Creative Development Q&A 5

[Kimera757]

Here you go: http://us.battle.net//sc2/en/blog/7778772

Questions addressed:

*Battlecruiser shields.
*Colossi, and why they weren't used on Aiur.
*The Queen of Blades' depression.
*The UED, and why they haven't come back.
*Some weird question about the Overmind.
*Kel-Morian ghosts (and why we haven't seen them)
*Umojan/protoss diplomacy
*Why wasn't the Brood War mentioned much in Wings of Liberty, even in the installer

[Visions of Khas]

Wow. Wow. I've been pretty accepting of the As so far, but this one is just stupid. On the Colosi:

Resurrecting the colossi would have been far too slow a process. They simply wouldn't have gotten online in time to make a difference.

Zeratul literally waved a hand and summoned, like, three on Aiur.

I would have accepted, "The Colossi of old have dimmed in the minds of Protoss, and those individuals old enough -- and those vested with the knowledge of their very existence -- were too few and too scattered to effectively begin recommissioning the ancient dreadnoughts of destruction."


Or something like that.

[Gradius]

Liked the question about the Umojan Protectorate & BC shields, wanted to know those answers for a long time.

Zeratul literally waved a hand and summoned, like, three on Aiur.

Indeed. Doesn't answer the question of why there are any left when Zeratul gets there in the first place.

And remember, although she possessed a great deal more independence than the Overmind, she was still full of Zerg mutagen, which means she was at the very least influenced by the will of the Dark Voice.

Well this confirms how utterly convoluted the Overmind's plan was. He was counting on Kerrigan to get deinfested. He literally foresaw the Wings of Liberty storyline.

And the explanation for that is we're like a dayfly and the Overmind is just more knowledgeable. Who honestly buys that?

we learn that the Xel'naga created the Zerg in an attempt to make a creature that was pure not in form (like their "failed experiment," the Protoss) but in function.

Function? That's what purity of essence is?

I will say that this is another area where we made a mistake. The installer for Wings of Liberty plays a recap, and many have noted that it doesn't really cover Brood War. Our mistake here was not conveying the intent of this installer recap. It was NOT intended for anyone who frequents these forums. We honestly thought that you, the lore community, would say, “Oh, I know everything they're going to say," and go off to get a snack or something while the game installed. The installer was intended for those who were new to the StarCraft franchise or had played StarCraft/Brood War 12 years earlier and barely remembered them. So the recap was covering only the most basic things one needed to know to follow the story. Why mention the UED when you don't see much of them in Wings?

That's fair. Then again I never had a problem with the installer text ignoring BW, but the WoL story itself. :P

[DemolitionSquid]

Wow, they're really pumping these Q&A's out like the Republican party's legitimate rape babies.

[Visions of Khas]

Wow, they're really pumping these Q&A's out like the Republican partie's legitimate rape babies.

And here I thought they'd keep that shut down.

[Hawki]

So, looking over the questions:

-Energy shielding: We've known about that since Uprising. It's unnecessary convolution.

-Colossi: Or they were confident they didn't need them? I mean, it's a valid question, but the answer is a bit iffy.

-Kerrigan: Didn't she show a fatalistic streak during (the end) of Brood War? Huh. Must just be me.

-UED: That question was answered ages ago.

-Xel'naga: Another question based on supposition. We don't know whether the Dark Voice is with the xel'naga proper or not.

-KMC: Yet can apparently rebuild their army too...

-Umoja: Fair enough.

So, these questions...ugh. They say there's no such thing as a stupid question, but sometimes I wonder. And Kindragen seems just as intent on evading questions than actually providing answers at times. And I thought the last Q&A was disapointing.

[The_Blade]

IIRC: The clossi were the only true protoss warcraft. Everything in their design was ment for warfare. The Protoss didn't believe the colossus' existance was justified only to wage war. The Colossi were then shutdown and placed inside an underwater vault. Under the anti-zerg protocol of the Great War, Protoss ground forces were barely used. I guess the Conclave also underestimated the Zerg back then.

I would then go for:
-Colossi were used, but in reduced numbers. They were destroyed within hours, just like most places in Aiur.
-Not all the colossi were operational during the attack. Some of them awakened, but never made it into the surface. The beacon's signal died and the colossus halted their advance.
-Knowledge on the Colossi was reduced due to the polemic idiology they stand for.

[Quirel]

I thought that they were sealed in asteroids?

My thinking is that it took time to reach the asteroids and get them uploaded and ready to warp into Auir. The Protoss High Command (Whatever name they have for themselves) placed an order for them to be warped in as soon as they were ready.

Of course, the High Command was wiped out or rendered incommunicable before certain robotics bays were, which means that when the Collosi arrived, there was nobody to give them orders.

[Turalyon]

I'm still looking for a question regarding the Tal'Darim. Like, how come they are so poorly realised in WoL when they are (supposedly) fleshed out in the EU? We know next to nothing about them in the game despite facing them several times throughout WoL. To a total SC neophyte, the Tal'Darim come across as a totally generic opponent who happen to be Protoss just for the sake of having to fight Protoss.

A lead-on question regarding this issue (and more about the creative development/process in general) would be whether they think WoL panders more successfully to the SC newb or the old fan and (especially if the WoL devs think it's neither or both) whether both can be done effectively using WoL as an example?

So, these questions...ugh. They say there's no such thing as a stupid question, but sometimes I wonder. And Kindragen seems just as intent on evading questions than actually providing answers at times. And I thought the last Q&A was disapointing.

There, there Hawki. You should content yourself that you already seem to know the answers to these inane questions before Blizz answers them and just ignore all the Q&As from now on.

Seriously though, I get where you're coming from. As I said before, there's nothing really "new" in these answers that one couldn't have just arse-pulled themselves. I don't know what's worse, having to justify it in your own mind by arse-pulling (as WoL forces you to do) or having the devs outright confirming such arse-pulls as being legitimate when there is no framework for this exact justification given what we've been presented with in the game.

[topsecret221]

I'm still waiting on why preservers are now equated to mystics instead of being living preservers of protoss culture, history, and knowledge; ala Dark Templar Saga.

That, and why three of them were on the same planet. I suppose they could have been captured and brought there, but Zeratul had already said that all of them were on Zak'hul long before he knew a hybrid was using them as a power source (second question: how was it doing that?).