StarCraft

StarCraft is a really successful PC real-time strategy game from Blizzard Entertainment. It is really, really popular in Korea and had a Nintendo 64 port developed by Mass Media, the only time any game in the series would appear on a console. What's odd is that the sequel, StarCraft II, took 12 years to be released, but then again, this is Blizzard.

Unused Missions
These missions are unused in the final version of the game.

"terran\terran7" (Biting the Bullet)
pCLLovjXyrM This mission would have occurred just after Norad II but before The Trump Card, and it explains why Tassadar began to assist Jim Raynor. The player controls General Duke in a Siege Tank and Raynor in a Vulture, along with 4 SCVs and a Command Center; this would have been General Duke's only appearance in a Siege Tank. The gameplay is broken and incomplete: among other issues, Tassadar does not even appear without map modification due to a non-functioning trigger.

This map was refined for the Enslavers Campaign, but with altered terrain, enemies, locations and story.

"terran\terran10" (Operation: Silent Scream)
BKPd-9Ol_HA This mission would have occurred after The Big Push but before New Gettysberg. The player commands Jim Raynor and Sarah Kerrigan, along with a small strike force made up of every Terran unit in the game except for the SCV. This mission would have been the final strike against the Confederacy, but it was scrapped, creating a small plot gap.

This map was also refined for the Enslavers Campaign along the same lines as "terran7".

"protoss\tutorial"
4QXNZ855cqg This may originally have been the tutorial for the Protoss Campaign. The gameplay is similar to that of the campaign's first mission, but the layout of the player's base is different, and Fenix has different dialogue in which he mentions a race called the Tagal, a race that is weak individually but deadly in large numbers like the Zerg, while defending Antioch.

"terran9" (The Big Push)
Alright kids, let's find a spot to park these bad boys.



The audio files for this mission indicate that Jim Raynor may originally have been planned to appear in this mission as a hero Vulture. This mission does not seem to have had victory dialog originally; the mission's victory dialog is copied over from "terran10".

Unused Devourer Cocoon
The Zerg Devourer unit originally had a different Cocoon. In the final game it uses the same Cocoon graphic as the Zerg Guardian. The old Cocoon is stored alongside the rest of the Devourer birth graphics.



Unused Wire-frames
Unused Unit wire-frames for the Terran Gunship, an Old version of the Valkyrie wire-frame, and a unknown building, are found in the original games' files. Notably, the Valkyrie wire-frame seen here remains unused even in Brood War.



Gunship
Gunships were Terran vessels once meant to be used in conjunction with capital ships such as the Battlecruiser before small, dynamic high-speed fighters such as the Wraith were developed. However, it was found that the Wraith could deal out a similar amount of damage to capital ships while evading most defensive battery attacks. There was one Gunship hero unit, Greedo (a Star Wars reference). The original Gunship model was altered and reused for the Terran Valkyrie.

Cargo Ship
Not much is known about the Cargo Ship. One Cargo Ship hero, Sally, existed at some point during development.



Raider
A Terran unit of unclear purpose. Two hero Raiders, Boskk (possibly referencing the Star Wars bounty hunter) and Peter, existed at some point during development.

Merc Biker
The Merc Biker still has a portrait which exists in retail copies of StarCraft, but it is only made up of the same still image repeated. What the unit itself would have looked like is currently unknown. There was one Merc Biker hero, Grom, at some point in development. Further look into beta data reveals there is a Vulture wireframe near the Cargo Ship's, Raider's, and Merc Biker's wireframes.

Starbase
A Terran structure that was cut from the final version. In-game, the Starbase has the appearance of a Scout but with a very large placement circle. It has the portrait of a Marine and an undefined, non-functional weapon. Graphics for the Starbase can be found in the internal game files. It is located under the "Neutral" files, alongside the other Campaign only buildings suggesting it was for a Campaign mission.



Cantina
A Terran structure cut during development. Its purpose is unknown.

Jump Gate
This unit will crash StarCraft if looked at in-game. The Jump Gate may have been the Terran version of the Protoss' Warp Gate.

Independent Command Center
This unit will crash StarCraft if looked at in-game. It is an independent version of the Terran Command Center with a different appearance. It is unclear whether or not the actual .grp for the unit still exists somewhere.

Crashing Flags and Unused Players
A flag that is inaccessible from the default map editor but is used in some multiplayer maps can be spawned in-game and will crash the game when clicked.

Uniquely among units, the flag uses a different portrait for each player to determine the color of the flag seen on the portrait.

Looking at the portdata.dat file from BrooDat.mpq shows that there are the standard 8 flag color portraits from 82 to 89, but at 106 to 109, there is flag portrait data for Players 9 to 12 (Green, Bright Yellow, Tan, and "Blue", which is actually Light Blue, which is the color used by Neutral). It is unknown what portdata.dat in StarDat.mpq, but portdata.tbl only shows lines for Flag1 to Flag8.

Looking inside StarDat.mpq in portraits with a proper listfile shows there are no portraits for 9 to 12; looking in BrooDat.mpq shows that they were added in Brood War. This doesn't show much related to the problem, but that is because only looking at the data does not show everything: SCMDraft 2 is the key.

If you load up SCMDraft 2 and look at the Map Properties when you open or create any map, you will see the standard 8 player slots, as well as 4 extra player slots that are missing the option to change color; the latter do not work properly and are useless as player slots. What you must be asking yourself is, "What does all this mean?" If you look at the color options you will see not 8 or 12 but 17 colors that you can choose from, with Dark Aqua, Pale Green, Bluish Grey, Pale Yellow, and Cyan being added.

What this is all pointing to is very clear. StarCraft was intended for 8-player multiplayer, but Brood War was going to add at least 3 new Player slots (Player 9-11) and 1 Neutral slot (Player 12). Players 9 to 11 currently only act as Computer slots, meaning that they only have the Owner and Race selections, which don't seem to change anything, and that they are unable to count as actual slots in-game; the game will only show 8, so players can never occupy those slots. They seem to act as hostile computers, but further investigation is needed to see if there is anything different about them. They are set to "Unused, Inactive" by default.

Player 12 exists exactly as it should, since it is a Neutral slot, and instead of being set to "Unused, Inactive" it is set to "Unused, Neutral" by default to act as the controller of resource units.

The 5 extra selectable colors point towards Blizzard planning to have 16 player slots (Player 1 to 16) and 1 neutral slot (Player 17).

The reason to blame for the crashes are 4 of those extra colors. Choosing them as a player color for any player causes you to use one of 4 strange color palettes that do not have proper flag portraits, so clicking on their flag causes the game to crash because Flag13 to Flag 17 don't exist anywhere, and the data that would link the flag to the appropriate portrait (Flag13-17) more then likely doesn't exist either. However, Dark Aqua acts as Light Blue (what Portdata refers to as "Blue") and will not crash the game when it is used as a player color and its flag is clicked on.



Oddly, though, SCMDraft2 displays their palettes exactly as they should look.

The standard flags in SCMDraft 2:

The extra player color flags in SCMDraft 2 (within the red lines):