The main problem with the story however is that Kerrigan decides to build the swarm back up and embark on a path of furious vengeance, killing everyone in her path, despite the fact that the artifact turned her back into her human state.
Every nice thing Kerrigan ever did for a Terran was for Jim's sake, and nothing else. They make it pretty clear that Jim is the only thing holding her back from a bloody path of revenge. So the only Terran Kerrigan cares about "dies," she ceases to care about all Terrans. Makes sense to me.
All in all, I thought Kerrigan was well done. I loved the very beginning, where she carefully and expertly pieces together that "contraption" with her mind, just to break it. Nice little subtle encapsulation of what she's all about that I didn't notice the first time. Highly emotional characters are just that, emotional, their actions aren't going to make perfect logical sense all the time. I've known people in life who seem to build things up just to tear them down.
I read a bunch of your WoL review too, which put into words my own personal grievances so eloquently. Especially the UNN broadcasts. Like, Mengsk is supposed to be this peerless cunning master strategist and propagandist running a tight ship, but the UNN makes him look like an idiot at every turn. It's just bad characterization for the sake of a played out joke.
The secret mission in Brood Wars was one of my all-time favorite cliffhangers in video games. What the hell happened to Duran? He turned into an idiot too. They're all bloody idiots. It's the same frustration I felt as a kid watching Saturday morning cartoon characters blindly fall into obvious traps. Like how can they be so fucking stupid. Fuck.
What what what?? That was what made the entire scene. Are you saying the writing was bad, or the delivery? We're talking about life-or-death here, staring death in the face one minute and rejoicing in the glory of salvation the next. The guy wouldn't be thinking about how overplayed a phrase like "We're gonna make it!" would sound. It's overplayed for a reason. Simple, effective, doesn't try to be clever. It works. At least on me it did.
EDIT: I mean yeah by itself it would've been dumb but not after what comes before "General! It's a miracle!" And besides, its a radio transmission to the general, that means status update. They're gonna make it!
They don't think it through because they don't take it seriously. They don't take it seriously because they didn't think it through. You can lay it out for them and say "in the absence of abiogenesis, the existence of life necessitates a living creator." You can flip their usual arguments upside-down and illustrate their undue faith in abiogenesis. It doesn't matter. What matters is having the right attitude, demonstrating faith through deeds, and leading by example.
The link is not for the likes of us, but for the stubborn faithless who still insist on seeking God on their terms (if at all), clawing tooth-and-nail along the scientific process in hopes of catching God "with his pants down." Is the God not a living God? What force on earth or in the known universe could ever hope to reveal the living God against his will? Such impudence! Such pride!
It's hard to talk about this stuff without feeling like some kind of armchair general. Like, what the hell have I done lately. But I just love threads like these.
For what it's worth to the OP I'm sticking around. I'm not about to throw in the towel just yet, my pride won't allow it. I'll finish this one for sure.
EDIT: Your team looks like a real pack of winners. I guess The Masturbators was taken then. Sons of bitches. Also taken.
You know who you are. You've spent two months on a project making physics systems, a character creation screen, swappable weapons, inventory, etc. In other words, you've got a Ghost and a patch of grass. I'm not harping on you, I know that feel. The left brain is such a straightforward and manageable place. But stop it! TWO SOLUTIONS: 1) Get in the habit of creating a playable prototype as quickly as possible. The quicker you have a prototype with adversaries, level design and actual gameplay, the quicker you can discern whether your core design is worth a damn. 2) Find a team who needs a code monkey.
No core design whatsoever
Sort of similar, but worse. In this context, "core design" means "vision." It's sort of like when you put all your mental energy into a periphery feature and neglect everything else. An example would be creating a bunch of skill trees before even thinking about the levels or the enemies. Core design is the basis for everything, like a margin on notebook paper. How many enemies are you typically fighting at a time? How big are they? How big are the levels? What about bosses? At what frequencies? Your skill trees will have no connection to anything. SOLUTION: Slow your role. Then flip the script. Try to translate your enthusiasm for the periphery stuff into the core design. For example, perhaps you could tie exploration into the skill trees (kill 25 gnomes to get Gnome Stomp).
Released too early
Sometimes I'll try a map and the loading screen will start apologizing for it. Alpha and beta releases are fine, but don't release something if you don't think it's worth our time. I understand that feedback is critically important, and there's nothing wrong with wanting it early. The problem is that the cause of all the negative feedback is likely to stem from incompleteness and nothing else. The testers aren't going to fill in the blanks and give you "theoretical feedback," and if they did it wouldn't be worth anything either. SOLUTION: Make your time, like Goku with the Spirit Bomb. Gauge your map's readiness for public testing by the "demo" rule: one complete level (depending on the genre) with all the fixin's.
You can't play it
No one plays the map, so it's unplayable. SOLUTION: If the map is crap after all, cut your losses. But if you truly believe it's special then you owe it to yourself to make it playable with basic AI, "challenge mode," or whatever the genre calls for. You've already ran 20 miles, run 21 miles and immortalize your map, or else you wasted 20 miles. I can't tell you how many maps I've stumbled across that I wanted to investigate and appreciate but just...couldn't. Oh well.
It's just something he offhandedly admitted at one of the Blizzcon panels. I probably shouldn't have even brought it up, but I wanted to elaborate on why I cut him so little slack.
I'm talking about putting personal entertainment above human dignity, the life-ain't-fair-so-I'll-make-it-even-less-fair mentality, emotional retardation, call it what you will...the online "griefer" that is Jay Wilson, renowned teabagger and concocter of human misery.
Where did I breathe a word about the article? If anything I respect the candidness of "fuck that loser."
The online escapades I'm referring to is his swath of virtual death and destruction against helpless noobs everywhere. He thinks they can eat shit? I think he can eat shit. Simple mathematics.
No, I changed my mind. If Jay's gonna operate on "do as thou wilt" with no remorse in his online escapades, a shitstorm is exactly what he reaps from fans all around the world operating on that very same principle (or lack thereof). Regardless, the game itself suffers from some easily identifiable and correctable mistakes. I mean, no one forced him to take that lofty position. When you accept that kind of responsibility there is room for honest mistakes but none for bungling buffoonery.
0
Not sure how RMAH can impede someone's PvE experience. PvP on the other hand...will be ugly.
0
I like the music.
0
Every nice thing Kerrigan ever did for a Terran was for Jim's sake, and nothing else. They make it pretty clear that Jim is the only thing holding her back from a bloody path of revenge. So the only Terran Kerrigan cares about "dies," she ceases to care about all Terrans. Makes sense to me.
All in all, I thought Kerrigan was well done. I loved the very beginning, where she carefully and expertly pieces together that "contraption" with her mind, just to break it. Nice little subtle encapsulation of what she's all about that I didn't notice the first time. Highly emotional characters are just that, emotional, their actions aren't going to make perfect logical sense all the time. I've known people in life who seem to build things up just to tear them down.
0
Looks like we finally agree on something.
I read a bunch of your WoL review too, which put into words my own personal grievances so eloquently. Especially the UNN broadcasts. Like, Mengsk is supposed to be this peerless cunning master strategist and propagandist running a tight ship, but the UNN makes him look like an idiot at every turn. It's just bad characterization for the sake of a played out joke.
The secret mission in Brood Wars was one of my all-time favorite cliffhangers in video games. What the hell happened to Duran? He turned into an idiot too. They're all bloody idiots. It's the same frustration I felt as a kid watching Saturday morning cartoon characters blindly fall into obvious traps. Like how can they be so fucking stupid. Fuck.
0
SC2: Wings of Creative Liberties
0
@GhostNova91: Go
What what what?? That was what made the entire scene. Are you saying the writing was bad, or the delivery? We're talking about life-or-death here, staring death in the face one minute and rejoicing in the glory of salvation the next. The guy wouldn't be thinking about how overplayed a phrase like "We're gonna make it!" would sound. It's overplayed for a reason. Simple, effective, doesn't try to be clever. It works. At least on me it did.
EDIT: I mean yeah by itself it would've been dumb but not after what comes before "General! It's a miracle!" And besides, its a radio transmission to the general, that means status update. They're gonna make it!
0
Warfield cutscene made me cry...
0
@EternalWraith: Go
They don't think it through because they don't take it seriously. They don't take it seriously because they didn't think it through. You can lay it out for them and say "in the absence of abiogenesis, the existence of life necessitates a living creator." You can flip their usual arguments upside-down and illustrate their undue faith in abiogenesis. It doesn't matter. What matters is having the right attitude, demonstrating faith through deeds, and leading by example.
The link is not for the likes of us, but for the stubborn faithless who still insist on seeking God on their terms (if at all), clawing tooth-and-nail along the scientific process in hopes of catching God "with his pants down." Is the God not a living God? What force on earth or in the known universe could ever hope to reveal the living God against his will? Such impudence! Such pride!
0
Dr. Sylvester James Gates, Jr. Presents Evidence For Intelligent Design:
Atheism is an anachronism from a simpler time.
0
It's hard to talk about this stuff without feeling like some kind of armchair general. Like, what the hell have I done lately. But I just love threads like these.
For what it's worth to the OP I'm sticking around. I'm not about to throw in the towel just yet, my pride won't allow it. I'll finish this one for sure.
EDIT: Your team looks like a real pack of winners. I guess The Masturbators was taken then. Sons of bitches. Also taken.
0
REASONS FOR MAP FAILURE:
Avoiding content creation like the plague
You know who you are. You've spent two months on a project making physics systems, a character creation screen, swappable weapons, inventory, etc. In other words, you've got a Ghost and a patch of grass. I'm not harping on you, I know that feel. The left brain is such a straightforward and manageable place. But stop it! TWO SOLUTIONS: 1) Get in the habit of creating a playable prototype as quickly as possible. The quicker you have a prototype with adversaries, level design and actual gameplay, the quicker you can discern whether your core design is worth a damn. 2) Find a team who needs a code monkey.
No core design whatsoever
Sort of similar, but worse. In this context, "core design" means "vision." It's sort of like when you put all your mental energy into a periphery feature and neglect everything else. An example would be creating a bunch of skill trees before even thinking about the levels or the enemies. Core design is the basis for everything, like a margin on notebook paper. How many enemies are you typically fighting at a time? How big are they? How big are the levels? What about bosses? At what frequencies? Your skill trees will have no connection to anything. SOLUTION: Slow your role. Then flip the script. Try to translate your enthusiasm for the periphery stuff into the core design. For example, perhaps you could tie exploration into the skill trees (kill 25 gnomes to get Gnome Stomp).
Released too early
Sometimes I'll try a map and the loading screen will start apologizing for it. Alpha and beta releases are fine, but don't release something if you don't think it's worth our time. I understand that feedback is critically important, and there's nothing wrong with wanting it early. The problem is that the cause of all the negative feedback is likely to stem from incompleteness and nothing else. The testers aren't going to fill in the blanks and give you "theoretical feedback," and if they did it wouldn't be worth anything either. SOLUTION: Make your time, like Goku with the Spirit Bomb. Gauge your map's readiness for public testing by the "demo" rule: one complete level (depending on the genre) with all the fixin's.
You can't play it
No one plays the map, so it's unplayable. SOLUTION: If the map is crap after all, cut your losses. But if you truly believe it's special then you owe it to yourself to make it playable with basic AI, "challenge mode," or whatever the genre calls for. You've already ran 20 miles, run 21 miles and immortalize your map, or else you wasted 20 miles. I can't tell you how many maps I've stumbled across that I wanted to investigate and appreciate but just...couldn't. Oh well.
0
It's just something he offhandedly admitted at one of the Blizzcon panels. I probably shouldn't have even brought it up, but I wanted to elaborate on why I cut him so little slack.
0
I'm talking about putting personal entertainment above human dignity, the life-ain't-fair-so-I'll-make-it-even-less-fair mentality, emotional retardation, call it what you will...the online "griefer" that is Jay Wilson, renowned teabagger and concocter of human misery.
0
Where did I breathe a word about the article? If anything I respect the candidness of "fuck that loser."
The online escapades I'm referring to is his swath of virtual death and destruction against helpless noobs everywhere. He thinks they can eat shit? I think he can eat shit. Simple mathematics.
0
No, I changed my mind. If Jay's gonna operate on "do as thou wilt" with no remorse in his online escapades, a shitstorm is exactly what he reaps from fans all around the world operating on that very same principle (or lack thereof). Regardless, the game itself suffers from some easily identifiable and correctable mistakes. I mean, no one forced him to take that lofty position. When you accept that kind of responsibility there is room for honest mistakes but none for bungling buffoonery.