Imagist

So I wrote a huge post talking about how the articles used phrases like "gamers could think of the games" as expansion packs, and "they will be like" or "effectively" expansion packs, which made it seem as though they weren't really. I also showed how each and every one of these articles posted has been contradictory in some minor detail or another, and said that I would wait for some kind of press release from Blizzard before getting too worked up about them. Then I went looking for said press release and saw that the official FAQ at http://www.starcraft2.com/faq.xml has been updated with a whole new section headlined "Trilogy." Fuck, guys. This whole thing really does seem like a dick move, now. Because basically, if you want to play the Protoss or Zerg campaigns, you are being raped by the cost of the Terran game.

Those are the first two articles I read on the subject (before IGN's or Kotaku's were even published), so I don't know where you're getting this "everyone but IGN says expansions" bit, Darke. They are talking the expansion line to appetize the sort of people who would think "OMG they are just making me pay full price for each 1/3rd of the same game!" But considering they are also stressing that multiplayer will come standard with each game, meaning you can pick up any one of the three and play with other folks online rather than having to have one "core" copy of the game and then additional expanded versions on top of that, I think it is pretty clear that the key phrase here is that Zerg and Protoss campaigns "will be like expansion packs." EDIT: Also, IGN's article is short on details? And instead you referred to Kotaku's? Maybe we are not reading the same two articles, dude, because that is pretty backward.

Check the last couple pages of this thread. Supposedly there's a new way that you only need an SD card for, and I'm pretty sure the info was posted here recently.

it baffles me that URRRHHGHGHG WHY DO YOU STILL COME ROUND THESE PARTS

Headbanger is so easy to do on Wily's stages. Pretty much none of the first three stages should give you trouble, and you just pop a guard power-up thingie on the final stage to simplify that one.

So I am pretty terrible at being a writer right now! But it's okay, I've got other things to take care of. I'll always be able to write (I hope...) later in life. So, anyway, submission is closed! And has been for several hours. Here's a list of the entries, which I will be compiling at the beginning of the thread shortly: Persistence of Memory by TheHands Revelations by Darklink42 The Night's Apprentice by Opterion The Golden Zither by ubernym Classified Glow by just64helpin At Last, Atlantis by ZeaLitY How to Fail at Practicing Good Kendo by GA Jedi Knight All in all a reasonable turn out for the short story competition. So, get to voting! You have two weeks.

I think an important thing to note here is that they didn't initially plan to do the game this way, but in development their ideas grew so "epic" (for lack of a better word) that they felt the only way to do the campaigns properly was to split them up. This is not dissimilar from Valve splitting "Half-Life 3" (or what was supposed to be Half-Life 3) into episodic content; the idea is to keep giving the fans something to do, without having to wait for such games' (not to mention Blizzard's) traditionally long development cycles to complete before releasing anything for the game. As one of those articles quoted them saying, it was either do this so that they could keep their promises to release "Starcraft 2" (or at least part of it) in 2009, let the game spend years in development hell, or release a significantly truncated version that wouldn't do the game (or the long wait for it) justice. That said, we will see if the products they release actually do justify this move, not to mention whatever price point they decide to release it at. At least you can reasonably hope they won't pull a Valve and only release each campaign as a bundle with previous campaigns and other miscellaneous software.

Each game is not an expansion. The Blues said to think of them like expansions, in that they each bring something new to the core gameplay on which they all focus, but they are all still standalone games. Kotaku simply added its own interpretation to that.

Well, at least we know multiplayer ships complete with each campaign: http://uk.pc.gamespy.com/pc/starcraft-2/918896p1.html\ EDIT: Also, campaigns have gameplay differences beyond which race you are, according to http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/55267 :

All right guys, two days left for us late folk to submit. That means you, GA Jedi Knight! And you, Imagery! Er, wait...

Um, yeah, the OST is also available for purchase: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockman_9_Original_Soundtrack#Audio

Okay, guys. This version is down to 2,499 words: At Last, Atlantis v2.0

GAJK, you've got my view on the matter pretty solidly. Zeality was aware of the word limit and his excess when he sent it to me. I assumed he had done his part in revising his story and found that its current state was its best. And since it was a difference of so few words (well, you say 60, 47, my lazy Microsoft Word count says 35 without title/signature), at most 2% or so of the total, I wasn't going to reject it. Maybe if he was pushing 100 (I know we have accepted one or two slightly over the limit, but I don't think by over 100; I could be mistaken), which is enough to be a story all on its own, I might have held off until he brought it down. Of course, I don't really have the final say. I do like to defer to you guys as the voting public whenever I can. If you guys would like to see him edit it, that can probably be done. And it may be for the better, as if we start accepting a certain amount of excess, then who's to say future entrants won't try to push the boundary further and further until we might as well not have the rules any more? So if anyone else shares ubernym's view, I can easily request that he try to trim it down. Just let me know.

You could probably cut the last 30 seconds of you apologizing/whatever, but a pretty good video anyway. Proto Man is... interesting. So far I can do without the charge shot (as we've all been doing for two weeks), and the shield is actually more trouble to use effectively than it's worth.

I just received an entry from ZeaLitY. Believe it or not, even without formatting the title/writing credit, the whole entry came to a whopping 14 characters too large for a forum post. So, since I received it via Gmail, I just decided to publish it as a Google Doc for everyone to read: At Last, Atlantis. A Glimpse of Fulfillment by ZeaLitY (Click on the title/writing credit to access it. Also, please let me know if you can access it, because I'm not entirely sure I did the whole Google Docs thing correctly.)

Man, my first time with Wily lasted less than 180 seconds. (First complete time, once I figured out his final form's weakness and went beserk with the Guard Power-up and 2/3 E-tanks...)

hahahaha... how did you wind up wasting your black hole bomb, there's like no other enemy to use it on before then except maybe the fire dragon unless it killed you a couple times before you got its pattern down, I can see that challenges note: after starting my second complete run-through of the game and getting bunny hop on galaxy man's stage (easiest boss to not jump a lot against, I think, and also a pretty easy stage if you think it through and don't waste a lot of jumps), I am 51% on challenges also I just beat wily the second day in a row so tomorrow I will beat him again to get that challenge, and also on my day off I'll beat him 5 times in a row to get that challenge... but I'm kind of running out of easy ones to get, now

Yeah, I just downloaded his mode. I'll probably play through it when I get home from work tonight. Also, excellent sig.

Splash Woman is nowhere near as retarded easy as Galaxy Man. I mean, once you've fought him twice (even if that's just two deaths), he shouldn't be able to hit you ever again. Now Splash Woman, if you don't leave yourself quite enough room to run in or don't turn exactly right to avoid her tridents, still stands a reasonable chance of hitting you in any given fight.

GAJK! Yesss! I was actually wondering if you, specifically, were out there to answer my prayer for self-justification. So, game on for another week. I'll be updating the dates in the first post shortly, and as always, anyone who has already submitted may feel free to work on and submit a revision before the new deadline.

So, has anyone else actually been working on an entry? Because I have been so terribly busy doing the things one must do to prepare to leave one's country for two years (not to mention doing boring, rote work for extra cash) that--terrible me!--I haven't even started. I would really like to end my participation in the competition on a high note, but if extending the deadline as much as I'd need (probably a full week) isn't going to help anyone else, I won't be so selfish. EDIT: As of now, the submission stage is on hold. If I don't see others' interest in extending the deadline, this will mean it is over, but otherwise, it just means don't work on your piece again until I say so.

If I could afford the time and money to pay Blizzard so I could take on a full-time job (for the third time), I would join you guys. But, I can't do that again.

but bleck waggling is so hard it requires so much effort my poor hand will break just like my poor little thumbs have so many times over the years! p.s. guys http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man it's not quite what you think it is--simplification is not a fallacy, attacking something that's not really the issue at hand (a straw man misrepresentation, the arguer via ad hominem) is p.p.s. you realize it is very very common for people to want to trade in or get rid of their old hardware when they upgrade, companies don't usually go out of their way to ensure people have to be packrats to enjoy all their products (although nintendo admittedly has a history of this with their handhelds)

I'm going to take that to mean the idea is something he's been working with for a while. If you want to be in the competition, please don't contradict me (well, unless you'll have trouble sleeping at night if you don't).

Technically you can get over to the safety of the middle platform and Rush Coil when all the beams are done (the timing is very difficult, but still possible), but maybe you should see what Concrete Shot does to them first... I personally had trouble even with that method, though, and was glad the midway point was next to those bot-generating pipes because I could just use Jewel Shield to farm an extra life out of them every time I died.