On December 14 2015 05:14 Nazara wrote: Zerus and Primal Zerg: Zerus was supposed to be a vulcanic world, desolated and stripped of life when Overmind departed from it. It became a jungle with no explanation at all.
That bit was definitely odd, but to be fair, I think that tidbit of info was only a footnote in an instruction manual, so I can't blame them for overlooking it.
[spoiler]On December 14 2015 05:14 Nazara wrote: It is surprising that on Zerus you can find Primal Zerg looking like Zerg strains which were assimilated by the Overmind on other worlds (Hydralisks, Mutalisks and other).
Abathur actually touches on this if you talk to him after the first Zerus mission. Within hours of the swarm landing on Zerus, the primals had started assimilating their DNA. Strains like Hydralisks and Roaches had been hand (pedipalp?) crafted by Abathur, so it only makes sense that they'd plagiarize his work. The primals referred to as "Zerglings" and "Ultralisks" were entirely unrelated to the Zerg namesakes. The primal lings and ultras were simple beast-predators, but for gameplay sake they were given the same roles as Zerglings and Ultralisks.
On December 14 2015 05:14 Nazara wrote: All animals (Zerg) on Zerus are carnivorous - how does the food chain work? Where is the basic energy (normally extracted by herbivores) coming from?
Not all animals were carnivores. There were plenty of birds and insects that aren't really shown to be Zerg on the planet. The Quilgor (you killed them for meat in "Waking the Ancient") were certainly portrayed as herbivores. While the Zerus food chain is certainly active, it makes sense to say that birth rates, growth rates, and overall life cycles are accelerated alongside the boosted metabolism of its inhabitants.
On December 14 2015 05:14 Nazara wrote: Why make up some stupid crap like the “essence”, if we have completely fine DNA and genes to work with? If the essence is not DNA, what is it, space magic? Is this another way of making the story fall even more into fantasy realm, and cut all the sci-fi elements?
"Essence" was just the Zerg word for DNA. Granted, the fact that anyone besides the Terrans speaks English is more of a service to the players, but to the Zerg, calling it that makes sense. You killed your prey, ate the meaty center and assumed their properties. They didn't seem like one for the scientific method, so that explanation was probably good enough for them.
On December 14 2015 05:14 Nazara wrote:How come Overmind with all his knowledge take so much time and preparation to infest Kerrigan without affecting her mental capabilities, yet some non-sentient spawning pool does the same job better in less amount of time?
At the start of HotS, there's still a fair bit of Zerg left in Kerrigan, but most of it was purged or neutralized in WoL. Seeing as she still had enhanced psionic abilities, could mentally control lesser Zerg and had carapaces in her hair, it's fair to say that the Overmind's secret recipe is still a part of her. Taking a dip in the Spawning pool was just to get some fresh Zerg back into her. Though having it give her DBZ powers was pretty dumb.
On December 14 2015 05:14 Nazara wrote:If the spawning pool is indeed so powerful and grand, why didn't Overmind just sat there himself to make itself stronger/better?
By the time they had finished on Zerus (before the Starcraft story began), the Zerg had gotten their fill of whatever DNA they were compatible with anyway. There's a fixed amount of genetic "ingredients" on one isolated planet, so they needed to visit other worlds to expand their "cookbook" with new flavors. Overmind was pretty baller, no doubt, but he was just a glorified brain. He didn't have the natural psionic presence that Kerrigan had, so there was really nothing that the pool could do for him that he didn't already have.
On December 14 2015 05:14 Nazara wrote:Why not bring captured Protoss and soak them in if he wanted to assimilate them with ease? Why not soak Abathur, who with greater metal capabilities could probably later improve the Swarm strains even more?
From what I understand, the Protoss were so vastly different from the Zerg that in their current state, they simply weren't compatible at all. Kind of like how you can mix the DNA of humans from different parts of the world and get a new "blend" of human, but no amount of bestiality is going to make Human DNA + Dog DNA = Kobolds. While it goes against the concept of argument, please don't set out to prove me wrong on this one. The Zerg are still pretty flexible in that regard, since cross-breeding (well, not so much breeding as just mashing DNA together in their own bodies), so apparently Humans were on the menu, since they were a lot simpler. Once the Zerg could manage to work the psionic bits of humans into their genome, they would be more likely to be compatible with Protoss DNA.
As for Abathur, see above. He was a product of Zerus to begin with, so there wasn't much to gain from it. Had he chewed on a bit of Super-Kerrigan he might have made some developments, but her DNA was apparently too complicated for him at the time of HotS. He was improving Swarm strains though, that much is evident in the campaign itself. Evolution missions anyone?
On December 14 2015 05:14 Nazara wrote:Why is there any life on Zerus at all, if all the Zerg were bound to the Overmind? Did Xel-Naga left some behind? Did Overmind skip some independent Zerg when he consumed all remaining biomass of the planet?
I doubt the Xel'Naga actually went Noah's Ark 2 Electric Boogaloo on every single specimen on the planet. Being scientists, they just took a sample of larval Zerg, gave them a collective brain so they could work together through evolution instead of competing in nature and went to observe if that would be more efficient than evolving through natural selection. From what we know of the Zerg and Xel'Naga, it might have gone a little too well.
On December 14 2015 05:14 Nazara wrote:Why does Primal Zerg not resemble simple larva, as they should if we go by SC1 manual?
They only start out as larva. Once they snack on some carcasses and get a taste of DNA...you know the rest. It's not like the larva were gonna come crawling out of the woodwork to attack you with the rest of the primals, so it makes sense that you didn't see much of them in the campaign.
On December 15 2015 12:46 The Bottle wrote: Here's one of the things that bugged me the most about the SC2 campaigns. In all three campaigns, you are fundamentally on the same side. (The side against Amon.) Even in the epilogue missions, the main characters from all three campaigns team up and fight that dark god. In SC/BW, however, you switch sides all the time. In one chapter, you're a loyal cerebrate to the overmind, carrying out his will. In the next, you're gathering everything you can to destroy the overmind. In one chapter you're a UED captain, sympathizing with the likes of Alexei Stukov. In the next, the UED is this big bad group and the entire Korpulu sector has to team up to take them down. This really goes to the feeling of the sci-fi RTS that says that there's no true good guy or bad guy, just a bunch of factions each fighting for their own purpose. I really liked that about Starcraft. It's a shame that that had to be turned on its head in order to make it a story about an evil god that every group you control has to work together to stop.
I feel like this is influenced much by Warcraft. As a kid going from BW to WC3, I thought Arthas becoming the evil of the universe was a direct rip-off of Kerrigan, Jaina was Raynor, and Stratholme was Tarsonis.
Then to make matters worse Blizzard copied Sargeras and the Burning Legion and made it into Amon and the Hybrid. They really need to keep the stories of Warcraft and Starcraft separate, and it really feels like they can't.
On December 15 2015 12:46 The Bottle wrote: Here's one of the things that bugged me the most about the SC2 campaigns. In all three campaigns, you are fundamentally on the same side. (The side against Amon.) Even in the epilogue missions, the main characters from all three campaigns team up and fight that dark god. In SC/BW, however, you switch sides all the time. In one chapter, you're a loyal cerebrate to the overmind, carrying out his will. In the next, you're gathering everything you can to destroy the overmind. In one chapter you're a UED captain, sympathizing with the likes of Alexei Stukov. In the next, the UED is this big bad group and the entire Korpulu sector has to team up to take them down. This really goes to the feeling of the sci-fi RTS that says that there's no true good guy or bad guy, just a bunch of factions each fighting for their own purpose. I really liked that about Starcraft. It's a shame that that had to be turned on its head in order to make it a story about an evil god that every group you control has to work together to stop.
I feel like this is influenced much by Warcraft. As a kid going from BW to WC3, I thought Arthas becoming the evil of the universe was a direct rip-off of Kerrigan, Jaina was Raynor, and Stratholme was Tarsonis.
Then to make matters worse Blizzard copied Sargeras and the Burning Legion and made it into Amon and the Hybrid. They really need to keep the stories of Warcraft and Starcraft separate, and it really feels like they can't.
Abathur actually touches on this if you talk to him after the first Zerus mission. Within hours of the swarm landing on Zerus, the primals had started assimilating their DNA. Strains like Hydralisks and Roaches had been hand (pedipalp?) crafted by Abathur, so it only makes sense that they'd plagiarize his work.
Primals cannot assimilate, this is what Zerg are doing, not the primals. Primals steal essence, as shown in the video from 1:35:
A primal kills a Hydralisk -> it can integrate Hydralisks genes into its own and gain ability to burrow, or to shot spines like a Hydralisk. It should not look like an exact copy of the Hydralisk. However, the primal Hydralisk looks like a carbon copy of a normal one, just reskinned: Primal Hydralisk. There is also a problem of how there is so many of them. According to wiki:
The amount of essence required for a successful evolution varies. For example, in order to evolve the creeper strain of the swarm host, only a single ash worm needed to be killed.[5] However, in order to evolve the impaler strain of the hydralisk, multiple impaler colonies had to be destroyed before enough essence was collected.[6] In other cases, essence from specific individuals of a chosen species - (e.g. an ursadon matriarch) must be collected to augment the Swarm appropriately.
I understand from that that a single of a few Hydralisks are needed to gain its traits by a single primal individual, but that still would make their numbers much lower and make them rare. Also, there is an issue of how primals can take down and, undisturbed, steal the essence of the Zerg. Also there is a problem of how many Hydralisks are needed to completely transform a Zerus life form into a complete carbon copy of one. Swarm integrates numerous species and their genes and improves its designs by using those genes in their strains. Primals integrate genes into their own bodies, and while it certainly strengthens them, the gene diversity is expected to be much lower then that of the Swarm and numerous species it assimilated. In other words, you would expect the Swarm to wipe the floor with less diverse fauna of Zerus.
And before you say anything, there is nothing stated anywhere, that Zerg are less capable then primals when it comes to assimilation or incorporating DNA. We don't see Zerglings evolving after last hitting some powerful creature in the game (we can assume that genes in charge of this are repressed to make Zerglings more efficient and not waste biomass/nutrients/inside of the body with extra organs necessary for this), but that doesn't mean that the DNA of the creature goes to waste - surely it is picked up and sent to Abathur for examination. He doesn't have anything else to do anyway, poor guy.
Speaking of which, Abathur completely ignores to at least try to incorporate strains made up of pack leaders, which look powerful. Why? Why not clone a Zerg version of: http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Kraith or http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Yagdra ??? To me it seems like a waste of gigantic proportions. And it cannot be explained by "Kerrigan consumed its essence". She ate the whole thing!? What a tramp.
Same thing with the Roach as with Hydralisk, just a reskin.
The primals referred to as "Zerglings" and "Ultralisks" were entirely unrelated to the Zerg namesakes. The primal lings and ultras were simple beast-predators, but for gameplay sake they were given the same roles as Zerglings and Ultralisks.
I have no problem with them two actually, as they do look like different creatures then Zerg swarm. Primal Zergling Primal Ultralisk
It would be much better if Blizzard just followed the artists vision and give matching bodies to those more unique heads: Primals concept art. And with that give us something resembling the role of Hydralisk or Roach, but also make them weaker.
Not all animals were carnivores. There were plenty of birds and insects that aren't really shown to be Zerg on the planet. The Quilgor (you killed them for meat in "Waking the Ancient") were certainly portrayed as herbivores. While the Zerus food chain is certainly active, it makes sense to say that birth rates, growth rates, and overall life cycles are accelerated alongside the boosted metabolism of its inhabitants.
It doesn't say anywhere anything about life cycles or birth rates. If anything, the life expectancy on a world of violent creatures should be so low, that having offspring is not a common thing.
Also, the main premise of life is to preserve life, so while primal zergs can eat others to revitalize themselves and live longer, plus evolve, having offspring is not beneficial at all from survival point of view. The nutrient and energetic expense would be better used to improve oneself, then to have offspring and make oneself more vulnerable at the same time.
Quilgors are omnivores. Meaning they eat other Zerg as well, and probably restrict themselves to plant life only if they have to.
"Essence" was just the Zerg word for DNA. Granted, the fact that anyone besides the Terrans speaks English is more of a service to the players, but to the Zerg, calling it that makes sense. You killed your prey, ate the meaty center and assumed their properties. They didn't seem like one for the scientific method, so that explanation was probably good enough for them.
I don't question them using English as a language. It don't question that less inteligent primal Zerg would use this name. But it doesn't make much sense for Abathur or Kerrigan. Essence looking like a glowing ball of energy instead of DNA strand makes it even worse. It makes you question whether it is DNA after all, or some magical hocus pocus.
At the start of HotS, there's still a fair bit of Zerg left in Kerrigan, but most of it was purged or neutralized in WoL. Seeing as she still had enhanced psionic abilities, could mentally control lesser Zerg and had carapaces in her hair, it's fair to say that the Overmind's secret recipe is still a part of her. Taking a dip in the Spawning pool was just to get some fresh Zerg back into her. Though having it give her DBZ powers was pretty dumb.
This is a very good explanation, thank you. Still it doesn't explain why non sentient, directionless pool of sludge is able to make Kerrigan better then what Overmind did, DBZ included Why didn't it make her grow another pair of eyes? Or wings to fly? Or make her leg structure like that of the fast running species instead of the human leg structure, which is not the best for mobility? You know, make her less human and more efficient design. We as a human are not bad, but apart from big brain matter are not exceptional and very fragile.
He didn't have the natural psionic presence that Kerrigan had
He did. He controlled all of the Swarm with psionic power. He was even able to bend space-time and create Wormholes. Sure he wasn't a psychic in the sense like Kerrigan or Protoss, but he had some psionic capabilities.
From what I understand, the Protoss were so vastly different from the Zerg that in their current state, they simply weren't compatible at all. Kind of like how you can mix the DNA of humans from different parts of the world and get a new "blend" of human, but no amount of bestiality is going to make Human DNA + Dog DNA = Kobolds. While it goes against the concept of argument, please don't set out to prove me wrong on this one. The Zerg are still pretty flexible in that regard, since cross-breeding (well, not so much breeding as just mashing DNA together in their own bodies), so apparently Humans were on the menu, since they were a lot simpler. Once the Zerg could manage to work the psionic bits of humans into their genome, they would be more likely to be compatible with Protoss DNA.
I understand what you're trying to say. The main reason why Protoss couldn't be assimilated so easily is because when a Zealot, Dragoon or whatever Protoss "dies", it's body is being trasported back to the home planet. That is why Overmind came to Aiur in person (it's my guess) - Protoss bodies would be down there for assimilation. Also, somewhere it was stated that their psionic power while they are alive prevents infestation/assimilation.
As for Abathur, see above. He was a product of Zerus to begin with
Not stated anywhere. Abathur says Overmind created him from many other species. This implies that Overmind is no less capable of doing Abathur's job. Therefore, it is easy to deduct that Abathur itself is a retcon or HotS invention, just so we could have upgrades for the Zerg like we had for Terran in WoL. Making Kerrigan do all the DNA spinning would be retarded.
but her DNA was apparently too complicated for him at the time of HotS.
There is no such thing as DNA being too complicated. Once you are able to manipulate DNA to such an extent as making Hydralisks out of docile herbivorous species, and stealing a very particular gene from a very particular animal and integrating this gene into all your creations in a matter of minutes/hours, you can do anything. He already has all the tricks. Her DNA being too complicated is just bad writing or writers lack of knowledge about genetics. Nothing else.
I doubt the Xel'Naga actually went Noah's Ark 2 Electric Boogaloo on every single specimen on the planet. Being scientists, they just took a sample of larval Zerg, gave them a collective brain so they could work together through evolution instead of competing in nature and went to observe if that would be more efficient than evolving through natural selection. From what we know of the Zerg and Xel'Naga, it might have gone a little too well.
"Over a matter of centuries, the zerg consumed or eradicated Zerus's biosphere." This is from the wiki. During centuries before Overmind departed, he would have consumed all life on the planet. All higher forms of life would be consumed, and probably only some earth dwelling snails/worms could have survived. If anything, the life on Zerus should be primitive, not intelligent, without ability to reason, or talk. Plant life would still be evolving and be in a form of grass or mould (fungi). Zerg (primal Zerg) could steal essence. But if there is no essence to steal from, they die. Original Zerg were simple parasites, not life spawning Xel-Naga.
They only start out as larva. Once they snack on some carcasses and get a taste of DNA...you know the rest. It's not like the larva were gonna come crawling out of the woodwork to attack you with the rest of the primals, so it makes sense that you didn't see much of them in the campaign.
See above, there were no carcasses to chew on. Overmind had it all consumed. It's not that I wanted to see giant slug called original Zerg in the campaign. It's that having primals on Zerus at all is pure non sense and contradiction.
Another bone I picked from watching Abathur tribute on YT, and I forgot all about it. Abathur often says things like in Zergling evolution mission: "Strains mutually exclusive. Will compete in the sequence. One must be chosen. Other must be discarded." Kerrigan responds with "Fine, make some of each. I want to see them in action". If Abathur can make some of each... Why not freaking keep them both!? His explanation contradicts what he is already able to do.
Kaldir missions and collecting essence to make Swarm immune to cold. Why? Leviathan already has the genes which help it survive cold space. Why not just use its genes just for as long as Zerg are on Kaldir, and then remove genes again?
Kerrigan makes the parasite which is planted into the Protoss, without Abathur. How?
On December 17 2015 01:22 imJealous wrote: “I'll see you dead for this, Kerrigan. For Fenix and all the others who got caught between you and your mad quest for power! It may not be tomorrow, darling. It may not even happen with an army at my back. But rest assured: I'm the man who's going to kill you some day.”
Retconning this was the single worst decision the blizzard story writing teams have ever made. They had an incredible villain and a hero whose motivations matched our own. Then they decided to throw away the rivalry that defined the two most core characters to the franchise. They twisted the strongest emotional connections we had to the previous story on their head.
Raynor hated Mengsk for betraying Kerrigan to the Zerg so making Raynor kill Kerrigan would have been the single worst decision the Blizzard story writing teams have ever made!
Killing protagonist isnt a bad move at all. From a moment in "True colors" mission the most logical conclusion would be a death of either Kerrigan or Raynor. Former would be fitting ending of the story, later would be shoking turn of events that only care bears can see as something bad. Meanwhile Mengsk could be killed, but his survival would be also a gritty reminder that not always evil is punished.
Instead we had conclusion that was neither satisfactionary (at last - for me) noir plausible.
Agreed 100%. Death is a powerful story pusher. Shame it is not used in SC2. Yes, Zeratul dies, but Zeratul after being reduced to wandering lunatic hobo from a great noble warrior, has killed the character back in WoL for me. I wouldn't mind Kerrigan dying. Or Raynor. Or Raynor sacrificing himself with a Nuke after luring Kerrigan to kill her off. Instead we got: WoL where whatever you do has no meaning at all (Mengsk still in power after all the trouble and "Media Blitz", Kerrigan back with the Swarm anyway) HotS which is a slap to the lore and shouldn't happen in the first place. LotV where the universe is ending but you don't feel the doom chasing you as the main character is always positive (Artanis and his "we will conquer all evil with the power of love, Alarak/Fenix/Karax/Vorazun")
I think it is time to get over Raynor's pledge to kill Kerrigan in SC1. That was for a dramatic effect, a love story turned into (justified) hate.
SC1 didn't need to deliver on Raynor's promise but gave the players something to talk about. In SC2 it is affection again and therefore illogical from both sides.
The Tychus plot holes (including the voodoo magic from Tosh, *gasp*) weigh much heavier in my opinion.
On December 24 2015 01:29 [F_]aths wrote: I think it is time to get over Raynor's pledge to kill Kerrigan in SC1. That was for a dramatic effect, a love story turned into (justified) hate.
A love story? Before "New Gettysburg" dialogue i though they both barely give a shit for each other.
I don't like the story in SC2 and I enjoyed WOL and HOTS more than LOTV, in that order. The story in WOL and HOTS were better than LOTV, where everything just went stupid. Also not a fan of the hybrid and all that jazz. I generally don't like when an RTS game introduce new superunits and add difficulty through their strengths. It feels like it makes the game design lazy and uninspired. Some heroic units here and there are fine, but it feels stupid when they just throw in higher powered units to make the game harder.
On December 24 2015 01:29 [F_]aths wrote: I think it is time to get over Raynor's pledge to kill Kerrigan in SC1. That was for a dramatic effect, a love story turned into (justified) hate.
A love story? Before "New Gettysburg" dialogue i though they both barely give a shit for each other.
I thought it was strongly suggested that there was a romance there. There was the New Gettysburg dialogue, as you mentioned, but also the fact that Raynor sent his entire raiders down to Char because she reached out to him in a dream. And the way he keeps calling her zerg form "darlin'" in a sarcastic and spiteful way seems to suggest that he used to call her that for real.
I know it wasn't confirmed, but it's certainly not a retcon to write SC2 as if they used to have a romance. Not that it justifies the horrific romance story of HotS, or the ridiculously contrived "you have to keep her alive for a prophecy" and "you can convert her back" story of WoL.
Used to? I can live with that. But WoL portrays Raynor as a pathetic loser who can't handle not having a girlfriend. So instead he lives in denial and fantasizes for 4 years about the greatest menace of the universe because she flirted with him once or twice in between loading magazines for pistols over Skype 5 years ago. Why would you even want to help this guy?
I don't like how Ouros says the Cycle needs to continue but then says it has ended after Kerrigan succeeded him and was still alive. Here's my speculation. Kerrigan actually achieved true immortality like no other Xel'naga before her. Thus, she does not need to continue the cycle anymore. That's why Ouros says the cycles have come to their end. Primal zerg survive as long as they have essence and she just absorbed the essence of eternity.
the story is like an obnoxious mesh of "stupid catchphrases and things that are considered epic and cool", to me it was unbelievable from the first line Rayner spoke in WOL.
On December 24 2015 01:29 [F_]aths wrote: I think it is time to get over Raynor's pledge to kill Kerrigan in SC1. That was for a dramatic effect, a love story turned into (justified) hate.
A love story? Before "New Gettysburg" dialogue i though they both barely give a shit for each other.
I still remember the cheesy lines when Raynor met Kerrigan and she got upset because of this thoughts. (SC1, the original Terran campaign.)
On December 26 2015 23:42 bypLy wrote: the story is like an obnoxious mesh of "stupid catchphrases and things that are considered epic and cool", to me it was unbelievable from the first line Rayner spoke in WOL.
I agree that the entire story feels like Blizzard tried too hard to create an epic tale. Now we are left with a series of plot holes, unclear intentions of many characters and convoluted developments. Blizzard makes games, the company is not an accomplished story writer collective.
Still, we got a rich Starcraft universe. Blizzard put a lot of work into this original franchise (even though many inspirational sources are still visible, like Warhammer races, Starship Trooper marines, Alien hydralisk design, ...) I mostly view the story as a device to get the player more engaged in the mission. In this sense, I think Wol did a good job to connect the story and the mission, Hots as well, while Lotv being a bit of a letdown as most missions are "okay here are 3 or 4 things you need to destroy in order to advance."
EPT
Why didn't it make her grow another pair of eyes? Or wings to fly? Or make her leg structure like that of the fast running species instead of the human leg structure, which is not the best for mobility? You know, make her less human and more efficient design. We as a human are not bad, but apart from big brain matter are not exceptional and very fragile. 
