Just in time for Halloweeen, Karune's got a new batch of Q&As for us. Today's topics include destroyable doodads and a peek at the Starcraft universe, both behind and before the scenes.
I hope everyone enjoyed our last batch of Q&As about Map Making, which is just the beginning of a series. This batch, we have a new set of exciting community questions about StarCraft II as well as reasonings to why Devs make the decisions they do. In addition, we also have a mini chat with devs about all the new changes that they are continuing to experiment with.
I also want to wish everyone a safe and happy Halloween!
Chat with Devs: Since the Terran Cobra took over the Protoss Stasis Orb's slowing attack, the Protoss Orb got a few new abilities including the Force Field ability. This will be very interesting for early team games, as you can use a force field on a choke point to keep an opponent's teammate from arriving to help their allies. The Devs are testing out various abilities on different units as you can see, and even the Templar has received its classic Hallucination ability back.
As always, feel free to give the Devs and I a w00t if your enjoying these Q&As!
---StarCraft II Q&A - Batch 19---
1. Will the Protoss be getting any mechanism for healing their units or repairing their buildings?
There are no plans to give the Protoss any healing abilities, especially since their shield regeneration rate when out of combat, is more than twice the rate of the original StarCraft.
2. With the new physics engine, can explosions affect surroundings? (like hurt or push units, destroy doodads, etc ) (sc2blog.com)
Explosions will not be able to push units, but they can destroy doodads. In fact, destroying certain doodads will be vital on certain maps, to get access to expansions or other strategic locations. Furthermore, explosions will not be able to push units because it would affect gameplay and balance negatively, in having units be knocked off cliffs, be stuck in unplanned locations, or ultimately have units disoriented where the player cannot control them.
3. How long does a unit typically take to make from concept to playable unit?
With a finished concept piece, it could take from a few days to a few months, to create it for the game. Much of this time depends on the priority of the unit amongst other development goals, as well as the iterations necessary to perfect the unit. The Zerg Baneling is an example of a unit that took only a few days to complete after the concept, whereas the Protoss Stalker has gone through several iterations, and has taken 4-5 months.
4. Are the units on the official site finalized, or is everything still up for grabs at this point? (gamereplays.org)
We are still heavily in the development phase of StarCraft II, thus none of the units on the website are 100% final. We are also still testing out several new units, abilities, and mechanics, to create the most fluid StarCraft II experience.
5. What do the Protoss eat? (where do they get energy and mass?) (starcraftcz.com)
Protoss gain nutrition from sunlight, or at a pinch, moonlight (which is just reflected sunlight anyway) by absorbing through their skins. They can go for extended periods without absorbing sunlight. What little moisture they need is also absorbed through their skin.
---End of Transmission---
I also want to wish everyone a safe and happy Halloween!
Chat with Devs: Since the Terran Cobra took over the Protoss Stasis Orb's slowing attack, the Protoss Orb got a few new abilities including the Force Field ability. This will be very interesting for early team games, as you can use a force field on a choke point to keep an opponent's teammate from arriving to help their allies. The Devs are testing out various abilities on different units as you can see, and even the Templar has received its classic Hallucination ability back.
As always, feel free to give the Devs and I a w00t if your enjoying these Q&As!
---StarCraft II Q&A - Batch 19---
1. Will the Protoss be getting any mechanism for healing their units or repairing their buildings?
There are no plans to give the Protoss any healing abilities, especially since their shield regeneration rate when out of combat, is more than twice the rate of the original StarCraft.
2. With the new physics engine, can explosions affect surroundings? (like hurt or push units, destroy doodads, etc ) (sc2blog.com)
Explosions will not be able to push units, but they can destroy doodads. In fact, destroying certain doodads will be vital on certain maps, to get access to expansions or other strategic locations. Furthermore, explosions will not be able to push units because it would affect gameplay and balance negatively, in having units be knocked off cliffs, be stuck in unplanned locations, or ultimately have units disoriented where the player cannot control them.
3. How long does a unit typically take to make from concept to playable unit?
With a finished concept piece, it could take from a few days to a few months, to create it for the game. Much of this time depends on the priority of the unit amongst other development goals, as well as the iterations necessary to perfect the unit. The Zerg Baneling is an example of a unit that took only a few days to complete after the concept, whereas the Protoss Stalker has gone through several iterations, and has taken 4-5 months.
4. Are the units on the official site finalized, or is everything still up for grabs at this point? (gamereplays.org)
We are still heavily in the development phase of StarCraft II, thus none of the units on the website are 100% final. We are also still testing out several new units, abilities, and mechanics, to create the most fluid StarCraft II experience.
5. What do the Protoss eat? (where do they get energy and mass?) (starcraftcz.com)
Protoss gain nutrition from sunlight, or at a pinch, moonlight (which is just reflected sunlight anyway) by absorbing through their skins. They can go for extended periods without absorbing sunlight. What little moisture they need is also absorbed through their skin.
---End of Transmission---
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| 1st w00t! So... Protoss are... plants?
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Not necessarily plants, but just organisms with chlorophyll in their skin. But that raises one more question: Why aren't they green?
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| Plants and other photo-autotrophs require nutrition besides light. Real plants use light in photosynthesis to power chemical reations to produce sugars. I mean, technically, light cannot provide nutrition, because it does not have mass. This means that the protoss cannot live off of only light. I guess some people could argue that since light is made of of particles, then it could somehow be changed into matter. (In some cases, the law of conservation of mass does not apply) However, this is still unlickly because it takes vast amounts of energy to produce even the smallest amount of matter.
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| @theHyperion: Really any pigment absorbs light, chlorophyll is simply the efficient one used by most earth plants. The only problem for me is that toss skin varies from grey-green to grey-purple, does this correlate to how fast they can eat?? Man, I hate that, protoss should've gotten energy from somewhere else.
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| lol plants. It's vague, but they could also simply have microscopic holes with the outer ridges have some sort of organic solar panel or something... something... The Protoss are aliens, that's all we know about them, I'm sure they evolved from some unique creature or specially created beyond what we naturally would know.
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| Yes finally that question was asked!!! or maybe they have mouths under their gona- ... loin cloths. lol plants but they absorb water also, so they live like plants. That is why they can live so long = little or no disease, clean system (no trash from food), and slow growth Is this why dark templar are invisible, they have been living away from light? Maybe they dont need mouths because they just use a warp gate to "warp in" grub into their innards. No wonder toss are expenzive units. Now I will ask the next question for "Starcraft Q&A 20" : How do Protoss reproduce?
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This would also explain just why the Protoss theology focuses on light and darkness so much (for them, light is literally life)
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In fact, the dark templar use the power of the void to bend light around themselves in order to 'cloak'. They just adapted to living without much light though.
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| @masterofhobbiton: Thank you for teaching me something new. I think I read from somewhere that the dark templar fiddled with genetic engineering to make their bodies more efficient and resistant against famine. I could be wrong though. Oh, and the guys that make Starcraft lore said they haven't given thought about how the Protoss reproduce.
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| Woot! Protoss eat light! I bet they had to consult their storyline team for that one  But in any case, who says they have to have chlorophyll in them? For all we know, they could run on electricity. ie. We know nothing about their supposed anatomy Oh, and please note Protoss don't bleed, get cut in two, or leave corpses. They EXPLODE! Or, something like that. I eat people. -Crazyoldman
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| Of course they bleed; otherwise it would be nearly impossible to write an R rated fight scene with them. And I just realized that they call the exploding zerglings 'Banelings'- who woulda' guessed?
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| you guys see the crystals pylons and other things another thing karune said sunlight but for protoss most likely be starlight most stars are blue to white most i remember most toss to be blue to grey moonlight was propably a main source at one point of time
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that whole absorbing light thing makes no sense at all. think about it: let's say plants spend 10 hours a day in sunlight, and if they spend less than that, they shrivel up and die. and plants don't even have to MOVE. the protoss would have to spend 24 hours a day in strong sunlight and then some in order to have enough energy to move.
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| Plants XD. When an ozz dies,a kind of blue soul goes out from his body. So I supose that other ozz makes the zealot body (or is created in some way), and that soul returns and "possess" the new body, and a new ozz is born!. About the light...well nowadays solar panels, are not very powerful, they are not very efficient. But it is credible that ozz have moooooore advanced technology and they have adapted their body, to get lots of energy from almost nothing.
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| "Really any pigment absorbs light, chlorophyll is simply the efficient one used by most earth plants. The only problem for me is that toss skin varies from grey-green to grey-purple, does this correlate to how fast they can eat??" Darker tones are the best to absorb energy (light and heat) from the Sun. Thats should be why. "[..]plants spend 10 hours a day in sunlight, and if they spend less than that, they shrivel up and die.[...]" Only if they spend little to no time in the LIGHT during an extended period of time.
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Darthmooman is right. I also hope that all of you know that in the case that protoss eat light, then every protoss would each require an entire star's worth of energy to live. Like I said earlier, it takes a lot of enery to acualy create mass.
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I also just remembered about how each group uses minerals. This is according to me: Terrans, as humans of course cannot eat the harvestable minerals. They use the minerals to not only syntheticaly produce the metals they use in their weapons, but also to farm the plants they eat. The plants are grown, in a stable environment in vitro(in glass containers, basicly), anfter which, they are harvested and eaten. The Zerg, are acually more like carnivores. They eat dead enemies, I'm assuming, because they have sharp teeth and jaws. (which I'm assuming they wouldn't have if they were not meat eators)I reality, though, they don't need to eat, because, when they are born(when they hatch from the coccoons, I mean) They already have all the protiens and nutrients they need to live, like some insects. These are provided from the hatcheries. The hatcheries are somewhat complex. These contain bacteria within them that perform chemosynthesis. (Chemosythesis is a process similar to photosynthesis, exept the origional energy comes from chemical bonds, instead of light) These symbiotic bacteria break down harvested minerals. These are absorbed by the hatchery, which stores them untill they are needed. The bacteria are acually the reason for the strange pigments that the Zerg contain. Even though the bacteria are only present in the hatcheries(and hives, and lairs), the pigments from these bacteria somehow get into the other Zerg units before they hatch. Ok, now I'm too the Protoss. I don't agree with the light-eating thing, and this is just my opinion. I think that the protoss acually eat the minerals raw. It kind of phases though their mouth area, since they are not completley solid. (they disapear when they are killed, so thats why I think that) This is because they genetically modified themselves. When you run or something like that, you use up energy and give off heat. When they genetically modified themselves, it made them so efficient that they do not give off excess heat. If you have ever taken biology, you know about the biomass pyramid. 90% of the food that we humans eat is givin off as energy. That means only 10% of that acually stays in our bodies. The Protoss only use about 20% of that energy(When they fight, and stuff) That means that hte Protoss store an extra 70% of their energy in their bodies. This is why the explode when they die, because this is when the extra energy is givin off. This efficentcy they have is also the reason why they live so long. =) I'm sorry it's so long and has so many spelling mistakes.
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| zerg eithe feed off the creep or carnivores terrans eat stuff after planted or grown or the supply depots produce it protoss absorb energy through light and through pyshonics is probly another source xelnaga gave protoss the power or prefectly of form
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| Question # 5: You know this whole 'toss get food from sunlight deal pretty much means that 'toss are superior to humans in every concievable way. Not only do humans also need sunlight (all energy on Earth originates from the sun), but we also need food, we're not psychic, not stronger or faster, and do not have 3 hearts. Instead, we only possess one heart. Sucks to be us, eh? Do not speculate on what terran eat, please. -_- They eat all the same crap as us right now, and probably more considering this is a sci-fi. Supply depots contain supply's, which consist of rations and mostly tools and equipment necessary for a military operation. Protoss live longer then humans, because they're already superior to us in every other way. Setting's tend to run on a tangent and conjoin themselves. Additionally, protoss get minerals because they need it for their industrial shit, just like the terran human beings. Thank you. BTW, to answer the second post, they're not green because they come from another planet besides our own. Despite similarities between Aiur and Earth. Assuming because they're psychic, they're a little more complex then your basic Earthly organisms. They also have muscles, so that factors in somehow. Additionally, Aiur might have been around longer then Earth so there you have it.
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| "Darker tones are the best to absorb energy (light and heat) from the Sun. Thats should be why." So that means... toss dont have obese and anorexic people... they have light and dark people? Lolz that brown toss is so fat, i like my grey toss girlfriend
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| SolidSamurai, I am not speculating what terrans eat. I know they eat what we do because they are human too. Obviously you didn't understand what I said. Our food comes from farms(All the meat and vegetable and stuff), but since Terrans live on harsh environments, it is likley that the produce their food inside their buildings.(farming in an artificial environment) Certain minerals, combined with water allow plants to be grown without soil, since the fluid would provide them with all required nutrients. I agree with you on the part about the supply depots, and I understand what you mean about the protoss. I know you say the minerals are for the machinery, but protoss just cant eat nothing. Perhaps the protoss absorb the light and that allows them to digest the minerals. It wouldn't be quite like photosynthesis because they don't totally rely on it, only after they eat. This could also explain why they don't have stomachs and can't get fat. LOL, grey Toss girlfriend. Funny, Temaparagon
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| @tremaparagon Assuming Auir has frozen poles, like Earth, the darker Toss may be the ones who came from there, where you need to absorb more heat to reach or near the ideal temperature to make the photosynthesis. If you watch, the plants that nears the poles have darker foliage than the ones that are near the Equator. It's funny, though. =p
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