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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   3051 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for May 1, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Oh, are we ranting about Starcraft? Let me pour out a drink and ante up.

I don't remember StarCraft 1 being remotely that obnoxious and one note. Oh well.

Starcraft 1 had it in a much older style, that hews closer to "White guy gets accepted into alien culture" tropes. Think The Last Samurai, or every rip-off of The Last of the Mohicans. Once you get past the first Terran campaign, Raynor is estranged from Mengsk, so the story keeps him around by just letting him tag along with the Protoss.

"Greetings. We are the Firstborn, the sons of Aiur, the Protoss. Our people are advanced far beyond your ken, both technically and psychically. We have come to do battle with the greatest forces of darkness, wielding our eldritch might in the most ancient of our sacred warrior traditions.

Also, we brought our friend Jim. He is a kind of monkey-thing, militia, motorcycle-cop. We gave him a battlecruiser; it's hilarious."

SC1 is a lot funnier if you interpret Jim as the Protoss' version of Boblin the Goblin.

But yes, the plot for SC2 is fucking stupid all around. They can't alienate any players, so all three factions have to have Good Guys, though they all splinter so much that there's someone for everyone.

I forget which mission it was that finally broke me and caused me to switch to normal, but it was some defense mission where your allies start off covering your east, west and south entrances, and you get repeatedly hammered from all three directions.

My general love for Starcraft is matched and mirrored by my burning hatred for the damned defense missions. Why the actual fuck did that team think static defense missions were the best way to cap almost every campaign? And the LotV one was just actually offensive. You spend the whole campaign building up and unlocking Solarite powers, and then they take them all away for the final mission?! One of my angriest video game experiences.

Difficulty-wise, "hard" feels like the correct choice for all of them. Normal for the horrendous defense ones that feel terrible to try at.

You and I could probably discuss this for days. My friends and I were huge into SC1 and Battle.net back in the day.

Raynor always served his role well as the go-between of sorts between the different races as well as the Terran factions. The campaign story was a lot more extensive than a lot of the competitive players originally realized, and in multiplayer especially, SC1 reproved its replay value for years and years up until SC2 came out (which I was disappointed by, even in the SK professional circuit; and I used to watch Tasteless and Artosis commentary in the Code S bracket a lot).

After the first chapter of SC2, I let the story drop off for me after that, not being too satisfied with the direction of things they went. That said, did they ever finish the chapter or cliffhanger with Lieutenant Duran and his experiments he was conducting across the stars?

You and I could probably discuss this for days. My friends and I were huge into SC1 and Battle.net back in the day.

Same. Many, many late nights doing 3v3 and 4v4 on group calls with the boys.

That said, did they ever finish the chapter or cliffhanger with Lieutenant Duran and his experiments he was conducting across the stars?

Yeah, Duran shows back up in Heart of the Swarm as "Dr. Narud", and after Kerrigan's heel-face-turn he takes over as a Zerg villain personality. He was doing the Big Bad's work fusing zerg and protoss into the hybrid, which are very powerful elite enemy units that show up increasingly often as HotS and Legacy of the Void progress. Duran himself is slowly revealed to be a sort of high level eldritch horror. HotS does a lot to humanize the zerg, with actual characters that have personalities. Alexi Stukov is revealed to still be alive, if zerg-infested, and he takes the role of "human friendly zerg guy". He gives some missions to finish Duran/Narud to satisfy his vengeance after what Duran did to him and the UED at the end of Brood War.

I will say that a lot of the missions are very fun, with good replayability.

Why the actual fuck did that team think static defense missions were the best way to cap almost every campaign?

As a turtler who's terrible at RTS games because I'm horribly sloe to expand, I love me a good defense mission. But I'm hardly the modal player, and SC sure as hell shouldn't be catering to me.

I was always a turtling / defensive player by default, especially in the FMP maps that made it easy to macro. In all my private matches we’d orchestrate, my peers hated playing my ass because they said I played “boring.” Well yeah… When you play competitive, you play to win. If you’re looking for something casual, stick to playing in public channels with randos.

Back when we played the private ladders like Vile Gaming Tour (VGT) and StarCraftDream (SCD), things were serious and we all wanted to see the “best” players in bo3’s, bo5’s or bo7’s who could put on a fascinating show, along with all the shittalking that ensured from everyone complaining that “so-and-so plays like a faggot!,” and calling each other noobs and retards. I swear it was the teenage immaturity that kept the game alive longer than it otherwise would have, but it was great.

I would say that every strategy game should certainly have defense missions (though not necessarily as the climax), so you should get catered to in that sense. Both defense and attack are part of the strategy game experience.

Fire Emblem players know that a good enemy phase team is a thing of beauty. Just sit back and watch as the enemy breaks itself upon your swole waifus and husbandos.

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