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Yeah, the single player campaigns for SC2 are pretty awesome so far and are pretty much what I've gotten this and Heart of the Swarm for.
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Feb 4, 2014 02:31
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SageNytell posted:So I will watch this if only to see The Lost Vikings, never managed to beat even the first level on my onesies. Loved going mass Reapers for missions that the game did not intend you to use missions. You can do some really wacky poo poo on Normal to be quite honest. I've effectively soloed some of the later maps with a Spectre with the no energy cost cloak and nukes and base defenses. As far as Raynor goes it's really as simple as 'if he could get a chance to save Kerrigan or kill the Queen of Blades he would do those things, with that specific priority'. Feinne fucked around with this message at 04:56 on Feb 4, 2014 |
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Feb 4, 2014 04:47
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SIGSEGV posted:The most Blizzard piece of writing yet is the hilariously bad political training of the reporters on the news. I mean, come on. The news reports are pretty great by the end, honestly. And Jim Raynor is kind of an rear end, we'll see that as we go. There are vanishingly few characters in Starcraft that are good guys and many of them died at some point in the original or in the Brood Wars.
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Feb 4, 2014 17:03
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I think it's intentional that you are given the feeling that Horner's the Magistrate from the original game despite that not being the case, because that's the feeling I got as well. I just re-watched some stuff from the original, and I don't think they particularly changed Kerrigan's skin tone. She's just sort of oddly lit in her portrait thanks to her Ghost equipment. The Queen of Blades has had some redesigns but those are actually explicable. Feinne fucked around with this message at 19:16 on Feb 4, 2014 |
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Feb 4, 2014 19:09
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One imagines Legacy of the Void might, we'll just have to see.
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Feb 4, 2014 23:24
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Backwater Station is in fact a location from the original Starcraft as well. The music playing in the bar is pretty sweet and is all available in an album called Revolution Overdrive (it was even available on a proper record a few Blizzcons ago).
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Feb 5, 2014 03:10
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Psion posted:Executor, for the Protoss. Yeah, and as noted the two characters addressed as such probably are both in SC2 since it's definitely Artanis and possibly Selendis. I don't recall what the Magistrate is up to though I think he's still with Raynor maybe, and the Cerebrate has gone to the big Hive in the sky along with all the rest of those now-obsolete entities. I actually really like Raynor's arc so far in Wings and Heart, we'll see how he enters into Legacy of the Void when that comes out (I'm hoping we start getting some news about it soon because I'm really interested in how they're going to format the Protoss campaign given how different the Terran and Zerg ones are). Feinne fucked around with this message at 04:16 on Feb 5, 2014 |
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Feb 5, 2014 04:09
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J.theYellow posted:And, now that I'm thinking, "JoeyRay" as the name of the absent bar owner may as well be a reference to the salvager in the very first cinematic from Starcraft, which also established the ugly/backward/twangy/smoking/redneck "typical Koprulu Terran" standard for the game. It's also probably named after Joeyray Hall, who's on the cinematics team at Blizzard.
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Feb 5, 2014 04:19
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Cythereal posted:He sure as heck is more interesting than Kerrigan, now that she's fallen into the classic Blizzard "Female characters must be evil or driven by their relationships with men, no exceptions" character type. I actually have to disagree with you, I think she's less "evil or driven by relationship with men no exceptions" in Heart of the Swarm than she was in original SC and Brood War. I see where you're coming from on that being a problem Blizzard has but I think her Heart arc is pretty good (though of course at some level we have to wait for Legacy to see how they're planning to tie this all up). That said since I don't really want to spoil the end of the second campaign during the second mission of the first I'm willing to agree to disagree here. Synastren posted:Full disclosure: I haven't played WoW in a very long time, but my general understanding was that Silvanus was still trying to do as well for her people as she could (even if they are all undeads ), while Jaina had moved on from Arthas to be her own character a long time ago. I could be completely wrong, though. Oh she is, she just also came a bit unhinged after the Lich King died because she wasn't sure what she had to exist for anymore. Then she recruited some lovely ladies who used to work for the Lich King and who could guarantee the future of the Forsaken at the cost of scaring the everliving poo poo out of everyone else because oh poo poo now there can be new Forsaken. Jaina completely lost her loving poo poo after Theramore was blown up and Dalaran was used to launch a sneak attack on Darnassus to steal a creepy evil artifact that was being stored there, and we'll have to see if she chills the gently caress out or not as things develop. Feinne fucked around with this message at 06:01 on Feb 5, 2014 |
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Feb 5, 2014 05:53
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Cythereal posted:Kerrigan's SC2 story fell flat for me after the prison ship level in HotS. You know the one. From strong, confident leader to instant wreck willing to die in the span of about ten seconds. Well to be fair that's really where she starts to feel the consequence of that thing she does earlier in the campaign, so I don't think it's terrible writing for her to break down a little there. That said, I saw what happened in that scene more as an effort to prove that things were different now and that despite the incredibly numerous reasons not to do so that she could still be trusted. Heart of the Swarm's such a fun campaign and introduces a bunch of surprisingly characterful Zerg (as well as having some SURPRISE RETURNS that I've got so much to talk about when we see them finally) so it's still a net good for me. It also proves Steve Blum can do other voices. Feinne fucked around with this message at 06:18 on Feb 5, 2014 |
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Feb 5, 2014 06:12
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Anatharon posted:I think the single biggest sticking point of letdown about SC2, story wise, was Fenix NEVER being mentioned. Maybe he got talked about in HotS, I don't know, I didn't finish it. Brood Wars was one of my favorite games ever but I haven't touched SC2 in ages. Fenix might get a mention in Legacy, but he's pretty dead after all.
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Feb 5, 2014 07:28
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Yeah, there are, um, reasons to believe those events might not be entirely canon.
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Feb 6, 2014 18:50
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Seyser Koze posted:It's not the creep itself that has sight, it's the things that produce it. It spreads from certain structures, or your Overlords can dump it. Yeah, though to his other question creep is creep and yes you can take advantage of the creep of another person playing zerg in a few ways.
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Feb 8, 2014 01:28
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Patter Song posted:In story terms (based solely on SC1, I have no knowledge of SC2), the Zerg are both highly dangerous and somewhat pitiful. They have a hive mind and the most dominant personality in the Swarm can seize control of everything in it. This is to their detriment: after the Protoss killed the Zerg Overmind, the Zerg swarm descended into anarchy before falling into a succession war between Kerrigan and an infant new Overmind, and, in one of the most clever plots, the Terran UED enslaved the new Zerg Overmind and attempted to bring Zerg everywhere to heel (Kerrigan had the Overmind assassinated, giving her indisputable supremacy in the Swarm, but the UED's strategy was pretty much the only one that could crush the Zerg). It should be noted that the Xel'Naga were responsible for creating the Overmind and making the Zerg into a hive-mind but were NOT responsible for their ability to assimilate the traits of other creatures. According to the original SC's manual the Larvae are the Zerg that are actually anything like their original form. Without going into spoilers Heart of the Swarm sort of modifies this, basically suggesting that it was both true and not really telling the whole story. Amusing note, the Xel'Naga were in fact wiped out by the Zerg. The Zerg assimilated the essence of a creature that could survive in space (which is the core genus of the Overlord) and used that as a springboard to attack and destroy them. The only one of those upgrades I'd normally buy is Combat Shields since it addresses a very real problem with Marines. Evacuation is the better map to do now because Smash and Grab is much more hilarious if you've got a certain unit that's not currently on offer and that means not doing it yet. Feinne fucked around with this message at 04:05 on Feb 8, 2014 |
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Feb 8, 2014 04:02
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Coolguye posted:You know how I mentioned above that Warcraft was supposed to be Warhammer only on PC? Yeah Starcraft is basically Warhammer 40k on PC. The Zerg are so shamelessly ripped off of the Tyranids that most of their combat forms even LOOK similar, and the Protoss are minimally rethought Eldar, right down to their healthy disdain for humanity but tempered by blinding flashes of respect for a couple individual Terrans/Imperials. As a Tyranid player and a Zerg fan I honestly don't really see much resemblance beyond that which is always going to be the case for two groups of bug aliens, and at least one Tyranid is pretty clearly inspired by Starcraft given it's relatively new (the Ravener is basically a Hydralisk).
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Feb 8, 2014 16:53
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Deadmeat5150 posted:After the first Starcraft came out one of the Blizzard devs was interviewed and asked whether or not the Tyranids were the inspiration for the Zerg. I believe he said, "Absolutely." Oh yeah no doubt, I was just disputing that the end result had a really strong physical resemblance beyond the obvious of sci-fi bug things always having certain things in common.
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Feb 8, 2014 18:11
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Artanis is in fact pretty much in charge, because Zeratul has been away doing... something. We'll find out what later.
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Feb 8, 2014 18:39
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SageNytell posted:Holy poo poo did that word lose all meaning by the end of the Zerg campaign. Yeah, you run into that thing where a word stops sounding like a real word.
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Feb 9, 2014 00:32
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Patter Song posted:It's interesting how little Terran/Protoss tension there was in any of the campaigns in SC1. In the original Terran campaign there was the "the Protoss commander Tassadar blows up planets infested by the Zerg" tension, which did cause problems when the Zerg hit Terran-inhabited planets, leading to the mission where, after siccing the Zerg on the Terran Confederacy capital of Tarsonis, Mengsk orders you to keep the Protoss from blowing his new prize up. After that, there's one anti-Dominion mission in the Protoss campaign, but it's almost a sidenote, while at the same time Tassadar and Jim Raynor became best buds and Raynor basically becomes a wannabe Protoss, hanging out with Fenix and the rest of them. There are a lot of TvP maps in Wings of Liberty, probably more than the TvT but less than the TvZ. When we do Smash and Grab we'll discover that there are some Protoss who are huge cocks and give no fucks that Jim Raynor is basically best buds for life with the leadership of the Protoss.
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Feb 9, 2014 02:24
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Disco Infiva posted:And I bet that "something" is the reason for all those Yes, there is a cinematic of that event from the original Starcraft at some point during SC2.
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Feb 9, 2014 04:46
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posts in the thread. I am now kinda interested in why. 
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Patter Song posted:So why doesn't Mengsk use whatever blueprints and such he looted when he took over to build replacements for the Psi Emitters and Psi Disrupter? The Psi Emitters lure the Zerg into a location (presumably even Kerrigan can't restrain a bloodthirsty Zerg brood chasing after a Psi Emitter) and the Psi Disrupter breaks the link between Kerrigan and her broods, turning the Zerg against each other. I'd think that building another Psi Disrupter would be goal #1 of the Dominion, and even if it were too complicated to manage, putting a bunch of Psi Emitters on a wrecked planet and eradicating the planet afterwards (like they did in Campaign 1, albeit indirectly) is a damned effective anti-Zerg strategy. The Zerg control structure has changed pretty significantly since the Brood War, with much more proximal control spread out over a lot of intermediate entities with increasing levels of independence instead of just having a Cerebrate somewhere controlling everything. I'm pretty sure that's why Psi Emitters aren't terribly useful anymore, because there actually are Zerg smart enough to know what those are and restrain the others from pursing. As for other wonder weapons designed to counter the Zerg, we'll just have to wait and see what Mengsk might be cooking up. Until this new offensive the Zerg were mostly concentrated on Char, where their central Hive Cluster is currently located. Their numbers made it basically impossible to even consider an offensive.
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Feb 9, 2014 21:36
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Combat Shields and Devil's Playground because Reapers are goddamn amazing in a lot of these early missions (I honestly think they're better than Hellions in Outbreak for one).
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Feb 10, 2014 17:27
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FoolyCharged posted:Having never really used mercs, I just thought of something. Are they like the hero units of old where they come kitted with all the upgrades, do they receive the upgrades you've purchased, or are they entirely separate from the upgrades of the unit line they're based off of? I'm pretty sure they effectively come with all the upgrades, as well as having higher stats overall. For example I'm pretty sure the War Pigs have combat shields whether or not you have that upgrade.
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Feb 11, 2014 00:15
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TwoPair posted:I wondered if this game would acknowledge SC:G in any way. Man, that was one of those projects I always wished Blizzard would have delivered on back in the day because I loved Starcraft and getting to explore it in a first-person setting would have been really cool but OH WELL. It's characters are in this, even if the game itself has vanished.
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Feb 11, 2014 00:43
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Eh, I don't know what adding another effectively 'new' character would have done. He could have taken Warfield's role I guess but Warfield fits his purpose in the story pretty drat well.
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Feb 11, 2014 02:35
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Yeah, silly dumb Blizzard plots are bad but let's not say things we can't take back.
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Feb 11, 2014 06:41
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Honestly Heart of the Swarm has exactly as much plot as it needs to feebly justify the awesome poo poo they came up with for missions. If you're not willing to put up with some Blizzard plot to heap mounds of corpses at Kerrigan's feet then you're just clearly no true Zerg fan and Heart was never going to be for you. Also, if the plot was better you couldn't play the Essence drinking game (which I cannot suggest despite it substantially improving the plot due to the risk of severe liver damage and alcohol poisoning). Feinne fucked around with this message at 08:12 on Feb 11, 2014 |
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Feb 11, 2014 08:04
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Part of the problem too is that Tychus is from before we actually met Raynor back in original Starcraft. So to Raynor Tychus is his friend from the old days that he trusts even though he knows he probably shouldn't but we don't know him from Adam.
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Feb 12, 2014 00:37
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Also some of the characters who join us on the ship do have things to say that relate to missions, they're just not in the briefing stuff because they can't plan for you doing things in a certain order.
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Feb 12, 2014 02:57
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Junior G-man posted:I don't know, the later Terran missions are just fun for making multiple command centres and nuke silo's just so you can break their defenses in one irradiated blast There are a couple of Wings missions that are hilarious to do with heavy nukes, and I always rush down the line of missions that allows for such for the sake of humor.
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Feb 12, 2014 16:22
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:What are you talking about, "go on sale"? It's a Blizzard game. They tend to stay at their release price indefinitely. To be fair, they're usually worth it. They do tend to eventually bundle things together, which effectively discounts them, but yeah they don't generally have a lot of sales.
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Feb 14, 2014 22:22
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It's probably just an easy way to ensure that maps like Evacuation don't end if you manage to destroy all the structures you can see when the 'point' of the map is that the place is about to be overrun.
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Feb 19, 2014 16:26
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Marines are always useful so Combat Shields, I'm neutral on the research, and The Devil's Playground for my favorite Terran infantry. It's just a shame we didn't have them for Smash and Grab where they're also really hilarious.
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Feb 22, 2014 21:24
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The thing about Reapers is that you sort of don't use them directly with another force, you blob them up and blow up the enemy's base while other forces tie up things like air units. Reapers are just incredible at killing buildings, and they're even better at clearing defensive emplacements with their upgrades. Personally I get both Reaper upgrades when I run the campaign but then again I do weird orders so I can rush units to use silly tactics.
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Feb 28, 2014 15:58
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AradoBalanga posted:Voting for U-238 Rounds and Welcome to the Jungle, mostly for Goliaths, aka "Holy poo poo, did these mechs bail my sorry rear end out of trouble more times than I can count". Now, if U-238 Rounds sound familiar, they used to be a Marine upgrade in Starcraft 1 that did...exactly what the Reaper variant does: added range for Marines and a damage boost. Um, I'm not sure what you mean, they're incredibly clear what the mystery Dominion program was later on in Tosh's arc in WoL.
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Mar 1, 2014 00:05
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So, the game simply suggests that it's because they're dense and something something which could justify hitting harder maybe but isn't a terribly good excuse for increased range. You could probably bullshit something up about them either being able to use more propellant because the bullets are more resilient or the bullets being less prone to deforming and thus being more accurate at a longer range if you wanted an actual reason, though coming up with an actual superscience element and not just depleted uranium would be a better way to go.
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Mar 1, 2014 05:31
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Loxbourne posted:The sad fact is that Chris Mentzen just isn't the writer he was back then, for whatever reason. Either half a decade doing pop culture jokes and dodgy retcons on Azeroth destroyed his skills, or perhaps he had a mandate to be "easily accessible"...who knows? It's probably partly the Hat Money thing making people not comfortable telling him something's not great and partly that in person his enthusiasm is pretty infectious (having been to Blizzcon a few times I can attest to poo poo just sounding like a better idea when he's geeking out about it no matter how objectively silly it is).
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Apr 1, 2014 06:15
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Blizzard's got an important Starcraft announcement today.
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Apr 1, 2014 16:00
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And then amusingly Heart of the Swarm does remember Brood Wars, though I don't want to say in what context. One of the ways is actually legitimately kind of clever and subtle, for Blizzard.
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Apr 2, 2014 17:52
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I don't know, I sort of agree with getting rid of the Cerebrates. They had become sort of a liability, especially since Kerrigan wanted to be 100% certain a new Overmind wouldn't be created again.
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Apr 5, 2014 18:20
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