I was looking at some forums of old clans that used to participate in RTS, and came upon some images that appeared to be released before the launch of SC2. They reflect what each race's tech tree was supposed to be at the time (which appears to be pretty close to what it launched as).
Terran:
Zerg:
Protoss:
I'm sure many have seen these, especially those following SC2's development closely until the release.
You'll notice that in all of these images, the look of the game is quite different. There's a bit more lighting and color visible in the pictures of the tech buildings. Some of the buiding's also look a bit different from what is actually in the game. My question is do you think SC2 would look better if it appeared as it does in these photos, or do you like things the way they are?
The new look is much, much more polished, I definitely take it over the old look, but its nice to see how things kind of evolved into the final product.
If I'm not mistaken, dark pylon had an ability which would boost probe harvest rate and return speed. It was like an earlier version of chronoboost and protoss macro mechanic.
From some research, it also had the ability to cloak nearby buildings as well. Seems interesting, although Argus Link + High Templar would have been ridiculous.
I'm happy with the way it looks now, the terran stuff especially looks very cartoony Protoss looks pretty polished though.
Lol I remember the dark pylon, I think there were actual gameplay videos with the dark pylon, it could do something like chronoboost mining or something like that(mules for protoss basically)...and cloak buildings, and also act as a mana/shield battery(??) lol... I think the null circuit is just the sentry without the snowball.
Imagine....warp-in storm, with a pylon that recharges mana :D :D
Dark Pylon was replaced in the very first build of beta we got to play. Chrono Boost first appearence was Beta Build 1! It used to have other abilities too, but I think they got removed later in the Alpha.
Null Circuit was an Observatory iirc. I think Robotics Bay also existed.
Immortals being able to be warped in and built from Warpgates. So good! Twilight Council tech too!? Imagine how ridiculous Twilight Council builds would be in our current game!
Reapers used to have landmines and they had Academy 2.0 for them previously. Kinda neat.
would have been very interesting what the corrupters would have been like, with the only requirement being lair, no spire. would have been excellent for scouting and killing enemy overlords or catching drops..
Zerg definitely looked cooler in their early designs, but Terran and Protoss seems pretty much the same. I don't know what it is about the old Z designs, I just like it more. Looks more alive and organic.
Zerg buildings looked better except for lair and hive. I prefer most of the modern buildings for terran and protoss though :/
On the other hand I really liked some of the old unit designs better. The environments were also way more beautiful in the alpha, with stuff like grass really sticking out.
Oh well.. at least HotS brings a few graphical updates as well... creep up buildings and ragdoll physics woohoo : D
I actually played that version in Cologne on some Warcraft III invitational Tournament back before Beta. The Zerg stuff looked better than what we have now imho
If you just look at these images, you can see how far we have come. We still have a ways to go, both metagame wise and balance wise, but we should be able to get to a good e-sports status if we continue in the way of which we have.
On March 05 2012 08:07 [Silverflame] wrote: I loved the concept of the Nomad! Sad he didn't make it. Well, the raven is sort of "nomadish" I guess^^
The concept of the Nomad is basicly the mule in bigger with more detail... im actually happy the nomand didnt made it but the maintenance function for Mech was kinda cool
On March 05 2012 00:41 Orangeremi wrote: Immortal gateway unit? I would love to see that lmao
Actually, there was an exploit/hack in the beta which allowed people to build immortals out of gateways. If I recall correctly, the problem was that back then blizzard had only removed the gateway button for immortals but not the ability to build them.
the battle reports were cool, 1 warpgate warp in as much as you can afford. But to bad the dark pylon was seriously overpowered, some players could need the more buff version for their artosis pylons. I am quiet happy they changed the bunker model though.
Looks so much better now. It just shows that Blizzard will play with tons of concepts before they actually happy to release the final product. That's why their games are so good at release.
On March 05 2012 00:41 Orangeremi wrote: Immortal gateway unit? I would love to see that lmao
Actually, there was an exploit/hack in the beta which allowed people to build immortals out of gateways. If I recall correctly, the problem was that back then blizzard had only removed the gateway button for immortals but not the ability to build them.
All references to the warping in had been removed from the UI however through "hacking" (Hex Edit or package sending or something I believe) you were able to call the warp in immortal command which was still in the code. So basically all that was missing was the buttons and keybind for it.
On March 05 2012 00:22 tofubeans wrote: What's a "Dark Pylon"? Sounds nifty
Search for "Bread". Play one of the custom maps "Outpost (Bread)" is updated.
Play Protoss and you can build the Dark Pylon!
A Dark Pylon is basically like a Shield Battery, with Proton Charge (basically it was the macro mechanic for Protoss, it makes probes gain +1 minerals while mining), Argus Link (basically Shield Battery except for casters) and finally Null Shield (Cloaks a target... including Motherships!!!). (That would have made Mothership rushes even more epic.)
There were several incarnations of the Dark Pylon. One version of the Dark Pylon used to have the ability to cloak structures nearby (Photon Cannons should stay cloaked until it attacked).
The version in the Bread custom map only has Argus Link (Shield Battery for casters), Shield Regen field, and Proton Charge (so alas, no cloaking structures).
(Got to admit though, building a Dark Pylon in some odd place in the map and building a ton of cloaked gateways would have been epic.)
On March 05 2012 00:41 Orangeremi wrote: Immortal gateway unit? I would love to see that lmao
Actually, there was an exploit/hack in the beta which allowed people to build immortals out of gateways. If I recall correctly, the problem was that back then blizzard had only removed the gateway button for immortals but not the ability to build them.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/7pyTo.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/N7huX.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/5nW6x.jpg)
Obelisk
Just imagine you could build a cloaked proxy pylon to warp in cloaked Zealots. 
