Slashdot Mirror
Blizzard Answers Your Questions and More
Last week we asked for interview questions to help supplement our face-to-face interviews at Blizzcon. Over the course of the two-day con we were able to sit down with StarCraft II's Dustin Browder, Diablo III's Leonard Boyarsky, WoW's J. Allen Brack, and Battle.net expert Rob Pardo to answer a few questions on each of the four major camps in Blizzard at the moment. Since this wasn't a usual Slashdot-style interview, we tried to use as many of your suggestions as possible, but the conversation often took us in a unique direction once it got rolling.
Dustin Browder — Lead Designer, Starcraft 2
Slashdot: How much of the team has already rolled over to Heart of the Swarm?
Dustin Browder: Almost no one. Occasional meetings with Cinematics team, who wants to get a jump on things, and the occasional water cooler conversation. Pretty much everyone is focused entirely on Wings of Liberty.
Slashdot: How much of your work from Wings of Liberty will you be able to duplicate throughout the other two installments of the trilogy?
Dustin Browder: Very little. We have tools and we have an engine, and that's huge. We also have a lot more knowledge of what we're trying to accomplish with the scenes and with the story, so we have a lot of benefit from the software that is already created and a lot of knowledge to help us move faster.
Slashdot: How many of those software tools are going to be available to the community-at-large?
Dustin Browder: As many as we can. Certainly the data editor, the map editor, and the terrain editor. That lets users create pretty much anything the design staff can create. Since the story-mode stuff is put together by one of our designers — he collects the art from cinematics and makes it all happen — all that stuff is accessible as well. I'm not gonna lie to you and tell you this stuff is easy; this guy is really smart, and this stuff is complicated, but it's totally doable. We have seen our fans do some amazing things in the past with a very limited toolset by comparison. In this case we're really hopeful that they will do a lot of cool stuff. I can't even guess what they are going to do. [Dustin gave a panel later on in the day where demonstrated some of the things that Blizzard employees had done in their spare time just playing around with the tools. A few examples were; an "Uberlisk" which had a number of spine crawlers on his back and wandered around terrorizing a board filled with hostiles, a zoomed-in third-person action game with a Ghost as the main character, with the ability to interact with "quest givers" and actually go inside buildings and underground, and a top-scrolling space shooter.]
Slashdot: There has been some talk that the streamlining of commands has been moving the focus away from actions per minute [APM]. How important is APM as a metric for you and will we see a decline in the importance of this metric?
Dustin Browder: That type of feedback is incredibly important for us. We want players making smart decisions all the time and we want a lot of skill required to play this game at the highest levels. We absolutely want the best players to be the best players. We're not looking to even out or flatten the skill curve so that "everybody can be a winner." This is not the first grade. We want this to be tennis, baseball, football, whatever, we want this to be a game that requires real skill. But at the same time we don't want this to be a bunch of bogus skill. We have definitely gotten rid of some clicks, but we have also added some clicks back in. We got rid of some clicks in terms of how you had to select your buildings and how you had to give build commands, but we also made sure that we had the finest amount of control at the same time.
When we originally put it out there we said you could double-click the barracks and hit 'M,' and you get five marines, one from each barracks for instance. The fans were outraged and we kind of ignored them, saying, "Whatever, this is a better gameplay experience," but as we played it, we realized that it wasn't a better gameplay experience. Maybe when you hit 'M,' what you really wanted was three marines and two marauders, and you couldn't do that. Instead we have said you can select all of your barracks at once, but each click sends a build command individually to each of those barracks. So now you are able to hit "M, M, M, D, D." This gave us a decent amount of clicks, but actually the correct amount of control. That's actually the control you wanted as a player. We weren't looking to hurt you by giving you too many clicks or hold your hand by taking away some of the gameplay experience. We were actually giving you the controls that made you powerful by having the correct balance between the two.
Also we have a bunch of macro mechanics in the game to encourage players to control their economy better, because as you know in Starcraft, economy is king. One of the things that we loved about the original Starcraft was not so much that we want you to click a bunch, but that there was a lot of tension between players who were micro-oriented and players who were economy-oriented. For instance, if you are playing Zerg and are micro-oriented and I'm playing Zerg and I'm economy-oriented, we're kind of playing two different races — not exactly, but a little bit. We're having a very different experience, and that style difference now becomes the interesting problem for both of us, and that is what we're really pursuing with a lot of this stuff. So, we've definitely taken some clicks away, but we have added some back, and I think the fans will be fine with it. Certainly the hardcore fans I've spoken with, who have actually had a chance to play the game, seem to be very positive about the experience.
Slashdot: It looks like the new league system is going a long way toward making the play experience much better across the board, and will allow people to grow at their own pace. What can you tell us about how this system works?
Dustin Browder: We think this system will really help a lot of players. Even if you are going to stay down in the copper league forever, at least you are playing against your skill level and can hope to win something. In Warcraft 3, minus the "Smurfs" who would come through and ruin everybody's day, we had a pretty good matchmaking system and you could win about half your games. I know most people would prefer to win about 70% of their games, but that would mean someone else has to lose 70% of their games, and we don't want that. If we can match you against your skill level, I think that's where you wanna be and you'll have a good time. So now, if I can put you in a bronze league of 100 players and all those players are your skill level, that means you have a shot of being number one in that league at the end of the season. I think that is going to be a lot more fun for people. When you go to play intramural softball, you know Sammy Sosa isn't showing up. While it might be fun for about two minutes, it would ruin the game and no one would have a good time. If we can keep everyone organized into the skill level they belong I think everyone will have a lot more fun.
Slashdot: What kind of side projects is Blizzard looking at? Any possibility of expanding things to the console, tangentially-related mobile games of any kind, or maybe another pass at Ghost?
Dustin Browder: Starcraft 2. That's about it. We're really focused and we don't mess around with a research division or anything like that. When we think of cool ideas, we build them until they are done and we don't stop. We had the mobile Armory that we announced, but that's more of a support tool than a new game or stand-alone app. For console, we certainly don't have anything that I'm aware of that's going on right now. I'm not saying we wouldn't explore it down the road; it could be a very real possibility. All of us play console games and we all love our XBoxes, Wiis, and Playstations. The gamers are there, the fanaticism exists in the building, it's just a question of when it will bubble to the surface and find a successful outlet.
Slashdot: How do you see ongoing content being developed? You have the main trilogy, but once you are done with that, do you see discrete content releases of some sort, ongoing smaller patches, or maybe even interesting things like the holiday patches in WoW? The new Battle.net framework seems to offer you a lot more options for keeping people up-to-date.
Dustin Browder: The holiday stuff is certainly something we would like to explore via free patches, just to throw it out there. Other smaller patches like new maps or bug-fixes would also certainly come quickly as it was needed. What additional content we actually choose to possibly charge for, I don't know, but I think it would have to be something of extreme value in order to get excited about that. We don't like putting out stuff that we feel dirty about. We argue about it quite a bit, what is enough value and what isn't, what did it cost us, what do we have to charge, those kinds of decisions. Most of those decisions happen above my level, which is great, but certainly the teams have a great deal of influence over those decisions. Most of that stuff, at least initially, will be more patch oriented, but if we find something that is of real value we'll discuss it.
Slashdot: With Starcraft being so data-oriented, you have already put out some really cool tools for recap and data-analysis. Is there any hope of external APIs so that third party developers can do things like scorebots, profiling, armory-type tools that don't necessarily live within Blizzard?
Dustin Browder: Certainly a lot of that stuff is exposed and is possible for players to get their hooks into. I don't know what will happen ultimately with that, but I'm certainly hopeful that we have a large, happy, thriving community of people developing third-party support tools.
Slashdot: As Linux and open source continue to gain popularity and market share, is there any hope of Blizzard allowing some of the internal Linux-based tools and clients to make their way into the public domain, even if they weren't supported?
Dustin Browder: I have no idea what the rules surrounding that are or why that may or may not happen. I don't know of any plans, but that doesn't mean they aren't happening out there. Certainly we have supported the Mac for years and years and definitely plan to continue to do so. We try to support other platforms, but at this point I don't know of any specific plans for Linux.
Slashdot: The other question that is a constant concern within the fan base of Starcraft is the question of disallowing LAN play. How are you solving problems like making sure this is a valid replacement for LAN plan; security, reliability, speed, or even people playing behind things like NAT routers?
Dustin Browder: These are issues that we continue to address as we go forward. Some of these things we have some plans for, but not all of them. It is something that we definitely plan on working on as we go forward to make sure we have things in place to handle every possible user case out there. We just know from WoW that most people can connect online and play. There are some cases out there, some legitimate-use cases — that aren't just people that refuse to buy a modem or are crazy and weird and living in a closet. We want to make sure we are able to support these legitimate-use cases for LAN play and make it accessible to those users, but we're still trying to identify all of those and decide which cases are legitimate and which are not. These are definitely legitimate concerns, and we're certainly looking to address them.
Leonard Boyarsky — Lead World Designer, Diablo III
Slashdot: I noticed that you have moved away from the strict left mouse/right mouse ability limitation and have created more opportunities for players to map keys and use abilities beyond the two major "equipped" abilities. What was the driving reason behind this decision?
Leonard Boyarsky: Well, we had that to some degree in Diablo II, it was just really inaccessible and not fun. Our main goal is to have the player focus on two skills and maybe that alternate ability that you can tab in, while moving some of the more passive or non-targeted abilities to the hotbar. Of course, minor refinements are going to continue to go on as we develop, but we wanted a way for you to augment your main skills. In a game like Diablo, your character is really defined by what your main attack is. Unless you are a real hardcore user, you probably aren't going to be switching up attacks constantly.
Slashdot: With the advent of the new Battle.net features and the evolution of gameplay in Diablo III, do you anticipate any major changes to the PvM Ladder setup or maybe some specific PvP elements?
Leonard Boyarsky: A lot of the stuff being developed for Starcraft II and Battle.net, we want to incorporate. All of the community features and chatting across games is very important and we'll definitely incorporate that where it makes sense. We haven't talked a lot about a PvP component, but we think it is a great aspect of the game. The part that we didn't like from the earlier games is that people could turn hostile at any time and stab party members in the back. The people who get upset that we're not going to have that aspect are generally the people who would kill their party members at a moments notice. So, maybe we'll find something where they can all go stab each other in the back apart from the people who don't want that as an experience. As far as specifics for PvP, rest assured that we're going to come up with whatever we can that is the best possible PvP experience for a Diablo-style game. Right now, we're really focused on the co-op play and using whatever we can from Battle.net to enhance that experience.
Slashdot: When you integrate with Battle.net, will that also integrate with other data streams? Recently when they were discussing World of Warcraft's integration with Battle.net, there was the possibility of a guild news RSS feed. Can we expect to see things like data export and clan support?
Leonard Boyarsky: I don't really know what the plans are for that, but I would assume if they are going to have something like that for WoW or StarCraft II and it works out, there is no reason why we wouldn't integrate that into Diablo III. I'm not the most technically-minded person; I'm more on the artistic/creative side of things, but we talk all the time about how to get all the community stuff that we can in, even if it isn't there at launch, so that it becomes this fantastic player experience.
Slashdot: Speaking of the artistic side of the house, are you looking to leverage your community for artistic injections into the Diablo III universe, like custom levels, modding, or even total conversion mods that just utilize the Diablo III engine?
Leonard Boyarsky: We discussed that early on because Starcraft II is doing so much modding support. But when you look at the style of game that Diablo is, it is based around a lot of random content. So when you look at it from that standpoint, someone might be able to make some very specific content, but the basis of what we're providing for the player is a random system. So are they just going to provide a different random system? Also, the creation of our art is very intense in terms of not only the talent and technical expertise required to get it into the engine, but manipulating it and using it with our tools. It would take a lot of work to make that friendly for the end user who didn't have a programmer there to help them figure out some of the finer points. We just didn't see the bang for the buck in doing something like that and it was never really a big part of the Diablo fan base. Having said that, if someone comes along and takes the Diablo engine and makes a fantastic game out of it, more power to them. We just didn't feel that was where we could add the most value for the players, because that just isn't what the community is about.
Slashdot: The Diablo franchise is especially iconic for things like easter eggs and secrets. Can we expect the same of depth in Diablo III? Any hints?
Leonard Boyarsky: No, no hints. They wouldn't be easter eggs then. We'll probably drop some hints here and there, maybe post some easter eggs on the web for people to dig out. Maybe some red herrings to send people in the wrong direction, but most of that stuff just comes naturally during development. As you develop areas, these things come up, and we're always throwing around ideas. So yeah, we talk about that all the time, and we are planning on doing quite a bit of that stuff.
Slashdot: I'm sure you guys are tired of the LAN dispute, but what specific things are the Diablo team looking at in terms of trying to provide value from Battle.net to assuage some of the fear that this is just an inconvenient take on DRM?
Leonard Boyarsky: Well, once again, I'm not the most technically-minded person and I want to get you guys a really good answer for that. I don't want to steer you guys the wrong way. Right now most of the implementation of Battle.net is Starcraft-focused, so I know that is our goal right now, but I know Rob [Pardo] has talked about how their fans use LANs for tournaments and the like ,so they have talked about how their fan base might need some kind of deployable LAN solution. The Diablo team is in the enviable position of letting them work out how all that is going to work and how they are going to solve all of those contingencies. Hopefully our track record will speak for itself and our fans can take us at our word that we are doing this not because of any business model or corporate mandate. We believe that we can give the best multiplayer experience by going in this direction. Just in terms of philosophy, we're all about making choices for the gameplay and then worry about the monetization later, which is great because there are many companies out there that go the opposite direction.
Slashdot: One of the things some of our readers really want to know is: what are the biggest deficiencies that you are seeing from young college grads trying to break into the industry? What words of wisdom could you impart to people trying to get their start, especially with respect to gaming?
Leonard Boyarsky: I can speak a little bit more to the artistic stuff because of the position I'm in; that's how I came up. I would say that, from an artistic standpoint, it's not about how well you use 3D Studio Max. Obviously you need background in some sort of 3D program, unless you just want to be a concept artist, but it's more about just being a great artist and having a great artistic eye. The same thing goes for creativity; it's more about having something to show that shows what you can do. If someone comes in and has something to show, it doesn't matter where they went to school or what they accomplished at school; it's what we can see. Because there are so many people out there that have resumes with great schools, it just really comes down to what they can do. If I find someone who just blew me away, I could care less if they even have a diploma. I think the biggest thing you can tell people is to do stuff on their own. It's probably easiest as a level designer, because you can get a Half-Life or a Quake and build your own levels, and then you have something to show. The more stuff you do just shows your passion, your creativity, your ability, as opposed to trying to get a job first if that makes sense.
J. Allen Brack — Production Director, World of Warcraft
Slashdot: What caused you to make the new level cap 85 as opposed to increasing it the usual 10 levels.
J. Allen Brack: Well, we looked at a lot of the things that we wanted to do for this expansion. Going back and revamping the old world and bringing the level of quality of the experience of the 20-60 game up to the level you saw in Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King was a hugely monumental task. We also looked at how much people say they like leveling, then tried to balance that with people who say the game doesn't start until max level, and tried to figure out what the right decision for the game was. We definitely didn't want to feel like we were trapped into adding 10 levels every time, because I think we could make an expansion that was very compelling where we didn't add any level increase, and I think there are situations where we would want a 20 level increase. It all comes down to what the right decision for the game is.
Slashdot: Can you describe the difference between this expansion and previous ones in terms of the time and difficulty it took to revamp an existing area versus creating an entirely new area?
J. Allen Brack: Well, this is actually, by far, the largest expansion that we have ever done. We are creating five new zones completely from scratch for level 80-85, we're also going back and retouching a lot of the existing zones. Some of the existing zones have been very good and have worked out very well and some of them we have always regretted and not worked out very well at all, but we're going back and evaluating those on a zone-by-zone basis. Many of the old zones are actually getting rebuilt from scratch just due to the massive amounts of changes.
Slashdot: How are you going to manage the difference between someone who has just purchased vanilla WoW versus someone who has all of the expansions up to and including Cataclysm?
J. Allen Brack: Well, we haven't talked about launch plan specifics, but we do want everyone to get Cataclysm. It is our intention that the world will experience the cataclysm for every player regardless of patch level. There are a couple of reasons for that, but one of the main reasons is we want people to play together and the idea of having segregated the players into the "bought Cataclysm" and "didn't" camps is really not the right decision. The other thing is that Cataclysm has lore and a reason behind it, so it doesn't really make sense to have it happen for some players and not for others.
Slashdot: There has been a lot of talk about the new phasing technology that allows entire continents to change. Was that very difficult to implement compared to what was already in Wrath of the Lich King?
J. Allen Brack: Yeah, it was. In Lich King, we didn't really have the ability to do terrain; we had the ability to skyboxes, quests, and effects, but now we have the ability to have different versions of terrain that get triggered based on other events. One example is being able to go into a cliffside dwelling and down into the storm cellar to weather a storm and when you come out, the entire cliff has been sheared off and there is nothing left. It's pretty exciting.
Slashdot: We have heard a lot about how StarCraft II is going to integrate with Battle.net, and a little about what World of Warcraft is going to do. Is there more coming?
J. Allen Brack: Sure. Battle.net is going to be the way that all players log into Blizzard games in the future. We have optional Battle.net conversion right now, but that will be mandatory at some point in the not-too-distant future. Once we have that integration, we'll layer the Battle.net features on top of World of Warcraft. We're not talking about changing the way that Guilds or Friend Lists work for Battle.net; it's more of just adding a layer of Battle.net features and community features on top of the existing game.
Slashdot: Has there been any talk of making APIs or data feeds that would allow fan sites or forums to integrate game data directly?
J. Allen Brack: That is an interesting idea. Yeah, we have seen a lot of neat little apps come out of the armory, to a degree that I don't think we really anticipated. There are now loot apps, community aggregation apps, and others, but we certainly were not prepared for the amount of traffic that is just to gather data from the armory for other apps.
Slashdot: The EVE team recently announced a project called Dust 514 that is a separate game that hooks into the EVE universe. Has Blizzard considered any side projects that might have some tie in to existing games?
J. Allen Brack: We typically think about things as a team — in my case, World of Warcraft — and what we could do within the existing WoW universe. Something like that offers a lot of wish fulfillment for me as a gamer, and we definitely talk about what kind of gameplay experience that we want to offer with each expansion, so we definitely have a lot of new things that we're talking about for Cataclysm, just not quite that extreme.
Slashdot: How about a console version for WoW?
J. Allen Brack: Console is one of those things that we probably talk about once every six months. I have probably met with Microsoft two or three times to discuss what it would be like to have WoW on the console. Where we are today, and I can't say we'll always be here, but right now WoW is very much designed for the mouse and keyboard interface, and doing another type of control scheme would be very challenging. I think it will be done, and if we had started WoW with the idea that we would move to console, I think it would be a much different game and the control scheme would support that.
Slashdot: Once the Battle.net integration is complete, you'll be able to talk to friends from different servers and even different games. Has there been any talk of being able to form instance groups across servers?
J. Allen Brack: Yes, and we're actually doing that in an upcoming patch. In 3.3 we're going to revamp the Looking For Group interface to allow that. The idea wasn't necessarily for existing players that are in a guild at high level, it's more for the people who want to run Wailing Caverns on a character that is level appropriate.
Slashdot: Lately there have been some problems with instance server congestion; is that something you are focused on?
J. Allen Brack: We're hugely focused on it. I mentioned the cross-server instancing — that is also a part of that solution as well. We have some technology that allows multiple servers to share certain instance blades and that gives us a lot of efficiency. We're going back and reconfiguring all of our servers for this, so it should be done before we launch 3.3.
Slashdot: There is always a call for increased support (even if it isn't official) for Linux, Wine, etc. Is there any possibility that future support for WoW on the Linux platform could grow?
J. Allen Brack: We have been a long time supporter of alternate platforms with the Mac, and have supported many of our games on both PC and Mac, so we're a big supporter of platform independence. We have experimented with a Linux client back in the day, but right now it is a resource problem. We have to consider how many resources it would take to put out a Linux client versus how many people would actually use something like that. We have to consider how many people aren't playing WoW right now and would if we had a Linux client. Or is it people who play already and just want support in their preferred operating system? If we decided to support a new platform, we would have to figure out how many game features we had to give up development on in order to develop a new client.
Rob Pardo — Executive VP Game Design
Slashdot: Is there any any possibility that Battle.net might interact with other systems like XBox Live, Steam, or other games?
Rob Pardo: I think there is the potential to do something like that, but there are certainly no immediate plans. We certainly are trying to engineer the platform in a way that it could do those sorts of things, and we have talked about trying to link in things like Facebook, Twitter, and mobile applications. We definitely have kept in mind that if we do go to console, we can still use Battle.net, in which case we would have to talk to things like XBox Live. So while there are no plans to do something like that, we certainly are keeping it in mind.
Slashdot: Are you thinking about making any APIs for Battle.net that would allow the community to start scraping some of the data directly?
Rob Pardo: That is a question I'm not entire sure of the answer, so I don't want to screw it up. Probably not extensively, but I know that in the past we have done things with game results and similar things, plus we have the Marketplace, which is a pretty big area. But we don't have plans to allow people to reconfigure Battle.net in a major way like that add-on system for WoW.
Slashdot: Now that you have mentioned the Marketplace, is there going to be an approval/rejection system for the things that are uploaded?
Rob Pardo: Yes there will, although our philosophy will probably be more of an iPhone philosophy and less of an XBox philosophy. We really want to try to have the community itself manage that, but we will probably still need some sort of light approval system to make sure that there aren't any viruses or wildly objectionable content. I really don't want us trying to make a quality call; that's where I don't want us to be.
Slashdot: Apple has been taking a lot of heat lately for how opaque they are when they reject a particular app. When you reject something, is there going to be some indication or explanation why?
Rob Pardo: I would hope so, but it's all new to us, so I can't tell you how it's all going to work. We have never done anything like this before, but we know where we want to be philosophically. We have done a lot of research on the other services, but I'm sure there will be lots of surprises to us when we start rolling it out.
Slashdot: We have heard a lot about how Starcraft II is going to be affected by Battle.net. Can you tell us a little bit about how Diablo III and WoW might be integrated?
Rob Pardo: Nothing specific yet, because all of our focus is on StarCraft II. But certainly, since I have been really involved with Battle.net, it's something that is always on my mind. A lot of the Starcraft II design was done so that it could be agnostic to our other games, so I would say that assuming everything goes well and the new service is as great as we want it to b,e I would imagine that you would see something very similar. There will obviously be Diablo-specific features that don't make sense for StarCraft II and vice versa, but as far as the always-connected experience and being able to talk across games, I would expect the same experience.
Slashdot: The LAN-play question has been a major issue. What are you doing to facilitate gameplay between people who are in the same room?
Rob Pardo: There are definitely some things we are investigating. Whether or not they will be in at launch, I don't know. I really think that the vast majority of people wont have an issue. Even if you look at Warcraft 3, which did have LAN play, the vast, vast majority of people played on Battle.net and that was what, seven years ago? So I think that it is a very small percentage of people that will be affected, and only a small percentage of the time. That said, we are looking at some technology that would allow us to detect a peer-to-peer connection if we detect something like a high latency over a certain amount. Unfortunately, this would only be able to work for custom games, since we need to ensure the accuracy of competitive or ladder games via Battle.net.
Slashdot: Are there any plans to build in some sort of reputation tracking to see how often someone has disconnected from games in progress or partakes in harassment of some sort?
Rob Pardo: No, there isn't at the moment, although it is something I'm interested in looking at in the future. We have talked a lot about it; it was one of those features that when we tried to develop a good social rating system we didn't see a great one out there that we could point at. It is a pretty tricky system to design, but it is something that I would like to tackle; maybe in the expansion.
Slashdot: With World of Warcraft, there are regional server groupings. How is Battle.net going to integrate with different parts of the world?
Rob Pardo: I believe the current plan is to do a similar approach to the way WoW is set up, so there will be large regional breakdowns. Hopefully in the future we will even have the ability for you to move around, but that isn't decided yet.
Slashdot: How much of the team has already rolled over to Heart of the Swarm?
Dustin Browder: Almost no one. Occasional meetings with Cinematics team, who wants to get a jump on things, and the occasional water cooler conversation. Pretty much everyone is focused entirely on Wings of Liberty.
Slashdot: How much of your work from Wings of Liberty will you be able to duplicate throughout the other two installments of the trilogy?
Dustin Browder: Very little. We have tools and we have an engine, and that's huge. We also have a lot more knowledge of what we're trying to accomplish with the scenes and with the story, so we have a lot of benefit from the software that is already created and a lot of knowledge to help us move faster.
Slashdot: How many of those software tools are going to be available to the community-at-large?
Dustin Browder: As many as we can. Certainly the data editor, the map editor, and the terrain editor. That lets users create pretty much anything the design staff can create. Since the story-mode stuff is put together by one of our designers — he collects the art from cinematics and makes it all happen — all that stuff is accessible as well. I'm not gonna lie to you and tell you this stuff is easy; this guy is really smart, and this stuff is complicated, but it's totally doable. We have seen our fans do some amazing things in the past with a very limited toolset by comparison. In this case we're really hopeful that they will do a lot of cool stuff. I can't even guess what they are going to do. [Dustin gave a panel later on in the day where demonstrated some of the things that Blizzard employees had done in their spare time just playing around with the tools. A few examples were; an "Uberlisk" which had a number of spine crawlers on his back and wandered around terrorizing a board filled with hostiles, a zoomed-in third-person action game with a Ghost as the main character, with the ability to interact with "quest givers" and actually go inside buildings and underground, and a top-scrolling space shooter.]
Slashdot: There has been some talk that the streamlining of commands has been moving the focus away from actions per minute [APM]. How important is APM as a metric for you and will we see a decline in the importance of this metric?
Dustin Browder: That type of feedback is incredibly important for us. We want players making smart decisions all the time and we want a lot of skill required to play this game at the highest levels. We absolutely want the best players to be the best players. We're not looking to even out or flatten the skill curve so that "everybody can be a winner." This is not the first grade. We want this to be tennis, baseball, football, whatever, we want this to be a game that requires real skill. But at the same time we don't want this to be a bunch of bogus skill. We have definitely gotten rid of some clicks, but we have also added some clicks back in. We got rid of some clicks in terms of how you had to select your buildings and how you had to give build commands, but we also made sure that we had the finest amount of control at the same time.
When we originally put it out there we said you could double-click the barracks and hit 'M,' and you get five marines, one from each barracks for instance. The fans were outraged and we kind of ignored them, saying, "Whatever, this is a better gameplay experience," but as we played it, we realized that it wasn't a better gameplay experience. Maybe when you hit 'M,' what you really wanted was three marines and two marauders, and you couldn't do that. Instead we have said you can select all of your barracks at once, but each click sends a build command individually to each of those barracks. So now you are able to hit "M, M, M, D, D." This gave us a decent amount of clicks, but actually the correct amount of control. That's actually the control you wanted as a player. We weren't looking to hurt you by giving you too many clicks or hold your hand by taking away some of the gameplay experience. We were actually giving you the controls that made you powerful by having the correct balance between the two.
Also we have a bunch of macro mechanics in the game to encourage players to control their economy better, because as you know in Starcraft, economy is king. One of the things that we loved about the original Starcraft was not so much that we want you to click a bunch, but that there was a lot of tension between players who were micro-oriented and players who were economy-oriented. For instance, if you are playing Zerg and are micro-oriented and I'm playing Zerg and I'm economy-oriented, we're kind of playing two different races — not exactly, but a little bit. We're having a very different experience, and that style difference now becomes the interesting problem for both of us, and that is what we're really pursuing with a lot of this stuff. So, we've definitely taken some clicks away, but we have added some back, and I think the fans will be fine with it. Certainly the hardcore fans I've spoken with, who have actually had a chance to play the game, seem to be very positive about the experience.
Slashdot: It looks like the new league system is going a long way toward making the play experience much better across the board, and will allow people to grow at their own pace. What can you tell us about how this system works?
Dustin Browder: We think this system will really help a lot of players. Even if you are going to stay down in the copper league forever, at least you are playing against your skill level and can hope to win something. In Warcraft 3, minus the "Smurfs" who would come through and ruin everybody's day, we had a pretty good matchmaking system and you could win about half your games. I know most people would prefer to win about 70% of their games, but that would mean someone else has to lose 70% of their games, and we don't want that. If we can match you against your skill level, I think that's where you wanna be and you'll have a good time. So now, if I can put you in a bronze league of 100 players and all those players are your skill level, that means you have a shot of being number one in that league at the end of the season. I think that is going to be a lot more fun for people. When you go to play intramural softball, you know Sammy Sosa isn't showing up. While it might be fun for about two minutes, it would ruin the game and no one would have a good time. If we can keep everyone organized into the skill level they belong I think everyone will have a lot more fun.
Slashdot: What kind of side projects is Blizzard looking at? Any possibility of expanding things to the console, tangentially-related mobile games of any kind, or maybe another pass at Ghost?
Dustin Browder: Starcraft 2. That's about it. We're really focused and we don't mess around with a research division or anything like that. When we think of cool ideas, we build them until they are done and we don't stop. We had the mobile Armory that we announced, but that's more of a support tool than a new game or stand-alone app. For console, we certainly don't have anything that I'm aware of that's going on right now. I'm not saying we wouldn't explore it down the road; it could be a very real possibility. All of us play console games and we all love our XBoxes, Wiis, and Playstations. The gamers are there, the fanaticism exists in the building, it's just a question of when it will bubble to the surface and find a successful outlet.
Slashdot: How do you see ongoing content being developed? You have the main trilogy, but once you are done with that, do you see discrete content releases of some sort, ongoing smaller patches, or maybe even interesting things like the holiday patches in WoW? The new Battle.net framework seems to offer you a lot more options for keeping people up-to-date.
Dustin Browder: The holiday stuff is certainly something we would like to explore via free patches, just to throw it out there. Other smaller patches like new maps or bug-fixes would also certainly come quickly as it was needed. What additional content we actually choose to possibly charge for, I don't know, but I think it would have to be something of extreme value in order to get excited about that. We don't like putting out stuff that we feel dirty about. We argue about it quite a bit, what is enough value and what isn't, what did it cost us, what do we have to charge, those kinds of decisions. Most of those decisions happen above my level, which is great, but certainly the teams have a great deal of influence over those decisions. Most of that stuff, at least initially, will be more patch oriented, but if we find something that is of real value we'll discuss it.
Slashdot: With Starcraft being so data-oriented, you have already put out some really cool tools for recap and data-analysis. Is there any hope of external APIs so that third party developers can do things like scorebots, profiling, armory-type tools that don't necessarily live within Blizzard?
Dustin Browder: Certainly a lot of that stuff is exposed and is possible for players to get their hooks into. I don't know what will happen ultimately with that, but I'm certainly hopeful that we have a large, happy, thriving community of people developing third-party support tools.
Slashdot: As Linux and open source continue to gain popularity and market share, is there any hope of Blizzard allowing some of the internal Linux-based tools and clients to make their way into the public domain, even if they weren't supported?
Dustin Browder: I have no idea what the rules surrounding that are or why that may or may not happen. I don't know of any plans, but that doesn't mean they aren't happening out there. Certainly we have supported the Mac for years and years and definitely plan to continue to do so. We try to support other platforms, but at this point I don't know of any specific plans for Linux.
Slashdot: The other question that is a constant concern within the fan base of Starcraft is the question of disallowing LAN play. How are you solving problems like making sure this is a valid replacement for LAN plan; security, reliability, speed, or even people playing behind things like NAT routers?
Dustin Browder: These are issues that we continue to address as we go forward. Some of these things we have some plans for, but not all of them. It is something that we definitely plan on working on as we go forward to make sure we have things in place to handle every possible user case out there. We just know from WoW that most people can connect online and play. There are some cases out there, some legitimate-use cases — that aren't just people that refuse to buy a modem or are crazy and weird and living in a closet. We want to make sure we are able to support these legitimate-use cases for LAN play and make it accessible to those users, but we're still trying to identify all of those and decide which cases are legitimate and which are not. These are definitely legitimate concerns, and we're certainly looking to address them.
Leonard Boyarsky — Lead World Designer, Diablo III
Slashdot: I noticed that you have moved away from the strict left mouse/right mouse ability limitation and have created more opportunities for players to map keys and use abilities beyond the two major "equipped" abilities. What was the driving reason behind this decision?
Leonard Boyarsky: Well, we had that to some degree in Diablo II, it was just really inaccessible and not fun. Our main goal is to have the player focus on two skills and maybe that alternate ability that you can tab in, while moving some of the more passive or non-targeted abilities to the hotbar. Of course, minor refinements are going to continue to go on as we develop, but we wanted a way for you to augment your main skills. In a game like Diablo, your character is really defined by what your main attack is. Unless you are a real hardcore user, you probably aren't going to be switching up attacks constantly.
Slashdot: With the advent of the new Battle.net features and the evolution of gameplay in Diablo III, do you anticipate any major changes to the PvM Ladder setup or maybe some specific PvP elements?
Leonard Boyarsky: A lot of the stuff being developed for Starcraft II and Battle.net, we want to incorporate. All of the community features and chatting across games is very important and we'll definitely incorporate that where it makes sense. We haven't talked a lot about a PvP component, but we think it is a great aspect of the game. The part that we didn't like from the earlier games is that people could turn hostile at any time and stab party members in the back. The people who get upset that we're not going to have that aspect are generally the people who would kill their party members at a moments notice. So, maybe we'll find something where they can all go stab each other in the back apart from the people who don't want that as an experience. As far as specifics for PvP, rest assured that we're going to come up with whatever we can that is the best possible PvP experience for a Diablo-style game. Right now, we're really focused on the co-op play and using whatever we can from Battle.net to enhance that experience.
Slashdot: When you integrate with Battle.net, will that also integrate with other data streams? Recently when they were discussing World of Warcraft's integration with Battle.net, there was the possibility of a guild news RSS feed. Can we expect to see things like data export and clan support?
Leonard Boyarsky: I don't really know what the plans are for that, but I would assume if they are going to have something like that for WoW or StarCraft II and it works out, there is no reason why we wouldn't integrate that into Diablo III. I'm not the most technically-minded person; I'm more on the artistic/creative side of things, but we talk all the time about how to get all the community stuff that we can in, even if it isn't there at launch, so that it becomes this fantastic player experience.
Slashdot: Speaking of the artistic side of the house, are you looking to leverage your community for artistic injections into the Diablo III universe, like custom levels, modding, or even total conversion mods that just utilize the Diablo III engine?
Leonard Boyarsky: We discussed that early on because Starcraft II is doing so much modding support. But when you look at the style of game that Diablo is, it is based around a lot of random content. So when you look at it from that standpoint, someone might be able to make some very specific content, but the basis of what we're providing for the player is a random system. So are they just going to provide a different random system? Also, the creation of our art is very intense in terms of not only the talent and technical expertise required to get it into the engine, but manipulating it and using it with our tools. It would take a lot of work to make that friendly for the end user who didn't have a programmer there to help them figure out some of the finer points. We just didn't see the bang for the buck in doing something like that and it was never really a big part of the Diablo fan base. Having said that, if someone comes along and takes the Diablo engine and makes a fantastic game out of it, more power to them. We just didn't feel that was where we could add the most value for the players, because that just isn't what the community is about.
Slashdot: The Diablo franchise is especially iconic for things like easter eggs and secrets. Can we expect the same of depth in Diablo III? Any hints?
Leonard Boyarsky: No, no hints. They wouldn't be easter eggs then. We'll probably drop some hints here and there, maybe post some easter eggs on the web for people to dig out. Maybe some red herrings to send people in the wrong direction, but most of that stuff just comes naturally during development. As you develop areas, these things come up, and we're always throwing around ideas. So yeah, we talk about that all the time, and we are planning on doing quite a bit of that stuff.
Slashdot: I'm sure you guys are tired of the LAN dispute, but what specific things are the Diablo team looking at in terms of trying to provide value from Battle.net to assuage some of the fear that this is just an inconvenient take on DRM?
Leonard Boyarsky: Well, once again, I'm not the most technically-minded person and I want to get you guys a really good answer for that. I don't want to steer you guys the wrong way. Right now most of the implementation of Battle.net is Starcraft-focused, so I know that is our goal right now, but I know Rob [Pardo] has talked about how their fans use LANs for tournaments and the like ,so they have talked about how their fan base might need some kind of deployable LAN solution. The Diablo team is in the enviable position of letting them work out how all that is going to work and how they are going to solve all of those contingencies. Hopefully our track record will speak for itself and our fans can take us at our word that we are doing this not because of any business model or corporate mandate. We believe that we can give the best multiplayer experience by going in this direction. Just in terms of philosophy, we're all about making choices for the gameplay and then worry about the monetization later, which is great because there are many companies out there that go the opposite direction.
Slashdot: One of the things some of our readers really want to know is: what are the biggest deficiencies that you are seeing from young college grads trying to break into the industry? What words of wisdom could you impart to people trying to get their start, especially with respect to gaming?
Leonard Boyarsky: I can speak a little bit more to the artistic stuff because of the position I'm in; that's how I came up. I would say that, from an artistic standpoint, it's not about how well you use 3D Studio Max. Obviously you need background in some sort of 3D program, unless you just want to be a concept artist, but it's more about just being a great artist and having a great artistic eye. The same thing goes for creativity; it's more about having something to show that shows what you can do. If someone comes in and has something to show, it doesn't matter where they went to school or what they accomplished at school; it's what we can see. Because there are so many people out there that have resumes with great schools, it just really comes down to what they can do. If I find someone who just blew me away, I could care less if they even have a diploma. I think the biggest thing you can tell people is to do stuff on their own. It's probably easiest as a level designer, because you can get a Half-Life or a Quake and build your own levels, and then you have something to show. The more stuff you do just shows your passion, your creativity, your ability, as opposed to trying to get a job first if that makes sense.
J. Allen Brack — Production Director, World of Warcraft
Slashdot: What caused you to make the new level cap 85 as opposed to increasing it the usual 10 levels.
J. Allen Brack: Well, we looked at a lot of the things that we wanted to do for this expansion. Going back and revamping the old world and bringing the level of quality of the experience of the 20-60 game up to the level you saw in Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King was a hugely monumental task. We also looked at how much people say they like leveling, then tried to balance that with people who say the game doesn't start until max level, and tried to figure out what the right decision for the game was. We definitely didn't want to feel like we were trapped into adding 10 levels every time, because I think we could make an expansion that was very compelling where we didn't add any level increase, and I think there are situations where we would want a 20 level increase. It all comes down to what the right decision for the game is.
Slashdot: Can you describe the difference between this expansion and previous ones in terms of the time and difficulty it took to revamp an existing area versus creating an entirely new area?
J. Allen Brack: Well, this is actually, by far, the largest expansion that we have ever done. We are creating five new zones completely from scratch for level 80-85, we're also going back and retouching a lot of the existing zones. Some of the existing zones have been very good and have worked out very well and some of them we have always regretted and not worked out very well at all, but we're going back and evaluating those on a zone-by-zone basis. Many of the old zones are actually getting rebuilt from scratch just due to the massive amounts of changes.
Slashdot: How are you going to manage the difference between someone who has just purchased vanilla WoW versus someone who has all of the expansions up to and including Cataclysm?
J. Allen Brack: Well, we haven't talked about launch plan specifics, but we do want everyone to get Cataclysm. It is our intention that the world will experience the cataclysm for every player regardless of patch level. There are a couple of reasons for that, but one of the main reasons is we want people to play together and the idea of having segregated the players into the "bought Cataclysm" and "didn't" camps is really not the right decision. The other thing is that Cataclysm has lore and a reason behind it, so it doesn't really make sense to have it happen for some players and not for others.
Slashdot: There has been a lot of talk about the new phasing technology that allows entire continents to change. Was that very difficult to implement compared to what was already in Wrath of the Lich King?
J. Allen Brack: Yeah, it was. In Lich King, we didn't really have the ability to do terrain; we had the ability to skyboxes, quests, and effects, but now we have the ability to have different versions of terrain that get triggered based on other events. One example is being able to go into a cliffside dwelling and down into the storm cellar to weather a storm and when you come out, the entire cliff has been sheared off and there is nothing left. It's pretty exciting.
Slashdot: We have heard a lot about how StarCraft II is going to integrate with Battle.net, and a little about what World of Warcraft is going to do. Is there more coming?
J. Allen Brack: Sure. Battle.net is going to be the way that all players log into Blizzard games in the future. We have optional Battle.net conversion right now, but that will be mandatory at some point in the not-too-distant future. Once we have that integration, we'll layer the Battle.net features on top of World of Warcraft. We're not talking about changing the way that Guilds or Friend Lists work for Battle.net; it's more of just adding a layer of Battle.net features and community features on top of the existing game.
Slashdot: Has there been any talk of making APIs or data feeds that would allow fan sites or forums to integrate game data directly?
J. Allen Brack: That is an interesting idea. Yeah, we have seen a lot of neat little apps come out of the armory, to a degree that I don't think we really anticipated. There are now loot apps, community aggregation apps, and others, but we certainly were not prepared for the amount of traffic that is just to gather data from the armory for other apps.
Slashdot: The EVE team recently announced a project called Dust 514 that is a separate game that hooks into the EVE universe. Has Blizzard considered any side projects that might have some tie in to existing games?
J. Allen Brack: We typically think about things as a team — in my case, World of Warcraft — and what we could do within the existing WoW universe. Something like that offers a lot of wish fulfillment for me as a gamer, and we definitely talk about what kind of gameplay experience that we want to offer with each expansion, so we definitely have a lot of new things that we're talking about for Cataclysm, just not quite that extreme.
Slashdot: How about a console version for WoW?
J. Allen Brack: Console is one of those things that we probably talk about once every six months. I have probably met with Microsoft two or three times to discuss what it would be like to have WoW on the console. Where we are today, and I can't say we'll always be here, but right now WoW is very much designed for the mouse and keyboard interface, and doing another type of control scheme would be very challenging. I think it will be done, and if we had started WoW with the idea that we would move to console, I think it would be a much different game and the control scheme would support that.
Slashdot: Once the Battle.net integration is complete, you'll be able to talk to friends from different servers and even different games. Has there been any talk of being able to form instance groups across servers?
J. Allen Brack: Yes, and we're actually doing that in an upcoming patch. In 3.3 we're going to revamp the Looking For Group interface to allow that. The idea wasn't necessarily for existing players that are in a guild at high level, it's more for the people who want to run Wailing Caverns on a character that is level appropriate.
Slashdot: Lately there have been some problems with instance server congestion; is that something you are focused on?
J. Allen Brack: We're hugely focused on it. I mentioned the cross-server instancing — that is also a part of that solution as well. We have some technology that allows multiple servers to share certain instance blades and that gives us a lot of efficiency. We're going back and reconfiguring all of our servers for this, so it should be done before we launch 3.3.
Slashdot: There is always a call for increased support (even if it isn't official) for Linux, Wine, etc. Is there any possibility that future support for WoW on the Linux platform could grow?
J. Allen Brack: We have been a long time supporter of alternate platforms with the Mac, and have supported many of our games on both PC and Mac, so we're a big supporter of platform independence. We have experimented with a Linux client back in the day, but right now it is a resource problem. We have to consider how many resources it would take to put out a Linux client versus how many people would actually use something like that. We have to consider how many people aren't playing WoW right now and would if we had a Linux client. Or is it people who play already and just want support in their preferred operating system? If we decided to support a new platform, we would have to figure out how many game features we had to give up development on in order to develop a new client.
Rob Pardo — Executive VP Game Design
Slashdot: Is there any any possibility that Battle.net might interact with other systems like XBox Live, Steam, or other games?
Rob Pardo: I think there is the potential to do something like that, but there are certainly no immediate plans. We certainly are trying to engineer the platform in a way that it could do those sorts of things, and we have talked about trying to link in things like Facebook, Twitter, and mobile applications. We definitely have kept in mind that if we do go to console, we can still use Battle.net, in which case we would have to talk to things like XBox Live. So while there are no plans to do something like that, we certainly are keeping it in mind.
Slashdot: Are you thinking about making any APIs for Battle.net that would allow the community to start scraping some of the data directly?
Rob Pardo: That is a question I'm not entire sure of the answer, so I don't want to screw it up. Probably not extensively, but I know that in the past we have done things with game results and similar things, plus we have the Marketplace, which is a pretty big area. But we don't have plans to allow people to reconfigure Battle.net in a major way like that add-on system for WoW.
Slashdot: Now that you have mentioned the Marketplace, is there going to be an approval/rejection system for the things that are uploaded?
Rob Pardo: Yes there will, although our philosophy will probably be more of an iPhone philosophy and less of an XBox philosophy. We really want to try to have the community itself manage that, but we will probably still need some sort of light approval system to make sure that there aren't any viruses or wildly objectionable content. I really don't want us trying to make a quality call; that's where I don't want us to be.
Slashdot: Apple has been taking a lot of heat lately for how opaque they are when they reject a particular app. When you reject something, is there going to be some indication or explanation why?
Rob Pardo: I would hope so, but it's all new to us, so I can't tell you how it's all going to work. We have never done anything like this before, but we know where we want to be philosophically. We have done a lot of research on the other services, but I'm sure there will be lots of surprises to us when we start rolling it out.
Slashdot: We have heard a lot about how Starcraft II is going to be affected by Battle.net. Can you tell us a little bit about how Diablo III and WoW might be integrated?
Rob Pardo: Nothing specific yet, because all of our focus is on StarCraft II. But certainly, since I have been really involved with Battle.net, it's something that is always on my mind. A lot of the Starcraft II design was done so that it could be agnostic to our other games, so I would say that assuming everything goes well and the new service is as great as we want it to b,e I would imagine that you would see something very similar. There will obviously be Diablo-specific features that don't make sense for StarCraft II and vice versa, but as far as the always-connected experience and being able to talk across games, I would expect the same experience.
Slashdot: The LAN-play question has been a major issue. What are you doing to facilitate gameplay between people who are in the same room?
Rob Pardo: There are definitely some things we are investigating. Whether or not they will be in at launch, I don't know. I really think that the vast majority of people wont have an issue. Even if you look at Warcraft 3, which did have LAN play, the vast, vast majority of people played on Battle.net and that was what, seven years ago? So I think that it is a very small percentage of people that will be affected, and only a small percentage of the time. That said, we are looking at some technology that would allow us to detect a peer-to-peer connection if we detect something like a high latency over a certain amount. Unfortunately, this would only be able to work for custom games, since we need to ensure the accuracy of competitive or ladder games via Battle.net.
Slashdot: Are there any plans to build in some sort of reputation tracking to see how often someone has disconnected from games in progress or partakes in harassment of some sort?
Rob Pardo: No, there isn't at the moment, although it is something I'm interested in looking at in the future. We have talked a lot about it; it was one of those features that when we tried to develop a good social rating system we didn't see a great one out there that we could point at. It is a pretty tricky system to design, but it is something that I would like to tackle; maybe in the expansion.
Slashdot: With World of Warcraft, there are regional server groupings. How is Battle.net going to integrate with different parts of the world?
Rob Pardo: I believe the current plan is to do a similar approach to the way WoW is set up, so there will be large regional breakdowns. Hopefully in the future we will even have the ability for you to move around, but that isn't decided yet.
I still want to know if their map editor for starcraft 2 will be available for osx.
We just know from WoW that most people can connect online and play.
I wonder how many people play WoW offline?
So I guess all those gamers who live in a rural, dial-up only area (and there are more then one might think) are just crazy and weird closet dwellers? The more this guys talks the more I think SCII will be a pass for me.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
We just know from WoW that most people can connect online and play. There are some cases out there, some legitimate-use cases â" that aren't just people that refuse to buy a modem or are crazy and weird and living in a closet. We want to make sure we are able to support these legitimate-use cases for LAN play and make it accessible to those users, but we're still trying to identify all of those and decide which cases are legitimate and which are not. These are definitely legitimate concerns, and we're certainly looking to address them.
So they think since the people that play WoW, which is online only, have Internet that SC2 players don't need LAN support? That's great logic.
What's that, you say? Most people playing WoW have Internet connections? Unbelievable!
Seriously, though, I'm not putting down money for SC2. This is just not okay.
~ C.
"...our fans can take us at our word..." ... because they're sure good at dodging the LAN question.
Almost makes me wish I hadn't sold my account with 2 70s during BC :P O well.
Yeah, anyone who really is still stuck with dialup is a hopeless recluse. Have you heard of indoor plumbing? It's the bee's knees.
That doesn't excuse the lack of LAN play, but claiming to want to play Starcraft in the past is not a valid argument.
I only play RTS games with Wormsign. It's really been downhill for the genre since then.
Populus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur...
"Force shits upon Reason's back." - Poor Richard's Almanac
Slashdot: The other question that is a constant concern within the fan base of Starcraft is the question of disallowing LAN play. How are you solving problems like making sure this is a valid replacement for LAN plan; security, reliability, speed, or even people playing behind things like NAT routers?
Dustin Browder: These are issues that we continue to address as we go forward. Some of these things we have some plans for, but not all of them. It is something that we definitely plan on working on as we go forward to make sure we have things in place to handle every possible user case out there. We just know from WoW that most people can connect online and play. There are some cases out there, some legitimate-use cases â" that aren't just people that refuse to buy a modem or are crazy and weird and living in a closet. We want to make sure we are able to support these legitimate-use cases for LAN play and make it accessible to those users, but we're still trying to identify all of those and decide which cases are legitimate and which are not. These are definitely legitimate concerns, and we're certainly looking to address them.
Translation: Our WoW players say lan play is over-rated, so that's why we're not including it. *facepalm* AN RTS IS NOT AN MMORPG!! RAAAAAAEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEGGGGGGG.
Anywho This is not an excuse for leaving out lan play and does nothing but insult lan parties. If you don't have a modem, you must be crazy and wierd and living in a closet.
Just saying that this reply feels like a massive FUCK YOU to every person who owns multiple star craft 1 keys for use at a lan.
So little information.
How many questions there would have been answered by bnetd already, had Blizzard not sued them for daring to be compatible with Battle.net? And nary a mention of the debacle - nice to see how these days Slashdot as a whole rolls over on Free Software as soon as they are bribed with something shiny.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
Translation We have no damn idea, but were going to make it up as we go.
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
Slashdot: How much of your work from Wings of Liberty will you be able to duplicate throughout the other two installments of the trilogy?
Dustin Browder: Very little...
This is true. Just the engine, game sounds, 90% of the models, mapping tools, online match making system... that leaves what? cinematics, map creation, story telling, voice work, special campaign specific units to create... sounds like an overdeveloped mission pack to me.
Not that it's wrong in any way. If blizzard wants $180 for the full single player experience for starcraft 2, let em go nuts, but saying that very little of the work in the first game will be duplicated across the other 2 is insane, and obviously PR speak to avoid fanboy rage over being gouged.
You buy 3 times, and they'll do anything they can to monetize the online portion (pay for maps) to justify the costs they sink into starcraft over WoW or WoW2.
I wonder what the cost/benefit analysis is on SC2 vs WoW? I bet WoW comes up way ahead.
I like rambling.
How many more 'storys' about blizzard are we going to have this week.. This astroturf crap is just getting sad.
And this article? Wooo. Such a large block of text that doesn't actually say anything. They should be politicians.
And now for a small block of text describing what i will be buying from blizzard in the near future. ... ...
Yep. Sums it up well. Just yet another game company who lost my business by being greedy. They don't care at all. I don't care too much. I'll get over it.
It dawned on me just now that there isn't a new RTS Warcraft game - and given how much customization will be in SC2, do you guys think DOTA will get transformed into something workable in SC2?
I'm curious what kind of user generated content will be created, and I'm glad to see that Blizzard is finally embracing it for how much it really does contribute to their games.
I know a guy who plays golf and he is literally PHB asshole.
A PHB asshole.
Literally.
That's why you're all corporate cocksuckers and middle management RIF fodder. Cause you're all void of imagination and individuality.
Blizzard, I think you've been in your ivory tower too long. This isn't about fast internet connections. This is about not being able to play LAN on a game that is at its heart multiplayer. What the fuck are you people smoking?
They said "we know a majority of people played Warcraft on the internet and not on a LAN". First and foremost, I've only seen the LAN question asked for Starcraft. I've only seen Starcraft played on a LAN. People prefer LANs for high speed, security, and the ability to connect multiple people through a single router without choking their poor internet connection and/or configuring everyone's different laptop to work with that specific model of router (a nightmare with WiFi).
Second of all, how would they know? LANs aren't connected to the internet. They are likely to be played on computers not connected to the internet. There is no way of knowing how many people play LAN games over Internet games, other than surveys. Which is silly since most LAN players aren't likely to see these surveys, as they are likely taken online. Online when you log into the game/game's website. And if you don't use the internet to play, why would you check the website?
I just wish they'd cut the crap and say they are concerned about piracy and want to be able to boast higher numbers on their servers. They want everyone connected to Battle.net even if they aren't playing their games (see Steam's default auto-launch feature). They aren't satisfied with having the #1 pay-for-play American MMORPG in the world (I wish they'd stop claiming 'most populous MMO'). They want to claim they have the most players in the world playing their games by claiming everyone is logged into Battle.net.
Also, as someone who only plays SCII on a LAN at LAN parties, you guys can go straight to hell.
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
"Rob Pardo: There are definitely some things we are investigating. Whether or not they will be in at launch, I don't know. I really think that the vast majority of people wont have an issue. Even if you look at Warcraft 3, which did have LAN play, the vast, vast majority of people played on Battle.net and that was what, seven years ago? So I think that it is a very small percentage of people that will be affected, and only a small percentage of the time. That said, we are looking at some technology that would allow us to detect a peer-to-peer connection if we detect something like a high latency over a certain amount. Unfortunately, this would only be able to work for custom games, since we need to ensure the accuracy of competitive or ladder games via Battle.net."
The vast majority of people played WarCraft 3 online?. WTF do you know, Pardo?. Have you been sniffing EVERY LAN in the world, perhaps?.
And WTF does WoW, an ONLINE MMO have to do with the fact of adding LAN to an RTS game?.
Fucking idiot. If you're disrespecting your fans, at least be man enough to say so, instead of all this BS.
So... don't.
Just sell your game in a big fat box that includes *drumroll* a keyboard and mouse. Problem solved.
Consoles are becoming more and more like regular ol' PCs anyway (play music/dvds, browse the web, chat with your friends, etc.).
*sigh* I missed the question session. :(
What I would really like to know is if Blackwing Lair will still be available to run. I have been holding for 2 years now a quest to go there, but I have yet to find anyone on my server interested in going. I just want to be able to see it and complete the quest. Even 20 levels too high for the raid, I can't go by myself, because the first fight requires at least 5 people and probably more just due to the mechanics of the fight.
If /LFG weren't so worthless, I would be permanently queued for a BWL run, just in case.
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
SC2 LAN play?
There's no answer there, except a "keep your money, 'cause we don't give a damn about customers that we can't nickel and dime over the 'net" in the subtext.
"... but we're still trying to identify all of those and decide which cases are legitimate and which are not"?
LAN play for purchased games/licenses is ALWAYS legitimate you corporate weasel.
This game will be bought, and loved, by millions.
The design deicsion was obviously selfish. They cripple the software in order to make piracy harder. Yeah, that sucks. The honest consumer loses. No doubt about it.
But...and here is the kicker...the market will bear it. You can boycott the product if you want. You will be part of a very small few who would enjoy this game but aren't playing it. Most people will buy it.
Blizzard will get their money, and they won't feel any pain from your boycott. But you will.
You must be new to Slashdot.
And that was the last Terry Fox run I ever participated in.
I know that this will come as a huge shock, but you CAN play Wow on a dial up link, and enjoy it. I have a buddy of mine that works the graveyard shift, and he will jump on Wow, and fire up team speak, and can play with the rest of the guys. yeah, voice quality isn't the best, but it works OK.
WoW is not that bandwidth intensive, and is fairly forgiving latency wise.
The people that seem to have the most problems, are the ones who are playing over a wireless connection, and the lag induced from that type of infrastructure is what frustrates them the most.
The biggest problem people are experiencing with WotLK is the video requirements and the frame rate that their computer produces. I know that I was unhappy with the additional eye candy that made the game almost unplayable ( I would start to get about 5 fps on boss fights) on my budget PC (I think I had spent about $300 US on it total) that I had been using before the expansions, but then again, it was a good excuse to get a new system (yeah, I use it for other stuff than just Wow).
I am guessing they will end up doing something that will require you to authenticate with BN, but will let you play on a LAN hosted game, so you can have your LAN parties.
Before I go frothing off at the mouth, you might want to actually see what the game will and won't allow.
Oh well, to each his own.
As redundant as I know this is - add me to the list of "No LAN play, no sale" customers.
I'm not angry, I don't think Blizzard necessarily owes us anything... but that is one enormous feature to leave out, and if they want to throw the baby out with the bathwater - fine. I keep my money, they keep their game.
Given how important LAN play was to the success of Starcraft I, I'm pretty sure I'm not alone and it's in Blizzard's interest to listen to us.
I really wonder what manager decided that taking LAN support out of the game was a good monetary decision. There is no reason for it not to degrade gracefully to a "could not connect to battle.net, would you like to start a LAN game?" option. (aside from DRM, which is a silly argument since pirates will patch battle.net out of the game in a heartbeat) Even Steam has an offline mode, and the ability to play your games on the LAN.
It clearly offends people to be told how they can use the game they legitimately purchased. How many developer hours would it cost them to properly implement LAN play, compared to the sales they will lose?
There are plenty of RTS and unless they offer some genre-breaking features I don't see any reason to purchase. When I play games with friends we usually have a selection to pick from, so not being able to play SC2 is no big deal.
It seems to me they're aiming toward rabid fans that will buy the game anyway, and gamers interested in online tournaments who will obviously have internet connections. This overall seems like a bad design decision to me though - games have always had an option for online play vs LAN play. If they don't like the "complexity" of having two obviously separate options then they should come up with a seamless option that allows both, without restricting LAN play.
If this decision loses them even 5% of potential sales on the game it is a horrible call. People will probably still play SC2 at LAN parties, they will just pirate it instead, the opposite of what Blizzard is trying to accomplish.
No doubt they collected their usage statistics from battle.net. Of course, given that everyone on battle.net can connect to battle.net, it seems like a bit of a biased sample.
In any event, even assuming their premise is true - that most people can connect to battle.net - it does not follow that they always can or indeed would always want to. I can get cell phone signal if I step outside of my office, for example - that doesn't mean it's convenient for me to do so.
Slashdot: The LAN-play question has been a major issue. What are you doing to facilitate gameplay between people who are in the same room?
Rob Pardo: There are definitely some things we are investigating. Whether or not they will be in at launch, I don't know. I really think that the vast majority of people wont have an issue. Even if you look at Warcraft 3, which did have LAN play, the vast, vast majority of people played on Battle.net and that was what, seven years ago? So I think that it is a very small percentage of people that will be affected, and only a small percentage of the time. That said, we are looking at some technology that would allow us to detect a peer-to-peer connection if we detect something like a high latency over a certain amount. Unfortunately, this would only be able to work for custom games, since we need to ensure the accuracy of competitive or ladder games via Battle.net.
I hate to be critical. But this VP basically just admits that he has never had a true gamer's experience. He has zero clue why many gamers has such passion on a LAN capabilities on a good multiplayer RTS game like StarCraft. Also who would care about their ladder ranking when playing in a room in a LAN party? Some of the best SC games I've played one player is constantly playing defense (at a level of being sacraficial) and another player on the team is focusing on generating resources. Their stats looked terrible but guess what, who cares! It's about the fun of trying different ways of playing. Many friends who will never be an avid game player had fun playing SC only because he can feel comfortable playing under someone's wing without the pressure to perform. Game experience on Bnet is simply not the same.
The statistics of total play hours using LAN are not really measurable since they are not connected to their servers during the game play. If they want to make a throw-away game that cease to be played in a year or two maybe that's the way to go. But to make a game worth playing for years like the StarCraf? You be the judge.
While cleaning up the PC, I saw that WC3 was still installed. I remember when I was playing this "hard core" I always went through Battle.net. After thinking about it a little more, the thought moving machines (my gaming PC is somewhat expensive) from my home to another location and use a LAN that maybe crawling with malware and god knows what else, even if I use super hardened settings and fully updated AV and firewall protection, is totally unappealing and I came to realize why I never cared about LAN. Once Internet became was ubiquitous it rendered LAN play moot. It is simply safer and easier to play from home.
As far as I can tell from my gaming habits: LAN support isn't even a factor for my choice of online games so I don't mind it going away. Or to put it another way, if it comes down to "features in Battle.net" or "LAN Support" there is no question I'm choosing Battle.net. The idea that a lot people are only going to play Starcraft 2 on LAN is pretty preposterous and only the dreams of super hard core players. The millions of casual players out there aren't going to care and would rather hit the "quick match" button off of Battle.net.
Slashdot: There has been some talk that the streamlining of commands has been moving the focus away from actions per minute [APM]. How important is APM as a metric for you and will we see a decline in the importance of this metric?
Dustin Browder: That type of feedback is incredibly important for us. We want players making smart decisions all the time and we want a lot of skill required to play this game at the highest levels.
Reading the answer here left me a bit amazed at the hubris that Blizz has. Don't get me wrong SC was a great game for it's day but do they honestly think that RTS games did not evolve past it? RON's feature set alone when dealing with buildings and units blows SC's very very dated method away. And RON is even pretty dated at this point. (Sadly I've yet to find a decent replacement for it however as the RTS genre seems to have been watered down quite a bit, but that's another rant.)
Slashdot: How about a console version for WoW?
J. Allen Brack: Console is one of those things that we probably talk about once every six months. I have probably met with Microsoft two or three times to discuss what it would be like to have WoW on the console. Where we are today, and I can't say we'll always be here, but right now WoW is very much designed for the mouse and keyboard interface, and doing another type of control scheme would be very challenging. I think it will be done, and if we had started WoW with the idea that we would move to console, I think it would be a much different game and the control scheme would support that.
That last sentence is a bit of a puzzle. He seems to say that at some point WoW will be ported to a console? Gah?
Bluntly, consoles are where games get dumbed down. There are a number of reasons why they need to be dumbed down and it's ok. There is room in the market for dumbed down console games and more complex PC games. But to expect people who want the more complex PC type games to be ok with the dumbed down console games is to ignore a proven market.
If anything WoW has proven that there is a significant market for people who enjoy, and will pay for, complex PC games. For a company as smart as Blizzard has been over the years I sure hope they see that screwing with that market segment would be a bad idea. (Queue bi-yearly /. post about how PC gaming is dying and we should expect to game only on consoles soon.)
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
It's not that we think you're making this up or that you're pirates. It's really more that you're a small group of whiny bitches that we can safely ignore. I mean seriously man, we wipe our asses with hundred dollar bills. Do you seriously think we're going to miss your $50? Ha ha, peace out!
-- Blizzard
I'll tell you one thing.
They may be trying to do this to stamp out piracy, but with the "you can't play on a LAN" fuck you and the "charge you three times for one game" fuck you, Starcraft II is gearing up to be one of the most pirated games in history.
If I get a better experience with a pirate copy, what's the fucking incentive to actually buy it?
3do offered a rebate on a homm SOD for people who payed for the older ver as SOD was exp but it also came with the full game.
So Blizzard should offer the others games at lower price as a EXP only and full price as a full game.
One of the kudos I must give to EA is that they actually contributed to a third-party servers for Linux, etc. This is also despite the fact that they have a model where players *PAY* to rent servers.
So here we have EA - a company not known for being all that consumer-friendly - who actively provides a server which competes with their business model, and - despite the who "market penetration" issues - even provides a server daemon for Linux!
I still happily use my BF1942 server and have private games with my friends without dealing with all the usual BS on the public servers, and it's even more fun when using services like TeamSpeak/Ventrilo/etc, and enjoy some of the nifty mods that are out there as well.
So how is that any less useful for a game of Starcraft (or the modern equivalent). All my friends have legit CD keys, and I'm sure we'd all enjoy having a custom server to hack around with more than having to go through battle.net etc, especially considering that back in the days where we *DID* regularly play Starcraft/Broodwar, it was sometimes a royal pain in the ASS to get a decent game without running into weird connection issues or getting knocked offline.
So NO, private servers are all "pirate servers." In fact, a lot of the clients out there for older games such as BF *ARE* private servers.
How long does it take now for an average new player to level up to 85? I'm asking in actual game hours -- not how quickly one can accomplish it with massive doses of caffeine.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
LAN parties, and not just you and some buddies, but major Starcraft tournaments. If you have hundreds of people in a convention hall, you would have to have a massive pipe in order for everyone to get on the Internet to log in to Battle.net just to play a game with someone who is sitting right next to them.
Blizzard saying: "We just know from WoW that most people can connect online and play..."
is like Microsoft saying: "We know from Hotmail that most people can connect to the internet, so now you must be online to run Microsoft Word."
Or a car analogy: "We know from Hummer drivers that gas prices are not an obstacle, so we have increased the fuel consumption of the Prius."
What an insult to all of us. They won't be getting my money. (Of course they'll blame piracy.)
I'll be as annoyed as anyone else if SC2 really truly doesn't allow multiplayer without an internet connection. But I'm not sure that's even exactly what they have said will be required. I think the relevant quote was in the D3 section:
"Hopefully our track record will speak for itself and our fans can take us at our word that we are doing this not because of any business model or corporate mandate. We believe that we can give the best multiplayer experience by going in this direction. Just in terms of philosophy, we're all about making choices for the gameplay and then worry about the monetization later, which is great because there are many companies out there that go the opposite direction."
This is, after all, Blizzard. Have you no loyalty? No trust? If your friend of twenty years hints at something that you don't like, but doesn't give you all of the details, do you really start frothing at the mouth and calling for his lynching? Or do you register your concern and wait until you have more facts?
Why would I want to go to a "major LAN Party" where I wouldn't be surprised if a majority of /. users would rather spend their vacation elsewhere as well? Why would a majority of computer users out there would want to go a "major LAN Party"? None of my friends (all of who are over 30) ever want to or have a desire to go to a "major LAN Party". Was there even a "major LAN Party" at QuakeCon? There probably was but coverage I've read from it doesn't seem too interested in talking about it.
Lets face it: Only the super dedicated are willing to drag their computer to somewhere and hook it up to an unknown network. The rest of us mere mortals who simply want a fun game are simply happy to stay at home and hit "quick match" and chat over IM. I'm not surprised Blizzard is reticent about adding LAN support because "major LAN Parties" seem to be a small portion of the entire user base.
I know a guy who HTML submits and he is literally PHP asshole.
A PHP asshole.
Literally.
That's why you're all browsing at -1 from your parents' basement. Cause you're all void of gas to run your Jetta.
I for one don't mind waiting until 2013 to buy the StarCraft BattleChest with all 3 volumes for $49.
But if you think $180 for a video game is okay with you, then go right ahead.. "Moneybags".
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
And the whites will only be allowed to be barb-aryan or druid. We will also be introducing a philipino Valkyrie class, and a Voodoo Necromancer to replace the albino Christopher Walken look-alike. Colonel Sanders of KFC fame will become the new Sorcerer, delivery crispy popcorn chicken to whomever allies with him.
Blizzard might as well just come right out and say it "If you don't have broadband, we don't care about you.".
That isn't exactly what they are saying. What they are really saying is, "If you don't play WOW, we don't care about you." And of course, all WOW players have internet connections, most of them broadband.
You see, Blizzard is like a bad parent, and WOW is like the spoiled, favorite child. WOW is the child star who brings a lot of income to the family, and so her parents dote on her and her friends. Diablo III and Starcraft II are mostly ignored, and there is some question as to whether they will ever reach maturity.
The only reason Blizzard even lets SC II bring friends home, is so that maybe they can hook up with WOW, which admittedly is a little sicker in my analogy than reality.
Even if you look at Warcraft 3, which did have LAN play, the vast, vast majority of people played on Battle.net and that was what, seven years ago?
Really, and where do you get these numbers from? I hope to hell that these numbers are not coming from battle.net.
I have been playing Starcraft/Warcraft multiplayer for years. only in the last 1 1/2 have I been playing "online" and only War 3 gets that through battle.net. for some reason Starcraft is frankly unplayable through battle.net so it gets Hamachi, where as War 3 is fine with minimal lag. Should I "assume" that Blizzard have a telepathic ability to know in which scenarios every one of their games is being played in. Here is a big bloody clue for you, if you are collecting your data about online play from an online source, it's going to be skewed. I know that adding LAN play IS a technical challenge, anyone here who thinks that a cracked release will magically add LAN play into the game is fooling themselves. There may (well, probably will) be a way of hijacking the connection and forcing a LAN enviroment, but syncing data over a LAN is different to syncing data over an Internet connection. Having said that it is not a substantial amount of work, unless you network code is screwed up to begin with, and this is a large project with a lot of coding, it should be a drop in the ocean deal.
Just my views, of course, I'm sure they will be ignored by Blizzard, since these answers are just sidestepping the issue anyway.
Leg Godt!
On a train, bus or at an airport, you may find some random person playing Starcraft (like I did on a Greyhound the other day). The ability to drop a cable and make it multiplayer regardless of the circumstances is awesome. I really don't want to have to set up tethering and Internet connection sharing just to play SC with the guy sitting next to me...
In Blizzard's lengthy response spanning three games and several thousand words there is one paragraph about LAN play for SCII.
In the comments that follow which are equally long, if not longer, the majority are about a single game and a single feature: LAN play on SCII.
Hello? Blizzard? Are you listening to your fans yet? This is an important feature to many of us! And not just the pirates. I bought the original Starcraft twice (thrice if you count Broodwar), and only played it multi-player via LAN. I really, really, really want to buy SCII, and I really, really, really want to play it on a LAN. If you don't provide that option, you can be sure I'll get my SC fix from the people than can provide it. Why push paying customers into the arms of pirates?
Hello Blizzard,
Here's an idea for you.
1) Establish some sort of pledge petition system for Starcraft II.
2) Determine what the retail value of Starcraft II will be. Lets assume US$50.
3) Allow people interested in LAN play for Starcraft II to pledge the cost of the game assuming this feature is put in, with pledges held in an escrow account.
4) If by a certain date the sum of the pledges is greater than some predetermined amount (say US$1,000,000) then you implement LAN play, and pledges count as a prepurchase of the game.
5) If not, you refund the pledges.
Set up a system like this, and then just sit back and watch how quickly you reach that $1,000,000.
There's even no need for 6) ???? because we all know that it would be Profit.
Well, I do, having lived 4+ years in the 3rd world and much of that in a town with no land line based telephones.
The one argument I most sympathize with in this LAN argument is regarding internet access. I *have* played video games on a tropical island with no electricity, let alone no internet access. I did it with a GBA, but it would definitely be cool(er) to do the equivalent playing SC with notebooks on a wireless ad-hoc LAN.
The world is not the USA and even in the US, internet access is not a given.
Instead, it was a bunch of drivel with a lot of snide insults to their prime customers.
Most people who post here hate WoW and despise those of us who play it.
There are probably as many folks here who are die hards as regards to LAN play as folks who want Linux ports to games. And those of us who dare to speak out in favor of Linux ports get flamed and modded down.
Really, there are some things we can just assume people have these days. Indoor plumbing, electricity and broadband are among them.
If the reason for BNetd was piracy, why did they ask Blizzard to help them authenticate folk and weed out pirates? What was Blizzard's response? Oh, taking them to court!
And yes, I used BNetd for WC3 to participate in the beta, and promptly bought the game the day of launch. Was this piracy? Well, the beta was free, so I don't see how Blizzard lost any money. Was it control? Surely.
Even now, I wish there were an unofficial BNetD server sometimes. I live in a place called "Texas" and I'm not sure whether I'm BNet West or BNet East. What I do know is the lag is so bad that I can't compete on either effectively. I had no such problem with BNetd or any FPS for that matter.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Slashdot shouldn't give them the time of day until they support Linux. Not enough Linux users, because apparently Steve Jobs hasn't posted the Ubuntu sales numbers just yet. Surprising really.
"Certainly we have supported the Mac for years and years and definitely plan to continue to do so. We try to support other platforms, but at this point I don't know of any specific plans for Linux."
I stopped reading after this.
Sure, there may be a few wild eyed hermits out there without broadband, but they're the same folk that don't have other basics like electricity or sanitation.
I really enjoyed Blizzard games up to Starcraft included. But then WoW was out, and in a same way that many WoW players seem disconnected from reallity, it disconnected Blizzard from reallity. They now live in a world where millions of people are giving them 10 bucks a month in order to connect to a MMORPG, making them feel that if a player buys a game that he can play for 18 months, he will be willing to pay $180, that no LAN connection is no big deal, etc. They just do not live in the same world as we do. The main reason I won't play Starcraft 2 by the way is not about money or LAN, but on a lower level: no linux port.
Water doesn't get to or from your house by magic. Sewer systems are major undertakings.
Pretty smokey answers...Why don't they just say: no, we won't because wine works 100% and we do want to profit from that? or Yes, we're now counting you (Linux users) guys and we'll see what happens??
Or did I miss this? When someone asks for clarification, hopefully he should get...instead this is once again more confusing....
Or hopefully is just me. Can someone please explain the meaning of their answers please?
Cheers,
Not by magic, but there is such a thing as a well, and a septic system. You don't need a sewer, or city-run water to have indoor plumbing.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
"Slashdot: There is always a call for increased support (even if it isn't official) for Linux, Wine, etc. Is there any possibility that future support for WoW on the Linux platform could grow?
J. Allen Brack: We have been a long time supporter of alternate platforms with the Mac, and have supported many of our games on both PC and Mac, so we're a big supporter of platform independence. We have experimented with a Linux client back in the day, but right now it is a resource problem. We have to consider how many resources it would take to put out a Linux client versus how many people would actually use something like that. We have to consider how many people aren't playing WoW right now and would if we had a Linux client. Or is it people who play already and just want support in their preferred operating system? If we decided to support a new platform, we would have to figure out how many game features we had to give up development on in order to develop a new client."
This is classic chicken and the egg problem. If they did do it the only negative thing that would happen is they would seriously piss off Microsoft. Then again Blizzard has enough clout not they can probably not care.
The reason why probably 50% of people use some flavor of Windows as opposed to Linux is the inability of Linux to play games. Sure you can screw around with it until it does, but it is a pain in the ass if you can even do it. Now there are a lot of people that really only play one video game really, and that game is WOW. So in one move you could drastically increase the user base of Linux. Hell they could even create their OWN Linux distribution that is optimized for WOW. The could sell their own computers with it pre-installed... hell pre-install WOW as well, hell integrate it right into the OS and sell that... They know the game requirements better than anyone, so selecting system specs would also be easy, and again they would have the clout to make things happen they want to happen... aka "hey ATI, make me a WOW optimized vid card thks k bye!". Anyway I am just saying that I think they are dismissing the linux option too easily by simply saying it is a "resource VS user base" equation. The equation is much bigger than that and they would potentially be able to enter some new markets if they so wished it. Perhaps they don't, perhaps they want to stay in their core business. Nothing wrong with that, but that is not to say that if they did this they could stay core all the like and a third party company could come in and take that profit machine. Anyway just a few thoughts on that... I really think it would be in their best interest to go with linux and wow, and I am certainly not a linux fanboi.
Ok, I don't live in a situation where clear telephone signal is a luxury. But do you honestly want to try to convince me that someone living so far off the grid that they can't get a decent hardline telephone signal is snuggling up to their gaming PC?
Give me a break.
I'm sure it's happening... really. In about 1/10000th of 1% of the potential Blizzard customer's homes. How many of those people know who Blizzard is or play -any- computer games is another story entirely.
And even the bulk of the people whining about having nothing available do have something. I'm 40 miles from the closest town of population greater than 1500. I have RF broadband, and aside from some unpredictable throughput during storms its pretty darn solid. (And I'm getting 3mb sustained and up to 7mb bursts.) There's also line of sight Microwave, and if there's cell reception there's Mobile broadband. Hell, in a real pinch there's satelite with the latency now down in the ~1sec range.
Yes, with satelite the latency would discourage you competing in the championships. Yes, you would probably get whooped and latency would be the cause. But again, how many farm boys with an outhouse and a exposed copper wire grounded to their tractor as a telephone line are hardcore uber gamers? How many of the people they've ever met want to go to that environment for a LAN party? The point being, you CAN connect to authenticate the systems and play multiplayer. You just have to stop bitching and do it. And if you cant, the chances of you owning a PC that will actually run SCII are only slightly better than the chance that you give a crap that SCII exists - both being only slightly more likely that being struck by a meteor.
Want to complain about the cost? Yeah, mobile broadband (the most expensive of these) might be as high as $75/month. If you're so short on money that any internet connection at all is a burden, then maybe you should consider your money spent in better places than a computer game!
Do you think we can give up the strawman crap that might apply to one in 5million people and actually deal with some realistic scenarios?
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
Is Starcraft 2 going to support dial up modems?
Because I know that is how I used to play in college all the time. I mean if they don't allow that I think I will boycott them forevar!
Man, I was really hoping to see a lot more content in terms of what questions the FANS asked got answered, except it felt like none of them were. I read a lot of them, and I got to say, the guy who asked the questions sucks my left nut.
I would have hoped that at least blizzard take a look at the long list themselves, and at least take some time to answer at least half of them...this seemed liked a hoax project, where the questions were controlled, and the environment was made to look like the questions came from the users, except most of them did not.
from interview: Slashdot: I noticed that you have moved away from the strict left mouse/right mouse ability limitation and have created more opportunities for players to map keys and use abilities beyond the two major "equipped" abilities. What was the driving reason behind this decision? Leonard Boyarsky: Well, we had that to some degree in Diablo II, it was just really inaccessible and not fun. Our main goal is to have the player focus on two skills and maybe that alternate ability that you can tab in, while moving some of the more passive or non-targeted abilities to the hotbar. Of course, minor refinements are going to continue to go on as we develop, but we wanted a way for you to augment your main skills. In a game like Diablo, your character is really defined by what your main attack is. Unless you are a real hardcore user, you probably aren't going to be switching up attacks constantly.
I hate this type of thinking! I usually like to play as wizard/sorcerer/necromancer/etc. I like using lots of different spells and I want them all to be powerful. I am really frustrated in Diablo 2 that you can only learn/upgrade a spell when your character levels up, that makes it impossible to have more than a few spells at high enough level to do damage. Diablo 1 at leastt allowed you to learn spells via book so I had a chance of leveling up all my spells.
Maybe I just want Diablo to be more like traditional RPG (I want to use fire against ice enemies, etc), but I always found the Diablo spellbook to be limited....
Yeah, but do i have to pay for SC2 on Battle.net like for WoW?
"We just know from WoW that most people can connect online and play"
Talk about a self selecting group.
We know from people who play are game that need a constant connection that everyone has a constant connect.
For a lot of people, that's not the issue.
Having a central on/off switch is.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
You *could* just shit directly on your yard, too.
No, I've never seen a septic system up close; I live in a developed nation.
I can't imagine a design that wouldn't result in a tank of festering shit.
Congratulations! Our selection committee compiled an exclusive list of the Top 100 gaming Blogs, and yours was included! Check it out at http://thedailyreviewer.com/top/gaming
You can claim your Top 100 Blogs Award Badge at http://thedailyreviewer.com/blog/8158
Cheers!
Angelina...
Buy Diablo II, StarCraft, & WarCraft III cdkeys cheap at www.g2buy.com!
My last LAN party (about 5 years ago) was in an industry building without internet access. At least without internet access that was available to the party guests. The organizer picked that building because it easily had room for a dozen people. But the trend towards games that always require an internet connection started to bite us even back then:
A few people who already had the Steam version of "Day Of Defeat" installed ended up creating parallel installations for the LAN party. IIRC back then the offline mode sucked badly.
C - the footgun of programming languages
Everything in that state outside of Seattle is a septic tank in my not so humble opinion. It's a shocking contrast; Seattle is a very nice city.
Why would you ever choose to live outside a municipality? That's not much removed from Kaczynski's shack. Is it an American thing?
I was asking you if living in a populated but unincorporated place was an American thing. It's rather rare north of the border. Americans seem in general very spread out.
In BC, most of us live in Vancouver or its suburbs. Most of the rest live in Victoria. The idea of people living 25 minutes from a major city like Seattle without basic infrastructure is a bit shocking to us.
No reasonable person would consider a place without it to be developed.
But I don't hang around sewage treatment systems, and I certainly wouldn't live on top of one.