ANAHEIM, California — Blizzard’s real-time strategy game Starcraft II may look intimidating to new players, but the developers are working on making it more accessible, says the game’s lead producer Dustin Browder.
“For us, there really isn’t a sharp division between casual and hardcore (players),” Browder said. “A casual could become a hardcore, if only we let them. I know so many grandmothers that play World of Warcraft – what the heck is that about? They’ve never played any other PC game in their lives but they have better raid gear than I do, by far. There’s a reason for that: The game gave them a fairly safe environment (with) pretty, nice graphics, and good, solid gameplay. So if we can provide a game that is just as good, people will find it and play it.”
At Blizzard’s annual fan convention, BlizzCon, held this past weekend in Anaheim, the company unveiled new features for Starcraft II, the sequel to the company’s sci-fi strategy game. The original title, released in 1998, has sold 11 million copies worldwide and is extremely popular in South Korea, where professional Starcraft players compete in televised tournaments for substantial cash prizes. But Blizzard wants to make the game more friendly to those new to the franchise.
During BlizzCon, Wired.com spoke with lead producer Dustin Browder about just how they’re catering to more casual players, how he hopes the new map creator will turn hardcore players into developers, and how he’s actually “grateful” for the game’s delay to 2010.
The full Q&A is below.
Starcraft II lead producer Dustin Browder.
Photo: Tracey John/Wired.com
Wired.com: With the new Battle.net, how will it prevent people from trying to cheat and sign up for multiple accounts?
Dustin Browder: You actually have to buy a copy of the game to play on that account. So anytime you want to get a new account for Battle.net, you’re going to have to get a new CD Key. That’s going to get boring really quick, going out and buying new CD Keys every time you want to be a jerk on Battle.net. I mean, yeah you can do it, but wow that’s going to cost you. Hopefully it’ll stop people from being jerks.
Wired.com: It was also mentioned that players have the option to charge for their created maps. How much is Blizzard’s cut? How will this work?
Browder: We don’t know for sure yet, and we’re still working on it. We’re just announcing, “This was the plan and this is what you can do down the road.” What we really want to do is — we have all these mapmakers who have made amazing maps. We’re talking about maps that have changed the face of gaming in fundamental ways. You’ve got companies making games like Plants vs. Zombies, which owes a lot of its core designs to tower defense — which came from our fans originally in Starcraft, but then lots from (Blizzard real-time strategy title) Warcraft III.
These fans are making games that are changing gaming, and they’re doing it from their garage with a day job. So what we’d like to do is have an opportunity for these guys to maybe have a chance to quit their day job and work on the game for real. Just really do it more seriously or maybe get a small team of guys, and they can all work on the game. They could hire an artist, they can get bigger — we don’t know how big or crazy this can get, but the hope is that these guys can, by getting some resources, do even better stuff. We’re already amazed by what they’re capable of, so if they had some resources, what can they do? What more will they do with some more resources? And we’re hoping we can find out.
Wired.com: So if there are some really great map-makers out there, what would stop you from just hiring those guys?
Browder: Nothing, actually. And we’ve certainly talked to these guys before. A full third of my design staff right now comes from the mod community. We’ve certainly talked to almost every major developer out there about these mod maps and some are interested. We’re definitely looking at these guys. Some of them also don’t want to work on a team. They want to just do it their own way because that’s what they’ve done before. There’s always going to be challenges hiring anybody because we still have all the same rules: you have to work on a team, be a nice guy, mesh with the group, but at the same time, yeah, we’d look at any of these mod-makers as possible Blizzard employees.
Wired.com: How do you moderate what maps get uploaded for sale?
Browder: The player decides. What will happen is, the player who has made the map will publish the map to the service, so they can get a hold of it, and he’ll have to decide what he wants to charge if he wants to charge. I don’t know what the exact rules will be. Like is there a limit how much they can charge? Can they charge $10,000 to see if there are any buyers? They’ll be some structure there for it, but they will decide and the community will decide what’s worth it, what’s reasonable and what’s not reasonable.
For Starcraft II at launch, it’s just going to be like Warcraft III, but you won’t get it peer-to-peer. Like in Warcraft III, if you try to join a game and you don’t have the map, you get booted because you’re a noob and they don’t want to give you the map. So you’re like, “Oh where do I get this map? I guess I have to find the website.” And it’s kind of a pain. We’re going to host all the maps on Battle.net now. When you publish a map it goes to Battle.net, and anyone can get it, they can play it with their friends, they can play it online, whatever they want to do. At some point down the road, they’ll be premium maps. Maps you won’t be able to just pull off of Battle.net for free, and where you’ll actually pay a developer.
Wired.com: Is there going to be any monitoring on Blizzard’s part with the upload process to the server, or do the players just put it up and you guys check the maps afterward?
Browder: We have a biohazard concept where players can report anything that’s objectionable to us, then we get reports and our GM staff will check it out and remove it if necessary. In terms of any sort of malicious things, we don’t know. We have to work it all out. There’s a whole bunch of questions unanswered in this space, like how do we protect these mapmakers so their stuff doesn’t get stolen?
Wired.com: Like if someone changes one thing from your map and calls it their own…
Browder: Right. There’s all kinds of exciting adventures to have with this. I think the reason we announced (the map-making feature) was so these guys who have their garage development studios can kind of get ready for this and get a heads up.
Wired.com: Even a year out since you announced that Starcraft II will be a trilogy, I feel like players are still skeptical about it. Players, especially, hardcore gamers, seem to think they’re getting scammed, even by companies they trust. Take Valve and Left 4 Dead 2, for instance. So besides the typical spiel about great content, as a gamer yourself, what do you think needs to be said and done to convince gamers they’re getting their money’s worth?
Browder: I think they just need to play it. I don’t think they’ll believe it until they do. We’ve all been screwed by corporate America so many times, so I understand why they’re skeptical. They’ve been burned one too many times. I think if they play it, they’ll understand. There’s no question in my mind that, as a developer and as a player, that this was the right move. This is what had to happen; we could not put 90 missions in this game. We would never, ever ship it at that rate. And we could not cut those campaigns to 10 missions a piece. It would have been crap campaigns — no question in my mind, (they would have been) terrible campaigns.
We needed to have a 20 to 30-mission campaign, minimum, to tell the stories we wanted to tell, and to give the player enough choice to decide how he wants to navigate this campaign. If we were just telling a story, and we didn’t have any choices (for the player), we could have totally done it. But it wasn’t in us to do that type of game anymore. We wanted to have choice for the player, and the story that these guys have built up over 10 years of talking about it had become so large and so intricate and so interesting, that it needed time to breathe. And we needed that 20- to 30-hour gameplay experience to get that across to you. So I am dead-set convinced (making a trilogy) was the right choice.
Wired.com: So part of it is that you’re making up for more than 10 years of no Starcraft sequel…
Browder: In some ways, yes, this was the consequence of 10 years, right? The story got really big. I know this was the right choice, and I know (players) are very suspicious, and they think that it’s somehow some great glorious conspiracy, but it’s not. And they won’t believe it, and that’s okay. I think when they play it, or when they see their friends playing it, they’ll go, “Oh that looks really cool, that was a good choice.”
Wired.com: Some of the new features talked about at BlizzCon — a challenge mode that teaches players competitive multiplayer, the new system that divides players by skill level — seem to show that Blizzard is taking strides to include more casual or new players. Do you think Starcraft II can attract those who haven’t played Starcraft before, and has it been tested with a more casual audience?
Browder: I certainly hope so. We tested it with a few casual guys at the studio and, frankly, right now we’re not doing that great. So we’re going to keep working on that, and try to get it to a point where it’s much more accessible to a lot of our fans who maybe haven’t played one of our strategy games before as well as any fans who haven’t played any of our games before. So we’re definitely going to work on (making it more accessible). It’s definitely a goal.
Starcraft is a fun game as long as you’re playing with someone of your skill level. The minute you’re not, it’s terrible. But if you’re playing people of your skill level… if you’re playing softball, (pro baseball player) Sammy Sosa does not show up to that game and ruin it for anybody. That’s the problem with the internet: Up until now, Sammy Sosa could just come running through the game, hit a couple of home runs and leave. And you’re like, “Oh my god, that ruined our game.” So as long as we can get you matched up with your skill level, you’ll still have a good time. And our goal is to really provide that and, at the same time, provide you with enough knowledge so you know what you need to do to be a better player.
This is very obvious in baseball: If you’re not hitting well, you know you need to hit better and you can go find videos on how to hit better. But with Starcraft, since so much is hidden by the fog of war, it’s not always obvious what you should do better. We’ll have better score screens, better replay systems; we have challenge maps that teach you how to be a better multiplayer gamer. All these things add up to sort of a personal trainer for Starcraft that will hopefully teach you what you need to know to become a superior player.
Wired.com: But at the same time, you say that it’s not going well with your more casual in-house players?
Browder: We just haven’t made the transitions with the interface properly. The tools are correct, but they’re not finding them in the (user interface).
Wired.com: So it’s a user interface issue?
Browder: It’s the UI that’s being worked on and the basic level tutorial stuff we haven’t quite got into yet. We have some basic tutorials, but there’s more we want to do with that and that’s going in like in the next couple of weeks. That will help out a lot as well. I have confidence that in about three to five weeks, we’ll have something really strong, and we can start to focus test with some guys we pull in off the street that are very casual and see what they think.
I think we’ll hit that part. The question is will they enjoy the game? And that’s what it really comes down to. I think players will find and enjoy games and have a good time. And for us, there really isn’t a sharp division between casual and hardcore (players). A casual could become a hardcore, if only we let them. I know so many grandmothers that play World of Warcraft — what the heck is that about? They’ve never played any other PC game in their lives but they have better raid gear than I do, by far. There’s a reason for that: the game gave them a fairly safe environment; pretty, nice graphics; and good, solid gameplay. So if we can provide a game that is just as good, people will find it and play it.
Wired.com: So “Starcraft II: possibly for grandmas.” Is that the goal?
Browder: (laughs) I don’t know if that’s the goal, but if the game is good enough, I hope they’ll enjoy it.
Wired.com: When testing things like the UI to make it more friendly to casual players, do you feel you have to compromise a lot for them?
Browder: Not usually. Usually the hardcore guys… if you make a game that’s deep but accessible, easy to learn but hard to master, you can make everyone happy. That is our goal, and they’ll be a few guys on the internet that will be mad about something, but if they play it they won’t say that. It’s easy to throw stones at something you haven’t played, but it’ll be much more interesting once they actually play the game. Right now a lot of their concerns are incorrect, but when they play it, they’ll see.
Wired.com: I have to ask about the petition regarding lack of LAN play. It seems obvious you’re not going to budge on this, but people complain anyway. What do you say to those clinging to LAN?
Browder: Well, we’re hoping when we get a chance to show them the full feature set that they’ll be comfortable with it. We’ll have to wait and see. I do feel like a lot of players don’t understand what we’re actually offering with Battle.net yet and that’s what (executive vice president of game design Rob Pardo) was trying to get out (at BlizzCon’s Battle.net panel). His presentation said, “Look, we are offering some really cool stuff. There is some value for you. We’re really not trying to screw you, and we’re trying to make a better experience.
I know it hurts to rip this Band-Aid off, but we think it will be better for you. Certainly if we get to that process and we’re not convinced it’s going to be better, then we’re not going to do it. But we’re not convinced yet. We’re going to keep going forward, petition or no petition, until we’re convinced we’re doing the right thing.
Wired.com: How does the delay affect the game? Obviously Battle.net, which is tied to the game, was cited as the main cause of the delay, but did Starcraft II by itself need more time?
Browder: Oh yeah, it’s been a huge benefit for us. Thank God for the delay, really.
Wired.com: So it wasn’t just Battle.net that needed more time?
Browder: Absolutely not. That’s what our initial press release said, but then 10 minutes later we were like, “Were we going to ship like that? That’s terrible!” So we get to look at parts of the solo play campaign, parts of the story that didn’t make a lot of sense. We got to collect a lot more feedback, and now we get to really polish up the campaign in just a wonderful way. Something we wouldn’t have had time for if we tried to rush this to market. I’m so grateful for the delay.
Wired.com: So if Battle.net wasn’t delayed would you still have asked for a game delay?
Browder: I would have, yeah.
Wired.com: I know Blizzard has said early 2010, but there are a ton of games coming out then… I’ll note the eye roll…
Browder: (laughs) Yes, there are a lot of games coming out.
Wired.com: Are you concerned about all the games coming out then or…
Browder: I hope Diablo III doesn’t beat us out the door. (laughs)
Wired.com: Wait, though… did you just confirm that Diablo III is coming out in 2010!?
Browder: No! (laughs) I just hope we don’t ship that late. As for being worried about other games… Not really, we always focus on making the greatest game we can make, and we hope the fans will embrace it at that point. You don’t tend to look at the market and fret about what’s there and what’s not there. We just say look, if we got a good game, people will find it and play it. We have faith in our fans, we have faith in gamers. We don’t tend to view them as marketing pawns, like, “Well, they’ll do this because of the timing.” No, if the game is good, fans will find it. I’m sure there are great games coming out around that time, but I’m not worried.
Screenshots: Blizzard Entertainment
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