First! Now let's talk spoilers (SC2)!

[Xelxiuz]

@Xelxiuz: I saw that panel and looked it up. I cannot find anything in the etymology of the word cockroach or just 'roach' by itself that has anything to do with resilience, armor, or toughness. Please see here:


Cockroach
Etymology folk etymology, influenced by cock and roach, from Spanish cucaracha, 'woodlouse', from cuco 'caterpillar'.

Please understand, if Roach found its way in from LotC, I have no irritation on it. Again, the core LotC plotlines are based in Blizzard's universe after all and many locations and characters are used. I just find it interesting.

@Maglok: SC2 has taken a very wide arc in its story. It doesn't surprise me in the least.

I'm pretty sure some of you have heard that cockroaches can survive a nuclear winter or some crap fact or not. Stuff like that is most likely what influences the meaning of the word more than say, a wikipedia entry.

[The Oracle]

Okay okay, fair enough. Tell me this then. Do you think it's completely outside the realm of possibility that with many other similarities as well as the Oracle similarity, that somewhere in Blizz, the term 'Roach' was latched onto as a result of someone playing LotC? After all, Zerg are called 'Roaches' all through that campaign. Just curious.

[Krazy]

I don't know man, considering Starship Troopers enemy is "bugs" and in the films many are clearly designed to look like cockroaches, I think they're probably pulling it more from that route.

[Alevice]

I don't know why Oracle gets so sensitive about the fact that Blizz might have not been inspired by his work. No one is discarding the possibility, just stating the facts that calling bug-like entities "roaches" is rather common actually. Same for the ancient evil device.

[mAc Chaos]

I never thought there was a relation at all. Zerg are likened to insects and bugs. A roach is a kind of bug and a notoriously hard to kill one at that. That's as deep as it goes.

It's a funny coincidence though.

[Thalraxal]

Yeah, I figured The Oracle and Blizzard just both drew on that same "Zerg are like giant insects!" connection. It's an easy connection to make. Otherwise I blame Starship Troopers.

[Alevice]

Seriously, zerg are just giant insects - swarms, hives, larvae, antennae, etc. All we are lacking is a mosquitolisk

[Meta]

Blizzard and LotC just drank from the same source (Starship Troopers). It's a coincidence, correlation... not a direct consequence. The second map of The Flame Knives - a small dungeon crawler - is inspired by the Metroid series and looks very similar to SC2's nydus infiltration map, but Blizzard, in all likelihood, just draw inspiration from the same place I drew.

Likewise I could blame them from stealing gameplay from several of my maps, like the first Zeratul mission, pretty much any of the several defense segments and boss battles.

And the fact that their maps are actually difficult now.

[Krazy]

....looks very similar to SC2's nydus infiltration map, but Blizzard, in all likelihood, just draw inspiration from the same place I drew.

Likewise I could blame them from stealing gameplay from several of my maps, like the first Zeratul mission, pretty much any of the several defense segments and boss battles.

And the fact that their maps are actually difficult now.

Pssh, Flame Knives is still much more difficult than SC2 even on Brutal for most missions. I'm cruising through the first dozen or so missions on my Brutal run in ways I couldn't cruise through 5 minutes of TFK.

[Rocco]

Duran and Dr. Narud have a really, really similar goatee, mustache, whatever facial hair bullshit thing going on.

[IskatuMesk]

No. And I'm certainly not playing the campaign on a cracked copy of the game. That would be illegal.

loooolololo come on dude everyone tries to pull the whole white knight thing and we all know what u r thinkin ^_____________________^


I think people are just too accustomed to settling for less. It disappointments me greatly that people will just suck up whatever they're handed and be content with it without question. I would not shed a tear if Blizzard just died and vanished.

Sc2 is just a big string of butchered tropes and cliches with voice acting that gives me migraines sprinkled on decent mission design in a non-linear clusterfuck that leaves you empty and lacking of substance. For 90% of the campaign you are just chasing around mundane bullshit without a care in the world using the most basic and primitive of dialogue seen in gaming since the 80's, and even then I can think of Roguelikes decimating this game's sense of immersion through text in a single pass. There's nothing to praise here, just content that incites various pressure facepalms. Perhaps in rhymes, like a rap. Maybe that was Blizzard's intentions all along, upon which case I have to applaud their genius. If their goal was to see how shitty of a story they could make and see if people would still suck it up just because they're Blizzard, they've gone above and beyond the call of duty to achieve amazing results.

[Krazy]

No. And I'm certainly not playing the campaign on a cracked copy of the game. That would be illegal.

I think people are just too accustomed to settling for less. It disappointments me greatly that people will just suck up whatever they're handed and be content with it without question. I would not shed a tear if Blizzard just died and vanished.

Mesk, I think you're just asking too much of the game. You're coming at it with too great of expectations.

Starcraft 2 is better than Starcraft 1. The character development and story isn't as strong, but *everything else* is like 100x better. I know there are a lot of disappointments, but it's still better than 90% of the video games out there. The singleplayer alone just has simply so much more replayability than most games I know.

Could it be better? Absolutely. But room for improvement is not a sign of failure.

In the months leading up to SC2, I was becoming increasingly convinced that I might very likely continue playing Brood Wars even after SC2 came out. However, now that I've beaten the campaign on normal and am 3/4ths of the way through my Brutal run, it's becoming clear to me that I'm never going to have a reason to go back to Brood Wars.

I'm curious, did you play through the game first on normal or hard before your brutal run?

[IskatuMesk]

So you're telling me that you like sc2's voice acting and sound editing over sc1?

I don't believe that for one second.

I'm playing through my first time on brutal.

All I want out of my games is for the developers to not slack off and put their money into something else besides just CGI production.

[Krazy]

So you're telling me that you like sc2's voice acting and sound editing over sc1?

I don't believe that for one second.

I'm playing through my first time on brutal.

All I want out of my games is for the developers to not slack off and put their money into something else besides just CGI production.

Voice acting actually was much worse than in Sc1 too, especially the terran doctor woman. But after the first playthrough, I just skip most of the cutscenes anyway so that is less in my mind right now.

I think going through on Brutal the first time might make it more frustrating than fun, I really think Brutal is meant to be something you do on a second or third playthrough.

[Mr.]

So you're telling me that you like sc2's voice acting and sound editing over sc1?

I don't believe that for one second.

I'm playing through my first time on brutal.

All I want out of my games is for the developers to not slack off and put their money into something else besides just CGI production.

I, for one, don't actually care about how bad the voice acting was. Yeah, Zeratul sounds retarded, we get it. But why would that make me hate the entire game?

I didn't have the highest expectations for the story, and even then, I was let down by the ending. But you know what? I HAD FUN PLAYING THE GAME. Along with lots of other people. Deal with it.



Also, Brutal wasn't that frustrating. Granted, I did play it on brutal my second time through, after playing it on hard, and I wasn't trying to get 100% on each map (I would totally cheat and go back on casual to complete secondary objectives). But still, most of the maps, I beat on my first try. The thing that gave me the most trouble was surviving for the last 30 seconds of the final level. For Mesk's skill level, it's probably appropriate.