Some of the map makers in our community may be aware of this, but this is the first I am learning about this: there was originally a 4th race in the game!
I stumbled across this website, which explores assets that were left unused in games. Naturally, I had to look up StarCraft.
When thinking of a 4th race, I would assume it would be Xel'Naga. However, it seems that it was actually a variant of Terran called "Independents". Here are some pictures:
Gunship
Cargo Ship
Raider
Merc Rider
Starport/Starbase
Cantina
Power Plant
They also originally had the Civilian, as well as some more buildings which don't have graphics available.
The page goes into detail about these units as well as the fact that "Independent" did indeed seem to be intended to be a selectable race at some point. Some of you may notice that the "Raider" is like a Valkyrie, but it was actually supposed to be bigger for them.
There are other things like unused campaign missions (which were later ported into the Enslavers missions), unused heroes, so on and so forth. You can check out the full page here:
EDIT: There also seems to be mention of either a fifth race, or more likely an old name for the Zerg: "Fenix has different dialogue in which he mentions a race called the Tagal, a race that is weak individually but deadly in large numbers like the Zerg, while defending Antioch. "
I've never seen this either, looks just like edited Terran. The cargo ship looks like a modified Battle Cruiser as well.
How do we know this is for sure a 4th race that was taken out of the game, and not used for custom games / the campaign? I think the developers wouldn't necessarily hide something like this from us, for some reason I think these were just units / buildings / skins created for the campaign that weren't used. And isn't Tagal a Zerg brood?
Super interesting, but it feels like they never got too far in the thought process behind this race, seeing as how they just threw all of these into the Terran arsenal anyways. Would be interesting to see how a 4-race set up would look like.
This is awesome. Reminds me of the factions mentioned in the manual. Also, that website reminds me of tvtropes and I would probably lose a lot of time reading, haha.
another great post. kind of wish a map-making enthusiast fleshed out the details of the race and made like a campaign for it but I don't know if map making is really a thing anymore.
On May 02 2020 05:09 Anc13nt wrote: another great post. kind of wish a map-making enthusiast fleshed out the details of the race and made like a campaign for it but I don't know if map making is really a thing anymore.
Definetly still is a thing, and i'm sure they could with the tools shown, it looks like they have all the information they need, except maybe an actual finished 4th race.
On May 02 2020 03:07 Hot_Bid wrote: 20 years and ive never seen this lol wtf
Same! I was super excited to read about it.
On May 02 2020 03:49 GGzerG wrote: I've never seen this either, looks just like edited Terran. The cargo ship looks like a modified Battle Cruiser as well.
Yep, it is mentioned on the site as related to the BC.
On May 02 2020 03:49 GGzerG wrote: How do we know this is for sure a 4th race that was taken out of the game, and not used for custom games / the campaign? I think the developers wouldn't necessarily hide something like this from us, for some reason I think these were just units / buildings / skins created for the campaign that weren't used.
On the site it shows how it can be set as a race for a specific player when making a map.
On May 02 2020 03:49 GGzerG wrote: And isn't Tagal a Zerg brood?
I did a brief search and didn't find any by that name.
On May 02 2020 04:03 FlaShFTW wrote: Super interesting, but it feels like they never got too far in the thought process behind this race, seeing as how they just threw all of these into the Terran arsenal anyways. Would be interesting to see how a 4-race set up would look like.
To me it seems like a different faction of Terran, kind of like Rebels vs. Confederacy, but with its own technology. IIRC the site said that the Independents used "dated" technology but I can't tell if they meant dated in terms of the development path, or it was their interpretation of the units, or if it was in the data itself.
On May 02 2020 05:09 Anc13nt wrote: another great post. kind of wish a map-making enthusiast fleshed out the details of the race and made like a campaign for it but I don't know if map making is really a thing anymore.
Definetly still is a thing, and i'm sure they could with the tools shown, it looks like they have all the information they need, except maybe an actual finished 4th race.
Based solely on what is available on the site, I don't think there is nearly enough information to make a full race out of it. For instance, they are not sure what some of these structures actually do - they think the Cantina (which btw looks kinda like an Orc 2nd level TC from WC2!) was for training Merc Riders, and they think that a Power Plant would work like a Pylon, but it doesn't seem like there is enough information to be sure. Only about half of the number of units of other races are listed here.
Blizzard played around with the idea of neutral creeps during SC1's development, along with other ideas like unit inventories, persistent unit veterency, and gameplay-altering environmental effects. Some of these mechanics would clearly go on to be key features in Warcraft 3. I posted about old magazines previewing that stuff a while ago. Maybe this hidden 4th race is a remnant of those cut neutral outposts and pirates that would've been a source of trade and loot.
Units: Three units use the protoss Scout as an in-game model: The cargo ship has a wireframe confirmed by Blizzard to be the original battlecruiser. The wireframe is similar to the covert ops . The gunship has a wireframe that resembles a Valkyrie. It also has an additional "mercenary gunship" model. The independent starport also looks like a Scout. It has an "unknown attack" that does 7 damage in its profile, but it doesn't actually attack. The Hatch is an unused doodad. Various "special" units which are used in normal games, but cannot be placed in StarEdit: Zerg Larvas, eggs, lurker eggs, and cocoons. Disruption webs and dark swarms (which must belong to Player 12 to work properly and never disappear) can be placed as units. scanner sweeps, the unit produced by the ComSat station's scanning ability, can also be placed as units. These units were found through third-party editors such as SCMDraft and Starforge, and can only be placed by them.
The Raider was removed altogether.[1] Crashing Units A jumpgate and an independent command center also exist, but these cause StarCraft to crash.
Apart from the obvious relics in the game data and various settings one can see with ScmDraft, I know I have seen something like a Raider model in at least one custom campaign (may have been the critter campaign, not sure). I don't know where the actual model was taken from or whether it was just a Valkyrie reskin…
I also remember having seen the Power Plant on a screenshot, together with some other preliminary Terran building and unit models (Science Vessel with some kind of stilts O_o) on an old iteration of the space tileset (that had much better looking plating than the eventual current one…). I can't remember the source though.
On May 02 2020 18:26 Freakling wrote: Apart from the obvious relics in the game data and various settings one can see with ScmDraft, I know I have seen something like a Raider model in at least one custom campaign (may have been the critter campaign, not sure). I don't know where the actual model was taken from or whether it was just a Valkyrie reskin…
I also remember having seen the Power Plant on a screenshot, together with some other preliminary Terran building and unit models (Science Vessel with some kind of stilts O_o) on an old iteration of the space tileset (that had much better looking plating than the eventual current one…). I can't remember the source though.
On May 02 2020 07:30 eviltomahawk wrote: Blizzard played around with the idea of neutral creeps during SC1's development, along with other ideas like unit inventories, persistent unit veterency, and gameplay-altering environmental effects. Some of these mechanics would clearly go on to be key features in Warcraft 3. I posted about old magazines previewing that stuff a while ago. Maybe this hidden 4th race is a remnant of those cut neutral outposts and pirates that would've been a source of trade and loot.
wow this is really cool, thanks! can definitely see some influence onto wc3 there
On May 02 2020 18:26 Freakling wrote: Apart from the obvious relics in the game data and various settings one can see with ScmDraft, I know I have seen something like a Raider model in at least one custom campaign (may have been the critter campaign, not sure). I don't know where the actual model was taken from or whether it was just a Valkyrie reskin…
I also remember having seen the Power Plant on a screenshot, together with some other preliminary Terran building and unit models (Science Vessel with some kind of stilts O_o) on an old iteration of the space tileset (that had much better looking plating than the eventual current one…). I can't remember the source though.
There are so many cool things in those pictures, tileset-wise. It is a shame those things were changed or removed before release. That would have been a good thing to put into remastered, not a million ramps that are buggy like hell…
EPT![[image loading]](https://tcrf.net/images/b/ba/SC_Gunship013.png)
![[image loading]](https://tcrf.net/images/e/e7/SCBNB-Cargo012.png)
![[image loading]](https://tcrf.net/images/f/f7/SC_Raider014.png)
![[image loading]](https://tcrf.net/images/3/31/StarCraft-MercBiker_DevHead1.png)
![[image loading]](https://tcrf.net/images/2/25/Starcraft_Starbase.gif)
![[image loading]](https://tcrf.net/images/5/53/SCBNB_Cantina000.png)
![[image loading]](https://tcrf.net/images/b/b6/StarCraft-Unused_Power_Plant.png)
![[image loading]](https://www.sclegacy.com/features/scencyclopedia/evolution/earlybeta12.jpg)
