remodeled the Swarm to be less like the Overminds monolithic tide and more like a spreading contagion; creep now spreads from autonomous tumors that reproduce on their own and each individual base has its own Queen or even multiple Queens who though loyal to Kerrigan are themselves capable of independent thought and action. Overseers are another example of Kerrigan's differing philosophy as they are also independent and like Queens can control their own little swarms of Changelings; allowing them to be dispatched alone into enemy space and build little covert operations rings by subtly infesting Terrans using Changelings and gathering intelligence whereas the Overmind would never have even considered infiltrating the Terrans; considering such nonsense beneath it's grandeur. The Overmind also did things en-mass with huge sprawling hatcheries that produced Zerg by the thousand but Kerrigan instead opts for turbocharging single hatchery production via Queens injecting additional larvae, again choosing a more compact and less 'industrial' approach. The Overmind's Swarm is basically this monolithic tide of Zerg that all think and act as one that just washes over everything and strikes like a great unstoppable hammer, Kerrigan's Swarm on the other hand is fast, independent and flexible and strikes from all directions with a million razorblades. This attitude also reflects her past as a Ghost operative as Ghosts (being special ops forces) usually opt for speed and precision over sheer brute strength (unless someone happens to have a nuclear missile that is looking a little lonely.) Neruz fucked around with this message at 13:27 on Jan 13, 2015 |
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Jan 13, 2015 13:21
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Metzen really loves to work on the little details to the point where he often neglects the larger stuff a bit, which explains a lot about the stories of Starcraft and Warcraft when you think about it. Another compromise he's noted as not being happy with was having the Dominion use Marauders in the Wings of Liberty campaign; apparently the original plan was to have the Dominion use something else because the Marauders were supposed to be unique to Raynor's crew having been invented by Swann. Similar changes between the factions from SC to SC2 are also explained by the different circumstances and ideas of the new leaders involved; Mengsk's Dominion is not as smooth an operation as the Confederacy or the UED which is why he employs independent pirates and contractors like the Reapers and Marauders and the Protoss have lost their primary industrial base with the destruction of Aiur and have had to start hybridizing their tech with the Dark Templar as well as develop greater mobility and faster deployment strategies to counter the Zerg, hence Warp Gates and Warp Prisms. And so on. Metzen actually went to quite a lot of effort to try and justify every change; even the changes introduced in expansion packs (EX: the new Terran units in Brood War are unique designs the UED came up with which are quickly adopted by the backwater Terrans.) e: Actually, that's another thing that is never, ever mentioned: The parts of space where the Starcraft story takes place in are called the Koprulu sector and are 60,000 light years away from Earth on the very fringe of the galaxy and in what was once Protoss space, though by the time Humans arrived there the Protoss had long since abandoned most of the worlds to lower potential risk of exposure to the Zerg. The Humans who arrived were part of an ambitious plan by a nutbag young scientist named Doran Routhe. Doran basically decided to run an elaborate genetics experiment and colonize an outlying planet with genetically altered humans, note that these humans were basically just snatched by the government to serve as specimens. The people were then loaded up onto a bunch of big supercarriers crewed by ATLAS; a revolutionary artificial intelligence\supercomputer. ATLAS's job was to first process the genetic information of the passengers to ensure maximum viability and then to control the project, but someone hosed up. For reasons unknown ATLAS didn't bring the ships out of war at the planned planet and by the time the ships came out of warp hundreds of years later and in the Korprulu Sector ATLAS had long since failed and the coordinates for Earth were lost. Before all that however ATLAS noticed that some of the modified colonists had developed a mutation that would lead to viable psionic powers within a few generations, he also killed 16,000 colonists who were deemed unfit (40,000 survived.) So the Terrans in Starcraft are mutant space hillbillies living in the backwater of the galaxy and apart from a brief interlude in Brood War when a UED expeditionary force showed up as a result of the UED finding out that the Zerg were a thing and being rightly loving terrified and tried to take over Earth and the majority of the Human race have absolutely nothing to do with the story. Indeed the Terrans in the Korprulu Sector are genetically distinct from the Humans back on Earth thanks to Doran's meddling and one of the ways that shows itself is that psychics are both more common and more powerful in Terrans than in Humans. Terrans are also physically more powerful and more tolerant of extreme conditions than Humans though again this is never mentioned or demonstrated. Neruz fucked around with this message at 14:13 on Jan 13, 2015 |
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Jan 13, 2015 13:44
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To give you an idea of how hilariously evil the UED is; their predecessor the UPL enacted a program of mass genocide codenamed 'Project Purity' for 80 years which involved the organized extermination of over 400 million people in the name of making humanity more compatible with cybernetics and increase psionic potential. The UED are even more extreme than the UPL.my dad posted:Kerrigan's biggest accomplishment was probably arranging the death of Vice Admiral Stukov (the Russian guy from the first video whose casket is being launched into space in the second), the second in command of the UED fleet, with the help of an infested agent in the fleet, and thanks to Admiral DuGalle's (the French dude from the first video) stupidity. Stukov is the guy who developed a device that can disrupt the Zerg hivemind, and came up with the plan to capture the new Overmind. It took the combined might of everyone else in the sector to break the back of the UED, and it's implied that even that might not have been enough had he survived. Many fans feel her biggest accomplishment was killing Duke and Fenix in a meticulously planned betrayal  Really the majority of the Brood War story is dedicated to Kerrigan being a goddamn puppet-master extraordinaire and ruining everyone's poo poo. Neruz fucked around with this message at 15:58 on Jan 13, 2015 |
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Jan 13, 2015 15:53
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Kurieg posted:How quickly we forget her using Razagal to puppet the entire protoss race for the better part of 2 years. Yeah but Zeratul figured that one out before it killed the best character in the game.
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Jan 13, 2015 16:52
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Eh the Overmind didn't really explain why he made her Infested in any particular way beyond 'she will be so powerful you guys' so the reveal that he had a purpose for Kerrigan isn't a stretch. The really improbable part is that the Overmind's plan actually works through a hilarious sequence of unpredictable coincidences. The stuff that Zeratul found out when he met Tassadar was vaguely hinted at in Brood War or at least wasn't a direct retcon. Tassadar not loving dying on the other hand totally is. While this little sequence of events is definitely about as palatable as the Draenei thing at least it was actually planned out rather than being the result of Metzen forgetting what he wrote in the WC2 manual. It is, however way dumber despite being planned because seriously the contrivances needed to ensure the story works out are just absurd. e: It's also worth noting that so far the Overmind's plan has failed spectacularly; Kerrigan is trapped by the same overriding desire to kill the Protoss as the Overmind was and she has even worked it all out. Go back and watch the intro cinematic for the Protoss levels where Zeratul fights Kerrigan and listen to her dialogue again; it should make more sense with this knowledge and even more when we find out the full extent what Kerrigan already knows. If you really want to go old school then note that Duran in Brood War ultimately turned out to be a servant of whatever was responsible for creating the Hybrids; the same power that trapped the Overmind with the desire to exterminate the Protoss. Play through the campaign with this knowledge and you'll note Duran's interactions and dialogue with Kerrigan actually make a lot of sense and look a hell of a lot like Duran might just be there to make sure she doesn't escape the compulsion like the Overmind planned. Neruz fucked around with this message at 17:56 on Jan 13, 2015 |
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Jan 13, 2015 17:46
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Kurieg posted:The Draenei thing is one of those "I said he was corrupted by demons, but not which demons" things combined with unreliable narrator. It's still a believable plotline it's just confusing as to what actually happened. Except that no he totally said it was the Eredar who corrupted Sargeras; its right there in the manual. He just outright forgot and he's even admitted it.
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Jan 13, 2015 17:56
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GunnerJ posted:I'm not really sure about this. I remember poring over the extensive and excessive backstory of Starcraft from the game's manual a a kid, and something that stuck with me was how the Overmind's plan was originally described: it did not feel that the Zerg were psionically swole enough to take on the Protoss, so it planned to eat enough Terrans to absorb and adapt their latent psionic potential. Except the events of Starcraft never actually bore this out. The Infested Terran buildings on Aiur are Raynor's old base from when he helped Tassadar kill the Overmind. The Overmind absolutely had the power to just take Aiur; that was why the fact that it didn't know where Aiur was was such a huge deal and why Zeratul was so chagrined when he realized that he had accidentally given away Aiur's location when he mind-linked with it after killing a Cerebrate. The Protoss industrial base was 100% on Aiur; everything was made on Aiur and teleported onto the battlefield and the Protoss themselves lacked the pure force size to take the Zerg in a straight fight so they typically just sat back and torched any planet that was infested like Mar Sara. When the Overmind found Aiur he pretty much immediately launched his greatest Cerebrate (the player) to Aiur in order to begin the invasion and lay the path for the Overmind to arrive there and consume the planet personally. Up until then the Overmind is basically just searching for the Protoss and amusing himself with the Terrans who show some interesting potential for long-term projects and assimilation into the Swarm. Then he gets a bunch of Zerg drawn in by the Psi Emitter in New Gettysburg and discovers an unbelievably powerful Terran psychic, like Kerrigan was approaching Protoss level psychic power that's how good she was at mind magic and mister smartypants Overmind gets himself an idea. So he starts a project, infests Kerrigan and births a new Cerebrate to see the project through to completion. That's why he deliberately leaves Kerrigan behind on Char; the Overmind doesn't dare risk losing her in battle with the Protoss. The reason the Infested Marines in SC were suicide bombers is because they were unstable; the Overmind was still playing with Terrans and the various possibilities they offered. That's also why Kerrigan's infestation required so much effort; the Overmind needed her mind to remain intact and needed her to be powerful and capable enough to command the Swarm as his successor. Kurieg posted:Well still, it's not a plan that requires about 5 different factions that have no idea about the greater overarching plan all doing the correct things at the correct time. With a some amount of meddling from Zeratul to be sure but I'm pretty sure Mengsk, Nova, and Valerian didn't have their fairy god-protoss telling them what to do. I don't think he apologized he just admitted he forgot and that's why the conflict occurred. I completely agree though that the hoops the SC2 story has to jump through as a result of the Overmind's plan stuff are utterly idiotic and this one is just as bad as the Draenei thing but in a completely different way. Neruz fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Jan 13, 2015 |
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Jan 13, 2015 18:13
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Slaan posted:No, the manual clearly states it somewhere that the overmind was looking to take over the Terrans so that he could match psionics with the Protoss. You aren't the only one to remember this. Really? I don't remember that at all; it's certainly never referenced to or depicted in the game itself so that sounds like a piece of backstory that got aborted after the manual was written but before the game was done. The Protoss were never a threat to the Zerg in a standup fight; there are just too many goddamn Zerg. That's also why the Korprulu Sector is abandoned and why the Protoss had retreated almost exclusively to Aiur by the time the SC storyline rolls around; the Protoss used to have bases and towns all over the Korprulu Sector which is why its full of old Protoss artifacts for the Terrans to dig up and marvel at but the Protoss withdrew from their outer worlds to Aiur once they became aware of the threat the Zerg posed so as to avoid detection. Feinne posted:Also the HotS campaign does give a light hint as to why the Infested Terrans were just poo poo suicide troops, in that Abathur pretty much says that he thinks Terran genetics are poo poo useless and he hates working with them. Yeah, Terrans evolved naturally and remember they all got tinkered with by a mad scientist as well and as a result are unstable as all hell, he's used to working with nice clean Zerg genetics which have been carefully honed and trimmed of extraneous uselessness over the ages. Neruz fucked around with this message at 18:34 on Jan 13, 2015 |
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Jan 13, 2015 18:21
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GunnerJ posted:In this case, you'd think he'd still have Kerrigan tag along since she was at the very least a pretty powerful proof-of-concept. If Kerrigan dies his whole plan to free the Zerg goes to poo poo, why would he risk her life like that after the hard part (the infestation) is over? I'm pretty sure the 'eating humans to match psionic might with the Protoss' was an aborted part of the storyline that never made it into the game. (Much like the Eredar  )
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Jan 13, 2015 18:29
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Drakyn posted:You got it directly from the Starcraft 1 manual. The whole overmind post-death-hail-mary thing only just popped up in SC2; from 1996-2011 it was just kind of a weird plothole that the Overmind infested a psychic specifically to work as anti-protoss and then kept them at home all campaign. You sure? I really don't remember the Overmind ever explaining why he went to all the extra trouble with Kerrigan beyond talking up how amazingly powerful she'd be and ergo useful.
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Jan 13, 2015 18:37
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Drakyn posted:That said, if you don't mind half-manufacturing your own plot points you could say that Kerrigan was kept around on Charr specifically to kill the Dark Templar that were sneaking around on it until halfway through the Protoss campaign, given that they'd proven to be the only Protoss that were directly dangerous to the swarm itself. The reason given in the campaign for leaving Kerrigan behind was to hunt down the remaining Protoss on Char who had killed Zasz; just checked an LP
Neruz fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Jan 13, 2015 |
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Jan 13, 2015 18:44
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Well it was explicitly Tassadar and Zeratul; two of the most powerful Protoss ever that she was trying to hunt down. 
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Jan 13, 2015 18:55
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GunnerJ posted:Well, then there's another problem. If the Overmind needs her to take on the Protoss, it might be better to just let these two gently caress around on Char while the Zerg take over Aiur with her help because it might not be possible without her. However, given that the Overmind didn't need her to do that, and she is instead part of a longer-term plan, it's probably better to not risk her life by having her on Aiur. Except, now it's leaving her to fight two of the most powerful Protoss all by herself, which is arguably a greater risk. As it turned out they both legged it during the previous mission so she just wastes her time mopping up remaining Protoss forces because nothing in the universe can find Zeratul if he don't want to be found, whether the Overmind knew that or not is unknown.
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Jan 13, 2015 19:07
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Feinne posted:You could probably assume he also figured that out while he was getting the location of Aiur. Or by the lack of corpses; he hangs around to oversee a trap set by the player using Kerrigan as bait and then leaves after Kerrigan wipes out the majority of the Protoss forces and the Swarm is prepped to attack Aiur. Zeratul has a little chat with Kerrigan while shes trying to catch him but it's probably clear to something as smart as the Overmind that the two have escaped by the time he leaves.
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Jan 13, 2015 19:12
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I meant outside of the manual in the actual game's story itself because that part of the plot doesn't seem to have made it into the game despite being in the manual.
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Jan 13, 2015 19:33
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GunnerJ posted:Another detail that did not make it out of the manual is the "ash-world" Zerus, apparently. Poil posted:Lies! Everyone knows that Zerus is a generic jungle planet full of disappointment and stupidity. Well yes and no; we'll have to wait till HotS to really talk about Zerus but the key point is that it was an ash world like Char when the Zerg were first created. Now while we have no absolute date for when this happened it was at least hundreds of thousands of years prior to the present, probably millions of years ago. It really shouldn't come as any surprise that Zerus has undergone a little climate change. That said, Metzen has called out Zerus in HotS as being one area where major compromises had to be made and he's really not happy with how some aspects of that turned out, but we can talk about it when we get to HotS.
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Jan 14, 2015 04:56
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Spudd posted:The Moebius Factor because the thread needs to see the awful meta that is MMM. M&Ms were so good in Brood War that Blizzard decided to add an extra M and make one of them fly!
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Jan 14, 2015 09:13
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Spudd posted:By awful I mean that it was every single match. MMM is pretty much the backbone of Terran compositions and unless you're one of those insane nutjobs who goes pure mech you will pretty much always be using at least some of your army comp as MMMs because they are just so drat good. Even if you're pure meching you'll probably go MMM for awhile until you can transition fully to mech.
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Jan 14, 2015 09:17
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CommissarMega posted:MMM? Is that some mind of pro-strat 300 APM thing? Marines, Marauders and Medivacs.
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Jan 14, 2015 09:28
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The Medivacs also give an MMM army even more mobility since they can pick up a bunch of mans and fly around with them; this can allow canny Terran players to launch some really nasty multidirectional assaults or raid every single one of your bases at the same time. There's usually a good window during the midgame after MMM comes out where it can run rampant over most of the map and good Terrans can often leverage that to gain a very advantageous position and wreak havoc on the enemy's economy.
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Jan 14, 2015 09:45
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The other fun thing about Medivacs in singleplayer of course is that their two upgrades are stupid overpowered. Combined with the Cellular Reactor they will be a hell of a thing to see in action.
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Jan 14, 2015 10:01
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Raldan posted:
They're not as good at the zooming around but the upgrades man 
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Jan 15, 2015 08:23
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Voting Closed
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I didn't see anyone mention it when I skimmed the thread so forgive me if it was pointed out before but the reason Raynor is so interested in the Confederate Adjutant is because the Battle of New Gettysburg was the battle where Arcturus abandoned Kerrigan to the Zerg while Raynor screamed abuse at him; which was one hell of a story twist to my 10 year old self let me tell you.
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Jan 15, 2015 09:28
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Nalesh posted:Also probably a good idea to give kerrigan a bit more backstory with this to people that didn't play the first game. The Kerrigan\Raynor backstory got heavily revamped coming into SC2; in Starcraft she was basically a supporting character who Raynor had dirty thoughts about but no significant relationship was ever implied and she sort of just showed up as one of Mengsk's compatriots to help out once Raynor joined Mengsk's rebellion. When Mengsk abandoned her at New Gettysburg Raynor was more upset about the betrayal than any relationship. At that point Raynor basically had a 'my crush is dead' moment and started pining for Kerrigan thinking she was dead, which is why when she resurfaced as the Queen of Blades he had a bit of a mental conflict on his hands. Then Kerrigan started doing her Queen of Blades thing and pretty soon Raynor was more than happy to hate her for basically burning half the damned galaxy and ruthlessly taking over the Swarm in the process. In the transition from SC1 to SC2 though Metzen decided to upgrade Raynor and Kerrigan into a full on couple and he inserted a bunch of extra plot (in the form of comics if memory serves) that took place between a number of the game missions where Raynor and Kerrigan fell in love and had hot space sex at least once. As of SC2's opening Raynor has basically spent the last few years moping over the fact that the woman he loves is the devil incarnate which is why he goes all funny whenever people mention her around him. This is also why he is stupid enough to believe that doctor girl when she claims to have found a cure for Zerg infestation; a cure for Zerg infestation is basically the holy grail Raynor has been seeking because the one thing he really, really wants is to have Kerrigan back. Finding a way to 'cure' Kerrigan is his underlying motivation for the entire Wings of Liberty campaign which explains some of Raynor's more questionable decisions because he is still holding hope that Zerg infestation can be cured even after all the proof he has seen that the only cure for Zerg infestation is judiciously applied fire. This actually results in a bit of character whiplash for people familiar with Brood War when they first come into SC2 because in Brood War Raynor is 100% on board the 'only good Zerg is a dead Zerg' bandwagon with his Protoss buddies (RIP Fenix ) so having him suddenly be all "No wait guys we can cure Zerg infestation" when the Protoss show up and correctly point out that the planet is hosed is really jarring, but is I think supposed to be another indication that Raynor is letting his feelings for Kerrigan override his common sense.As a result of her subsequent importance to the story Kerrigan has received utterly ludicrous amounts of extra back-story so telling her entire canonical history would require one hell of a post, so suffice to say that Raynor feels that Kerrigan is 'the one that got away' and he also feels partially responsible for her turning into a monster for a nice emotional double-whammy and of course the icing on top is that Queen of Blades Kerrigan totally remembers all of that and is even still quite fond of Raynor but has no interest in letting silly things like emotions stop her from conquering the galaxy. The really, really dumb stuff involving Kerrigan doesn't happen until the very end of Wings of Liberty and the entirety of Heart of the Swarm so that is probably when we'll have the opportunity to really tear the writing of her character apart. If you thought the Artifact with its 'artifact energy' was dumb wait till you see what it gets used for. Neruz fucked around with this message at 09:55 on Jan 15, 2015 |
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Jan 15, 2015 09:46
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Time to wax a bit on the Player Characters of Starcraft. Several times during SC and Brood War briefings various characters speak directly to the player, implying that the player is in fact present in the universe as a character. In a few cases we even know which character the player is! The Terran campaign of Starcraft puts the player in the role of the Mar Sara Magistrate, little information exists about the Magistrate and he won't ever be mentioned ever again after the Terran campaign. That said, Raynor gets referred to as 'Commander' multiple times in SC2 which implies that the character concept for the Magistrate was merged with Raynor. The fate of the Magistrate is otherwise unknown. The Zerg campaign puts the player in the role of a newly born Cerebrate the Overmind has just created to serve as a guardian for Kerrigan. This Cerebrate doesn't live long enough to get a name or develop a personality but does demonstrate remarkable competence and is thus given the important role of opening the gate to allow the Overmind to personally arrive on Aiur. This Cerebrate is basically the Overmind's 'special ops' guy and he dies on Aiur along with the Overmind and many other Cerebrates when Tassadar drops a Khala + Void bomb on the Overmind in the form of turning his entire Supercarrier into a ball of energy and firing it into the Overmind's great big squishy brain. The Protoss campaign puts the player in the role of a shiny new Executor who has just been promoted in response to the Zerg invasion of Aiur. Unlike the previous two PC's we know exactly what happened to this Executor; it's Artanis! In Brood War the player takes up the role of 3 entirely new characters. In the Protoss campaign the player is a different unnamed Executor, unlike with Artanis there hasn't been any official word on who this was but Metzen has hinted a few times that it was Selendis and that seems to fit, so it was probably Selendis. In the Terran campaign the player takes on the role of an unnamed UED Captain. The fate of the Captain is unknown; he probably died with the UED fleet but there are still a few UED survivors around so  Finally, in the Zerg campaign the player takes on the role of a renegade Unnamed Cerebrate that was part of Daggoth's swarm. After the Overmind died Kerrigan basically swept in and severed this Cerebrates ties to the Second Overmind so as to use it herself. This Cerebrate was later executed by Kerrigan after the end of the Brood War when she no longer required its services. There are a few other PCs from the various 'DLC' style extra missions Blizzard released for Brood War but none of them are referred to outside of their respective missions. In Starcraft II Blizzard decided to do away with the whole 'the player is a real person in the universe' thing and instead you are just following the stories of Raynor, Kerrigan and Artanis respectively for the 3 campaigns. The decision to remove the concept is apparently one Blizzard have just decided on across the board and will not show up again in future Blizzard games.
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Jan 16, 2015 01:49
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GodFish posted:I always got the impression that the Cerebrate in BW was the same as the Cerebrate from the first zerg campaign. Nope, the one in BW is explicitly called out as being part of Daggoth's Brood prior to Kerrigan severing its connection to the Second Overmind. The one in the first Zerg campaign died on Aiur with the Overmind.
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Jan 16, 2015 03:56
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Hey I'm not forcing anyone to read my effortposts on the stupid story of this stupid game, feel free to ignore me Also, it was mentioned in one of the videos that the in-game models are somewhat inaccurately scaled; to give you an idea of how inaccurately scaled here is a picture of an Ultralisk about to step on a Siege Tank.  In-universe Ultralisks are a little more intimidating than their in-game counterparts 
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Jan 16, 2015 06:56
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Yeah in-universe Battlecruisers are bigger than Aircraft Carriers; usually somewhere in the realm of 500 meters long and carrying 5000 - 7000 crew. The game is just explicitly not to scale.
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Jan 16, 2015 07:19
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Jobbo_Fett posted:That's the Terrasque, duh! Nope that's a screenshot from the HotS Intro cinematic and it shows about half a dozen Ultralisks of similar size. The in-game models of many units and structures are simply scaled down for gameplay purposes. We'll meet the biggest offender of scaling down near the end of Wings of Liberty in fact; a certain Zerg unit that we'll talk about when it shows up. e: I found a thing that shows a bunch of units to-scale. There might be a few minor spoilers for units that we havn't seen yet so consider yourself warned. Starcraft to Scale Neruz fucked around with this message at 07:31 on Jan 16, 2015 |
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Jan 16, 2015 07:21
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Spudd posted:Right I remember which one you're talking about now but can't you miss fighting that unit? Nope if you don't get it in one mission it shows up later in the next mission instead.
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Jan 16, 2015 07:34
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Getting Scarab pathing wrong and blowing up all your own dudes really was an essential part of the Protoss ExperienceTM. Reavers are actually in the game so they might show up in Legacy. I don't think we'll see them in Wings or Heart though 
Neruz fucked around with this message at 07:56 on Jan 16, 2015 |
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Jan 16, 2015 07:38
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Synastren posted:Alas, reavers' scarabs did not damage your own units. Spider mines and tanks both did friendly fire, and kiting spider mines into the terran army with fast zealots is a standard strategy. What are you sure I quite clearly remember killing a bunch of my own Zealots when my Reavers opened fire on the Zerg they were attacking and the Scarabs found themselves unable to path to the Zerg so they just blew the gently caress up in the rear of my Zealot blob. I also remember Scarabs just having the worst pathing and constantly blowing up in the wrong places. The SC2 Reaver is much improved in that regard even if it is currently unused outside of custom maps.
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Jan 16, 2015 08:23
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Was that something that changed in a patch maybe? I definitely remember scarabs having friendly fire.
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Jan 16, 2015 08:47
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The Bucephalus is explicitly stated to be 560 meters long and 82.4 meters wide with a crew compliment of 8,239 as the largest Battlecruiser built, however at least one source says that Battlecruisers can go up to 2 leagues in length (which would be like 9 kilometers). It could be perspective loving with things, it could be Metzen can't make up his goddamn mind how big Battlecruisers are supposed to be
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Jan 16, 2015 16:59
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Apparently Super Battlecruisers are mentioned at some points so perhaps those are what the 2 league long ones are.
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Jan 16, 2015 17:07
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Delta Green posted:I also believe that the Bucephalus was a custom job and thus not really affiliated with either the Minotaur or Behemoth class Battlecruisers. Yeah it was a custom job, normal Minotaur or Behemoth class Battlecruisers are smaller. Bucephalus was explicitly created to be biggerer and betterer than the Hyperion that it was built to replace.
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Jan 17, 2015 03:01
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The Protoss Planet Cracker beams are another thing Metzen can't make up his mind on; originally Carriers mounted the Planet Cracker which is used to destroy worlds deemed too far gone to Zerg infestation. Then it was later changed to being a Supercarrier thing, then it was stated that the Planet Cracker was mounted on Motherships and then Metzen got all confused and decided that Carriers did mount the beams after all along with Motherships and Supercarriers but the beam attack wasn't going to appear in the game for balance reasons.
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Jan 17, 2015 07:18
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Star Man posted:Why are all materials in the game produced with the same bigass blue crystals and green gas that comes out of geysers that are on every planet in the Koprulu Sector? Who gives a poo poo because it's a game play mechanic. There is an explanation for that  Minerals are a naturally forming crystal in the Korprulu Sector: Doran Routhe, a famous United Powers League scientist who you may remember as the jackoff responsible for sending his pet genetically engineered Terrans on a space trip, theorized that planetary systems beyond Sol could contain new resources that simply had never existed on Earth. As it turned out Doran was at least partially right; the Korprulu Sector is home to rich deposits of crystal-minerals, often found in clusters and sometimes as veins of ore in mountains and asteroids. These minerals can be easily melted down by both Terran and Protoss to create metal alloys, armor and ship hulls. The Zerg also ingest the minerals to harden their carapaces and develop strong teeth. In some parts of the Korprulu Sector the mineral deposits actually grow slowly over time as they are slowly extruded from massive veins deep inside planets. Vespene Gas is another naturally forming resource in the Korprulu Sector not otherwise seen outside of it; the pure form of the gas is green but with contaminants it can change colour quite significantly to silver, blue, purple or more. Vespene Gas has an unusually high energy density; several times higher than oil and thus is used by all three races as a fuel source as Vespene is widely available and relatively easy to harvest. Pure Vespene is typically valued more than impure (though there are exceptions) and one of the most common impurities in Vespene is Hydrogen Sulfide which makes the Vespene appear yellow and also makes it highly unstable and prone to exploding with no warning. Vespene Gas, like Minerals appears to be either stored or created deep within planetary formations before being pushed up and out of the planetary crust to escape. This is why you typically find much richer deposits of both on worlds with lots of seismic activity as the more volcanically active a world is the more Minerals and Vespene will get pushed to the surface. So there you go; Minerals and Vespene Gas are naturally forming resources in the Korprulu Sector and possibly other places as well that are not found in the Sol system for unknown reasons. Given that everywhere you visit in the SC games is a part of what was once Xel'Naga space it is likely that the Xel'Naga are the ones ultimately responsible for Minerals and Vespene Gas, probably seeding worlds to produce those resources for their own use. As both Minerals and Vespene are more energy efficient than 'normal' resources nobody in the Korprulu Sector uses anything else; this abundance of resources is the primary reason why the Terrans have able to be so successful despite the fact that they are cut off from Earth and external resupply. 
Neruz fucked around with this message at 01:51 on Jan 18, 2015 |
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Jan 18, 2015 01:44
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| # ¿ May 18, 2024 13:18 |
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Yeah Blizzard are big fans of their online marketplaces. It helps that Battle.net is fairly well designed and easy to use too.
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Jan 18, 2015 04:31
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