The Protoss had an Egyptian
inspired theme. They were never meant to look like they were Egyptians.
I'm sorry to say, but the graphic design has taken an extreme turn for the worse with this latest batch. We have terrans that look like (and are) transformers from cybertron, a bipedal anti-armor unit my pokedex tells me is an evolved SCV, and a protoss hula-hoop flying contraption that would be better suited as an extravagant earring.
But let's start with the protoss, because boy am I mad about the protoss. But it's only because the protoss appeal to my love for sci-fi and cool looking tech shit that I take so much offense. And it's not like I think Blizzard does terrible terrible damage with every new unit design, so I'm going to start with a few things they got right.
1) Whoever drew
this deserves a massive pat on the back. It was, in my opinion everything the protoss embody; it's elegant, striking, and has the exact right amount of Egyptian inspiration. There's a point where inspiration becomes just derivative work,
and this is not one of those cases. Excellent job on this creation. (Selendis is damn sexy too, yeah that's right, I chose Selendis over Dr. Zergface.)
2) The protoss
colussus. Because, let's face it, Koreans are imba, so merging the reaver and the shuttle so us mortals could have a protoss artillery unit makes sense (yes, I said it: ARTILLERY UNIT). But beyond really effing cool lasers and the satisfying burning death animation it causes and its obvious integral function of turning a protoss death ball into a protoss death ball that shoots motherfucking lasers, I feel that this unit has a wonderful and refreshing design. Notice how its Egyptian inspired designs are so minimalist that they're hardly noticeable. It's really only the gold plating and a few miniscule aesthetic features that make it resemble anything Egyptian.
But really it shouldn't, it should remind of you of
these badass motherfuckers. Seem familiar? HG Wells would probably agree. It was a great design choice.
But alright, I could go on, but you may see that it's obviously within Blizzard's ability not to design what is essentially a giant protoss siege cannon that looks like
this. It's a giant cannon, so the first thing that comes to mind is functionality. Let's make it look like it does what it is supposed to do. Siege tanks are a great example of this. They're heavily armored tanks. But I guess you get it easy working on a tank since we have real life examples to use. But no problem, let's do what we did for the colossus and dig into our sci-fi library via google search and see if we can't figure out something that may inspire a design.
UNSC In Amber Clad reporting for service. Hey it's a giant cannon! Fancy that.
But anyway, people are going to expect it to have cannon-like qualities. But it doesn't. It's attack is just some wimpy orb that isn't nearly as cool as a siege tank blast, maybe feeling beam weapons are a bit much after void rays? Alright that's cool, but it doesn't change the fact artillery is designed to be accurate and powerful. There should be a pretty hefty and satisfying collision as Newton's laws play out happily. Which may be part of why the attack looks so fake, it has no pzazz.
There is the matter of the actual design, as well. I think some concern went into not want it to be a very long unit, and keeping proportions adequate. Nothing wrong with that. Add some fin "stabilizers" or something, but just have something that could resemble a barrel or a conduit or something to channel the energy. Energy flying in a
specific direction after just floating in air with no obvious means of propulsion looks fake (and don't give me that super advanced technology cop-out).
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Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Jun 9 2012, 7:03 am by Sacrieur.
None.
all mineral patches down for that long, I can see zerg having to keep corruptors around just for those. Day9 really doesn't like the range of the tempest, if you listen to the adjectives he uses when he talks about it. Why is there still a hero unit in the game? This isn't WCIII, Dustin Browder.
