In practice you've also bumped up the interface to make it more intuitive as well, with the visual group icons.
CS: Yeah, exactly. Then on the other side of the fence, we've tried to do things to intro the game in a way we just didn't consider in the past. We have forced tutorials. I mean, they're forced in that you can still click them away if you don't want to look at them. In easy and normal mode in single-player, we pop up tutorials and talk about how you drag and select units, how you move them. We have ramping in there. We have a new tip system; that's a lot more than what we did in WarCraft III, for example.
We're really trying to allow a player who comes in to be able to step in and experience both single- and multiplayer. That's another thing. There are things that we won't go into today, but we'll talk a little bit more about Battle.net when we start talking about that in earnest -- things to help the new player. The old experience of playing through single-player, getting online, getting your ass handed to you,and then saying "I don't want to play anymore" is not something we're after. We want to have more friendly experiences for new players.
How much do you look at what else is on the market? It's a very different game in most respects, but I've really enjoyed Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II from Relic this year, and there are some similar mechanics in terms of the leveling and skill structure in a single-player RTS. I doubt there's any actual copying going on, but it's interesting that two respected strategy studios ended up with that.
CS: Well, the tech purchase thing has been around in our design for a very long time, but we're definitely aware and cognizant of other RTSes. We've got a bunch of people on our team who are big RTS fans, so we play a lot of those games. We play a lot of games in general. We go through these cycles where certain games kind of catch fire.
Team Fortress 2 is a game that's been played a lot. We have a bunch of games right now. Left 4 Dead has been huge on the team. It's been sort of our crunch break game. At dinner, a lot of the artists go and play Left 4 Dead.
But RTS is something we pay great attention to. I can't specifically say that there's any that inspired specifically the things we're doing. We kind of just arrived at these things, and I'm sure other companies have done the same thing.
Parallel evolution.
CS: Yeah. Honestly, tech purchase was one of the few we knew early, and now we've arrived at this new stuff, the research and mercenary stuff. But it's just been an evolution. Hopefully that answers your question. We certainly do play a lot. Dustin comes from another RTS team.
He was on Command & Conquer, right?
CS: Yeah. He originally worked at [Electronic Arts LA], and he even worked on that before at Activision, years and years before that. He's been on RTS for a while and worked on Command & Conquer [Red Alert] 2, I believe. [Command & Conquer:] Generals, too. And The Lord of the Rings [Battle for Middle-Earth].
So, he has a lot of experience with that. He's very connected. He's still got a lot of friends who work in the industry. In general, we've got a bunch of RTS fanatics on our team.
Going beyond RTS in particular, what are your thoughts on the PC market these days? Frequently when the PC question comes up, people say, "Well, look at Blizzard. Look at Valve. Those guys are busting down the doors." And that's true, but when you remove you and you remove Valve, maybe the situation is less amazing, and I'm wondering if that concerns you long term.
CS: You know [laughs], I just read -- maybe it was today -- Intel's reports that blew everybody out of the water with what things are happening on the PC. But I'm not a business guy from that sense. We are developing on PC specifically because the user interface and the things you can do are right for our games. We have not found yet the right UI to go to console or that sort of thing.
Personally I think that the PC market is very viable and will continue to be so, especially with successful titles pushing it that way. But also, I just don't think we've gotten to the point where you can do it all from your TV -- there are all sorts of things that people do [on a PC], and having the games there is really convenient. Things like Steam make me believe that it's going to continue that way.
But I can't tell the future. I honestly don't know. I think that it looks like, if anything, there may have been a bump in the road, and we're spiking out of it. We'll see what happens. Hopefully, I'm not the guy that they're quoting for some financial report somewhere. [laughs]
Right. As a PC player, I'm always just curious to poll developers on this, because there are a lot of opinions.
CS: Yeah, yeah. I see it all the time. It's certainly something that has been argued forever -- the sofa chair gamer now just kicking back and wanting the Xbox. But there are just things that PC brings to the table that makes the value, to me, higher there. I don't know what the future holds, but certainly we're gambling on it.
Didn't the interviewer forget to ask the obvious glaring question to Blizzard ? Well. here it is then:
Dear Blizzard:Why did you decide to remove a key feature for your paying customers, namely LAN play ? Aren't you worried that this will just force players to wait around for the hacked version of the game ?
Doesn't it irk you a bit that there is already a petition with over 100.000 signatures, asking for inclusion of LAN play?
If there is anything Blizzard is good at it's releasing balanced games; and when you're talking RTS nothing compares to prudence. This game is buzzing red hot, and it is is their best interest to do it right. Releasing a sub-par game would ruin the franchise, and diminish returns on a big investment. To boot Blizzard hasn't released an RTS is how many years? This has got to be a home run. I imagine they are doing their best to do what they do best - borrow, refine, and polish until they have a game that's solid, builds on the foundation, and gives players just enough to call it innovative.
If this was a 4th generation RTS, rather than another 3rd gen iteration, I'd be happy. I'm sure the talent behind the "Social RTS" titles coming out of Zynga will be a powerful force to recon with, but who knows? I for one hope that Blizzard put's 'traditional' RTS games back on the map, and show the financiers of the game industry that the RTS game type is a viable as ever! Here's to success!
@Lars Kroll Kristensen: I'm going to assume you haven't paid for Starcraft 2 yet. If you are upset about the lack of LAN functionality, don't buy the game when it is released. That's the only way you can send a specific message to them - with your wallet.
Personally I feel with the current power of all mobile computers, no LAN will be a huge downfall to this game. They say they want to push the Battle.net product and how we are all connected via internet but they also say they have not even touched the new Battle.net. This is contradictory isnt it?
LAN is just an additional technology for making this product a multiplayer game, something that is becoming a necessity for all games.
I feel they just had to make some cuts and LAN got cut.
Blizzard being such a great company and how they value there reputation I doubt we will "never see LAN" for SC2. it just wont be out for launch. It was a cut that we will see in future updates.
I would have liked to hear more about how Blizzard feels it fits into the industry right now, particularly in regards to the RTS genre considered dying by many.
Like Stephen Dinehart mentioned, there are still other players in the strategy field such as Zynga, Relic, Gas Powered Games, etc. Blizzard appears to have a very insular and extremely introspective perspective of their place in our industry. But they must have opinions on the evolution of the RTS itself and new economic models such as free-to-play (Relic's own Company of Heroes Online, for example). I'd like to hear Blizzard comment on them.
As it is, they only ever seem to talk about themselves and what they're doing without any context from the modern gaming industry. I wonder if they've been working on this so long that when they finally launch they'll realize gamer's expectations are very different than they were 10 years ago.
The no-LAN to me is obvious: It is a anti-piracy attempt, everyone will have to use Battle.net to play, thus Battle.net can verify the serial numbers and whatnot...
This obviously will result not only now in cracked versions to play SP pirated, but also people will make a hacked cracked version to play MP, and people that usually buy a legal copy to play MP, will use a pirated version to play MP on lan, maybe without buying a legal copy at all.
To me this no-LAN will prove to be a firing in their own foot.
It's good that they want to release a game that is finished. But I think the way they market it at the moment is not very smart. I think they are pissing off people by constantly pussing the date forward.
They never said any official release date no.. but, first they said "sometime at the end of 2008", later it was pushed forward to mid-2009 and only just recently it changed again.
@ Ben Sullivan
Good point Ben. It would be great to hear a power player @ Blizzard talk about RTS evolution, and to put their products in context within the larger spectrum of the industry. THQ dba Relic Entertainment clearly takes the cake as a prime competitor as far as RTS design goes.
RTS games were made by a Blizzard of old. They will clearly be aiming to take a slice of the pie with this release and return to their previous stature as RTS kings.
@ Chris
Mr. Remo, I think we need another interview! :)
I did bring Relic up in the interview and while Sigaty mentioned generally that lots of SC2 team members play other RTS games, he didn't seem that inclined to get into a discussion about how they relate to Blizzard games. That bit is on page 3.
There might be other people at Blizzard who are more interested in that topic, perhaps Browder.
@ Tom
"I feel they just had to make some cuts and LAN got cut."
Nope. No way. For a company with the standards (and resources) of Blizzard, this is not anywhere close to the realm of possibility. This is an intentional move by Blizz at limiting piracy and pushing Battle.net. As a gamer, I think this is an atrocity. From a business perspective, it is probably smart. Blizzard is the only company that could get away with this, but they will. People can sign petitions all they want- with few exceptions, they will be standing in line at midnight releases. Besides that, I expect that the free service for Battle.net is some sort of LAN equivalent (with online product verification, ofc).
It is interesting (although not altogether unexpected) that some of the design decisions are emphasizing ease of adoption for new players. It has worked well for them in the past, and I am interested to see how they balance the game for competitive play given this occasionally conflicting goal.
It still blows my mind that they are able to release an unfinished game, retool it completely over the course of a couple of years, charge people for it the whole time, and have happy customers. This was a great read, but what we really need are some interviews with their PR people!
@Mark Cooke: I am certainly going to wait for the starcraft II buy, untill they *do* add LAN support. Which I'm sure they *will* add, after something like six months, when they've succesfully pushed battle.net to enough customers, and want to pick up the stragglers, like me. At that time, I'm sure we'll see a press release from Blizzard along the lines of "in answer to our communitys wishes for LAN support blah blah blah..."
Marc Sanders is right on the money: No effing way this is a budgetary concern. Being a network programmer myself, I'll hazard the guess that the development version of SC II in fact IS running with LAN support. Further, I'd hazard the guess that removing the LAN support will be a major hassle for the devs.
But yes. there IS more that can be done, than just not buying it. People can keep pushing the issue in Blizzards face, at every opportunity. Which was my actual gripe: If Gamasutra wants to be taken seriously, they should also ask *critical* questions. I can't imagine that Chris Remo (interviewer) didn't know about the LAN controversy....
I'm certainly aware of the LAN controversy, but there have been countless articles and interviews addressing it already, and I really just felt that in a game that has been in development this long and with such a strong legacy, there were a whole lot of other interesting topics to discuss instead.
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Evil.
Dear Blizzard:Why did you decide to remove a key feature for your paying customers, namely LAN play ? Aren't you worried that this will just force players to wait around for the hacked version of the game ?
Doesn't it irk you a bit that there is already a petition with over 100.000 signatures, asking for inclusion of LAN play?
If this was a 4th generation RTS, rather than another 3rd gen iteration, I'd be happy. I'm sure the talent behind the "Social RTS" titles coming out of Zynga will be a powerful force to recon with, but who knows? I for one hope that Blizzard put's 'traditional' RTS games back on the map, and show the financiers of the game industry that the RTS game type is a viable as ever! Here's to success!
Thanks for the great interview Chris.
LAN is just an additional technology for making this product a multiplayer game, something that is becoming a necessity for all games.
I feel they just had to make some cuts and LAN got cut.
Blizzard being such a great company and how they value there reputation I doubt we will "never see LAN" for SC2. it just wont be out for launch. It was a cut that we will see in future updates.
Like Stephen Dinehart mentioned, there are still other players in the strategy field such as Zynga, Relic, Gas Powered Games, etc. Blizzard appears to have a very insular and extremely introspective perspective of their place in our industry. But they must have opinions on the evolution of the RTS itself and new economic models such as free-to-play (Relic's own Company of Heroes Online, for example). I'd like to hear Blizzard comment on them.
As it is, they only ever seem to talk about themselves and what they're doing without any context from the modern gaming industry. I wonder if they've been working on this so long that when they finally launch they'll realize gamer's expectations are very different than they were 10 years ago.
How quickly do you think a mod/patch/hack/whatever will come up that will add a LAN functionality on StarCraft II?
Bets are ON!
This obviously will result not only now in cracked versions to play SP pirated, but also people will make a hacked cracked version to play MP, and people that usually buy a legal copy to play MP, will use a pirated version to play MP on lan, maybe without buying a legal copy at all.
To me this no-LAN will prove to be a firing in their own foot.
Good point Ben. It would be great to hear a power player @ Blizzard talk about RTS evolution, and to put their products in context within the larger spectrum of the industry. THQ dba Relic Entertainment clearly takes the cake as a prime competitor as far as RTS design goes.
RTS games were made by a Blizzard of old. They will clearly be aiming to take a slice of the pie with this release and return to their previous stature as RTS kings.
@ Chris
Mr. Remo, I think we need another interview! :)
There might be other people at Blizzard who are more interested in that topic, perhaps Browder.
"I feel they just had to make some cuts and LAN got cut."
Nope. No way. For a company with the standards (and resources) of Blizzard, this is not anywhere close to the realm of possibility. This is an intentional move by Blizz at limiting piracy and pushing Battle.net. As a gamer, I think this is an atrocity. From a business perspective, it is probably smart. Blizzard is the only company that could get away with this, but they will. People can sign petitions all they want- with few exceptions, they will be standing in line at midnight releases. Besides that, I expect that the free service for Battle.net is some sort of LAN equivalent (with online product verification, ofc).
It is interesting (although not altogether unexpected) that some of the design decisions are emphasizing ease of adoption for new players. It has worked well for them in the past, and I am interested to see how they balance the game for competitive play given this occasionally conflicting goal.
It still blows my mind that they are able to release an unfinished game, retool it completely over the course of a couple of years, charge people for it the whole time, and have happy customers. This was a great read, but what we really need are some interviews with their PR people!
Marc Sanders is right on the money: No effing way this is a budgetary concern. Being a network programmer myself, I'll hazard the guess that the development version of SC II in fact IS running with LAN support. Further, I'd hazard the guess that removing the LAN support will be a major hassle for the devs.
But yes. there IS more that can be done, than just not buying it. People can keep pushing the issue in Blizzards face, at every opportunity. Which was my actual gripe: If Gamasutra wants to be taken seriously, they should also ask *critical* questions. I can't imagine that Chris Remo (interviewer) didn't know about the LAN controversy....
I'm certainly aware of the LAN controversy, but there have been countless articles and interviews addressing it already, and I really just felt that in a game that has been in development this long and with such a strong legacy, there were a whole lot of other interesting topics to discuss instead.