Legacy of the Confederation III - FAQ
Legacy of the Confederation (LotC)
A Campaign for StarCraft 2
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- What is this Campaign? -
Imagine what would happen if the Zerg invaded earth toward the end of the 22nd century? Imagine how angry humankind would be once they overcame their attackers. Imagine a universe in which earth has set forth a resolve to exterminate every last Zerg in the cosmos. That is The Legacy of the Confederation (LotC) Campaign. A series of playable missions connected by an 'Alternate Reality' storyline which is set within Blizzard Entertainment's Upcoming StarCraft 2 video game universe. The campaign will be a complete reimagining of the LotC campaigns released for StarCraft and StarCraft: BroodWar between the years 1999 and 2001.
-What About the Blizzard Storyline Changed?-
The UED (United Earth Directorate) does not exist because the Zerg attacked earth before the UED's formation. In the ensuing generations, humanity's evolution on earth and that of its government goes along a different path than in true StarCraft canon. In place of the totalitarian UED is the highly militant but democratic 'Confederation,' a coalition of earth and her planetary colonies which are connected by a single united vision...the extermination of all Zerg, everywhere. Due to this change, Admiral Gerard DuGalle and Vice-Admiral Alexie Stukov do not exist in the LotC universe nor does any other aspect of the UED.
- What Is the Confederation? -
The Confederation is comprised of earth and her eighteen colonies. Following the Zerg invasion of earth in the late 22nd century, humanity vowed never to allow anything to threaten its borders again. The Confederation (or ConFed) was born to fulfill this vow. With a massive military focus, ConFed used its industrial might to produce thousands of battleships, build orbital battle platforms, develop advanced particle beam and biological weapon systems, and recruit tens of millions of soldiers into its standing volunteer marine corps and navy (aggregated under the United Military Command (UMC))
Colonies were independently governed but did pay taxes and engaged in regular commerce with earth in exchange for the security of a military garrison. Much like states in the "Confederate States of America" during the Civil War, colonies of the Confederation were self-sufficient and extremely supportive of colonial rights. One compromise in this regard revolved around military uniforms. Confederation colonies each elected to pay for and/or produce the military uniforms for their citizens. This created a wide range of style differences within the UMC. For example, one colony had a black uniform, another dark blue, another light blue. Ties on the dress uniforms for women could be different. Offsetting these differences were the rank pins, epaulettes, medals, division pins and patches which were the same for all colonies and earth as well as non-dress fatigues and battlefield gear which, to prevent confusion on the battlefield, were standardized.
- Will there be Graphic Extras? -
LotC will have full rendered movies (at least '2')
It is expected between 25-30 new portraits unique to LotC will be added for the main characters
It is expected 3 new units will be introduced ('1' for each race)
- When Did Production Start?-
Production for LotC began 12/9/07 and has been worked on off and on since that time (with the biggest hiatus' from 1/1/08 to 6/30/08 and 1/1/09 to 6/30/09). This project has been divided into two phases. The first phase is storyboarding, scripting the teleplay, obtaining voice recordings and completing post-production editing thereof, sound effects creation, musical composition/selection, and completing all possible pre-rendered graphics prior to the release of StarCraft 2. The remaining work (map and trigger creation; in-game graphics) will be all that remains following release of the game, cutting down the timeframe required for LotC to be released following retail distribution of StarCraft 2.
Voice recordings are typically among the last things to be done for games but due to the size of the LotC script, we have elected to complete it in the early stages of production.
-What Are Some Production Stats?-
The script is 796 pages and is estimated to yield over 13 hours worth of spoken dialogue during the campaign. That's the equivalent of five to six feature-length movies at the theaters. Many professional voice actors have been solicited to take part in the project in addition to participants from the StarCraft community.
The campaign will boast completely new music for every mission which will be created specifically for the missions on a custom basis or which will be licensed by the composer for synchronization use within the campaign.
There will be 35 missions (or maps) and an epilogue, although many maps have multiple storylines occurring which may require the missions to further be broken out if the 256x256 limit of the SC2 landscape prevents all aspects of a planned mission from occurring on the maps.
The campaign will boast hundreds of new sound effects, particularly for Confederation units in-game.
There are over forty major and supporting characters with speaking roles including over ten Protoss characters and five Zerg characters.
Thus far in development, over 5,000 voice samples have been recorded and edited with about 40% to go.
-Who Is on the Production Team?-
The Oracle (developer of the original LotC series for StarCraft and Broodwar)
- Map development, Script, Story, Voices, Sound Editing, Team Leader
Laconius (developer of the Vile Egression campaign for StarCraft and Broodwar)
- Voices, Sound Editing, Graphics Integration, Data Table Modification, Beta Testing
Tractor Media (developers of the 'First Contact' FMV for StarCraft Legacy)
- Creation of FMV's, Portraits, and New In-Game Unit Sprites
Voice Cast (approximately 30 actors will be featured throughout the campaign)
-Will In-Game Cinematics Be Used with Blizzard's New Engine?-
It's too soon to tell. Initial review puts the in-game engine out of reach of the player made campaigns due to evidence of motion capture and lip-syncing for the characters seen thus far. It's likely in-game cut-scenes will be within actual game-play and not the in-game cinematic engine. This is ultimately subject to change depending on what tools Blizzard releases with its editor.
-What is the Release Schedule-
It is expected that the first two missions of episode 1 will be released within 3 months of SC2's release followed by one additional mission each week until the episode is complete. Then one month later, the first two missions of episode 2 will be released and so forth until all missions are available. Currently the first releases are slated for 1st quarter 2011 as Blizzard has slated SC2 to be released in the second half of 2010 per Activision's latest press release in this regard.
-What is the Cost?-
It is against Blizzard's End-User License Agreement (EULA) for the team to charge anything for the campaign and it is also against the EULA for any third party to receive compensation for distribution of LotC so in a nutshell, LotC will be 100% FREE! Hopefully it will be a good tide-over for players between installments of the StarCraft 2 Trilogy.
Campaign Creations
