StarCraft II: TL Interviews Dustin Browder

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By Samuel 'DarthBotto' Horton

Dec 3, 2009 23:59

Team Liquid sat down and had a very informative interview with StarCraft II's Game Director to gain knowledge about Blizzard's inspirations, aspirations and iterations.

The notorious StarCraft programming community that TL represents had the informative interview that lasted for thirty minutes and covered various topics that provided background information for Blizzard and himself. Browder helped open his side of the interview by discussing the enormous amount of programming that is involved with the mechanics of the game and how that programming is more than often heavily tweaked. Along these lines involves the most difficult issue surrounding StarCraft II, which happens to be the Zerg and their complexities that have tripped up the design team. Furthermore, the planning for gameplay cosmetic changes in the following two expansion packs are details that have not even begun to be examined. However, Browder acknowledged that Brood War had caused an imbalance in what was a nearly perfect game and that the development team is evermore cautious about preventing predictable gameplay elements.

However, regarding Blizzard Entertainment and his inspirations, Browder discussed some details that have shown to be true and may play a role in StarCraft II:

"Oh of course, we're always looking at everything all the time and trying to get inspiration from wherever we can. You look at Starship Troopers or Aliens where there is obvious influence on what Blizzard has done. We are obviously watching everything we can get our hands on to try to create moments in games. We've got a mission in game now that's largely inspired by 300, which obviously is not a science fiction movie but has those core dramatic moments that we really really enjoy. And that is one of the great things about being a geek and being in this business – it's something that comes naturally. This is not stuff that I wouldn't be doing if I was an accountant I would still be wanting to do this. I'd still be going to see Zombieland as many times as I could – I'm just fortunate enough to work in a business where that has huge benefits."

Later in the interview, Browder was finally asked about Blizzard Entertainment's shift to eSports and what their involvement will be like. Browder drew a prolonged breath and redirected the question to Bob Colayco, (StarCraft II's PR Manager), to open up. Colayco explained that Blizzard has had a growing interest in third party coverage sites and professional teams that make repeated appearances to their events.

Browder finished the eSports perspective with the following statement:

"I think the important message for the community with this one would be, that we love the third party tournaments as well. We love watching those, going to them and seeing them live etc. So we want to do stuff as well, and we want to promote eSports overall. We want eSports to grow and grow and grow – ideally with our game of course, but even in the wider world of everybody's games. We think eSports is an important component of what video games could become, and we want to take this opportunity with StarCraft II to push eSports forward. But, we really hope that lots of people out there see how fun it is and jump on board to make their own tournaments for our games or whoever's games. As long as we have a lot of eSports out there, we'll have more eSports players, more sites and bigger sites. It's just good for the business overall and because we put so much energy into it, it's good for us."

For the full interview with Team Liquid, visit teamliquid.net.

Source: teamliquid.net