Starcraft 2: Original-Interview in englischer Sprache mit Dustin Browder
In unserem Exklusiv-Interview mit Blizzard sprach Starcraft 2-Lead Designer Dustin Browder mit PC Games-Redakteur Felix Schütz ausführlich über Custom Maps, Mods und Updates rund um Wings of Liberty und Heart of the Swarm.
PC Games: Hi Dustin! Let's get straight to the new SC2 custom maps: What's your intention with these? For example are they meant as a gift for the community or just a way to bypass some time before the release of Heart of the Swarm?
Dustin: Well, originally we had planned to put them out as a way to show what you can do with the editor. But we started to work on them a little longer than we wanted to, we started to put a lot more effort into them. And by that time the community had already done some amazing things with the editor and it was really no need to show what it can do, because the community already figured out many, many exciting things. So I guess they [the new maps] still have some value in that respect, but not really a lot at the end of the day. (laughs) There are some crazy things going on certainly in Starjeweled, it has some crazy scripting which might inspire the community to build that type of map. But I think the community has already shown the power of what we've put out in many exciting ways. So at this point, we're looking at them [the new maps] as just more fun stuff to play on Battle.net, stuff we hope the fans will enjoy. There are of course already many exciting mods available on the servers, so I don't know how we even can compete, but we certainly hope the fans enjoy them.
PC Games: From these four custom maps you announced, which one is your personal favourite?
Dustin: I really told myself I am not gonna play Starjeweled anymore because I can't stop once I do. (laughs) A couple of days ago I lost an hour and a half to that map, I just played it again and again and again. So I'm not allowed to play that in the office anymore, that's my personal policy, so I can get other work done.
PC Games: Well, that's a good sign, right?
Dustin: It is! It's a really fun and exciting gameplay experience. And then of course there's Aiur Chef, which is sort of a great party game that you play with a bunch of buddies. It feels a lot like the classic party games you can play on consoles, just running around and trying to get the best recipes, I really enjoy that. I never had the chance to play Left 2 Die with my wife, yet, but I think we'll really enjoy that, you know, for you and your wife or you and one of your buddies or your girlfriend or whatever, that's a really fun cooperative experience. But if you put a gun to my head and say "You can only play one for the rest of your life.", then it would have to be Starjeweled.
PC Games: Will I be able to earn new achievements for playing these maps?
Dustin: We are planning on doing achievements, but I don't know if we will have them in the first rollout. We are planning on doing them down the road. We wanted to give the maps out to communities hands pretty soon. So we will have achievements in the future, but not in the first push.
PC Games: Last year you announced a DotA custom map. Why aren't we talking about that one?
Dustin: We are still under construction on that one. There are a lot of things that we can do to make that one a lot more interesting than what we showed at Blizzcon. That's a much more complicated map with a lot more that you can do to make the design better. There are lots of core problems with a lot of classic DotA maps that we are gonna be looking to address. I don't know how much you know about DotA, but there are lots of moments in DotA maps, for example, where you should not be attacking the enemy because it's actually what is making you weaker. Which is bizarre, but there it is. There are plenty of moments where you get into funny situations, where one team has a very clear advantage but it can take them a long time to win. League of Legends introduced a surrender system to kind of counteract this. So there are lots of core issues to the core gameplay mechanics that we want to experiment with. We want to see: Can we do better? Can we fix some of these issues? Can we make sure the games don't take an hour and 20 minutes to play when everybody knows who will win after half an hour? I don't know how successful we will be in this, addressing these issues. But we want to experiment with those and see if we can make a better experience.
PC Games: Since we know you guys are working intensely on Heart of the Swarm, some people might ask : How much work it actually is to create these new custom maps and could this even slow down the development process of Heart of the Swarm?
Dustin: The custom maps were made when we were doing a lot of the early development of Heart of the Swarm, we were talking about story and about top-level features. So the custom maps that are going out now did not affect Heart of the Swarm in any significant way, because those maps were made at a time when there was not a lot of map work to be done on Heart of the Swarm. DotA certainly could have an impact, but we've managed to limit it to just a couple of guys and we are looking at hiring people to work on it with us. So I don't expect it to have any significant impact. We are spending a little bit time, I am spending a little bit time and some of your senior designers are spending a little bit time on DotA, but we think it will be pretty minimal.
PC Games: Sounds like DotA is really important to you.
Dustin: It's something that we are definitely having fun working on, it is something that we think the community will enjoy playing and something that's sort of a way to say "Thanks!" to our fans.
PC Games: Aside from these four custom maps, do you have plans for additional singleplayer content for Wings of Liberty?
Dustin: We would certainly love to do that and we've definitely talked about it, so we've got some ideas. Most of our single player stuff right now is focused on Heart of the Swarm, though. So when that happens, I don't know for sure. We have talked about doing some challenges, we have some challenge maps that have been developed and those might be going out in a patch in the future.
PC Games: Quite a while ago you announced a maps and mods market for Battle.net. What happened to that idea?
Dustin: We are working on that and we do have a lot of plans in the fairly near future to do some better ways for sorting maps and finding maps and seeing maps promoted up to the top level. It's one of the biggest concerns that our fans have raised to us and that we totally agree with. It's very difficult for quality maps to get of the floors, you know, from being just a map on the servers to be a map in the top 20. So we are looking at ways for players to promote their own maps and ways for the community to promote the maps up and that is gonna be stuff we are releasing in the near future. The idea of selling maps on the marketplace... we announced that at Blizzcon a while back, we said that it is going to be some distance away. And still, that one is not coming in the near future. It might come in a patch, it might come in Heart of the Swarm, it might come beyond. There are some very ... exciting technical challenges. We are trying to figure out about how to deal with that stuff, specifically how to make sure that the maps are protected, so that it is very difficult for the players to steal maps from one another. That is one of our biggest concerns.
PC Games: Seems like you guys are still putting a lot of work into Battle.net.
Dustin: Yeah, we released our master league and we are looking at releasing a grand master league. We are planning on doing a season roll here in the near future, you know, we have a way to record what happens in the previous season. We are gonna have a bunch of new maps for the matchmaker. Many of the maps you've been playing on are from the beta, that's quite a while, so we are gonna take out some old maps and put in a bunch of new maps. We are planning on doing season ending tournaments; I don't know exactly when that's gonna happen, but it's probably closer to Heart of the Swarm than it is to a patch between now and Heart of the Swarm. Our general policy on Battle.net is: We are not gonna hold things back for products. We are just gonna work on it as fast as we can and as we get stuff done we are just gonna roll it in. Some of that may happen after Heart of the Swarm, some may happen a month or two before Heart of the Swarm.
PC Games: So even months after you released Wings of Liberty, there is still work to be done on that game?
Dustin: Things have certainly changed since we shipped the game. We are a little bit more like World of Warcraft now, we are doing patches, we are doing updates to the live service and we are working on Heart of the Swarm at the same time. So we have new features that are coming into the game, we have new features that go into Battle.net, we have new maps and new balance stuff that is going into the game. All that happens around Wings of Liberty because the community wants, needs and deserves that kind of support. At the same time Heart of the Swarm is continuing forward, we have a lot of stuff going on there, as well. So it's been a much crazier time for us in many ways than before we shipped the game. Before we shipped the game we had the beta to worry about and getting the game out of the door. And now we've got two full products going at the same time - updates for Wings while on the same time we are working on Heart of the Swarm.
PC Games: Recently the mod community got pretty upset about the World of Starcraft mod. Could you tell us that story from your perspective, what really happened and how you felt about it?
Dustin: Sure! So, we hadn't seen that mod a day before stuff went down on it. And then I think what happened was the legal guys saw the name of the mod and they were a little uncertain of what it was. And you have to forgive these guys, they are dealing with a huge amount of content that is happening all over the world, all at the same time. And some of that content we want to encourage, we really want to encourage this guy to keep working on this mod, because it looks great and we love it! But they [the legal guys] saw that title and they didn't understand exactly what it was, and they have this sort of standard policy to pull stuff off of Youtube when they see something questionable like that. It's a policy that we are reviewing right now, but that was the policy and so, not understanding what they are looking at, they had it pulled down. And then we were starting investigating it, of course, we had a pretty good idea of what it really was. It was just a mod and everything was fine. So we started talking to the legal guys, saying: "Hey guys, we are looking at this, we don't think this is what you think it is. We think this is a very cool thing this guy is doing." So they looked at it and agreed like "Oh sorry, this is in fact exactly what we want the community to be doing with our mapmaker, this is exactly what we want." And so we invited the guy to come out, have a tour of our offices and it was just a big misunderstanding in the end of the day.
PC Games: So he is allowed to keep on working on his mod, he just needs to find another name for it?
Dustin: Absolutely, yes.
PC Games: World of Starcraft aside - are you satisfied with the way the community has been using the editor so far?
Dustin: I would go well above satisfied. We are pretty excited! They've done some really great stuff. There are a lot of great maps worthy of being played out there. And we are really excited to support them with new art and tools and features on Battle.net to promote maps. I think we got a very vibrant community happening here and we can't wait to see what happens when it continues to grow.
PC Games: Got any favorite mods?
Dustin: Oh, I don't like to do that and I'm gonna tell you why. I don't want to promote one over the other. All these guys are doing really great work and I want to see these maps survive on their own merits, not on anything that I've said, you know, that pushed them forward. But there is a lot of great stuff and I definitely encourage anybody who is interested to go there and check it out. I do have my own personal favorite but I don't want to say it because everybody out there is worthy, everybody out there is deserving of attention and of people looking at their stuff.
PC Games: If I created a cool map or mod, is it possible that Blizzard would actually hire me?
Dustin: Rhichard Khoo is a designer on my team, one of the finest designers I've ever worked with. He built a mod that was called Skibi's Tower Defense [Skibi's Castle TD] for Warcraft 3. Matt Gotcher is one of the finest designers I've ever worked with here on my team and he built a custom campaign for Warcraft 3. Meng Song is one of the best designers I've ever worked with who works on my team and who built a copy of Diablo in the Warcraft 3 engine. We hire from the mod community all the time. These guys have a great deal of experience using our toolset and more importantly: Working as a mod maker gives you a lot of design chops because it really forces you to work with other people, to practice the skillset of taking and receiving feedback, to focus on gameplay and building something the community will really enjoy. If you can make a mod that thousands of people are playing every day on Battle.net, you don't need to prove to me that you are a game designer. You are a game designer! I can see it. I can touch it. It's real. We've been in contact with several people from the community already who have made mods and are looking to hire people from that community. So no, it is no question - if you can make a mod on Battle.net you got a decent shot at getting an interview at Blizzard, let alone getting hired, let alone getting the attention of other companies as well! (laughs) Certainly, I don't want to encourage people to run off to other organizations, but clearly: If you got a mod and you are practicing being a game designer on Battle.net, putting something out for thousands of people, taking feedback, making balance changes, you are building the skillset necessary to work at Blizzard or anywhere else in the industry. It's definitely a great way to start a career working in games.
PC Games: Wow...! Some guys from the community should get pretty excited when they hear what you just said.
Dustin: Yeah, it is something I really feel passionate about. It's something very important for people to understand. If you come to me with a résumé and you say "I've got a lot of smart ideas about being a designer.", then I have a lot of questions for you. Because then I will try to figure out: Is this guy for real? Does he really know? Is he really committed? But if you come to me and say: "I've spent the last six months killing myself learning your tools, making this awesome mod that you can go play right now.", so as a game director I can go play it and say "Wow! This is a really good game! I am looking for an excuse to hire you now!" And then I am trying to figure out: Where can I fit him in? How can I get him in here? Where can I find the money to hire this guy? He clearly is a gamer and clearly is a game designer! And let me tell you, when I was working at other companies, it was the same there as well. I talked to guys when I was working at EA who had worked on Blizzard maps! So yeah, it is a wonderful tool for anyone to get into the games business.
PC Games: So what's the next step for the editor?
Dustin: The toolset is under constant development and we will be releasing more patches that have more tools in it and more power to the scripting engine. As we work on it, we get more ideas, and as the community works in it, they send us feedback with their ideas. So we've got a dedicated tools group who works on it, we got Brett Wood, who is our lead tools engineer for... good lord, I don't know how many years, over a decade now! He has developed all of our toolsets and continues to work on it to this day. As we release these mods like Aiur Chef, you know, we have a bunch of art that goes into these mods. And all that art becomes available for the entire community when we put it out there. They can do lots of creative stuff with that art we never thought of. So that gives more toys to the community to play with, more ideas and hopefully more options.
PC Games: That means the community is in fact allowed to use all the art you provide with the new custom maps?
Dustin: Absolutely, that was one of our reasons for putting these out, as well. We had some time between working on Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm, where the art staff could do some extra art. And so we put that into mods so the community can use it any way they want to create more fun stuff. And you see the kind of stuff they are capable of with the art that they have already been given. You know, if we give them more art they just do more crazy stuff. So we are always looking for ways to give more art into the hands of the community.
PC Games: Since Wings of Liberty is out on the market for a while now and you guys are obviously watching the community playing the game: What's the most important lesson you learned since then? What helps you the most in creating the next game in the franchise?
Dustin: Oh god, where to beginn... (laughs) I don't even know! We learned lots and lots of things, for example from looking at achievement data. We can find out that only two or three percent of our fans in most areas have completed the game on brutal. So that's interesting to know. And that may have an effect on the decisions going forward. We also learn a ton by watching GOMtv, by watching other e-sport events about what's happening in the balance. We can learn what type of levers in the balance really move the game and what types of levers do not. For example we learned that even a very small change in Stim Pack timing has a giant impact on the balance of Terran. I guess you don't have to be a rocket scientist to guess that - but I've got proof! (laughs) And we are able to see how the users actually use Battle.net, and that gives us a lot more knowledge about how to create better systems for custom games, which is what we've been working on a great deal in the last few months. I would say there is almost no part of the game that we haven't learned from something really critical since launch. Even beta, which was hugely helpful for us, didn't really stress us and test us as much as putting out the game for launch. Which is one of the reasons why I am personally so excited about having Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void, to keep working on this game! To have two expansion packs already planned, is what allows us to have two more swings at this game. Two more attempts to make really awesome campaigns, two more attempts to do more cool stuff with multiplayer, two more attempts to make major improvements to Battle.net. I mean, we got all kinds of opportunity here.
PC Games: Blizzard is celebrating its 20th birthday this year, right?
[Bob Colayco from Blizzard PR jumps in]
Bob: Yes, February 8.
PC Games: So what are your plans for that?
Bob: We have some plans in place, like interviews, discussions and retrospectives with our developers. And we are gonna have some really cool content for our fans. We are looking at a yearlong celebration, this Blizzcon is going to be very special for us, you know, we really want to highlight the fact that it is our 20th year.
PC Games: Nice! Alright guys, thanks a lot for your time. Have a good one and most importantly: Happy Birthday!
weiter so !
Aiur Chef und Left 2 Die hab ich noch nicht ausprobiert.