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I love StarCraft 2. I played it semi-professionally for a few years (to no results, game is hard lmao) so I'm very attached to the gameplay. Wings of Liberty is SC2 at its peak, both writing-wise and competitive-wise. There's some dumb, stupid poo poo in the game's story (we've already encountered the weird forced Raynor/Kerrigan romance) but it feels really perfect for a small, relatively self-contained sci-fi western story. Heart of the Swarm takes a nosedive, and Legacy of the Void is an improvement over that, but still has some issues. Even my first time playing this game I thought Brutal was too easy. Even Brutal has absolutely nothing on the difficulty of some of the SC1 missions IMO, I think the only time I played a difficulty below Brutal was when I went for the achievements, but a couple of years ago I went back and did all the WoL achievements on Brutal (even though they're tailored to fulfil some kind of difficult condition but in exchange require only Hard/Normal difficulty). Anyway, I'll be following this thread every step of the way. You're doing a great job covering everything so far, so I don't think I'll have much to contribute, but I definitely know a lot of stuff about this game!
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Jun 1, 2023 12:29
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nine-gear crow posted:E: Hell, every incarnation of JJ probably is that type of person No way! Some J.Js are men of real integrity, like in the Raimi movie when Green Goblin threatens him to reveal who Spider-Man's photographer is, and he refuses to give him up. Same thing happens in the Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon. He's a good dude. Also, this. 
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Jun 6, 2023 03:07
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BisbyWorl posted:You can, in fact they added a set of achievements for every mission with the 10th anniversary and the one for Zero Hour is to wipe out every Hatchery on the map. The "Destroy 8 hatcheries" achievement was pretty darn hard to do on brutal, I tell ya what. Banelings and ultralisks galore. Also the "Don't lose or salvage a structure" one was pretty tough, can't lose focus for a second on brutal, whether its a stray couple of banelings hitting a bunker while you're not looking, or the zergling drop pods taking out a depot or a turret, there's a lot to take care of! I had to throw in the towel on doing them both in the same run and had to do them seperately.
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Jun 10, 2023 07:35
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Suggestion: Randomly link one of the jukebox songs when you visit the Cantina during the LP.
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Jun 18, 2023 16:47
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There is no problem in this campaign that enough marines and medics can't solve.
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Jun 29, 2023 09:25
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Eeepies posted:This mission is everything wrong with map design. A defense mission except that the enemies are all light and swarmy so you don't have room to experiment, mindless aggression during the day, nothing to explore, and even people who don't know the missile turret cheese can just station units next to infestors when they come out to kill them quickly. It captures the zombie swarm vibe pretty well, that's all that really matters.
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Jul 1, 2023 05:13
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This mission is a lot of fun, one of my favourites.
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Jul 8, 2023 06:26
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The Planetary Fortress is very useful on one particular mission, but the mission is also easy enough without them.
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Jul 9, 2023 04:39
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Reapers also do have a niche use on the next mission, when going for specific achievements.Synastren posted:There was a year (2018 iirc) where reapers were so strong in multiplayer, and one player in particular was so good that he singlehandedly got them nerfed. He just made two or three barracks and won with reapers. Consistently. In all matchups. This has happened twice. The first was immediately on release, where a Terran player named MorroW won SC2's first major tournament with 5 rax reaper, which was horrifically overpowered and unstoppable vs Zerg, and TvZ was a borderline unwinnable match-up at the time even without it! Then they got nerfed and weren't used for the rest of Wings of Liberty, except for qxc doing some late-game reaper harassment that was somewhat of a trademark of his late game TvP (make a squad of reapers, send them around the map, jump into the Protoss base while they're out of town and blow up important buildings with the reaper's powerful grenades), but that was about it. Then when they got reworked in Heart of the Swarm they were very strong in early game harassment, but people eventually learned how to deal with them and what concessions had to be made (like Zerg players not skipping early zerglings). In Legacy of the Void, they got a better, faster version of the campaign grenade/mine thing upgrade, and yeah, Terran players with good micro (aka the best in the world) could win with just reapers, as the grenade was so strong and had such a short cooldown that it could be spammed, making it impossible for ground units to actually kill reapers. It was harder than it sounds, but the top Terrans could legit beat like, any Zerg in the world with just reapers, so they had to be nerfed again. Now they're back as a unit you see 1 of every game to get vital early scouting and (possibly but unlikely) some worker kills. SoundwaveAU fucked around with this message at 07:16 on Jul 13, 2023 |
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Jul 13, 2023 07:10
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Reapers are handy here if you're going for the achievement to stop them from capping any altars. A few reapers can easily be suicided to kill the sealing probe. I think if you don't seal off any altars it messes with the AI and it never ramps up in difficulty, so you can take your time clearing the map (except for the Protoss base) and then cap 7 at once. Goliaths btw, are loving dog poo poo. Even if you get both their upgrades in the armory, that only makes them okay in specific circumstances. They're really, REALLY bad in this game. No reason to make them.
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Jul 15, 2023 12:39
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Single player siege tanks are better than multiplayer siege tanks because in multiplayer they got nerfed. I think at the very end of beta the damage got dropped from 60 to 50 and then in SC2's first major patch, the damage got changed to 35 (+15 to armored). Why the nerf? Because Zerg was at an absolutely insane disadvantage versus Terran in every way, and tanks were one of the main reasons why. Prior to that patch, TvZ was statistically a 65% winrate for Terran, the most imbalanced match-up StarCraft 2 ever had in its history.
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Jul 22, 2023 09:43
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DLord posted:Not any more, rockets don't do siege damage any more. Heroes really did go on an absolute crusade to remove as much fun stuff as possible from the game a few years ago.
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Jul 26, 2023 04:39
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Zeratul in SC1: "You speak of knowledge, Judicator? You speak of experience? I have journeyed through the darkness between the most distant stars. I have beheld the births of negative-suns and borne witness to the entropy of entire realities... Unto my experience, Aldaris, all that you've built here on Aiur is but a fleeting dream. A dream from which your precious Conclave shall awaken, finding themselves drowned in a greater nightmare." Zeratul in SC2: "Ahhh, the prophecy! Ooo, it's so spooky and mysterious, oooOOoooOOOoooo"
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Jul 29, 2023 16:09
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So yeah, Spooky Ghost Tassadar and this retcon is probably the most hated plot element in SC2 by an absolutely massive margin. Interesting note about Tassadar here, in StarCraft 1 he was voiced by Michael Gough, who has voiced plenty of other Blizzard characters such as Deckard Cain and Mal'Ganis. So it should be easy to bring him in a for a few lines for this game, right? Seeing Tassadar is one thing, but hearing his old familiar voice would make the reveal even better. But no, Blizzard's weird disdain for their own voice actors around this time reared its ugly head again. They don't need that nobody, they need more celebrity cred! Like how Kerrigan is now played by Tricia Helfer, to hook all those Battlestar Galactica fans who are totally going to buy this game just because she's in it. But we can do better! Who do we get to play Tassadar this time around? They got Michael Dorn, aka the guy who plays Worf in Star Trek. Huh, okay. That's uh, cool, I guess. I like Worf, but was it really necessary to bring in a celebrity for these few lines? He's not exactly a cover star you're gonna be advertising among the cast, the character he's playing is a complete secret and a supposed plot twist. Was it really necessary to go the celebrity route in this case? What's the point? I guarantee they way overpaid to get Michael Dorn in to do this generic rear end voice than what they would've paid to have Michael Gough do it. They were working on Diablo 3 around the same time too, so you know they had that dude on speed dial. Fortunately, when they go the celebrity route in LotV, they choose an original character and man does it pay off.
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Aug 12, 2023 07:21
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Next mission rules, sorry.
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Aug 12, 2023 23:55
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The mech healing only came in handy for me on one mission that I did the slowest way possible, but yeah, it's entirely unnecessary. More mana is way better.
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Aug 13, 2023 16:36
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As somebody who has played many pro players, I can confirm that the trick is to hit them with a wacky build or cheese if you're genuinely trying to win. I even took a tournament game off a Korean pro named Hush when he was in Code S with a proxy hatchery at the gold base near his main and then using overlords to drop zerglings in early. I got lucky because he was doing a gimmicky fast dark templar build which didn't come online quick enough to adequately defend. When I was a diamond league rookie back in 2012 and first started entering online Australian tournaments, I won lots of early round Bo1 ZvZs against grandmaster players with a real specific and rare variant of a zergling rush. Of course, given that there is a near certainty that even your cheese won't work, if you're a somewhat serious player they're good to play straight-up against so you can test yourself and identify weaknesses in your game and what they do differently than the people you're playing on ladder, but of course you have to be in the category of 'good but not pro' to really get anything out of that.
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Aug 18, 2023 15:20
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Nah this mission rules and I have fun experimenting with different comps and strategies to see how far you can go.
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Aug 19, 2023 09:44
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PurpleXVI posted:I still can't believe they really did the loving Narud thing. Did they expect players not to immediately spot it? Did they feel clever? Of course they intended for people to spot it, c'mon. Kerrigan even says in this very mission that she's "seen through Dr. Narud's pathetic charade", so if there were any players who didn't notice, that would also tip them off that something wasn't right with this guy.
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Oct 14, 2023 11:49
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Pretty sure that manga isn't canon, anyway.
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Oct 16, 2023 05:09
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This mission is one of the, if not the only one to actually get patched and be made harder. There wasn't much detection around the back of the temple at first, so it was very easy to cheese. Now on Brutal it's covered in cannons, phoenixes and observers. This mission is the sole reason I never seriously pursued doing Brutal Speedruns (back in the day, Brutal was the only speedrun people did) because there is a like, one pixel spot that is free from detection, and you need to spam right click on that spot incredibly fast to make all your banshees stay stacked there and then slowly chip away at the temple. Maybe another strat got discovered since then, but I couldn't pull it off consistently at all, and it killed my motivation for the run. So this mission is my least favourite in the game. EDIT: Did some research and yeah, people bring along a tank to siege the temple from the low ground and a few marines to kill the phoenixes on Brutal. Also saw a strat where a ghost nukes the temple to kill the observer on top of it. SoundwaveAU fucked around with this message at 16:27 on Oct 21, 2023 |
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Oct 21, 2023 16:19
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There's some weirdness with the greater narrative, but I will always mark out for Raynor immediately checking that his revolver has that single bullet loaded and ready. He's been saving it all this time, and he's ready.
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Oct 22, 2023 14:18
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Vikings are an important piece of the puzzle if you want to brute force some Protoss bases on Brutal difficulty on missions where wiping out the whole base gets you an achievement (The Dig, Welcome To The Jungle) because of how hard they wipe out colossi, which (along with storms) are the only thing that can properly beat marines and medics together.
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Nov 7, 2023 15:28
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This was StarCraft 2's first major meme, by the way. In the pre-release battle reports cast by Dustin Browder, he would say "terrible, terrible damage" a lot, to the point it became a meme. Blizz recognised the meme and still had time to add this line into the game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKZlcgOzi_E
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Nov 18, 2023 07:59
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Since it looks like we're moving straight onto the next mission, I thought it'd be okay to post this. I don't think many people know about this to begin with, so I thought I'd share. Cut Content As the game says, once you head down to Char, that's it. There's no going back, and you can't return to the Hyperion. ...Or can you? See, back when this game was first released, a couple of people managed to find a cool glitch. If you complete a Char mission (so the Gates of Hell or either of the split choice missions here) and then go into the Mission Archives and replay Piercing The Shroud (the bonus mission), once the mission is over the player will be sent back to the Hyperion. Even if you're not meant to be there! This causes some things to bug out, like the next mission is The Gates of Hell, even if you beat it already, along with some graphical glitches. But the most interesting part is that some of the people on the Hyperion have complete post-mission dialogue for these missions! So in this case we can talk to Horner, Swann and Valerian. This is normally impossible, so it's interesting that they bothered to record dialogue. I can only assume the player was meant to be able to return to the Hyperion at some point, before the devs decided it would be better if the player was stuck on Char. Additionally, this bug was quickly fixed. I believe patch 1.1 was the last version to have this bug. Anyway, here are the videos of the dialogue, and I'll transcribe them here if you don't care to listen. Horner https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTXq-QDlRn4  How're we doing up here, Matt? It's a mess, sir. We're barely holding our orbital positions. Zerg flyers are pounding the hell out of us, and Warfield's force is barely holding the landing zone. I know you're doing the best you can. Just keep things together and we'll make it through this. I know, sir. I won't let you down.Valerian https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBQ-Kn5m-Mw Somethin' on your mind, Valerian? I...just wanted to congratulate you, Commander. I doubt there's anyone alive who could have turned our calamitous invasion into a victory. We ain't achieved victory yet. And if I know Kerrigan, the worst is still to come. I didn't anticipate her reacting so quickly. She seems to be a fierce opponent. Perhaps we wouldn't have lost so many men if I- Now ain't the time for second guessin', junior. If we survive what's next, you'll have the whole rest of your life to wallow in guilt. For now, we buck up and get 'er done.Swann https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_1cOScIn2M  Oh, this is just great, cowboy. I got critters trying to chew through two decks, four engines out, and half the defensive turrets are offline. Can you keep her together, Swann? 'Course I can! Havin' the time of my life, brother! Well you keep things workin' around here, I'll see what I can do about our rowdy neighbours.
SoundwaveAU fucked around with this message at 07:58 on Nov 19, 2023 |
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Nov 19, 2023 07:55
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Cut Content Once again, if you exploited a glitch in early versions of the game, you could get back on the Hyperion and access a couple of cut conversations that were still baked into the game. Horner https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJXbbcGdgbA I know takin' out those nydus canals left y'all in the lurch up here. I'm sorry for that. You did what you had to do, sir. But this last step... Are you sure you know what you're getting into? What if she can't be saved? Have you really considered that? It's real simple for me, Matt. I'll never give up on her. Long as there's a chance of bringing her back, I'll never quit. But what if you fail? Can you live with that? Matt, if I fail, we're all dead men anyway.Swann https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=od9au3c78qI So, how'd you enjoy your little 'vacation' dirtside? Yeah, next time you need a volunteer, you go right ahead and volunteer someone else. Haha, thanks man. You know we couldn't have done it without ya.
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Nov 25, 2023 10:19
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Cut Content Horner's dialogue is almost the same as if you completed Belly of the Beast, but Swann's is completely different. Horner https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv29yx87WnE How're things lookin', Matt? With the platform down, the Zerg have stopped hammering us. We're finally gaining control of high orbit. But, sir... This last step... Are you sure you know what you're getting into? What if she can't be saved? Have you really considered that? It's real simple for me, Matt. I'll never give up on her. Long as there's a chance of bringing her back, I'll never quit. But what if you fail? Can you live with that? Matt, if I fail, we're all dead men anyway.Swann https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPbEHQYXKSs What's your status, Swann? Crappy. How're you enjoying your little vacation dirtside? Not much better. The beer's flat and the locals are ugly. Listen, cowboy. I love you like a brother. I know you've got all your hopes pinned on saving Kerrigan, but just watch your back down there. What do you mean? Your girl's made herself a lot of enemies over the years. If that damned artifact does what you hope it does, they won't hesitate going through you to get to her.
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Dec 2, 2023 15:38
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The story of Heart of the Swarm is very, very bad, and it's easily the weakest of the main three campaigns from a gameplay perspective too. The best thing I can say about it is that it has a real cool character in it and it's of course still fun. LotV is a lot better on both fronts, thankfully.
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Dec 16, 2023 06:30
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There's a hotkey annoyance with me too. I bound control group 8 (and all associated hotkeys, so ctrl and shift variants) to W and put all my hatcheries on it. In this campaign, a certain important unit has critical abilities on W. Had to rebind that spell to something stupid. :P
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Dec 17, 2023 06:17
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BisbyWorl posted:Premature Evacuation - Destroy all Dominion Structures in the “Rendezvous” mission before Naktul’s brood arrives on Hard difficulty.[/b] This poo poo was SO hard on Brutal. Had to master practically every aspect, know when every attack wave was coming, where to spend money, how to micro, etc.
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Dec 30, 2023 06:44
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The Zergling upgrade is a difficult choice, because the attack speed buff and the movement speed buff are both absolutely essential for multiplayer, although the attack speed buff can only be researched in the late game. It makes zerglings ridiculously more powerful. Also, Abathur rules. Best character of this expansion, second best character overall.
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Jan 12, 2024 08:11
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I could never get into Co-Op even though I really like campaign and 1v1. Was too repetitive for me, and incredibly grindy. Also, I'm a guy who needs to play on the hardest difficulty in SC2 because it's a game I'm so good at. When Commanders are at Level 1, harder difficulty is pretty much loving impossible, except for one Commander who was extremely broken at Co-Op launch. Not sure if they still are, I heard they got nerfed.
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Jan 30, 2024 13:01
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GodFish posted:I thought the HotS anniversary missions were for Hard mode, not normal. Oh God did I work way too hard on them for nothing? I did all the WoL ones on Brutal, haven't tried the other campaigns yet.
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Feb 6, 2024 16:09
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PurpleXVI posted:For some reason this makes me imagine Abathur in some sort of TV advert.  Viewer must wait, product possesses more. Purchase now, bonus included. Total market value of product, 10,000 minerals. Organism Abathur offer, 2,000 minerals. If buyer unsatisfied, money-back guarantee available. Usage period, thirty days.
SoundwaveAU fucked around with this message at 12:31 on Feb 25, 2024 |
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Feb 25, 2024 12:21
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Poil posted:I spent a little time thinking about it, do hydras even have a sound effect anymore? Yeah it's like fwip fwip fwip fwip. Keep your lips together then exhale out your mouth for a fraction of a second in rapid succession. That's what it sounds like.
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Apr 17, 2024 07:58
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BisbyWorl posted:
Take the compliment, bro.
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Apr 28, 2024 09:58
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You know, sometimes you're not so bad, Abathur.
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I'll throw this in here, so you can hear Abathur say "bitches". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMLF8LqLuas
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May 1, 2024 16:39
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That entire ending cinematic leaked the same year Wings of Liberty came out. Here it is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YkX4Yt4ek8 And here's the TeamLiquid thread about it. https://tl.net/forum/starcraft-2-hots/175349-leaked-heart-of-the-swarm-end-cutscene Most of the thread is talking about how bad it is, so there were a few people in denial. I mean, it couldn't suck *that* hard, right? They'll realise it sucks and go in a different direction...r-right? The thread is an interesting read due to all the cope. I mean, they at least changed some of the worse lines, I guess? So I will give them the bare minimum of credit for getting rid of loving Kerrigan saying "This isn't vengeance, this is justice!" And as another poster in this thread pointed out, Mengsk's line about having an insurance policy while keeping Kerrigan close to him no longer makes any sense whatsoever. He wasn't keeping Kerrigan close to him, he hadn't seen her face-to-face since Brood War! And he didn't have the artifact when Kerrigan *was* close to him! SoundwaveAU fucked around with this message at 09:25 on May 5, 2024 |
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May 5, 2024 09:19
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