What's up with the giant ass protoss zealot?
Different ideas for what the game was going to be at that stage, obviously. As curious as I've been about this alpha, I'm very glad that Starcraft took the development path that it did.
>>12087419Yeah the alpha looks like shit. Worse than Warcraft 2 by a large margin.
>>12087405It's actually an hand drawn concept art that was lazily photoshopped into the screenshot. I don't have the source but I remember discussing it and figuring it out in blizzard/starcraft fansite like 15/20 years agoSeriously.
>>12087405>>12087441
>>12087424Honestly, it would probably still have been at least as good as Warcraft 2, probably still better given the three factions which seem like they'd have at least some more differences.>>12087441>>12087443Huh, oh! I didn't even notice that guy.
Is this early siege tank?
>>12087749It's more that the cinematics team.was doing their own thang
>>12087749>>12087831Having the cinematics team on a completely different page made for kino world building. You get a look at all these janky random vehicles and ships, even though you're only working with the cutting edge military hardware in game.
>>12088196Yeah I just saw the final cutscene for the broodwars protoss campaign and it made me think they had a lot of different types of creatives in the art department. Some trigonometry nerds, alien nerds, texture guys, particle guys. Must have been a good team. Every time I try to get a creative group together people get insecure or try to force their vision down eachothers throats, probably because that's how people act when they don't think they'll get paid
>>12087405I'm something of an ass zealot myself
>>12087405>Alphalooks more like a mock up, it's pretty clearly direct scans of concept art placed around a photoshop canvas
>>12088220relatable.
>>12088376It was playable during one e3 and they got laughed out of the show. Forced them to pretty much restart development from scratch, and it's obvious how they copied more of C&C, instead of just making Warcraft 2 in space.
>>12090335>they copied more of C&CI am intrigued.
>>12087405We have Avatar of Khaine at home
>>12090335the op image was playable? or there was an alpha? those aren't the same thingjust look at>>12087405>>12087443that's literally a 1-to-1 scan of metzen's sketch, that's not how game assets work
>>12090818The zealot Photoshop wasn't actually part of the screenshot. Iirc from a couple decades back it was a fan mocking up how the giant robot doodad may have been an actual unit at some point in the development. For someone reason that was the version of the screen that made it to /vr/ in 2025The rest of it was actual in-game footage
I think, comfy WC2-like pixel art but with SC's asymmetric factions would've been kino
>>12092027Forgot pic
>>12092029Cute larvae
>>12092029Sadly I think it looks kinda terrible -- but how did the devs KNOW it needed to be redesigned into what we know now? Most games seem to get reworked into something better, the one lone exception being HL2 as everything about it looks and sounds like shit compared to the prerelease stuff.
>>12087831same shit happened to diablo. shoving diablo's soulstone into their head was blizzard irvine's cinematics lore that they just kind of had to adopt.
>>12092423>but how did the devs KNOW it needed to be redesigned into what we know now? It was relentlessly trashed
>>12092804So I assume it debuted to game industry people and they were like "this looks too much like Warcraft 2" or something?
I'm a newcoming but I think Brood War may be one of my favorite games of all time. The difficulty curve is just perfect and so satisfying
>>12092029reminder, this was laffed out of grounds and led to blizzard to improve.And it was obvious that they reused a lot of Rock N Roll Racing assets for the terrain tilesets
>>12093151As stated earlier in the thread they put out a proof of concept on the E3 floor and it was mocked by developers and journalists alike. It was literally a reskinned WC2, even using the same engine.But I think the bigger story should be how the tech demo for Dominion Storm Over Gift 3 had impressed them so much and influenced their redesign, but it was actually fake, and was prerendered CG that the developers were pretending to play in real time. >>12090728Rather than copied, more influenced since C&C was driving the genre at the time.
>>12087405This was the version Blizzard got absolutely shit all over as "Orcs in Space", basically saying it was WC2 with new sprites.
>>12093151It was literally getting laughed at and clowned on at E3 by journalists and devs as 'Orcs in Space'
>>12093535>Dominion Storm Over Gift 3 had impressed them so much and influenced their redesign, but it was actually fake, and was prerendered CG that the developers were pretending to play in real time.Can I get some more info on this? Sounds hella interesting.
>>12093564There are bits and pieces of the lore everywhere if you look but it seems like Blizzard weren't aware until Ion Storm had closed down.
>>12093624Fun Fact, this may also influenced Activision to raise the bets with Dark Reign 1: The Future of War, which was also led with acclaimed success with the advanced AI and other stuff the game had.Ion Storm trolled 2 companies to make great RTS games>>12093559Blizzard was so salty over it that they added a space orc easter egg unit in warcraft 3
>>12087405looks like this is the original.https://youtu.be/huinl2A0UKE
https://youtu.be/4wTPpnBIXNo?si=8Jb8u_VOwortvicn&t=225>we've had to recode pretty much everything>when we first started we thought we could maybe reuse some of the stuff we had in warcraft 2>but we found as we got into the project that we really needed to do everything over
>>12093634>advanced AI and other stuff the game hadTell me more
https://youtu.be/rJyNvZkiLbI
Why were the colors so harsh in that early starcraft? >>12092029 it looks like SC came out before WC2 and had a hard color limit. No shit it got laughed out of the room, I'm surprised they even showed it.
>>12094556Well one artist admitted to hating the neon green look of orcs so I would not be surprised if he got his revenge.
>>12094178one guy explained better on youtube, dark reign AI not only had the greatest pathfinding ever at that time but the ai routines were on their own, they knew how to find patrol routes idling and so on.activision really put people to work on that.DR2 is where they dropped the ball and rushed development with battlezone 2 engine