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Omobono posted:I understand that it's a gameplay conceit they didn't think too much about, but having an alive Zerg specimen is just asking for trouble no matter the containment measures. Yeah, that does seem kind of cavalier? But I'm sure everything will be all right, and that nothing bad will happen with the Zerg specimen later in the story 
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Jun 25, 2023 10:25
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Psionic Terrans get quite a bit of focus in SC2, we just always seem to vote for the missions that won't nab us our first important psionic character!
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Jul 4, 2023 11:24
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Cythereal posted:Because he's an awful racist stereotype and I, for one, have been actively voting to delay him joining as long as possible. No doubt about it, but it's kind of strange to try to cover the subject of psionic humans now when have a big lore dump covering that topic coming up 
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Jul 4, 2023 13:02
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There's no prospective follow-up to SC2, but WoW continues onwards. Wings of Liberty and Legacy of the Void more or less killed the series. I can't even think of where they would go next? Unless they bring in some other alien species, but the series is fundamentally about the interplay between the three races, so... And it's a damned shame, we could use more RTS games.
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Jul 31, 2023 14:38
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GunnerJ posted:There was the Nova Covert Ops mini-sequel-campaign thing. It wasn't that well received iirc. And I don't know why the SC devs are so fascinated with the psychic spies, the fate of StarCraft: Ghost should have been a lesson to them.
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Jul 31, 2023 15:01
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Felinoid posted:For a second I was hoping the Great Hungerer would be some fresh new Xel'Naga abomination (something like an ultralisk the size of a colony ship that eats entire cities), but then Zeratul said "could that be the Overmind?" and it felt so out of left field I knew he had to be reading the script. You'd be out of your zero dollars, but the real answer is not that much better. Also, prepare to be supremely disappointed in the next mission with the Overmind, I know I was.
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Aug 5, 2023 16:47
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Isn't there like a time limit on one of the missions? Specifically the terran refugees mission? Iirc, there will be something bad happening if you wait to do it too long. Will that also happen if we "waste" time with the protoss crystal?
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Aug 7, 2023 08:11
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Xarn posted:I gave it some thought and I am okay with the story changing to justify your choice. And even with decent writing chops, reasonable (and unreasonable!) people can disagree which choice was overall better, in which choice the good outweighed the bad and vice versa.
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Aug 8, 2023 17:20
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That's why we need the next update, because so far, the Protoss missions haven't been too bad so far. But boy do we have things to discuss after the next mission. Though I will be honest, I've always had a soft spot for the fourth mission, which is imho really cool the first time you play it, and remains pretty cool even on second playthroughs.
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Aug 8, 2023 18:38
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Wow, I loved the next mission when I first played it. I still like it, though it can be a bit tedious on later playthroughs.
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Aug 12, 2023 12:46
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ilmucche posted:tassadar isn't even in lotv?? That's right, but then he isn't in Wings of Liberty, either, if you go by LotV revelations. Which isn't really a thing to discuss yet I believe?
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Aug 12, 2023 13:05
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I do know I did a Nova playthrough, but I remember next to nothing. Nova only keeps in touch via comms I think. But there was one memorable moment, it's finale. Iirc, Tosh tries to kill Raynor via vodoo doll but it does nothing, then Nova offs him. But it turns out the vodoo doll was somehow linked to Tychus?? who suffered some wounds. I remember this for the quite racist undertones.
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Aug 27, 2023 10:39
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They Donny parts register as a bit too on the nose right now, but they're nearly all good anyways.
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Sep 10, 2023 06:02
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anilEhilated posted:Mengsk Junior. Who's one of the few bright spots in the story for me. But we can discuss them when the LP gets to this point I think. I just find it interesting that you're so down on them.
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Sep 26, 2023 19:52
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World of Warcraft is also playable on some really crappy PCs, this is definitely one area where you have to "hand it" to Blizz.
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Sep 29, 2023 10:22
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We should never do Haven, and then Bisby should show us the mission as a bonus after finishing WoL.
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Oct 8, 2023 12:22
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The first couple of times the choice came up, I always voted for Haven. But now we're committed, I'll never vote for Haven again. I'm sure once we de-zergify the Queen of Blades, the colonists on Haven will be just fine!
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Oct 22, 2023 09:28
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idonotlikepeas posted:This is what we've been building up to all this time. Picking Haven now is the coward's way out. This!
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Oct 22, 2023 22:57
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BisbyWorl posted:Some notable highlights of co-op: I'm really interested in all of these. I look forward to you covering co-op. I played a few dozen matches, but remember very little. It was quite fun though!
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Oct 26, 2023 10:19
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Regalingualius posted:Bisby, could you please just head straight to Char, do the rest of the campaigns (including the epilogue), and only then finally do Haven? 
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Oct 28, 2023 20:28
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I think this is just a ploy to make another TvP battle happen. It's not a sign of quality writing, but sometimes, the Rule of Cool requires you to write a bit nonsensical plots. If this was the only problem with SC2's story, it wouldn't be a big deal at all. Instead SC2's story is a huge mess.
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Nov 11, 2023 14:31
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I think people are vastly overreacting to a bad story. I played SC1 and Brood War as a kid, too. To this day, Kerrigan's ending monologue in Brood War is still one of my favorite video game speeches. I can quote it without looking it up, that's how often I've watched it. WoL's story is a poo poo sandwich, with some few non-poo poo parts sprinkled in. I enjoyed the gameplay of SC2 quite a lot, but the story is a very different thing. Yet this doesn't retroactively ruin Brood War for me, wtf. Death of the Author is a thing, I will never lose my fond memories of those games.
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Dec 9, 2023 12:11
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Yeah, HotS overall has worse writing than WoL imho, but this particular story bit is fine. The Protoss were justified to attacking Kerrigan on sight, and she had no real chance to negotiate with them. I totally forgot ESSENCE ESSENCE ESSENCE in HotS, I'm guessing the count will pass 350 easily.
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Jan 13, 2024 14:29
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Karia posted:Why doesn't Kerrigan just leave Kaldir? She came to take over the local Zerg, but they'd all gotten killed or frozen, she's basically starting from scratch. There is nothing here that is advancing her goals. She could literally just bail and leave the planet to the Protoss and be just as well off and look less like a monster. There could have been some real moral tension if she had to split her time between holding off the Protoss and hunting for some new creature to infest. Or what if she got partway through invading another planet and then realized she needed frost resistance? But as-is there's no justification. If the Protoss send the Golden Armada after her at this stage, she's toast. She can't leave Kaldir if she want to live.
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Jan 21, 2024 01:00
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Sanguinia posted:I wouldn't think they'd fall for this, but the put Artanis, the Rodimus Prime of the Protoss, in charge of their fleet, so its possible. Imho a purely political move to have a figurehead while the various Protoss factions wrestle for influence.
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Jan 21, 2024 02:16
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I loved co-op Artanis, he was such a joy to play. I'm really looking forward to reading other people's takes on the various commanders.
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Jan 30, 2024 10:12
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This is dumb on some level, but also not as dumb as people make it out to be. Queen of Blades Kerrigan is more powerful than Terran Kerrigan. OG Queen of Blades Kerrigan was controlled by the big bad, newly transformed Kerrigan isn't. It's basically the only difference, but it's a huge difference. It very much makes sense for the prophecy to say Kerrigan needs to be de-zerged, to free her from the big bad's control, but she then has to re-zerg herself to get the power to oppose said big bad.
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Feb 10, 2024 12:50
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Kith posted:If the story said that on any level, it wouldn't be nearly as stupid - even if that involved Kerrigan looking directly into the camera and explaining it to the player. Absolutely. This story beat is a huge blunder in any case. While it is internally consistent, I'm not sure the average player is likely to pick up this angle (uncorrupted zerg Kerrigan is needed to fight big bad), and the game goes out of it's way to frame it in a very different light. That Kerrigan will do anything to get her revenge on Mengsk, even getting turned back into the Queen of Blades is the main take-away from this mission. And given her questionable moral choices in the starting missions and on Kaldir, it only reinforces the notion that Kerrigan is a baddy, even if Mengsk is one, too. Basically spitting on all the things Raynor has done and sacrificed to get her back. And on the meta level, it's certainly a choice to undo what you've worked all of WoL towards in one of the earlier missions of HotS. This would work better in a TV series or a book series, where you'd emphasize with Raynor in the first arc, but aren't a video game player who spent several dozen hours to de-zergify Kerrigan. The model thing is egregious, too. I'm sure that if Blizzard had had infinite resources, they would have made a new Kerrigan model, and more different models for the primal zerg, too. But they didn't, and maybe they even shaped the story around the fact that they somehow had to get Kerrigan back into the cool Queen of Blades model they spent so many resources creating. So yeah, it's a really lovely plot beat for several reasons, even if it does make some sense in-universe.
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Feb 10, 2024 13:27
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Kith posted:She's projecting. She's been the pawn of many different entities: the Confederacy, Arcturus Mengsk, the Overmind, Valerian Mengsk, Amon, and even The Prophecy. She's the survivor of unimaginable levels of manipulation and abuse and she identifies with the Zerg being used as a tool because both she and the Zerg as an entire race have been used as tools for pretty much their entire existence. This was true for much of WoW, but they diverged enough in Shadowlands. I mean, their ultimate (?) fate could hardly be more different. Heart of the Swarm's story is really nothing to write home about, but it never really bothered me compared to some of the things in WoL and LoV.
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Feb 18, 2024 15:26
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Communist Thoughts posted:Eh I think it's basically the same thing. People are just madder at Sylvanas because they think theyr night elves irl and people haven't been practically living in the starcraft universe for 20 years Nah, Sylvanas had not been corrupted. She was convinced/duped or whatever, but she wasn't made to do evil by some corrupting force. Also, she has never been retconned into not having been actually herself when she did her evil deeds, wuite the opposite. The game very explicitly spells out that all her crimes are her fault. I'm not sure how one can misunderstand this fact. In contrast to that is Kerrigan, who was mind controlled and under the corrupting influence of the Overmind, and indirectly under Amon's influence. I'd argue that Kerrigan is the far more egregious case, base on her ending in LotV, as you pointed out. Blizz did lay a very shallow foundation for her ending, but it's far too little to be taken seriously.
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Mar 10, 2024 21:23
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gohuskies posted:I never played WOW but Sylvanas was turned into an undead banshee by Arthas in Warcraft 3 to be one of his evil servants, that seems pretty corrupting to me. Oh, she did evil things while under the control of the Lich King, but that's not really a controversial part of her. She regained her free will, and eventually her undead body, after Illidan began his assault on Icecrown. The genocide she did, she did like more than a decade later. Free-willed undead in WoW are not all chaotic evil or whatever, those with freed from the Lich King's control are perfectly capable of choosing to be good or evil. Which includes Sylvanas. So she went through a deeply traumatic event, with some significant amount of torture and mind control thrown in, so her life as a free undead wasn't easy. But those were... mundane forces for a lack of better word? Fel juice in Warcraft corrupts, but what Sylvanas went through might easily break a person, but it wasn't some kind of magical corrupting force that forced her to do evil. And the game very explicitly does not absolve her of the guilt for her actions in her for now last chapter. She turns a new leaf, and acknowledges her own guilt. And is not forgiven by the other characters around her, nor welcomed back into the fold. Instead being sent into turbo-hell to right her wrongs, possibly for eternity? Or a very long time? In any case, she probably won't be seen in WoW for quite some time, doing penance and maybe coming back in a few expansions. The difference to Kerrigan could hardly be more stark. As we will see in this LP, even more so in LotV, of course.
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Mar 10, 2024 22:58
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gohuskies posted:Sure, and Kerrigan got her free will back at the end of Wings and has not exactly been Mother Teresa since. There are several issues here. One is that making Kerrigan not responsible for what she did as the Queen of Blades is horrible character assassination, while it was never a question that Sylvanas is innocent for all the things she did while under the Lich King's control. And then you might compare their actions when free willed, where Sylvanas is hated in-universe for, has an explicit arc acknowledging her responsibility, and must do penance. Meanwhile, Kerrigan can perpetrate multiple genocides in HotS, doesn't get called out for that in any way or form, and in LotV she turns into an angel.
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Mar 10, 2024 23:04
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Poil posted:Wasn't that added years later, long after she started redoing horrible thing? No, Frostmourne did steal part of her soul, and all the horrible things she did, she did while part of her soul was missing. That didn't help, but at least the game is unambiguous that this is not an excuse. A player might disagree, but that's pretty clearly the official opinion in-universe, and by inference of the Blizzard writers. bladededge posted:I never played World of Warcraft but I just finished reading Cythereal's years-long several hundred page thread on the topic and I think I can resolve these apparent plot holes. Cythereal is a very biased source, and it's absolutely not true that the writers didn't care. If you get all your knowledge of post WC3 from Cythereal's LP, then you don't get the real picture. Cythereal made sure to make look Blizzard as bad as possible. Torrannor fucked around with this message at 23:11 on Mar 10, 2024 |
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Mar 10, 2024 23:08
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Communist Thoughts posted:Yeah it actually kinda seems like the more blizzard cared about the writing the worse it got Uther tells her straight to her face that that Banshee was her, how much more unambiguous can you be? Especially since Uther went through the same thing with his soul missing a part due to Frostmourne. And he came to the same conclusion in the Kyrian questlines that established that Uther is indeed responsible for the poo poo he did while missing a part of his soul.
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Mar 11, 2024 00:36
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Duran/Narud being evil is not a surprise for Brood War players.
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Mar 23, 2024 13:27
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Cradok posted:This one made me laugh the first time I worked it out. Like, even if you transposed that to present day, 1000 people a day between 8000 BCE and now, it's only 3% of the population over that time. More people are dying of Covid still than are sacrificed to the Astronomicon. It's one of my favourite statistics that just don't seem right, along with 1 million/1 billion seconds, and the birthday problem. But it was surely a much larger percentage of the psyker population.
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Apr 12, 2024 14:33
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Nah, Nynaeve didn't get any for a long time, but she could only do magic if she was angry until like book 7 or so. And so in situations where she wasn't angry but really wanted to cast magic, well...
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Apr 14, 2024 20:02
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SIGSEGV posted:Something like that is also applicable for WoL, in which you go and use a mystical artifact to redeem a fallen hero according to a prophecy, that's a Protoss as fantasy religious warrior psychics plot, here we have a jailbreak and vengeance plot for our hyperevolutive bioweapons hivemind faction, that's a Terran as backwater cowboys plot, which leaves our Zerg flavor plot for the Protoss campaign, it's likely gonna go hunting for more essence to make the Perfect Organism. Oh sweet summer child, if only it were so...
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Apr 28, 2024 13:49
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I will be honest, I quite liked a lot of the tuff in the Protoss campaign in LotV.
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May 5, 2024 16:52
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