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Lemon sky studios. It's even the same studio that produced StarCraft Remastered. https://www.lemonskystudios.com/projects/starcraft-remastered/ (spoilers for artwork of future units) https://www.lemonskystudios.com/projects/warcraft-3-reforged/ Even the blurb on the Reforged page is a lot more reserved compared to the one in StarCraft, and even in the C&C Remastered page.
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Aug 12, 2021 03:22
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Warcraft 3 Reforged actively removed features that had been in the game for nearly two decades, including Custom Campaign support. You can literally create Custom Campaigns in the editor that comes with the game, but the game itself literally has no way to actually use the campaign files unless you open an old version of the game. As an aside: cuc posted:You can also try the UEDAIP mod for Remastered, which purports to update the original campaigns for experienced players. Remastered's anti-piracy scheme is unfriendly to modding, so there are a few more hoops to jump through. I was very unexpectedly pleased to see UEDAIP get plugged here, so early in the topic. I've been following it very closely, and been helping to maintain some documentation for it. It's absolutely a lot harder than the regular campaign, but it also does more interesting things, like expand what the AI is capable of doing; it will expand, it will rebuild, and generally behave in ways you won't see from the regular AI. Some maps are overhauled with extra (or just different) objectives, more (or different) enemies, and even fairly frequent AI allies. Even better, these allies are usually genuinely helpful. It also restores the two cut missions from the Terran Campaign, one of which we have already passed as of the most recent update. But enough about UEDAIP for now. I have a few extra details to add: For one thing, Kerrigan is generally superior to regular ghosts in most respects. Most people are aware there's one thing she lacks that regular Ghosts have, and that's the ability to launch Nukes. Even once we acquire Nukes, Kerrigan is not able to target for them. However, there's one other detail that she lacks in compared to regular ghosts: her attack range is actually a tile or two shorter than regular ghosts. She is the only hero that has a drawback like this that I'm aware of. Regarding the accusation Mengsk made about the Confederacy, I straight up believed him when I was a kid due to not reading the backstories in the manual, so I thought that the Confederacy had actually created the zerg. Also: The Science Vessel is voiced by Mr. Burns. BlazetheInferno fucked around with this message at 03:39 on Aug 12, 2021 |
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Aug 12, 2021 03:34
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Reforged also broke one of the missions, although this is second hand information. Reforged made children unkillable, which okay, fair enough. The problem is that they didn't change anything else, which would also be fine, except one of the missions on the Horde side involves sneaking through a town. You're not supposed to be seen, because if you're seen, an alarm will be raised and you have to fight off some enemies, unless you kill whoever saw you in time, and I'm sure you can see where this is going. But for the sake of completeness, there are some bits where you will be seen, so you have to choose between "slaughter the civilians" or "tough fight against enemies." Some of the things that see you are children, which removes that particular option from the table, so you better be good at this. It kind of reminds me of how Fallout 2 made children invisible but still there in some territories, which meant that a mandatory door had an invisible pickpocket by it, or if you got in a gunfight in the wrong part of town, stray rounds could hit children you didn't even know were there and get you the Child Killer trait. Cythereal posted:WC3R also released with none of the quality of life features for multiplayer and mapmaking that Warcraft 3 fans were used to (because Blizzard wanted to make sure they owned the next DOTA), and it was incredibly poorly optimized due to some baffling mechanical decisions that lead to the game consuming huge amounts of RAM. And it forcibly updated all of that for anyone who happened to own regular Warcraft 3. Yes, it's also incredibly buggy. I just want to emphasize that bold bit there. By making sure they'd own the next Big Thing someone used their game to make, they chased away anybody who might be able to make a Big Thing.
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Aug 12, 2021 06:13
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JohnKilltrane posted:Certain map features (mostly trees) provide cover to anything underneath them. Cover works like being on high ground. This means that the infantry in that Bunker only have a 53% chance of hitting the Zerglings. what no I've played this game since I was 4, I've been nowhere near pro but I've hung out with pros and spent DAYS playing this game you're making this up 
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Aug 12, 2021 08:00
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MechaCrash posted:Reforged also broke one of the missions, although this is second hand information. This is true, however to their credit, they did undo this and correct the issue. It's just, the team that would have continued working on Reforged to attempt to continue undoing the damage was dismantled in late 2020, so the game has literally been abandoned.
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Aug 12, 2021 08:05
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Acerbatus posted:what Wouldn't the pros just never put trees on maps to remove this irritating randomness from the game?
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Aug 12, 2021 08:11
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MechaCrash posted:Reforged also broke one of the missions, although this is second hand information. They broke the final Night Elf mission of the original campaign too. Originally, Archimonde has a spell that summons Doom Guards and Infernals, that cost no supply/food. In Frozen Throne, they were updated to have a food cost, but Blizzard always made sure changes made to the game never affected older missions. The people in charge of Reforged didn't care though, so now when Archimonde summons these demons they now cost supply, meaning the Undead army gets supply capped, which means they don't resurrect their heroes or build units, so all the attack waves are significantly weaker than they were originally, making the mission utterly trivial.
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Aug 12, 2021 08:21
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Other random lol reforged: In Wrath of the Betrayer in the tft campaign, some of the murgul slavea that a bonus objective targets drop their items in unpathable locations. Using female Death Knights or Demon Hunters vs someone with og war3 graphics enabled made them untargetable and invisible. In Dissension, roc human mission 8, they reintroduced an error suggesting using storm bolt on the ships when it can only target organic units. Impale changed unit team colors Tyrandes inventory emptied at random in the night elf campaign Changing the command panel to grid would change the location of icons but not the function, eg the attack button was recieved as patrol. Clarste posted:Wouldn't the pros just never put trees on maps to remove this irritating randomness from the game? I mean, probably? My personal experience with starcraft pros was playing versalife and micro arena though, so if it came up there nobody ever mentioned it. 
Acerbatus fucked around with this message at 08:53 on Aug 12, 2021 |
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Aug 12, 2021 08:41
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BlazetheInferno posted:This is true, however to their credit, they did undo this and correct the issue. It's just, the team that would have continued working on Reforged to attempt to continue undoing the damage was dismantled in late 2020, so the game has literally been abandoned. Also, if anybody's interested in a full breakdown in written format, Jason Schreier (as he often does) put out a really well-sourced article last month describing the behind-the-scenes politics explaining why the game was sprinted out the door. Apparently, it was a combination of: (a) Warcraft 3 Reforged was considered a small fish in terms of likely profit so the devs were continually resource starved and (b) they took a bunch of pre-orders and didn't want to be forced to refund the money. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-22/inside-activision-blizzard-s-botched-warcraft-iii-reforged-game I'll also add my own totally-unsourced personal speculation to the fire by noting that Blizzard had nothing else close to release pipeline at the time - WoW's last expansion dropped in August 2018 so the next Shadowlands expansion wasn't on the table until fall 2020 (which has been a loving disaster of its' own), while the new games of Diablo 4, Immortal, and Overwatch 2 were all years from being deliverable. So I'm guessing there was significant internal pressures to release WC3: Reforged in late 2019/early 2020 just to keep the pipeline flowing and avoid having a multi-year gap between games.
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Aug 12, 2021 11:53
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Thank you for the information, everyone. What would you recommend, then, for someone who wants to just replay the campaigns as fully as possible? The original graphics are rather long in the tooth, but broken new campaigns is no fun either.
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Aug 12, 2021 12:33
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JustJeff88 posted:Thank you for the information, everyone. What would you recommend, then, for someone who wants to just replay the campaigns as fully as possible? The original graphics are rather long in the tooth, but broken new campaigns is no fun either. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3A19q7rysLs
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Aug 12, 2021 12:38
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First, big thanks to all the kind comments! I'm glad so many people are enjoying this.BlazetheInferno posted:Regarding the accusation Mengsk made about the Confederacy, I straight up believed him when I was a kid due to not reading the backstories in the manual, so I thought that the Confederacy had actually created the zerg. Yeah, it's interesting. Mengsk is only half-wrong: the Confederacy didn't create the Zerg, but they were still using them as bio-weapons in the way he described - or at least, that's my read on things. That might seem spoiler-y but I don't think this is actually addressed anywhere. Radio Free Kobold posted:and if it wasn't enough to make a poo poo game, they also bricked the old warcraft 3. there's no going back, they killed it. This is the cardinal sin of WC3R. I remember when Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition first came out and it was a pretty disastrous launch with more bugs than the original. I just said "Cool" and ignored it and kept playing the original until the EE got things figured out. That's not an option here. Night10194 posted:The funny thing is by tank standards neither an 80mm nor a 120mm is really that huge. An Abrams uses a 120mm cannon. 3 inch or so cannons were pretty standard throughout WWII. Yeah, I was wondering about that myself. Apparently the Siege Tanks fire some sort of explosive plasma round? Like a 120mm version of the BFG? But I'm taking that from promo material for Starcraft: Ghost so who actually knows. Acerbatus posted:what Haha right? That's how I felt when I first found out too. So much weird stuff in this game. DTurtle posted:One extremely important fact to mention for the usage of siege tanks in TvT: Oooh! That's a great point, thanks. I recently noticed that I don't think I covered upgrade amounts in the unit spotlights - or rather I did them for the Marine and Vulture then stopped. I'll probably do a Terran Upgrade post noting values and important break points once we've seen all the units. Then maybe integrate it into unit spotlights for the future races? I don't know, I might do the Terran Upgrade post and think "Hey this works better if you do a race holistically like this." We'll see. I'll make sure to stop forgetting to add upgrade amounts, at least. But yeah, +2 is the holy grail of TvT.
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Aug 12, 2021 13:08
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MechaCrash posted:I just want to emphasize that bold bit there. By making sure they'd own the next Big Thing someone used their game to make, they chased away anybody who might be able to make a Big Thing. This may have been quite deliberate. You have to see it from an Activision-Blizzard executive's point of view. It cannot have been remotely comfortable inside ActiBlizz when Valve's lawyers politely pointed out they couldn't do poo poo to stop the release of DOTA 2. That's a resume-generating event. The chance of a new Big Thing being created in their editor is all very well, but the very real firings and career damage that would be caused if another Big Thing got away from them would loom far larger in the minds of the ActiBlizz c-suite. Better not to risk it. And you want to expend resources on an editor? A piece of software whose only function is to allow fans to come up with their own ideas, which they will take emotional ownership of like rebellious peasants? W3R's lack of editing tools was depressingly predictable.
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Aug 12, 2021 13:49
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Loxbourne posted:This may have been quite deliberate. You have to see it from an Activision-Blizzard executive's point of view. All these factors aren't going away, either. Diablo 2 Resurrected isn't allowing multiplayer mods or lan parties, either, for very similar reasons. Blizzard doesn't want a Big Thing to go unowned by them, and online play for that game will only be through official Blizzard servers, which store all online characters (because all characters in D2R are either offline only or online only) server-side. Starcraft 2 Remastered being so good and bullshit free is the aberration, not the norm for modern Blizzard.
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Aug 12, 2021 14:16
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They did kill the OG SC editor though   StarEdit(it still works it's just not bundled anymore i know)
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Aug 12, 2021 14:22
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JohnKilltrane posted:Yeah, it's interesting. Mengsk is only half-wrong: the Confederacy didn't create the Zerg, but they were still using them as bio-weapons in the way he described - or at least, that's my read on things. That might seem spoiler-y but I don't think this is actually addressed anywhere. Basically, a space version of coming across some dangerous wild animals while at war, but deciding to use them as weapons rather than outright killing them. This also makes a lot more logical sense because Mengsk should know that Terran technology isn't remotely good enough to create an entire self-sustaining species from scratch - both because he's got solid general knowledge of Terran capabilities and also because he's got the data explaining the Confederacy's project.
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Aug 12, 2021 14:30
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I pretty much devoured the lore in the manual, which basically tells you straight out the origins and starting motives of all three sides. So playing through the campaign and following the story entailed lots of dramatic irony. Reading this analysis, I kinda wish that I hadn't because playing along and being as in the dark about the Zerg and Protoss, figuring things out along with the characters, seems fun.
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Aug 12, 2021 14:50
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Cythereal posted:All these factors aren't going away, either. Diablo 2 Resurrected isn't allowing multiplayer mods or lan parties, either, for very similar reasons. Blizzard doesn't want a Big Thing to go unowned by them, and online play for that game will only be through official Blizzard servers, which store all online characters (because all characters in D2R are either offline only or online only) server-side. I'm already skeptical of the D2 remake, partly for the reasons that you just outlined and partly because it being released also on console is going to make it too much like D3, which wasn't as good. Blizzard used to be incredibly pretentious and released very few games, but they were of exceptional quality. It can't be a coincidence that after being paired with Activision that it all went to poo poo. I had a little flutter of WoW last summer and Activision's dirty fingerprints were everywhere and everyone hated them. I quite before Shadowlands, and it doesn't sound like I missed much.
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Aug 12, 2021 18:04
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For those who don't mind spoiling themselves a little the manual is available online. Really miss the old 90's Blizzard art style. http://ftp.blizzard.com/pub/misc/StarCraft.PDF
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Aug 12, 2021 18:26
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drat, gotta make sure I've got a Pentium (tm) 90 Mhz or better processor and 16 MB of RAM in my computer.
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Aug 12, 2021 18:30
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GunnerJ posted:I pretty much devoured the lore in the manual, which basically tells you straight out the origins and starting motives of all three sides. So playing through the campaign and following the story entailed lots of dramatic irony. Reading this analysis, I kinda wish that I hadn't because playing along and being as in the dark about the Zerg and Protoss, figuring things out along with the characters, seems fun. my first experiences with Starcraft was at a cousin's house and then borrowing it to play through myself but I didn't look at the manual until almost a decade later so reading through all the backstory (and for some reason not connecting the dots from later campaign revelations) made me realise I had gotten a bunch of things wrong
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Aug 12, 2021 18:31
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BlazetheInferno posted:Also: The Science Vessel is voiced by Mr. Burns. I played the demo campaign before the main game back when I was a kid and there was a character in it that used the science vessel portrait but had a different, much scarier voice. Got a little whiplashed hearing the Burns voice in the main game. Him and the adjutant are the biggest examples of really crude cyborgs that would sadly be removed from the franchise in SC2. Laughing Zealot fucked around with this message at 20:53 on Aug 12, 2021 |
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Aug 12, 2021 18:33
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The Warcraft3 talk led me to figure out if it's possible to keep the game from autoupdating to Reforged, and luckily, it is. I had my install from 2018 still on the HDD, and telling my firewall not to let the warcraft3.exe connect to the internet allows me to play as I like, though only singleplayer. Time to go through the campaigns again, and then perhaps see about getting Starcraft's rework without battle.net, if at all possible.
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Aug 12, 2021 18:48
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Aces High posted:my first experiences with Starcraft was at a cousin's house and then borrowing it to play through myself but I didn't look at the manual until almost a decade later so reading through all the backstory (and for some reason not connecting the dots from later campaign revelations) made me realise I had gotten a bunch of things wrong Honestly though, maybe not? There are inconsistencies between what the manual says and how the actual plot unfolds that reflect (iirc) the manual material being written before the story's final revisions and never updated (the LP may go into this at some point). GunnerJ fucked around with this message at 19:25 on Aug 12, 2021 |
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Aug 12, 2021 19:11
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GunnerJ posted:drat, gotta make sure I've got a Pentium (tm) 90 Mhz or better processor and 16 MB of RAM in my computer. My first computer back around.... '96 was was 100 Mhz. It shows how long I've been playing PC games because I read 16 MB as 16 GB - the new normal. Lynneth posted:The Warcraft3 talk led me to figure out if it's possible to keep the game from autoupdating to Reforged, and luckily, it is. I had my install from 2018 still on the HDD, and telling my firewall not to let the warcraft3.exe connect to the internet allows me to play as I like, though only singleplayer. I was also curious, and I found that it's still possible to download the offline installers for both Reign of Chaos and Frozen Throne in a number of languages here. Again, this page is about offline installers, so you can download them and keep them somewhere to install whenever. I still have my discs (bought RoC in Paris in 2002 because PC games aren't region-locked and it was cheaper than in the UK or US) and an optical drive, but I can't be arsed to install from disc, patch, then add a no-CD hack.
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Aug 12, 2021 19:24
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I always assumed Mensk lied about the zerg origin, because what he said wasn't what the manual said. Which now that I think about it all these years later isn't a great argument.JustJeff88 posted:My first computer back around.... '96 was was 100 Mhz. It shows how long I've been playing PC games because I read 16 MB as 16 GB - the new normal.
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Aug 12, 2021 20:41
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My own personal assumption on the matter is that he doesn't actually know and neither does he care.
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Aug 12, 2021 20:49
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NewMars posted:My own personal assumption on the matter is that he doesn't actually know and neither does he care. I'm going with this too.
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Aug 12, 2021 20:50
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Poil posted:I always assumed Mensk lied about the zerg origin, because what he said wasn't what the manual said. Which now that I think about it all these years later isn't a great argument. Eh I could buy that pretty easily, but my reasons are spoilers: I mean, he is a right bastard that will rule this sector or see it burned to ashes, and a persuasive speaker to boot. he'd easily lie to rile people up and get what he wants. Hell, that's literally what he's about to do.
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Aug 12, 2021 20:55
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NewMars posted:My own personal assumption on the matter is that he doesn't actually know and neither does he care. Yeah, them being a bioweapon fits well enough with what his audience knows, and it gets him what he wants, so it's what he goes with.
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Aug 12, 2021 21:45
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Night10194 posted:Yeah, them being a bioweapon fits well enough with what his audience knows, and it gets him what he wants, so it's what he goes with. He's also still kind of right, given the existence of the Psi Emitters. Just, that's not remotely the whole story.
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Aug 12, 2021 21:46
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GunnerJ posted:drat, gotta make sure I've got a Pentium (tm) 90 Mhz or better processor and 16 MB of RAM in my computer.
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Aug 13, 2021 13:22
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MagusofStars posted:Have you upgraded to Windows '95 yet? Oof, my Windows version is apparently only 10, how did I get stuck 85 version updates behind the curve???
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Aug 13, 2021 14:13
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All versions of windows, especially '98, drove me mad until XP. That was when I started to not resent it. NT was actually the first decent one, but it had too many compatibility issues. XP was when my opinion really changed.
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Aug 13, 2021 15:03
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JustJeff88 posted:Thank you for the information, everyone. What would you recommend, then, for someone who wants to just replay the campaigns as fully as possible? The original graphics are rather long in the tooth, but broken new campaigns is no fun either. I'm also one of those lucky folks who still has their old WC3 discs with cases and CD Keys(and still has an optical drive to use them!). I was honestly quite surprised that it installed and runs without any problems. My opinion regarding playing it "as fully as possible" is to simply install the game, poke around the internet for a patch to version 1.27b (beyond that, battle.net auto-updates your install to the Reforged version IIRC) and change your resolution settings to 1600x1200x32. You still have the wonky older graphics, but they look sharper than ever while retaining the 4:3 aspect ratio that they were designed for. Also you won't need the CD beyond installation; everything plays without it. The lack of battle.net support just provides an excuse to set up an old-fashioned LAN party if you want multi-player.
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Aug 13, 2021 22:40
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Meaty Ore posted:I'm also one of those lucky folks who still has their old WC3 discs with cases and CD Keys(and still has an optical drive to use them!). I was honestly quite surprised that it installed and runs without any problems. My opinion regarding playing it "as fully as possible" is to simply install the game, poke around the internet for a patch to version 1.27b (beyond that, battle.net auto-updates your install to the Reforged version IIRC) and change your resolution settings to 1600x1200x32. You still have the wonky older graphics, but they look sharper than ever while retaining the 4:3 aspect ratio that they were designed for. Also you won't need the CD beyond installation; everything plays without it. The lack of battle.net support just provides an excuse to set up an old-fashioned LAN party if you want multi-player. Good advice my (wo)man, but see my post above. The offline installers for WC3 and expansion are still downloadable in multiple languages, which is quite a bit less work and good for people who no longer have functional discs etc. I will say that a valid key is required. These are offline installers, so once downloaded one time they can be saved and re-installed without further connection. Fake Edit: Click here for Warcraft 3 plus expansion. Click here for Diablo 2 plus expansion. Included since Resurrection will probably be shite. Again, valid CD keys are required. Real Edit: The above links for Warcraft 3 are game version 1.27.0.52240 for both RoC and FT. JustJeff88 fucked around with this message at 02:53 on Aug 14, 2021 |
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Aug 13, 2021 23:56
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Update 8: The Big Push First things first, the winner of the two hundred Killtrane Bucks, megane! megane posted:Vultures don’t have pilots; they’re entirely AI-controlled. However, testing showed that human allies found this unnerving, so they glued a stuffed dummy on top. There were a lot of great answers, but I think the idea of the Vultures being unmanned AI bikes with fake riders is my favourite. I like to think they're self-aware - like an army of KITTs. Also, I want to make a note before we go on: There are two “removed” missions that precede and follow this one - they were originally part of the campaign and were removed before launch, but the missions are still available and floating around on the internet. I had thought of sneaking them in here, but decided against it for three reasons: First, plot-wise they don’t really line up with the final product; second, the actual maps for the missions ended up getting used in a bonus campaign that I’m planning on doing, and finally because I’m impatient and want to get to the other races. I might do the missions individually at some point, if people are curious. If you’re interested, the mission before this one would have involved us destroying Zerg bases in order to buy time to allow the Antigans to evacuate - and the Protoss help us out. It's noteworthy because otherwise it's a little weird that everyone's just okay with leaving the Antigans to fend for themselves against the Zerg. Time for the actual mission:  New splash screen! As you can see, when we escaped the Confederate blockade we jumped right to the Confederate homeworld of Tarsonis. That battlecruiser is not the Norad II but as the text suggests Mengsk’s command ship, the Hyperion.  Greetings, commander. Receiving incoming transmission: The time of our final strike against the Confederacy is close at hand. Before we can strike at Tarsonis itself, however, we must break through the Confederacy’s most potent defenses. General Duke will brief you. I’ve defended Tarsonis in over thirty major battles, so I know its defenses inside and out. There are three primary orbital platforms that serve as staging areas for the Confederate fleet. If we assault the central platform, we should cause enough of a ruckus to allow a small force to break through the planetary defenses. General, I’m impressed. I never figured you for the frontal assault type. Well, the Confederates have Omega and Delta Squadron troops defending the platform. They’re nothing compared to my Alpha Squadron boys. Right.Objectives: Eliminate the Confederate Forces Duke must survive Here’s our start position. It’s an interesting one.  As you can see, we’ve got buildings, but no base - they’re all flying from the get-go. We’ve got SCVs, infantry - including our new unit for the mission - along with Dropships to carry them. Offscreen, we’ve got three Wraiths. But you’re probably more interested in that big teal Battlecruiser.  It’s Duke! He’s in the Norad II, which is back in action. It’s pretty crazy. At 700 HP, 4 armour, and 50 Normal damage to land and air, it’s a fleet unto itself. First things first - we need to get the lay of the land. Duke goes over to investigate.  I can’t believe this! Alpha Squadron would have never left this equipment behind! That’s what I call sloppy! Yep, a whole bunch of add-ons were left sitting around. The good news is, add-ons are neutral: we can snag them for ourselves by landing our buildings beside them. Like so:   Also, we’ve got not one but two add-ons that we’ve never seen before. We’ll check them out in a bit. First, we’ve got a strange economic setup going on. Up here, we’ve got a whole bunch of minerals but no gas.  Down here, we’ve got gas, but the minerals are a lot sparser.  Hence the two Command Centers. For the second one, I actually opt to ignore the add-on there for now so I can instead be closer to the geyser, letting me harvest gas quicker:  Finally, we have this ramp which serves as the approach to our base.  Duke and the Wraiths are watching it for now. It’s an interesting setup, because our base is actually on the low ground. We’re forced to choose: Do we forego the benefit of the choke point and set up past the ramp on the high ground? Or do we exploit the choke point but endure having 47% of our shots miss? While we ponder that, let’s check out our new unit: the Ghost.  We’ve already seen it before, and even used it before thanks to getting the hero version, Kerrigan. It’s our second spellcaster. There are probably three things that jump out here: first, it seems to have some sort of spell in the bottom right that we haven’t seen before. Second, it has absolutely pitiful HP. Third, unlike the Science Vessel, Ghosts don’t start with a spell unlocked (well, technically they do, but not really. You’ll see what I mean). See, Ghosts are one of only two spellcasters who have a direct attack, which means they don’t get a starting spell to compensate. Their attack is… really bad. It’s slow-ish, only does ten damage, and it’s concussive damage. The only thing it has going for it is its long range. Incidentally, that’s it for concussive damage. Yep, there’s only three sources of it in the entire game, and they’re all Terran. Anyway, we end up setting up defenses on the high ground (which you might have already guessed because I forgot to do a closeup shot of Duke until after I’d already made that choice ).  The bad news is some Marines are nearby and take offence to this, shooting at our vulnerable SCV. I don't know that I've mentioned this, but SCVs hover around a structure while they build it, meaning they can be picked off by enemies (another SCV can then resume construction).  The good news is Duke and his Wraiths are also nearby:   These shots are mostly here to illustrate something: Duke did very little here, because Battlecruisers really like to drag their feet. They’re the slowest unit in the Terran arsenal, and one of the slowest in the game. Since it was just picking off individual Marines, by the time he got there the Wraiths had already taken care of business. Hey man. Jim, you know I'd normally be happy to chat, but this assault is going to require all of my focus. I know, don't worry. I won't be long. I just... doesn't this feel a little too easy to you? What, we just walk up to Tarsonis and kick it over? Frankly, between the Zerg everywhere and that drat great alien death fleet constantly popping up and turning planets into ash, I'm surprised it's not easier. I don't even know how many worlds the Confederacy has left outside of this one. Still, even with the Confederacy on the ropes, this is the biggest world in the sector. What's this "small force" of Duke's gonna be able to do against that? I don't know. I'm sure Mengsk has a plan. Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of.It takes a while to get things up and running in this mission, so let’s check out one of those new add-ons while we wait: the Covert Ops.  As you can see, it’s an add-on for the Science Facility, and along with the Academy it allows us to train Ghosts at the Barracks. It gives us four research options: Cloaking, Lockdown (both of which we already saw back in mission 5), the obligatory Reactor upgrade, and a new type of upgrade we haven’t seen before: Ocular Implants, which boost the Ghost’s sight range. The cheeky AI sends a couple Wraiths to snipe our SCVs.     Once again, Duke is too slow. This is also where having Wraiths of your own really starts to come in handy. It’s hard to fit a Missile Turret in that area, and even if we did it would congest traffic for our miners. Far easier to just have a small wing of Wraiths, especially when the mission is obliging enough to provide them for you like this. I do, however, manage to fit a couple Missile Turrets nearby, in the hope of drawing the fire of any other harassers who come knocking. Putting the finishing touches on our defensive formation.  We should be fine on this front. I also get a ComSat Station up, and use it to do some recon.  This looks serious. The enemy (Omega Squadron, if you’re wondering) is pretty heavily entrenched. A few Siege Tanks could handle it, but we’re still getting our tanks ready. We have another option available to us, and it involves our second new add-on. Here it is, the Nuclear Silo:  It’s an add-on for the Command Center that allows us to arm a Tactical Nuke. Doing so costs 200 each of minerals and vespene, and it also eats up eight supply. It also takes a while. Once the process is finished, though… Absolutely nothing happens. See, as you’ve probably figured out by now, the Nuclear Silo relates to the Ghost’s third spell, the one we haven’t seen before. The Silo arms the nuke but once it’s done so, you need a Ghost to “paint” the target. Bring your Ghost to the spot you want to nuke (Cloaking generally helps for this) and use the Nuclear Strike ability to select a target. Once you do so, a tiny little red dot that’s visible to all players will appear.  Can you see it? It's on roughly the middle of the center-most Bunker. All players will also hear an alarm, and their announcer will say “Nuclear launch detected.” Unless you’re doing the nuking, it’s an incredibly stressful noise. If you’ve played the game before just reading that probably spiked your blood pressure a little. The Ghost now has to stand still for a good chunk of time and continue to direct the nuke. Obviously it’s incredibly vulnerable during this time, although the campaign AI isn’t really too bothered by it. If the Ghost survives and doesn’t cancel the nuke… The warhead appears…  It drops…       And everything dies. Nukes instantly hit everything within a radius of ~8 for massive damage: at ground zero it’s either 500 damage or 2/3rds of a unit/building’s total health, whichever is greater. This is also why Ocular Implants are important. Without them, the Ghost painting the target will be within the nuke’s blast radius when it goes off. Since the Ghost is able to move again once the warhead appears, it has a couple seconds to get out of there so it can survive, but with increased sight you can just call down the nuke from outside the blast zone which makes life a lot easier (and who doesn’t want to stick around and watch the fireworks?). Succeed or fail, the nuke is now gone and we’ll have to re-arm the Nuclear Silo in order to do this again. You might read this and be left with kinda mixed feelings. On the one hand, nukes are insanely powerful and a lot of fun. On the other hand, they’re also insanely expensive to set up and it’s a process with a lot of moving parts - it’s involved, takes a long time, and is incredibly fragile: one scanner sweep in the right area and your Ghost is toast and that nuke is 200 minerals and gas you’ll never get back. Every race has one unit that stands out as being kind of a clunker and for Terrans, it’s the Ghost. However, because the AI tends to be fond of entrenched positions and doesn’t proactively try to prevent being nuked, it leads to Ghosts being a sort of reverse-Vulture: Ghosts are Terran’s worst unit in competitive, but they’re really strong in the campaign. We’ve also got an interesting dynamic: the advent of the Nuclear Silo means that our Command Centers can now build two add-ons. Since they can only have one add-on at a time, this forces a choice. Here, for example, I chose to initially forego commandeering the second Nuclear Silo so that I’d instead be able to build a ComSat Station, then threw up a third Command Center to take the Nuclear Silo. While this has all been happening, the enemy’s been hitting us. This time the Wraiths came from the left, which is a pain because our gas is there.    The good news is Duke got a shot off this time! It’s that giant laser beam flying towards the Wraith. We’ve also had the occasional attack from Delta Squadron, who’s also present on this map.  Here’s a nasty trick: They had a Dropship run in and dump two Siege Tanks right beside our mineral line. If they’d thought to siege up, they could have done some nasty damage to my economy.   Instead they just blow up a couple Turrets, then Duke arrives. Problem is, of course, that Duke is flying and so can’t get hit by the Siege Tanks. You’d think that’d be an asset, but in this case it means while he kills them (which takes a bit) they decide to focus on picking off SCVs.     This is mostly interesting because the AI just illustrated drop play - the art of using Dropships (and other transports) to circumvent terrain and enemy defenses to do some harassment to their economy or tech. We won’t make much use of it - I don’t even know if the campaign AI plays fairly with economy or if it cheats in resources if it needs it - but in multiplayer it’s the main use for transports. Meanwhile, we give the left side of Omega Squadron's defenses the same treatment as the right:    Since nukes destroy Bunkers but not the units in them, Omega Squadron has a whole bunch of Marines hanging out here. Ghosts are actually okay at cleaning this up, since infantry are among the few things their attack is decent against, but you’re cloaked so they start running and you’ve got to chase everyone down and if a Science Vessel floats by you get waxed, yadda yadda. Often it’s just not worth it. So instead, since we’re using the nearby area as a staging ground for our tanks anyway, we have them siege up and with the help of the ComSat Station explode some Marine groups.  A better way to do with would probably be to have a Vessel accompany the Ghost and drop some Irradiation once the nuke blows the Bunkers (quick, someone call 2008 and get them to send an Xzibit meme), but at this point we haven’t researched that yet, and really it’s just a way to stay entertained while our army builds. Duke would also be an option - he one-shots Marines, while they 350-shot him. I move out to deal Omega Squadron a killing blow. I’ve got six Siege Tanks, four Goliaths and one Science Vessel. It’s a pretty small force but I want to take this base as soon as possible - one geyser just isn’t enough to get me the gas I need, and in any case most of brown should be killed by the nukes. First, though, let’s open with another nuke to thin out the base defenders.   Now we bring in the tanks.  Thin things out in tank mode, then siege up.   We’re making good progress, but brown has more stuff than I expected (“I just nuked them! I don’t need to scan, it’ll be fine!”). Not enough to win, but I do take more damage than I’d like. Then, the unthinkable happens:    One Firebat gets through and half my tanks are obliterated by the other half. At almost that exact moment, an invasion force of tanks from orange en route to my base passes through. My already small force is puny; what’s left is roughed up pretty bad; and they’re caught between a pincer attack featuring tanks and Goliaths from both brown and orange.. Looks like we might be in trouble.  Just kidding! We’re actually fine because Science Vessels are ridiculous. We plop down two Defensive Matrixes and the day is ours.      I gotta say, spellcasters have always been the big draw in Blizzard games for me. Pulling off the exact right spell at the exact right time is such a rush. It’s a great feeling. When I did this it made me feel like a pro - despite the fact that literally the only reason I needed to do it in the first place was my own ineptitude. The above battle, by the way, took about ten seconds. Starcraft can be a frantic game. Anyway, with the battle won, Omega Squadron is mostly a non-factor now. They’re still churning stuff out, but once we take out their production facilities…    They’re dealt with. They’ve got a couple things still scattered throughout the map that we’ll eventually need to hunt down, but they’re no longer a threat. Now we can focus on fortifying this position and preparing to bring down Delta Squadron. Also you can see in there part of the repair process. Anytime I’m using mech or air units, you can normally assume that I’m having SCVs fix them up between battles. Once they're done, we have our repair SCVs set up a new base site among the ruins of the Omega Squadron, with the remnants of our army as the defence. Exhibit B why Wraith squads are handy:  We’re also being harassed by Battlecruisers, and that’s way above a Turret’s paygrade. You could bunch up several Turrets to deal with them, but space is at a premium. Between us and Delta Squadron is another fortified position, and it’s on even higher ground. There’s no way for us to reach it from here. Fortunately that works in our favour. Here’s the first and most obvious way to bring it down:    Siege up tanks nearby and using something (in this case a Vessel) to spot for them. Also helps defensively: an attack comes from the north and…   BOOM! Haha okay, I’ll cool it on the extraneous shots of tanks blowing stuff up. I just think it’s awesome. Here’s another way to take out those orange defences: Scan…  And nuke.  (Can you Spot the Dot?) Note that once the scan wears off and the Ghost can no longer see the target, the nuke is still coming.    ...and there goes the rest of the fortification. Our ComSat Station spots something interesting.   Turns out those fortifications were guarding a back road into Delta Squad’s base. Now that’s tantalizing. Get our troops up there and we can have Siege Tanks rain fiery death on them from the high ground while they scramble to get up the ramp. So first, we need to get rid of the rest of orange’s stuff up there so we can clear a landing area. You know what worked last time we needed a landing area? Cloaked Wraiths. Here they go.    ...Except the AI’s a bit smarter this time around. Those blue sparkles are the AI scanner sweeping, allowing those Marines to see our Wraiths. The Wraiths might still win, but it’s really not worth it. Time for Plan B.    This is really far more effort than these few Marines deserve, but whatever. It’s fun, and we need to kill time while we build transports. Eventually we just do what we should have done in the first place and go with the big guns.  I’d been planning on only introducing this when we can build Battlecruisers ourselves, but you know what? Screw it. Let’s do it now. Astute observers may have noticed that Duke has energy. Why? Well, there’s more to Battlecruisers than just laser batteries. For 150 energy, a Battlecruiser can fire its Yamato Gun. Choose a target, and the ship will begin to charge up energy in a ball of light in front of it:   After a couple seconds of this…    The ship fires a big ball of presumably plasma that does 260 explosive damage to the target. Our army (same as last mission: one stack of tanks, one stack of Goliaths, and a couple Vessels) is ready, and the landing area is clear, but we’re going to need quite a lot of Dropships to transport all those troops up. I mean or I could have a few Dropships make multiple trips, but that feels more tedious and I’m drowning in resources. While we’re waiting, I have cloaked Wraiths clear out this area here.   Scan all you want, Delta Squadron, doesn’t matter when all you have is Firebats and tanks. This Battlecruiser came to the wrong neighbourhood.   They bring a Goliath over to help, but oh dear, it seems like their ComSat Station is out of energy.   If it feels like I’m taking a long time to advance, that’s because I am. In retrospect I’m 99% sure that in this mission, like the last one, the AI doesn’t get Siege Tech, but at the time I wasn’t sure of that and wanted to avoid walking into some brutal Siege Tank trap. Finally we’ve got 12 Dropships. If you remember what I said in mission 5, tanks are Large units so they take up four slots each; only two tanks per ship.  Goliaths only take two slots despite also being Large so I guess the transport rule of thumb for unit sizes doesn’t work as well as I thought it did. Dropping off the kids for a day at the beach:  Knock knock.  Okay, so this move was pretty fetch:   Orange dropped two tanks right in the middle of my Siege Squad. In tank mode they’re free to beat up on me, and if I fire at them I’ll blow most of my tanks to bits. Fortunately, I got lucky.    Only two of my tanks fired at them, the rest being busy with other stuff, and orange’s tanks weren’t quite close enough to catch me in the full splash radius (splash does less damage the further you are from the target). One tank goes down without me taking too much damage, and the other’s damaged enough to be sniped by Wraiths before the next volley. Still, well played, Delta Squadron.       The rest of their stuff is wiped out pretty quickly. It’s crazy how quickly Siege Tanks wipe out a base. Now for the cleanup. There’s a bunch of buildings scattered around the map, most of them unit producers. Here, for example, is the source of all those pesky Wraiths, Dropships, and Battlecruisers Delta Squadron had.  I built up a big wing of Wraiths so I could zoom around the map razing stuff without needing to fiddle with Tanks and Goliaths.   Which isn’t to say that they don’t get in on the action:  Here in the upper left, there’s a huge expansion spot with minimal orange protection, in case we needed it:   And here’s Omega Squadron’s Starport.  This is the source of the Wraiths that were hitting our left side, but it’s been dormant since we destroyed their base. Does that mean the AI doesn’t cheat resources? Or is it just supply blocked? Does anyone know? Anyway, Duke destroys it. After that, it’s just a matter of hunting down lone Missile Turrets until... This is Duke. The emitters are secured and online. What? Who authorized the use of Psi-Emitters? I did, lieutenant. What? The Confederates on Antiga were bad enough, but now you’re going to use the Zerg against an entire planet? This is insane! She’s right, man. Think this through. I have thought it through, believe me. You all have your orders; carry them out.Cinematic time! Open Rebellion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIsJxEYmTMw We open on a wing of Wraiths:     Wraith Pilot Harley: So I says, answer that and stay fashionable. Wraith Pilot: It's not funny anymore, Harley  Wraith Captain: Alright, cut the chatter, ladies. Drop your socks and grab your throttles.     Wraith Captain: Confederate platform verified and locked. This one's all yours, Harley. Wraith Pilot Harley: YEEEEEEEEEEEEE-HAWWWWWWWWWWWWW!   The cutscene fades out just before the blast hits the platform.   Guys... are we the baddies? EDIT: Oh, I forgot: here is where the second removed mission would go. This mission would have been another TvT slugfest similar to this one only against three enemy Terrans instead of two, and the closing dialogue about Duke setting up the emitters would have been there, not here. It getting the axe really isn't a loss. JohnKilltrane fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Aug 17, 2021 |
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Aug 17, 2021 17:32
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JohnKilltrane posted:Update 8: The Big Push yes, but we arenot the worstyet
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Aug 17, 2021 17:51
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I think my favorite nuke story is when I was playing against my brother. I was in the middle of destroying one of his bases with an army set up for overkill, when I heard the dreaded nuclear launch detected. I scrambled to mobilize my detection units all over my base when my army vanished. He nuked his own base, wiping out a very, very expensive group of my units.
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Aug 17, 2021 18:28
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JeffRaze posted:I think my favorite nuke story is when I was playing against my brother. I was in the middle of destroying one of his bases with an army set up for overkill, when I heard the dreaded nuclear launch detected. I scrambled to mobilize my detection units all over my base when my army vanished. He nuked his own base, wiping out a very, very expensive group of my units. This is how I mostly use nukes in Starcraft 2. They're wonderful defensive tools if you can get the timing down.
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Aug 17, 2021 18:32
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