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learning
United States104 Posts
The xel'naga were never designed as a playable race, they are the "deus ex machina" for starcraft 2. The catalyst for impetus. They are the progenitors of the two pure races that cause the struggle in the whole saga. There ARE 4 races in starcraft2, you can only play 3 of them because the 4th race is the one in the background turning the cogs in the machines, giving you a story, making you want to learn more. | ||
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Teddyman
Finland362 Posts
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USApwn
United States81 Posts
Terran; Confederate/Earth Protoss; Dark/High Zerg; loyal to whomever/mastermind Each faction will specialize in some sort of gameplay within the general idea of the race - confederates might be more bio oriented while earth bound more mech like etc... | ||
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cyrus.beacon
United States22 Posts
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WithRespect
United States27 Posts
Then spend the rest of the match in awe of the awesomeness of sending Toss-Zerg hybrid at my enemy, as well as giant stone protectors for my. I would not put that above Blizz. Remember the whole uber diablo thing ect... as always ~WithRespect | ||
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Macavity
United States83 Posts
"At least Warcraft 3 added new races. Starcraft 2 didn't add any new race at all." The response of 'But there are no possible races ever to be added to Starcraft since the three races cover all themes ever possible in the minds of man and throughout any and all science fiction' is extremely weak. One's lack of imagination is not evidence of lack of possibility. From Blizzard's point of view, races are defined more by their art and general shapes. Terran's art is lots of metal, Zerg art full of warm colors with lots of red, and Protoss is very yellow, very curvy, and stylistic like a sports car. The challenge really is to make a race look interesting and the units look interesting. Can there be more races with themes unlike the current three? Of course. It just requires a stronger imagination than one possessed by the OP: Earth based race- Think living rocks. Art style would be more brownish. Gameplay-wise could use the map, itself, literally against you. Perhaps could raise and lower lands? Either way, it is a theme drastically different from Terran, Zerg, and Protoss. Plant based race- Intelligent plants. Art style would be very green. This is actually what the Night Elves are more or less. But it is not represented at all in Terran, Zerg, and Protoss. Aqua race- Think fish like race. Art style would be very blue. Perhaps they would be the only race to be able to travel through the watery areas of a map. As their base expands, they would flood portions of the map (how would such water affect enemy races? Slow them down? Make their attacks less efficient?). Race could throw tidal waves at the enemy, that would be cool. Terran, Zerg, and Protoss have nothing like that. Coward race- Would also double as the Espionage Race someone mentioned before. One big problem with the three Starcraft races is that they are so SERIOUS. Zerg can't crack jokes because they are a hive mind. Protoss are too 'holy' to crack jokes. Terran act more like misfits and criminals. The Coward Race would be full of gags and funniness especially because they don't want to fight. They would be like the Spathi in Star Control 2 complete with BUTT missiles that fire from the rear (because they love retreating). The coward theme, covered in science fiction, is nowhere in the current three races. (Warcraft somewhat has this theme with the goblins. Star Trek has it with the Ferengi.) Also, a fourth race presenting balance issues is the least of concerns. The bigger concern of a fourth race is the single player because of the way Blizzard chose to do single player campaigns in Starcraft 2. The real reason why there is no fourth race in Starcraft 2 is because Blizzard ran out of time. Not even the Zerg were finished for the game's release. Also, the original plan was for SIX races to be in Warcraft 3, not four (Demons were going to be a race). The discussion of Warcraft 3 vs. Starcraft 2 should be considered moot since Starcraft 2 is made by the same developers who made Warcraft 3. | ||
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Hunch
Canada336 Posts
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kxr1der
United States213 Posts
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finkelboy
Italy372 Posts
- the zerg has to sacrifice his drone - the terran has to give up his scv for some seconds - protoss is just click and go back there's no 4th possibility | ||
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bobcat
United States488 Posts
On September 12 2010 11:06 DetriusXii wrote: I disagree. Magic the Gathering had five distinct flavours. White strengthened their armies through support spells, red hit hard with spells, blue was about counters, black was about reviving, and green was about strong heavy units mixed in with light units. Factions could be modeled with strengths and weaknesses coming from Magic and I think it would still be balanced. Couple of counterarguements. 1. I played magic for a few years, and there was NEVER a balance between all 5 of the colors. Black was always good, white was either really bad, or had a few niche power cards, green was never great but never bad, red was either RDW (red deck wins) or a splash color, and blue was either great or terrible. 2. In mirrodin, they essentially tried to add a sixth color to the game (artifact theme) It had it's own land, its own creatues, (remember ravager?) and it's own ways to blend with the other colors. It was a balance nightmare that ended after the ban of 40% of the cards in it's strongest deck. 3. Magic started with 5 colors, it was designed with 5 colors in mind and their relationships with other colors, and thus each color had its own niche adv/disadv. White was very protective, had an efficient early game(terran) red had capable tools for the right situation, granted they had less tools on their belt, and they had a deadly early game (zerg) green had decent units to start out with but they were inflexible and relied on massing their stronger units to finish the game (toss) black's theme was sacrifice for power and mutual destruction, and blue was about controling the field of battle and turning your opponent's strength against them. 4. Important: Magic was all about the relationship's between the colors both in harmony and chaos. The color wheel, White - Green - Red- Black - Blue - White ....... was meant to represent how each color had unique properties, but also drew from their two ally colors. For example: White was "allied" (next to) Blue and Green on the color wheel. So while green (agressive growth) and blue (control) were complete opposites, white had some of each of their abilities. It had strong creatures for cheap (green) and powerful spells that could punish an opponent for recklessly attacking (blue). Thus magic was all about picking two or three (or five) colors and making an army from the strengths and weaknesses of those combinations. A black and white deck, while enemy colors, both shared with blue. Thus black/white made a good control deck. Black could give you great power at the cost of sacrificing your life total or units on the field, and white could help protect those disadvantages by restoring life and balancing out the loss you made. The game was acout the interactions of 5 different colors. Thus balance was less of an issue. Even if white was garbage in mirrodin, green and blue were both very powerful and thus you didn't need to use white. Starcrafte however, is a game of individuality rather than blending. It is about the distinct differenced between a terran player and a protoss player and a zerg player. Terrans (blue white control) have the easiest access to tech, powerful harassment if unconfronted. Are dangerous if no pressure is place on them, and if allowed to set up, can lock you down and control several aspects of the game. They are also the most aware of their surroundings. Their disadvantage is their speed and immobility early game. Zerg (red black aggro) have fast units that deal large amounts of damage for their cost, but are relatively fragile. They have the strongest early game capabilities and they use these to either cripple their opponent or to establish a stronger grasp int he late game. They are also willing to sacrifice their weaker units to do more comparative damage to their opponents. Their weakness is their inability to defend well or have units with high health. Protoss(blue green aggro/control) have powerful units that are expensive, but powerful in the long term, they are capable of powerful bursts of aggression early in the game that are derived from their ability to make the most of a small group of specialists. This is helpful against the control player. They are in turn also capable of gaining a resource advantage early game and using a few defensive specialists to try and hold the aggro player at bay. Once they reach the late game, their large supply of resources allows then to build heavily advantageous situational units (colossus, immortals, phoenix, HT) that are capable of destroying less elegant groups of massed units. The battle against the aggro player(zerg) is one of survival, while against the control player(terran) it is about establishing footholds and gaining a resource advantage in an attempt to break through your opponents "wall" or overpower them in the field. Kinda creepy for those of us who played magic how similar these races/decks are. So while their are 5 colors in magic, they are actually all thematically represented in SC2 by the three races. There is no room for a fourth. | ||
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Teddyman
Finland362 Posts
On September 13 2010 04:04 finkelboy wrote: I think that the perfection of the three races is in the workers building system: - the zerg has to sacrifice his drone - the terran has to give up his scv for some seconds - protoss is just click and go back there's no 4th possibility I guess you didn't spend a long time thinking about that. | ||
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mutantmagnet
United States3789 Posts
On September 13 2010 02:59 awesomoecalypse wrote: Terran are already the "realistic" scifi race. Any "realistic" sci fi unit should be a Terran unit. Zerg are already the Borg of Starcraft, a hivemind that assimilates other races. Toss are already the mystical faction. If you're introducing any sort of unit with magic-type powers, it should be a Protoss unit. Protoss can already effect 4 dimensions (see: Chronoboost, the Motherships Timebomb that was removed). Its hard to see how any gameplay mechanics could operate in 5 dimensions. Honestly not one of these ideas so sounds completely different from the existing races that any unit you proposed for the new race couldn't fit right into one of the existing ones. You put realistic in quotes for a reason. That's because TErran do things that is completely radical in technology. They can create Dyson Spheres. They can create semi-automatic rail guns. They have FTL. They can account for light bending so well they use sattelites on the surface of a planet to look at other parts of the planet. They are an infantile psionic species Terran is as much soft sci fi as Protoss. Zerg are nothing like the borg. I was very careful in my description. The zerg are a race that developed sentience from creatures that lacked sentience. Seperate Zerg units from each other and based on their core intelligence level the vast majority become feral. The zerg are a hierarchal Hive mind. Borg otoh always retain their characteristics as long as the borg nanintes are functioning. That is a holistic Hive mind. Very different beasts. As for the assimilation point it holds little water. Every faction tries to analyze external threats and copy their advantages. Everyone is trying to better themselves even if the Zerg and one Hive Mind are more explicit and dogmatic in expressing a desire to reach perfection. Protoss are now a mystical faction so your point stands. In my defense I just pretend SC2 storyline never happened and Blizzard just made the multiplayer portion. Before their butchering of their own lore they weren't handling Protoss as a mystical faction in SC1 and BW. Be careful here. Time is theorized to be the 5th dimension and we are just abstracting on it and everything the 3 factions do is based on typical understandings of the 3rd and 5th dimension. Interacting and perceiving other dimensions isn't common knowledge. In short the protoss do not count here. Neither do the zerg when you think about the possibility they seem capable of folding space. | ||
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Jermstuddog
United States2231 Posts
On September 13 2010 04:04 finkelboy wrote: I think that the perfection of the three races is in the workers building system: - the zerg has to sacrifice his drone - the terran has to give up his scv for some seconds - protoss is just click and go back there's no 4th possibility Just to throw out a few in a matter of seconds -buildings that build buildings -workers get created when you build a new building -buildings are built by fighters, not workers Hell, you could have a whole race with non-standard workers, ie: workers are an ability of your supply depot and only last for 30 seconds each and can only move so far from their home building. Now you have a sprawling base mechanic as well, we haven't seen that in SC. | ||
Heyoka
Katowice25012 Posts
On September 13 2010 04:10 bobcat wrote: 2. In mirrodin, they essentially tried to add a sixth color to the game (artifact theme) It had it's own land, its own creatues, (remember ravager?) and it's own ways to blend with the other colors. It was a balance nightmare that ended after the ban of 40% of the cards in it's strongest deck. This also happened the first time they did an artifact themed set (Saga). Maro spent a number of years apologizing for both of those instances. Good thing they're going for number 3 soon! | ||
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venger
15 Posts
Those are but different forms of the same function. We are talking about the most basic level here. In the starcraft universe the 3 functions are weak and many, well rounded, and strong but few. On that scale no other functions can exist that are not essentially either a more extreme form of or a middle ground between two already existing ones (in fact terrans are already a middle ground between zerg and protoss). The only possible alternatives are overpowered or underpowered and would therefore not make sense as a 4th race, as logically they cannot be overpowered and struggling, or underpowered and existing, they would also not exhibit any new characteristics on the fundamental level, but rather two or more already existing ones : Borg, strong and many -> overpowered. *something weak and few -> underpowered | ||
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AlecPyron
United States131 Posts
However, I would say you can't add more races in SC because having only 3 just feel right. Trying to rationalize it can be more difficult. | ||
Plexa
Aotearoa39261 Posts
"At least Warcraft 3 added new races. Starcraft 2 didn't add any new race at all." Trash thread Take it to the bnet forums. | ||
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