Zerg Coverage >> Fansite Q & A With Dustin Browder


Fansite Q & A With Dustin Browder

After the main interviews and the journalist tournament, Dustin came in to the computer room, and joined in a team play of StarCraft II. After the game, he stayed around for a bit of discussions about the game in general. You could tell that he had a completely different attitude against the few journalists and fansite representatives that were there than during the previous interviews. A more open and genuinely interested Browder talked with us, answered our questions and listened to our feedback. The fact that no PR people was around might have helped.


Macro, Micro, Buildings and Selections

The first topic of discussion that came up was the balance between macro and micro, and the ever continued discussion about multiple building selection and queueing of buildings. Dustin said that he wasn't sure about that at all, even now, and it is something they play around with a lot to see if it works or not. Making the game fun to play, while still making it possible for the really good players to shine.

Even the pro gamers that were there agreed with Blizzard on the queueing of building buildings (naturally only for the Terran and Protoss), it makes it easy to just queue up what you want done, and then make units or the like. The only thing that could be a problem here is if it makes thigns too easy. Dustin pointed out that while it is possible to queue up a full "wall" for the choke point of your base, you wouldn't normally have that much minerals. In this build, you paid minerals when you ordered a build at a certain location, but not for the subsequent queued buildings. Perhaps this could be a way to balance the feature [if it even needs balancing]?

Dustin also pointed out with these features of the game, that it was 10 years ago StarCraft was released, and people will start asking "Why don't you have these things in the game?", and so he said it can be hard to reply that "No, we don't have those features, because the guys in Korea would kill us". This comment gave all of us in the room a big smile.

He further said that they are letting pro gamers trying the game out and it isn't set in stone with the multiple building selections, as they are trying out what works for this game.


Building Sizes

One of the fansites asked about the thoughts behind the sizes of buildings in the game, and asked if the Zerg Spire really needed to be 3x3, and Dustin replied that the building sizes are very much up for grabs at this point. The art would work as a 2v2, and they will try that out in the upcoming builds. It is a matter of balance, as making some buildings small enough can have a huge impact on the game. I pointed out that the new Zerg defensive Swarm Clutch is very powerful in big quantities [being 1x1 at the time], and Dustin said they will be 2x2 in the next build.

The dev team have also toyed with the idea of letting the Creep Tumors having one tile as well, seeing as their art is just a small eye poking up from the ground. It is all in testing at the moment, and what they showed us was according to Dustin "very rough". As an editor's note; if what they showed there was "rough", we will be truly amazed by the final product!


System Requirements

There is no information yet on what hardware will be needed to run StarCraft II (except for the rumoured StarCraft 2 System Requirements). Dustin said that their plan is to make it as widely accessible as possible (much like all other games by Blizzard). They will optimize the engine as far as it's possible, and then see how they can make it work on the widest possible variety of PCs. As a 3D game, it will of course come with different graphics settings, but it will still be a balance of what your minimum required level of graphics is needed to be truly fun to play (indicating ugly graphics might not be as fun).


The Thor

The changes to the Thor since BlizzCon, making it slightly more mobile and perhaps less daunting (as well as the fact it's now built from the Factory), was welcomed with a positive response from the the pro gamer standing next to me. Dustin joked a bit about the previous incarnation, when it was perhaps a bit unbalanced in favour of micro-ing that you could easily take out this big, expensive unit with one that was made with a fraction of time and resource investment. I found this extra funny, with memories of Dustin, himself announcing this as a big and interesting feature for the Thor at BlizzCon!

Still, there is the issue of mobility for the Thor, and the StarCraft II team is looking in to the possibility for Dropships to possibly be able to lift Thors around, as they can be quite useless if built on an island. Dustin was a bit unsure on the matter, as it seems kind of odd with the Thor being several times larger than the Dropship, but on the other hand, you could fit in Ultralisks in the transports of the original StarCraft.

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