Starcraft 2 - Heart of the Swarm: first trailer!

[Vendetta]

Holy banelings, batman!

[Kingmaker]

I believe the phrase you are looking for is "SOOO MANY BANELINGS!"

Watching a gigantic mass of banelings roll over everything in their path without slowing down is awesome. It's like watching a tsunami. If the tsunami was made of alien space bugs filled with acid instead of water.

To make some kind of contribution: it looks like Kerrigan is still kind of an asshole, though not quite as much as before. Given that she's still got the zerglocks, she probably still partly infested.

[Stofsk]

Banelings Banelings Banelings OOOHHHOOHHH

[Hawkwings]

That is exactly what I thought of.

But that dialogue... makes me cringe. Some writer needs lessons in conversation.

[Thanas]

How many people on this board listen to Husky?

Official preview by Blizzard.

[ArmorPierce]

Hey guys, the ending to the HOTS was leaked out a while ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_-_rGcF7rY

Spoilers I suppose

[TC Pilot]

Given things like the fact that video's soundtrack is ripped directly from Transformers and the overall crappiness of it, I'd say it's pretty dubious that it represents anything remotely close to a finished work.

[Thanas]

Hey guys, the ending to the HOTS was leaked out a while ago.

And everybody knows that, since there was a thread about it a while ago. I do believe it is genuine, but story implications are hard to read from it.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Seeing as how the releases have made me reload SC2 into my laptop, can anyone PM me any good Starcraft 2 Single player mods or campaigns?
(PM please, so as not to derail the thread). thanks!

Also, stop nerd raging about predicting Blizzard's plots in advance . Hint - Spoiler - The good guys win at the end of the movie! etc'
It's about the journey and pretty CGI, not the destination

[Thanas]

There is the mods that ports SC1 onto SC2. Great mod. Other than that, I don't really know nor play that many mods...

[Stofsk]

I posted a thread awhile ago (it's on page two now) that had the SC1 campaigns ported into SC2. They're only up to the Zerg campaign though. Still waiting for the Protoss one.

[Imperial528]

Also, stop nerd raging about predicting Blizzard's plots in advance . Hint - Spoiler - The good guys win at the end of the movie! etc'
It's about the journey and pretty CGI, not the destination

WC3 TFT had a pretty downer ending.

And Brood War.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Also, stop nerd raging about predicting Blizzard's plots in advance . Hint - Spoiler - The good guys win at the end of the movie! etc'
It's about the journey and pretty CGI, not the destination

WC3 TFT had a pretty downer ending.

And Brood War.

Expansions don't count . (Remember Diablo 2? )

[White Haven]

It's simple, really. Look at the order of the campaigns. Whoever you're playing as last wins. It's not the Zerg, so we should be relatively safe from grimdark.

[Stofsk]

That's not really true though. At the end of the SC1 campaign you 'win' when Tassadar dies killing the Overmind, who has managed to completely destroy Aiur with the swarm. The end of BW has already been established; ok, it was the expansion pack. Look at War3 - you 'win' by killing the big bad demon guy, but Lordaeron was completely overrun by the undead. I guess the Orcs found a new home to live in so... yay?

At the very least Blizzard story campaigns end on a bittersweet note. Victory and all but very, very costly.

[Imperial528]

Expansions don't count . (Remember Diablo 2? )

Never got into Diablo, so no, I don't.

[TC Pilot]

Blizzard has essentially been recycling the same plot since at least Warcraft 2, with Warcraft 3 all but being Starcraft with swords and magic instead of spaceships. They also have an annoying tendency of, for lack of a better word, "invalidating" its story in the expansion: killing the Overmind --> reborn Overmind/Kerrigan triumphant, killing the head demon --> new demon takes over. Brood War is unique in that it not only "invalidates" the ending of SC, but having its final campaign "invalidating" the first 2/3 of the game.

So there's certainly precedent for Blizzard undoing story developments in previous games/campaigns "just cuz."

[Stofsk]

I don't see how that's invalid at all. So they rarely put in happy endings? Fucking brilliant. The whole idea that a power vacuum left by the demise of a powerful agency won't be filled by other ambitious and powerful agents is pretty unrealistic.

[TC Pilot]

"Invalidate" is probably not the right word for it. But it isn't a complaint about there not being happy ends to storylines, it's pointing out that "Kerrigan de-infested" ---> "Kerrigan re-infested and leading the Zerg" kind of story has been done in every Blizzard game since at least the mid-90's.

[Dark Hellion]

Blizzard has simply realized the same thing that TV producers have; that people don't actually want change. People want to feel like the story is moving but to never actually have a change in the status quo. Sometimes this is done via magic reset button a la Voyager other times it is done more sneakily, by giving the illusion of change. For a good TV example look at the early seasons of House. There are changes of names and faces but the general underlying story is always the same.

Blizzard does this as well, they make it so that at the end of any game there are superficial differences but the situation is exactly the same as the beginning of the game. If anyone takes a step forward in one area they take a step back in another so that there is always zero net movement.

Welcome to the brave new world of storytelling, a brand new story same as the old one.

[Stofsk]

"Invalidate" is probably not the right word for it. But it isn't a complaint about there not being happy ends to storylines, it's pointing out that "Kerrigan de-infested" ---> "Kerrigan re-infested and leading the Zerg" kind of story has been done in every Blizzard game since at least the mid-90's.

Yeah but we really don't know the context for what the whole 'deinfest' plot entailed from the end of WoL. I mean Prince Valerian said this artifact will do this, Raynor was all like ok this is worth going to Char to do. But we don't know how it would work, why it was done - Valerian's motives seems to be to one-up his father by defusing the Queen of Blades situation, something Mengsk has never been able to do while billions of Dominion citizens get murdered by the zerg - but it's clear that that wasn't the end of the story.

The problem is if you have to have sequels to these games you kinda need somewhere for the plot to go. It's like Diablo. The first game, you kill Diablo. Second game, oh wait no you didn't. Now you have. Third game? Whoops you didn't then either, now you have to do it again. Third time lucky!

[Simon_Jester]

"Invalidate" is probably not the right word for it. But it isn't a complaint about there not being happy ends to storylines, it's pointing out that "Kerrigan de-infested" ---> "Kerrigan re-infested and leading the Zerg" kind of story has been done in every Blizzard game since at least the mid-90's.

No, I think "invalidate" is the right word.

If you have Raynor work his ass off and kill a friend to de-infest Kerrigan, and he might as well not have done a thing because she just goes right back into Queen of Blades mode in the sequel, that does sort of defeat the purpose of having even bothered with the plot of Wings of Liberty in the first place. It just becomes "ha ha, puny humans, you are no match for the genetic supremacy of the Swarm!"

Now, hopefully there will be enough subtlety and development in there that it will at least have made some difference- that the history of the setting will be appreciably different from what it would have been if Raynor had just decided to sit around and get drunk instead of putting his neck on the line over this. Maybe the Zerg wind up less crazy and animalistic, or Kerrigan's personality becomes something more complex than "Queen Bitch of the Universe-" which is, when you get right down to it, kind of one dimensional even if it can get some coolness points when well executed.

But if Heart of the Swarm winds up just being an extended process of pushing the reset button and restoring the status quo, it cheapens the first part of the story tremendously.

[TC Pilot]

Yeah but we really don't know the context for what the whole 'deinfest' plot entailed from the end of WoL.

Granted, but we can also take a pretty fair guess based on every other Blizzard game ever made, i.e. entailing that the actions in WoL were pointless.

Though, in a way, WoL was by itself pointless. They hype up how broadcasting those recordings of Mengsk at Tarsonis is going to ruin him and topple the Dominion, but really, all you get in-game is a few riots and a rather bad press conference. I suppose you could assume it allowed Valerian to hijack the fleet, but aside from de-infesting Kerrigan and setting up the "big bad" in the Zeratul side-quest (though ruining the Overmind in the process), WoL didn't really have all that much to it.

but it's clear that that wasn't the end of the story.

Well, yeah, of course not. There's still 2 more games left.

The problem is if you have to have sequels to these games you kinda need somewhere for the plot to go. It's like Diablo. The first game, you kill Diablo. Second game, oh wait no you didn't. Now you have. Third game? Whoops you didn't then either, now you have to do it again. Third time lucky!

Like I said, this is not unique to any one Blizzard game.

Take Warcraft 2. You destroy the Dark Portal at the end of the Alliance campaign (the canonical ending). But wait! Expansion pack comes out, oh look, the Dark Portal's still there.

Now, hopefully there will be enough subtlety and development in there that it will at least have made some difference- that the history of the setting will be appreciably different from what it would have been if Raynor had just decided to sit around and get drunk instead of putting his neck on the line over this. Maybe the Zerg wind up less crazy and animalistic, or Kerrigan's personality becomes something more complex than "Queen Bitch of the Universe-" which is, when you get right down to it, kind of one dimensional even if it can get some coolness points when well executed.

It never was well executed. Kerrigan's rise to power in Brood War was utterly contrived and stupid.

From what I've heard, the game is going to expand on the "choice" missions and RPG elements of WoL to determine what happens to Kerrigan in the end of the game. Whether or not that's actually the case or how it will play out with the Protoss campaign, I don't know, but it would seem to suggest "reset button" mashing isn't as sure a thing as Blizzard's past behavior suggests.

[Simon_Jester]

It never was well executed. Kerrigan's rise to power in Brood War was utterly contrived and stupid.

Eh, I don't know. She was a logical heir apparent for the Zerg based on the events of the main game; that she had to do a tremendous amount of scheming and backstabbing in order to climb to the top doesn't seem unreasonable.

There were a few bits that were done ham-handedly, like Aldaris's rebellion, which would probably have been prevented if the two sides were smart/reasonable enough to organize a meeting under flag of truce. But all in all I'd say it was a pretty good campaign- not the stuff of great literature, but good by the standards of the RTS genre.

From what I've heard, the game is going to expand on the "choice" missions and RPG elements of WoL to determine what happens to Kerrigan in the end of the game. Whether or not that's actually the case or how it will play out with the Protoss campaign, I don't know, but it would seem to suggest "reset button" mashing isn't as sure a thing as Blizzard's past behavior suggests.

I'd hope so, but it worries me- as you've said, Blizzard has a nasty habit of taking any success by the more heroic protagonists in its strategy games and making them strategically irrelevant when the bad guys reestablish themselves just as strong as they were before.

[Stofsk]

It never was well executed. Kerrigan's rise to power in Brood War was utterly contrived and stupid.

Eh, I don't know. She was a logical heir apparent for the Zerg based on the events of the main game; that she had to do a tremendous amount of scheming and backstabbing in order to climb to the top doesn't seem unreasonable.

There were a few bits that were done ham-handedly, like Aldaris's rebellion, which would probably have been prevented if the two sides were smart/reasonable enough to organize a meeting under flag of truce. But all in all I'd say it was a pretty good campaign- not the stuff of great literature, but good by the standards of the RTS genre.

It makes sense if you remember that Aldaris and the rest of the Judicator caste despise the Dark Templar, as they're 'heretics' to their religion, and he also smarted from the protoss abandoning of Aiur. (which frankly was doomed anyway - Zeratul rightly pointed this out in the first mission of the protoss campaign in BW)

But the fact is he was sort of right; the DT Matriarch had become infested by Kerrigan, something which nobody really picked up on until later. That was the primary reason why he rebelled. He could have acted reasonably and met Zeratul and Artanis under a flag of truce, but I guess he just didn't know who to trust and thus made his stand.

EDIT Really though if we're going to talk about who was stupid in BW, the king of that was Gerard DuGalle. This guy trusted the word of a known traitor, with unknown allegiances and motivations, despite earlier having said 'i cannot abide traitors' to his friend, Stukov. True Stukov did 'betray' DuGalle, but only because DuGalle was so monumentally stupid in following Duran's advice to destroy the Confederacy's psi emitter. All Stukov really did was keep the thing intact to be used to control the zerg. What a colossal tool.