.. LotV, with 22 missions for 40 bucks, is going at about 50 cents per mission. The Nova packs, at 8 dollar per 3 missions, are going at 2.6 bucks per misson.
I'm sorry I had to reply to this, but you are dividing it the wrong way, its 40/22 = 1.81 dollars per mission. Compared to the Nova full packs, which is 15 bucks for 9 misison, which is $1.66 per mission, cheaper than LoTV (than again, had a multiplayer mode, 3 co-op commanders). Of course, bigger pack purchase should provide more value obviously. I'm sure Blizz had done the market research on this.
For my opinion, I'm perfectly fine with they charging for heroes, as long as the maps are free (who would be stupid enough to charge for maps ? Oh right, the marketplace arcade, their next plan). Heroes hold sentimental reasons for players who loved them in the campaign. Karax is kinda terrible at first, but as I leveled him, he grows on me as I understood his playstyle better. He's no broken omnislash Vorazun, but he's perfectly capable of beating Brutal, and that's fine for me or anyone who loved his playstyle. We played the mode for fun, not to faceroll Brutal 250 times in a row and call it quit.
For future heroes, they should do a better job marketing them, showing the player what their playstyle are designed to be. Ability description and a 10s videos can't do that.
I was just hoping their next Terran commander will be free for WoL owner and similarly for HotS but I guess it probably won't happen. LoTV edition is the ultimate version they wanted to push.
Here it is, the legendary soundtrack you have all acustomed with. Unfortunately it was performed before anyone got a chance to hear it ingame so there wasn't much hype around it. Enjoy these amazing performances.
01. The Stars Our Home
21. My Life For Aiur
And the full sounds panel here for anyone interested:
I think you could play through the WoL campaign without touching at least one sidequest storyline. As long as you do every mission of the other two sidequests, you could still complete enough missions to unlock the main storyline missions and reach Char.
Looks like Blizzard took this as an excuse to make a certain path cannon.
I wished Blizzard would abandon the branching storyline altogether. While it seems cool to have character shows up and interact in non-determined order, it weaken the main narratives. Everything becomes, 3 mission linearly introducing the situation, 15-ish mission going around gathering power (money/essence/factions), and a last 3 mission final showdown. The predictable structure prevent any cool twists or revelation in the other stages. For example, in LotV, the Zeratul twist, happen in mission 2, then a bunch of gathering forces misisons, then it all wrap back to Ulnar for the 2nd twist, then gathering some more forces, then do a final predictable battle with Amon.
Perhaps, but that is always the main flaw of villians: They have a master plan, but they overlook a crucial detail. In this case, the detail being the actions of Adun, which saved the Dark Templar. Amon's plan would have worked perfectly, if not for the existence of the dark templar. Same flaw with the zerg. Amon overlooked the creation of a being that would not be entirely constrained by the strictures he placed upon the Overmind. And such actions undid everything.
He could not have foreseen a Protoss so dedicated as to be willing to die to preserve those not bound by Khala. Tassadar being the second instance of such a being.
Your post somehow fleshed out the backstory for Amon way better than the game did. Guess we should learn to never expect game to be a medium to convey coherent and fleshed out stories. Your idea also highlighted the importance of Zeratul and Tassadar's sacrifice. Yet Duran, knowing these events as well as Kerrigan's creation, still carried out the plan laid out millenium ago without any changes.
Maybe with the Xel'naga, a millenium isn't such a long time for them, so there isn't any sign of impatient yet.
You can append sort by date by appending this option to the link (&sort=-last-post). The sort button on that page is bugged with date descending. All other options works fine.
Thanks for the lengthy explanation about Amon. There's a bit of it here and there between the ulnar missions, Rohana's dialogue concerning Amon as well as what he actually said in the Void. I have to admit I heard them all but couldn't make a cohesive connection between.
Though I think there's 1 part missing. Amon didn't destroy the Xel naga by himself. After he binded the Overmind to the Zerg, he launched the swarm to chase after the Xel naga worldship and kill all of them (Starcraft 1). Though this might have been retcon'ed since they can't all be outside the void in some kind of spaceship unless Amon bring the swarm to the void with him.
The theme of space gods and repeating life cycle is already used several times before but I got to wonder, which kind of previous life cycle looks like in Starcraft ? Are they on a other sectors? separate galaxy?, or an alternate universe all conneted to each other through the void ? When a cycle is completed, what happened with the rest of the essence form race? Do all of them turn into Xel'naga (1 Xel'naga per cycle cant be enough) or become exterminated? Where does human comes from? Are we created by Xel'naga or a product of natural evolution?
Just wanted to add a personal theory regarding Ouros. I think the SC1 Tassadar is real and definitely sacrificed himself. Ouros, just like Amon, doesn't have a host body outside of the Void. He could only manipulate events through the Void and the Khala. Back in WoL, many people complained about how dumb Tassadar's ghost is when he appeared at the Overmind's corpse. I thinks this revelation saved it and retroactively makes WoL better.
Is Narud really a Xel'naga ? He is the only one who had a physical host outside the Void. When the host is killed, he goes back to the Void. If the is powerful enough to imprison Ouros, wouldn't his physical form be strong enough to wage wars for Amon. Why bother with the manipulation and creation of Hybrids through the Terran? He described himself as a servant of a far greater power, which means his powers must not be that great. Based on his depiction in the Void, I think he was just a being of a race pre-acension (might have been Amon's race) that Amon wanted to recruit and bring to the Void with him.
I just activated the Spear of Adun and I've got to say, they've nailed the feeling of protoss down. Gateway can store up to 3 charges, dropping immediate pylon anywhere within vision. Warping happen almost instantly...
As a result, you can drop forward pylon anywhere you want without the clunky probe, massive warpin reinforcement anywhere you want immediately. I'm really excited for more OP-as-shit abilities the Spear of Adun can bring to battle.
Counting the prologue, LotV's length sounds fair compared to others.
I think you miscounted, there's only 19 main mission (3x5 + 2 + 2). There's an achievement for completing all 19 main mission. I might have miscounted the epilogue as well.
That gives us 3 prologue + 19 main + 3 epilogue = 25 missions.
Just hope for shit, then you will get pleasantly surprised. Unfortunately for me, the hype from all the awesome short stories + the Reclamation animation will be too high of an expectation.
Also since we're posting leaked stuff, the soundtrack is here
Haven't watched anything, just a quick summary from Achievements:
19 main, + 2 Epilogue = 21 mission
WoL had 25 main + 3 Zeratul = 28 mission
HotS had 20 main + 7 evolution = 27 mission
I hope that they removed all filler missions this time. Otherwise, it doesnt look good. I'm not sure how they will manage to close the entire "epic" story with just 20-ish mission and 10-ish cutscenes. I'll still reserve my judgement until I completed it.
Those were terrible. Then again blizz is never clear with their criteria anyway. Humor is a large factor when deciding something for a very large demographics
The only thing I actually care is 'Is HotS a public mod or not'.
Could we create custom maps based on HotS? I think this is the most important question for the map making scene.
There are question during QA and Interview talk about this. They said that users can create their own Battleground (maps) that can be played. Even though there are certains things users cannot make right now (The pirate ships for example). User created contents is a big part of making this game happen and they want to help support it in this game. There are no mentions of links between HotS and SC2. Everything they tried to show it being a standalone game even though what they showed heavily hinted the game running on the SC2 engine.
Here's my guess based on the whole situation. There will be a modified editor made specifically for HotS that will be otherwise identical to sc2's editor. The main functionality will be limited to terraining and inserting certain standardized waypoint/spawn point and units etc... Triggering will be limitied. The game client will be standalone but is the sc2 engine.
We're all hoping that everything links together to make storm a mod of sc2. That's the best case scenario but I highly doubt it. Everything is just a plan right now and the game is still in a very early stages.
It could still happen if they plan some major change to the arcade that support standalone mod in the future. One can hope :)
0
I'm sorry I had to reply to this, but you are dividing it the wrong way, its 40/22 = 1.81 dollars per mission. Compared to the Nova full packs, which is 15 bucks for 9 misison, which is $1.66 per mission, cheaper than LoTV (than again, had a multiplayer mode, 3 co-op commanders). Of course, bigger pack purchase should provide more value obviously. I'm sure Blizz had done the market research on this.
For my opinion, I'm perfectly fine with they charging for heroes, as long as the maps are free (who would be stupid enough to charge for maps ? Oh right, the marketplace arcade, their next plan). Heroes hold sentimental reasons for players who loved them in the campaign. Karax is kinda terrible at first, but as I leveled him, he grows on me as I understood his playstyle better. He's no broken omnislash Vorazun, but he's perfectly capable of beating Brutal, and that's fine for me or anyone who loved his playstyle. We played the mode for fun, not to faceroll Brutal 250 times in a row and call it quit.
For future heroes, they should do a better job marketing them, showing the player what their playstyle are designed to be. Ability description and a 10s videos can't do that.
I was just hoping their next Terran commander will be free for WoL owner and similarly for HotS but I guess it probably won't happen. LoTV edition is the ultimate version they wanted to push.
0
Once again, hooray for the featured little probe.
0
Just in case anyone who didn't have the Collector's edition and still wanted to check out these videos, I've uploaded them all on my channel here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsfS5NNFGJ-lKna9Ead5wQ26KIl1kAvkm
For a refresher, here's the behind the scenes for HotS and WoL (not my channel):
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL47BF2941CBDA6EAC
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsfS5NNFGJ-lJ2DGWi48Kr5k47JM-raZl
0
Here it is, the legendary soundtrack you have all acustomed with. Unfortunately it was performed before anyone got a chance to hear it ingame so there wasn't much hype around it. Enjoy these amazing performances.
01. The Stars Our Home
21. My Life For Aiur
And the full sounds panel here for anyone interested:
0
@Gradius12: Go
I wished Blizzard would abandon the branching storyline altogether. While it seems cool to have character shows up and interact in non-determined order, it weaken the main narratives. Everything becomes, 3 mission linearly introducing the situation, 15-ish mission going around gathering power (money/essence/factions), and a last 3 mission final showdown. The predictable structure prevent any cool twists or revelation in the other stages. For example, in LotV, the Zeratul twist, happen in mission 2, then a bunch of gathering forces misisons, then it all wrap back to Ulnar for the 2nd twist, then gathering some more forces, then do a final predictable battle with Amon.
0
Your post somehow fleshed out the backstory for Amon way better than the game did. Guess we should learn to never expect game to be a medium to convey coherent and fleshed out stories. Your idea also highlighted the importance of Zeratul and Tassadar's sacrifice. Yet Duran, knowing these events as well as Kerrigan's creation, still carried out the plan laid out millenium ago without any changes.
Maybe with the Xel'naga, a millenium isn't such a long time for them, so there isn't any sign of impatient yet.
0
You can append sort by date by appending this option to the link (&sort=-last-post). The sort button on that page is bugged with date descending. All other options works fine.
Example: http://www.sc2mapster.com/forums/?scope=tree&search=Progammer&sort=-last-post
You can also google search targetting this site.
0
@ImperialGood: Go
Thanks for the lengthy explanation about Amon. There's a bit of it here and there between the ulnar missions, Rohana's dialogue concerning Amon as well as what he actually said in the Void. I have to admit I heard them all but couldn't make a cohesive connection between.
Though I think there's 1 part missing. Amon didn't destroy the Xel naga by himself. After he binded the Overmind to the Zerg, he launched the swarm to chase after the Xel naga worldship and kill all of them (Starcraft 1). Though this might have been retcon'ed since they can't all be outside the void in some kind of spaceship unless Amon bring the swarm to the void with him.
The theme of space gods and repeating life cycle is already used several times before but I got to wonder, which kind of previous life cycle looks like in Starcraft ? Are they on a other sectors? separate galaxy?, or an alternate universe all conneted to each other through the void ? When a cycle is completed, what happened with the rest of the essence form race? Do all of them turn into Xel'naga (1 Xel'naga per cycle cant be enough) or become exterminated? Where does human comes from? Are we created by Xel'naga or a product of natural evolution?
Just wanted to add a personal theory regarding Ouros. I think the SC1 Tassadar is real and definitely sacrificed himself. Ouros, just like Amon, doesn't have a host body outside of the Void. He could only manipulate events through the Void and the Khala. Back in WoL, many people complained about how dumb Tassadar's ghost is when he appeared at the Overmind's corpse. I thinks this revelation saved it and retroactively makes WoL better.
Is Narud really a Xel'naga ? He is the only one who had a physical host outside the Void. When the host is killed, he goes back to the Void. If the is powerful enough to imprison Ouros, wouldn't his physical form be strong enough to wage wars for Amon. Why bother with the manipulation and creation of Hybrids through the Terran? He described himself as a servant of a far greater power, which means his powers must not be that great. Based on his depiction in the Void, I think he was just a being of a race pre-acension (might have been Amon's race) that Amon wanted to recruit and bring to the Void with him.
0
I just activated the Spear of Adun and I've got to say, they've nailed the feeling of protoss down. Gateway can store up to 3 charges, dropping immediate pylon anywhere within vision. Warping happen almost instantly...
As a result, you can drop forward pylon anywhere you want without the clunky probe, massive warpin reinforcement anywhere you want immediately. I'm really excited for more OP-as-shit abilities the Spear of Adun can bring to battle.
0
Check again, 2 + 2 = 4. Your final count must be a multiple of 3 plus 1, hence 19
0
@Zarxiel93: Go
Counting the prologue, LotV's length sounds fair compared to others.
I think you miscounted, there's only 19 main mission (3x5 + 2 + 2). There's an achievement for completing all 19 main mission. I might have miscounted the epilogue as well.
That gives us 3 prologue + 19 main + 3 epilogue = 25 missions.
@Mozared: Go
Just hope for shit, then you will get pleasantly surprised. Unfortunately for me, the hype from all the awesome short stories + the Reclamation animation will be too high of an expectation.
Also since we're posting leaked stuff, the soundtrack is here
https:www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHQ-LPb0okke7H4WS-UEeA14rS6-1Z6c6
0
Haven't watched anything, just a quick summary from Achievements:
19 main, + 2 Epilogue = 21 mission
WoL had 25 main + 3 Zeratul = 28 mission
HotS had 20 main + 7 evolution = 27 mission
I hope that they removed all filler missions this time. Otherwise, it doesnt look good. I'm not sure how they will manage to close the entire "epic" story with just 20-ish mission and 10-ish cutscenes. I'll still reserve my judgement until I completed it.
0
Those were terrible. Then again blizz is never clear with their criteria anyway. Humor is a large factor when deciding something for a very large demographics
0
There are question during QA and Interview talk about this. They said that users can create their own Battleground (maps) that can be played. Even though there are certains things users cannot make right now (The pirate ships for example). User created contents is a big part of making this game happen and they want to help support it in this game. There are no mentions of links between HotS and SC2. Everything they tried to show it being a standalone game even though what they showed heavily hinted the game running on the SC2 engine.
Here's my guess based on the whole situation. There will be a modified editor made specifically for HotS that will be otherwise identical to sc2's editor. The main functionality will be limited to terraining and inserting certain standardized waypoint/spawn point and units etc... Triggering will be limitied. The game client will be standalone but is the sc2 engine.
We're all hoping that everything links together to make storm a mod of sc2. That's the best case scenario but I highly doubt it. Everything is just a plan right now and the game is still in a very early stages.
It could still happen if they plan some major change to the arcade that support standalone mod in the future. One can hope :)
0
Got an album and quite a few videos from the Deep Dive panels.
I won't be making videos for the Live Match due to its duration. Feel free to post them here if you found them somewhere else.