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You know, I never realised the time between the end of Brood War and this was only 2 years. I remembered thinking (the first time playing the game) that it was a 12 year skip, and that was why things were "better". Mar Sara got fixed up, the Dominion has stabilized, Kerrigan is just off chillin' like a villain. Seeing that it is actually only 2 years makes me wonder what the heck. Heck, even the stated 4 years in the later dialogue is a stretch, but better than a quick 2 years. Also, while it may seem odd that Kate Lockwell continues to be one of the main reporters, I think later cutscenes show that the writers either didn't really understand how cruel actual authoritarian rulers are, or they didn't want the game to have too dark a tone. If the latter, I guess that makes checks out if the writing wasn't in-house
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Jun 4, 2023 03:19
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does Scott Menville do any other voices? I mean, the one voice he does works great whenever he's cast, but I can't think of any other role where he sounds different
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Jun 11, 2023 08:03
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one fun thing I've noticed watching Starcraft speedruns, some of the runners aren't from NA and so you can experience how the game sounds in other countries and regions. The sound the marines make when you use stims can vary from a gruffer version of the "that's the stuff" I've had ingrained in my head for 25 years (albeit, said in a different language), or a sound that I can only describe as either euphoric or orgasmic. some marines really love their drugs
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Jun 13, 2023 06:19
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missed opportunity for the art department to give the War Pigs weapons that resemble an M60 (it's nickname is Pig)
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Jun 27, 2023 21:16
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PurpleXVI posted:Yeah, canonically the only humans that Zerg had a use for beyond IED's were those with psionic potential, like Kerrigan. I think SC1 EU stuff (whether it was a book or a comic, I do not remember) showed that if a captured Terran didn't even have a sufficient psionic makeup they would basically go brain dead from the zergification process, and so the only use the Overmind could think up was to turn them into man-powered IEDs. The story I specifically remember this for was one where Kerrigan captured a UED medic and was experimenting to see if she could get the same results as the Overmind got when creating the Queen of Blades. After a certain point, the medic's personality got erased and Kerrigan's reaction was basically that Top Gear meme
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Jul 3, 2023 19:34
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not too sure on how much stuff SC1 had, the short story I was describing was this one https://starcraft.fandom.com/wiki/StarCraft:_Hybrid and it was printed in Amazing Stories back in 2000. I don't think Blizzard did a whole lot of EU stuff until the 00s, likely to bring new fans to series, and outside of small lore stories like this they didn't do much with StarCraft until Liberty's Crusade in 2001, around the same time as Lord of the Clans came out (the book version of the cancelled game) and Legacy of Blood (the first Diablo book). I actually paid money for Legacy of Blood (though I never finished it) but I distinctly remember there being StarCraft and WarCraft novels nearby as well. I guess Blizzard did a big push all at once for their 3 big franchises at the time but I feel that WarCraft was the one that really took off with LOTS of EU works, probably because WarCraft 3 was on the horizon and then WoW not too long after as compared to StarCraft Ghost being cancelled and nothing happening with Diablo until 3 was announced in...2008 or 2009?
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Jul 3, 2023 21:06
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painedforever posted:Actually, I thought the entire point of Kerrigan is that she is psionic which is why she got turned into the Queen of Blades. Non-psionic humans are only good for cannon-fodder in Zerg eyes. the short story goes into this, actually. if you're able to find an archive of it (probably not too challenging, but I'm not sure if out-of-print magazines count as  and so I can't link one of the places I found it while googling last night), half of the story is Kerrigan remembering how the initial selection process went for her being entered into the Ghost program. the Medic exists because Kerrigan observes the things she does and thinks "oh poo poo, maybe she's the one, I made similar choices in similar circumstances and did similar psychic things and look what I became!" but whatever virus or mutagen Kerrigan is using on the captured Terrans doesn't work and so the medic just becomes another mindless drone.Incidentally, the text describes Kerrigan as effectively being ugly and grotesque, from the medic's perspective, with little tidbits like "she may have been seen as attractive once" and it reminds me that one of the things I always liked about Kerrigan pre-Wings of Liberty was that she was never really sexualized (my recollection). Her ghost model showed her in a slender profile, but all the ghosts were like that because they're infiltrators, they don't need all the 40k power armour because that's not how they do their jobs. When she transforms into the Queen of Blades, she still has a Terran physique but she still looks like a soldier. I remember when WoL first came out and my immediate reaction upon seeing Kerrigan's full model was "....oh, well that, that's not the queen bitch I've had in my mind for the past decade. that sucks"
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Jul 4, 2023 13:38
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NewMars posted:That's not actually true! You can see her in the brood war campaign menu and she looks like this. Is that the OG one? I could've sworn the Remake touched up that model a bit. Specifically, I recall thinking that her clothes were cleaned up and looked more like clothes, and her boots looked more military in design. Since all I see now is SCR, it's tricky to separate the OG from the Remake (except the unit profiles, those will stay with me until I die)
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Jul 4, 2023 16:59
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Can't remember, do they still mention propane and propane accessories?
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Jul 6, 2023 07:19
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You know, I never questioned that Tosh might be part of a "criminal element" or whatever, but I think that's because the game already told me Tychus is hiding something right from the start. Tosh is a Ghost, so of course he's effectively a hyper criminal. I'd almost liken him to the "oh boy, here I go killing again" guy from Rick and Morty. Sure, he's doing stuff for his own reasons, but Tychus isn't telling us why Moebius keeps hiring us so 
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Jul 16, 2023 22:42
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Did Paul Verhooven threaten to sue or something? Why did they move away from the ED209 aesthetic from BW?
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Jul 18, 2023 20:36
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Kith posted:As such, I can tell you that the "emotional purgatory" is a post-hoc justification and a total load of crap. The events of the first game and its expansion(s) were intended to have messed up Raynor pretty bad, and Metzen's original draft of the story was all about portraying that. Unfortunately, the team didn't want the first third of Starcraft 2's lifecycle to be so negative since the Terrans spent so much time losing or being manipulated in the previous installments, so the narrative was shifted to something simpler and more empowering. This part right here stuck out to me as a sign that OG Blizzard was dead and buried by this point, because everything being "too negative" was kind of the point off the majority of the campaigns in Vanilla and Brood War (not to mention the canon outcomes of WarCraft 1 and 2, let alone how everything plays out in Reign of Chaos and Frozen Throne). It isn't just the Terrans that have it bad in SC1, the entire Protoss campaign is about an apocalyptic invasion of their homeworld, with the conclusion being that they can kill the Overmind, but they cannot kill all of the remaining Zerg after, and so they have to abandon Aiur at the beginning of Brood War. You also see this in Diablo 1 and Diablo 2, the PC "wins" but, due to unforeseen circumstances, they get sequel hooks and a conclusion that shows that, even at their most powerful, the PC is kind of out of their league when facing the final boss. I dunno, I just see that summary of the writing team saying they want something more positive and uplifting and I think "then why are you writing for StarCraft? if ever there was a game that fully embraced the term 'grimdark' unironically, this is certainly one of the most popular ones." I mean, the concept of the hybrids were introduced before the final mission of Brood War (as a bonus, but still) and the final text crawl of the game shows that even Kerrigan is in a state of unease even as she has beaten back every force capable of threatening her power and dominion. I'm not saying there isn't room for uplifting stories in the universe, but I definitely think it is the wrong approach to look at the emotional arc of an entire campaign and say "we want the good guys to unequivocally win"
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Jul 23, 2023 16:58
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does internet archive have a system for SSLPs? I know a lot of VLPs end up there (and then a whole bunch of others got lost to the sands of time)
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Jul 24, 2023 18:47
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I remember first playing this (way back in summer 2010) and when Zeratul showed up and did his whole "wait, killing Kerrigan might be a terrible idea" made me pause and think "ok, let's hear him out. If Zeratul, of all people, is saying she's important, there may be something to that" and so I immediately went to play the first Zeratul mission. That opening cutscene made me think there was going to be a reveal later that this was an imposter Zeratul, or that Raynor was being pranked. Alas, that was not to be, and it only got worse with each mission down the chain (then again, spoilers for Legacy of the Void I guess Blizzard soooooort of made it better by revealing that the image of Tassadar that talks to Zeratul is a Xel'naga plant? But that feels like the dril tweet, not exactly willing to hand anything to Blizzard) and that was why I voted for this mission. Want to get all aboard the stupidity train
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Jul 29, 2023 13:20
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I always took the Xel'naga to be similar to the Ancients (or Lanteans) in Stargate, they advanced so far in science and technology that they, as a race, just kind of forgot how the world tends to work for the majority of sentient life (perhaps not helped by their societal stance of non-interference). Things like having instruction manuals for their tech, or putting safeguards in place (oh, the whoosh from establishing the wormhole in the gates vaporizes all matter it comes in contact with? well then don't stand in front of it, that's not hard). That, and just a general feeling of contempt towards every other race that is so far below them. Eventually another race will surpass them and they just weren't paying attention because hubris gets everyone at some point
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Jul 31, 2023 12:13
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idonotlikepeas posted:Instead? The prophecy is telling him to do the thing he wanted to do anyway. We already saw him pining for Kerrigan and wanting to save her! He doesn't want to kill her at all, and now he's got a divine blessing on this desire. There's no tension anywhere! Frankly, Zeratul completely wasted his time dropping this crystal off, because the only person who receives its message already would have done the thing that Zeratul wants him to do. this makes me wonder about cutscene pipelines, because Raynor's reaction when Zeratul shows up seems to imply that he's a hankering for a murdering and Zeratul telling him to look at the crystal will reveal that he's gotta leave her alive. not that it makes a huge difference, in the grand scheme of SC2, Kerrigan and the Zerg just get poo poo all over them IN THEIR OWN GAME
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Aug 12, 2023 16:05
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You see that in every StarCraft tournament, a lucky person can go quite far in single elimination rounds and then get stomped by a pro's pro if they have to get more than 2 wins to move on
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Aug 17, 2023 23:20
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the speedruns for this are actually fun to watch, as are ones where people try to see how long they can last. I recall watching a video (like, 7 years ago or maybe more) where the player used Cybernetics Cores as blocking structures at the left and right bridges, as well as full lines of hold-position DTs on the bridges. I think they finished the map with about 6000 kills or something? I dunno, it was cool to watch someone else play the mission that well, I sure as hell wouldn't want to do that but as I've said in the Brood War thread, I don't have a lot of patience for RTS missions like these edit: disposablewords posted:It's running into a stakes and scale issue again, too. It came up earlier on how between games the Terran Dominion in particular and the Koprulu Sector in general seem to have massively inflated in numbers. Everyone acting like there's at least an order of magnitude more settled planets and people than just four years ago. And also, we're now conflating this chunk of the galaxy with not just the entirety of the galaxy but suggestions of it being the entirety of the universe. Things has ramped up from the Zerg being a terrifying but basically local problem that could snowball into something greater to "no it's about literally everything now." The most important thing possible is happening here and it never manages to feel earned to me. was this one of the first big AAA games to do this kind of stakes raising? The only earlier series I can think that had such high stakes was Mass Effect, but that was the baseline endgame scenario from the outset, and they were careful to keep it relegated to only the Milky Way galaxy Aces High fucked around with this message at 16:54 on Aug 19, 2023 |
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Aug 19, 2023 16:50
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I was gonna vote for one of the others, but your mission descriptions made me change my mind to continue Horner's line
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Sep 10, 2023 09:08
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I think the problem is that they made her seem too powerful in the final cutscene and text blurb. I think it would work better if her having to take down 3 factions at the same time on Char ended up having some consequences. She had to expend so many resources to protect her primary hive clusters that she broke connections with some other clusters across the sector, so now there's some broken broods running amok. Sure, she still has Char, but she will have to spend time recovering and maybe trying to bring those renegade broods back, or destroying them because they are threats to her power. Something like that could work better with her coming back with such force in WoL, while the Dominion and Protoss are just getting back on their feet, Kerrigan was able to get back to her former strength and so some desperate measures might need to be explored to stop her from running roughshod all over the sector...again
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Sep 18, 2023 08:30
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Warmachine posted:I kinda like the hollow victory depressed Kerrigan idea. It doesn't even need to be that elaborate--it works fine without needing to change much else about her because the most believable part is that someone who is wondering what the point of it all is, now that there's no pressing crisis to draw her attention, would absolutely withdraw inward and not do much. And because the Zerg is a hive mind, her mental state makes the rest of the swarm lethargic, giving the Terrans and Protoss breathing room until something (the Xel'Naga/Mengsk) starts presenting a crisis again and gives her an external motivator. I like the mental health angle, that way you can keep stuff like her fighting with Zeratul and she's being all "I am ready for oblivion" and you can explore that further. It's like Metro Man's epiphany, except in this case it's the villain doing it (wait, though I guess Metro Man is the villain? because it's Megamind's story? ah gently caress)
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Sep 18, 2023 17:08
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BisbyWorl posted:
boooo, missed an opportunity to say "Nice!" to finish the song
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Sep 19, 2023 17:34
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Starcraft 3: Ragnasaur Eater (or Kakaru, or Ursadon, whichever of the map critters are most memorable)
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Sep 25, 2023 02:00
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wait, Raynor had a kid?
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Oct 15, 2023 06:29
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how old is Jimmy supposed to BE?!
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Oct 15, 2023 17:17
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Hwurmp posted:confirmed: Starcraft is a JRPG jesus christ, I was joking in the Warcraft LP thread that Illidan absolutely was anime as gently caress, but this stupid poo poo just seals it. In what universe is Nova only supposed to be 19? Grey Delisle sure doesn't voice her as such so they must not have told her
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Oct 15, 2023 22:56
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I see a manga for Starcraft and I think "nope, that was a loving terrible idea for Warcraft, and it's just as terrible here. It doesn't exist"
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Oct 16, 2023 04:34
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aniviron posted:What was with 90s sci fi and worms that control hosts? We have the Zerg, the Many, the Yeerks, probably more I am forgetting. also the bone leeches from Blood 2
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Oct 31, 2023 03:47
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I'm trying to figure out if they're referring to the fact that, if you're quick enough, you can stun the hostage holder at the end of the first mission in Human Revolution. Good job, Adam, none of the hostages died and you didn't let the bad guy walk away
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Nov 13, 2023 04:55
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Considering the nature of it, I think when the current LP gets to Brood War, those points are going to come up. I recall this coming up when Legacy of the Void came out, and everyone continued saying SC1 had better writing. I think the reality is that less IS more when it comes to Blizzard games and story. The world of Diablo isn't very important. You go through the dungeon levels and kill Diablo, and your character sets up the sequel. The Butcher is memorable because all he says is "aaaahhhh fresh meat!" and was a major roadblock of a miniboss. What purpose does he serve to the larger world? If we were to say that Blizzard was all flash and no substance (without getting into the fact that the gameplay tended to be very tight, which is a larger point in them being memorable) then adding more story just makes that more evident.
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Nov 14, 2023 22:37
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PurpleXVI posted:I don't know, I kind of agree with SC1 being a special sort of camp. It tried to be serious, but that kind of over-the-top serious of heavy metal albums, kind of like Warcraft 1 and 2. SC2 tries to wind it down into something more realistic that takes itself more seriously and I don't really think that works. SC1 I can also forgive a lot because it tries very little related to melodrama, while 2 sure wants its characters and their VERY. SPECIAL. EMOTIONS. to be taken extremely seriously. much like Diablo and Warcraft, I think a lot of that came down to amazing casting. Not that there isn't good work from the people in SC2, but SC1 has a certain panache that came from having a core cast that knew their assignments and nailed them with the limited time given for recording
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Nov 16, 2023 06:16
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Personally, I think all games should approach their voice acting like Legacy of Kain did
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Nov 17, 2023 18:23
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Gun Jam posted:How did that series approached their voice acting? I was going to post some of the behind the scenes stuff they did for later games in the series, but I think this intro communicates the vibe I'm referring to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DOKzTHaPfM
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Nov 17, 2023 18:53
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yeah I remember the first time playing and when that message came up I was like "I'm sorry? Did that really just happen? This is gonna be a really dumb ending" and, well, it did kinda kill my desire to play again for a couple years.
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Dec 9, 2023 09:53
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I get the feeling that, much like the Borg, since all Zerg are under the same Hive mind infrastructure, it's probably amazing group therapy. Maybe the zerglings can't relate to you living for over 30 years, but I'll bet ultralisks have a lot to say. They're so big that they struggle with fine motor control. The domination is just them working out their stress
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Dec 11, 2023 05:26
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As a bug fan, that trailer/cinematic got me super excited for the campaign. Then I lost that hype after the first few missions, but more because of all the story crap that will on display in short order
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Dec 16, 2023 08:33
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Felinoid posted:Back in SC1 she had hella braids (blazing red ones too), so this hair is actually closer to what she had as a human than the more "normal" hairstyles things like Raynor's nightmare depict. that was something I always liked about Kerrigan's Ghost image in OG SC1. You could tell that she was just done with everyone's poo poo, her eyes were kinda sunken and her hair was all in dreads. Sure, she's still all business when she has to go ghosting, but otherwise she just looks like she doesn't care about anything. The replacement in SC:R does away with that and it's very lame Lots of things about Kerrigan from 2010 and on are very lame
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Dec 17, 2023 20:59
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your point about there being a lack of direction or ideology from most of the mains makes sense. The Blizzard RTS stories don't have much variety in the ideological sense because they couldn't when they were made, or were designed to not have players think about it. Warcraft by the time of the release of Brood War has been "Orcs are an invading force, bent on conquering and/or killing everything in their path" and the other nations of Azeroth have been "oh gently caress, it's do or die time. if you are working against us, you're in league with the Orcs and so you'll die like them" which doesn't lead a lot of room for differing points of view. We might've gotten some of that if Lord of Clans was actually released, but it wasn't, and for all the talk about how Thrall was going to change the Horde, Cythereal's LP has shown that the writers at Blizzard weren't equipped to add that kind of nuance and still keeping the War in Warcraft. In Brood War, we have similar reactionary politics but that's also just the state of the RTS genre of the time. If you aren't seeing your heroes every mission and you don't have a Hyperion hub between missions to check-in on how everyone's doing after Mengsk decided "gently caress the people of Antiga Prime in particular" or "huh, guess we can't expect even the most hard-lined sycophants to not be sacrificed by Mengsk" then you can't really get a reading on any kind of political leaning. I think the Protoss are the closest we get to that, and even that is just because centuries (or possibly millennia) before the events of the game, they had a big ol' ideological civil war and the current plot is "we either get our poo poo pushed in from an existential threat, because the side that won the civil war has become complacent and refuse to listen to the one that has seen evidence of how to defeat this threat, or we work with the people we exiled forever ago because evidence shows that their methods are working."
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Dec 19, 2023 16:19
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I didn't want to say it when someone mentioned the "riding a bike" thing earlier as a different piece of dialogue for the first mission, but I always roll my eyes when I hear it used in the context in this mission. It's definitely a me thing
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Dec 24, 2023 18:16
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that zergling is the best character in this game. it followed her and is doing it's best to comfort the Queen of Blades 
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Dec 31, 2023 06:44
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