Starcraft

[Corn Flakes]

Fun fact: according to the official website prior to release, the UED wasn’t originally going to be written into BW (instead the terran plot would have been a conspiracy within the Dominion), but medics still were planned. Take that how you will.

That would make a lot more sense than the story we actually got for Brood Wars. The whole UED plot has so many holes in it it might as well be Swiss cheese. I wonder why they changed it.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

That would make a lot more sense than the story we actually got for Brood Wars. The whole UED plot has so many holes in it it might as well be Swiss cheese. I wonder why they changed it.

I still liked what we got. It was certainly better than both the Protoss and Zerg storylines in Brood War. A pure human power fantasy: humans from Earth (our planet) go over to the species that decimated the Protoss Empire, and we make them our bitch, along with reducing the "Emperor" who deceived us in the last game into a pauper monarch running away in exile. It certainly wasn't perfect, but it was fun while it lasted.

 

[draggs]

I thought medics were one of those units like the Valkyrie that were originally created for vanilla SC but blizz kept them out of the game for one reason or another and released them for the public in BW

 

[FreedomMussel]

That would make a lot more sense than the story we actually got for Brood Wars. The whole UED plot has so many holes in it it might as well be Swiss cheese. I wonder why they changed it.

This sort of haphazard writing has always been normal for SC’s development. According to World of Warcraft Diary, lead writer Chris Metzen kept a binder of random ideas, most of which never made it in the games… but had severe memory retention problems. Also, I don’t remember where I heard it, but during SC1’s development he was depressed about his junkie ex-girlfriend or something.

Among other things: Mengsk wasn’t originally intended to be a villain. The Confederacy was originally a genuine confederacy of loosely-aligned colonies jockeying for power. Kerry was originally going to die on Tarsonis. Tassadar wasn’t going to divebomb Overmind. Cerebrates were originally the evolution chamber in base building. The Protoss were originally in a cold war with Earth. The zerg were originally attracted by the psi matrix to invade the entire galaxy. Etc. And that’s just what we can glean from interviews, old previews, the manual, and examining leftovers in the files.

In general, I find these more interesting than the final product. The Raynor-centric soap opera plot we got just never interested me. I was always more interested in the politics, ideologies, ethnicities, and clash of civilizations.

Not that it matters now since the IP is essentially dead.

I thought medics were one of those units like the Valkyrie that were originally created for vanilla SC but blizz kept them out of the game for one reason or another and released them for the public in BW

Probably. We can’t be sure. We know that the Valkyrie was modeled as a pirate unit (from an planned pirate neutral faction), but the others are unknown.

I still liked what we got. It was certainly better than both the Protoss and Zerg storylines in Brood War. A pure human power fantasy: humans from Earth (our planet) go over to the species that decimated the Protoss Empire, and we make them our bitch, along with reducing the "Emperor" who deceived us in the last game into a pauper monarch running away in exile. It certainly wasn't perfect, but it was fun while it lasted.

Me too, but mostly because it was the most believable politically even if the execution was godawful. Stukov and DuGalle are the only terran characters who aren’t self-centered assholes.

I wish the other five episodes had been nearly that interesting.

 

[draggs]

Yeah there was an interview where Metzen or someone was asked why the UED used all the same tech as the Koprulu terrans. The real answer is Blizz wasn't going to create and balance a fourth Starcraft 'race' for an expansion (or ever, as it turned out) but he basically said the UED left all its super tech back on earth (I believe he specifically mentioned mass drivers) and DuGalle's expeditionary force was a very limited showing of earth's strength. Which made no sense he was basically implying that the UED was equal or superior to the protoss in technology, and that the full strength of earth was superior to the protoss and zerg and Koprulu terrans which is lol

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

Yeah there was an interview where Metzen or someone was asked why the UED used all the same tech as the Koprulu terrans. The real answer is Blizz wasn't going to create and balance a fourth Starcraft 'race' for an expansion (or ever, as it turned out) but he basically said the UED left all its super tech back on earth (I believe he specifically mentioned mass drivers) and DuGalle's expeditionary force was a very limited showing of earth's strength. Which made no sense he was basically implying that the UED was equal or superior to the protoss in technology, and that the full strength of earth was superior to the protoss and zerg and Koprulu terrans which is lol

The way I interpret it, the UPL was a fascist atheist shithole that had little experimentation or progress with tech, since in-lore, they despised psychics, cyborgs, religious people, people who didn't speak English, etc., so their civilization wound up being stagnant while the Terran Confederacy was innovating all the new technology, and the UPL was just observing them from afar and copying their homework. After the discovery of the Zerg and the Protoss caused the UPL to ally with the dissident factions on Earth that they weren't able to stamp out and form the UED, they performed a few technological innovations to the current tech base before setting off to conquer the Koprulu Sector, hence why their upgraded tech just consists of a new infantry class, a new class of aircraft, upgraded long-range missiles for the Goliath walkers, and the rest was just shit they copied over from the Confederacy's tech base. Of course, at the time, the Dominion prior to Brood War was busy just consolidating their gains, so they didn't have time to innovate new tech like how the UED or the Confederacy did.

 

[FreedomMussel]

Yeah there was an interview where Metzen or someone was asked why the UED used all the same tech as the Koprulu terrans. The real answer is Blizz wasn't going to create and balance a fourth Starcraft 'race' for an expansion (or ever, as it turned out) but he basically said the UED left all its super tech back on earth (I believe he specifically mentioned mass drivers) and DuGalle's expeditionary force was a very limited showing of earth's strength. Which made no sense he was basically implying that the UED was equal or superior to the protoss in technology, and that the full strength of earth was superior to the protoss and zerg and Koprulu terrans which is lol

Yeah, all of this was the result of Metzen’s haphazard writing. Koprulu’s connection with Earth or lack thereof constantly flip-flopped thru development. First Koprulu was connected to Earth according to the website, then it was rewritten as cut off by a magical FTL malfunction and Earth was a shithole according to the SC1 game manual, then it was retconned that Earth had been magically spying for hundreds of years and then sent an invasion (forgetting that Earth was a shithole) in the BW game manual, then Heroes of the Storm bio for Stukov retcons it again that they were always in contact and Earth doesn’t seem to be a shithole.

(I say magical a few times because the logic just doesn’t work.)

So it was rewritten and retconned three times that we know of until it became exactly what it was the first time. Let that sink in for a moment. You can probably imagine my frustration with this franchise.

If I was in charge of creative direction, then I would have cut thru all the chaff and just made Earth the inciting incident of the franchise. Zerg invade Earth to experiment on terrans, Protoss incinerate Earth to stop zerg, a bazillion angry Terrans wage war on them in righteous vengeance. It’s that simple.

 

[Bob Page]

Well, there was a custom campaign that touched upon your idea to some extent, @FreedomMussel (y u no let quotes to your posts, lol,). It's called Legacy of The Confederation. It was an interesting campaign that did result in the UED going under a different name, The Confederation, and basically going all United Citizens Federation from the Starship Troopers movie on the Koprulu Sector.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

I remember trying to make up this mission with the campaign editor with that hero archon as the hybrids.

(this was long before sc2 came out and back when I was much younger)

 

[FreedomMussel]

I remember trying to make up this mission with the campaign editor with that hero archon as the hybrids.

(this was long before sc2 came out and back when I was much younger)

The hero archon was named Zeratul/Tassadar. Probably a leftover from an earlier story concept before the design team told Metzen to write an epic climax with Gantrithor crashing into Emperor Zerg.

 

[FreedomMussel]

Cerebrates were originally the evolution chamber in base building.

Some more trivia time since I’m bored and Blizz got fucked over even more recently.

After the cerebrate sprite was changed to a campaign-only structure (presumably? We don’t know the order), the evolution chamber in the final version used a sprite that was originally used for the spore colony (or another cut defense structure, there were apparently several). If you look at the sprite, particularly the high res remastered sprite, it does look like some kind of biological cannon.

In SC2, the evolution chamber underwent a dramatic redesign into a slug/grub-like creature with a mass of tentacles at its anterior. Its death animation reveals that it has a ribcage and skull. This may be a reference to the earlier design of the alpha/beta evolution chamber as a cerebrate.

On a related note, the hatchery was originally going to be a queen that produced eggs that would hatch into zerg units. Then the queen was changed to a unit, and the larva-producing hatchery was introduced. In another amusing coincidence of history repeating itself, the SC2 queen was originally much more involved in base building before these plans were scrapped.

At another point in development, we’re not sure whether before or after the queen/hatchery change, each zerg structure would produce its own larvae/eggs that would hatch into its associated unit (e.g. queen/hatchery spawned drones and overlords, spawning pool produced zerglings). This is why the spawning pool is named the spawning pool: it originally spawned zerglings.

I’m curious as to what alien plot ideas were present, if any, before the brain bugs were turned into invincible magical plot devices that needed another magical plot device to be defeated in the studio-mandated epic climax. Would the plot have maintained a focus on the zerg and protoss invasion of the terrans, but from the opposite perspective? Only heaven knows now.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to the release of Scorn. It looks like it will be really trippy.

 

[MysticLord]

Is Starcraft Remastered worth the buy?

Also how do I get past the Protoss mission where you're dumped in the middle of a map and attacked by other Protoss, and need to head north to a base to survive? I can't micromanage these Protoss retards to save my life, and I keep getting fucked by Reavers. I'm a very defensive player.

 

[Corn Flakes]

As opposed to Warcraft Refunded, Starcraft Remastered is a true remaster. It even lets you go back to OG graphics. So get it if you like how it looks on videos/screenshots. And if you don't mind giving ActiBlizzSoft your money.

 

[Watcher]

Is Starcraft Remastered worth the buy?

Also how do I get past the Protoss mission where you're dumped in the middle of a map and attacked by other Protoss, and need to head north to a base to survive? I can't micromanage these Protoss retards to save my life, and I keep getting fucked by Reavers. I'm a very defensive player.

It does have a dlc that changes the graphics to resemble a flash cartoon

 

[FreedomMussel]

Is Starcraft Remastered worth the buy?

Also how do I get past the Protoss mission where you're dumped in the middle of a map and attacked by other Protoss, and need to head north to a base to survive? I can't micromanage these Protoss retards to save my life, and I keep getting fucked by Reavers. I'm a very defensive player.

Aside from the new graphics, it’s still the same 1998 RTS. That takes getting used to. If you want to play the missions recreated in SC2 engine, there’s a mod for that.

---

Also, Microsoft is buying Activision. I don't think they're really going to fix anything since they're still an evil corpo. I'm completely burned out on the *craft IPs anyway and have moved my interests to new upcoming RTS games like Immortal: Gates of Pyre (IGP).

IGP is going to innovate on the formula that ActiBlizz abandoned, with such things as co-op commanders, free-to-play monetization (they literally can't fund development otherwise so it's necessary), and campaign DLC that's at least partly structured like Marvel's "What If..." because they want to give each civ its own spotlight. The lore, at least what's been revealed so far, is much better constructed than the ramshackle haphazard messes of yesteryear. Each civ gets a fluff bible explaining its history and motivations so that the writers can stay consistent. Speaking of the writers, the writers working on this have backgrounds in history and other relevant subjects so the worldbuilding is of much higher quality than other RTS lores.

I fully expect SC3, if it ever gets made that is (and the earliest we can expect a release is some time around 2030), will be flaming garbage. So I'm glad there's IGP to fill the gap in my hobbies.

 

[MysticLord]

I still can't figure out how to make protoss not be retards. It's more like a CRPG with them, I need to click on shit and tell them what to do every second or else they mill about aimlessly while the computer butchers them. With the reavers outdistancing me and airpower having shit defense and poor air-to-ground, I literally cannot finish this level and it's pissing me off.

 

[TheTrumanShow]

Came back to the game recently for a few rounds, didn't do too bad but Im down to like silver/gold from my old master levels.

I see the pro´s are up to 1000 apm nowdays and even casuals talk about build orders and timings. I want a game, not a job. So I uninstalled it again.

 

[Corn Flakes]

Came back to the game recently for a few rounds, didn't do too bad but Im down to like silver/gold from my old master levels.

I see the pro´s are up to 1000 apm nowdays and even casuals talk about build orders and timings. I want a game, not a job. So I uninstalled it again.

And here, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the many reasons why the RTS genre fell from grace. After the game is "solved", the "optimal" way to play requires the type of autism not a lot of people outside of Korea have. Unless you're fiercely competitive, you're not likely to have fun with it.

 

[TheTrumanShow]

And here, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the many reasons why the RTS genre fell from grace. After the game is "solved", the "optimal" way to play requires the type of autism not a lot of people outside of Korea have. Unless you're fiercely competitive, you're not likely to have fun with it.

Thats the reason why every "e-sport" sucks. I've read posts online of people having fucking anxiety of even "TRYING" the game they bought and just sticking to twitch because of this. But it was meant to be, just like sports itself turned from an amateur hobby of friends, co-workers, soldiers etc competing against each other to one where you get payed to play the sport.

When its more of a spectacle than a participatory activity, then it turns into this.
The same can be said about chess and despite being really good at it as a kid I never had any desire to join a chess club. The higher up you got the less of an exercise in creativity and reaction and becomes more about memorization or at best learning/recognizing patterns at "blitz" levels.

 

[Stasi]

Artosis continues to be the DSP of Starcraft.

I actually kinda feel bad for him, reminds me of my one and only online game of Warcraft III where I got peon rushed in the first minute and decided competitive RTS wasn't for me.