Blizzard have launched the official “BlizzCast” page. In the first episode, Karune, Blizzard’s RTS community manager, interviews Sam Didier, art director for StarCraft 2.

We’ll focus on the StarCraft relevant information.

Highlights:

* Sam describes StarCraft as more serious, grittier and darker than the WarCraft universe. He says StarCraft is a more focused universe while WarCraft is freer and less constrained (the Panda hero, the Brewmaster, is a good example).

* The StarCraft 1 Dark Templars were all based on the prototypic “secret-agent-type-ninja guy” that Zeratul was designed to be. In StarCraft 2, more variation was planned for the different Dark Templar units and a more hardened look was given to the Dark Templar unit itself - Zerg bones and other trophies were added to them.

* About the Zerglings: “It’s StarCraft II, baby, you know. We don’t want to be doing something we did ten years ago and just doing a 3D version of it.”

* Samwise recommends taking courses in Max or Maya if you’re looking to get into the gaming industry as an artist. He says people with multiple skills, such as texturing and modeling, are more highly valued.

The rest of the cast deals with World of WarCraft. You can read the transcript of both interviews in the episode 1 page.

For more Samwise Didier, check out these video interviews from the Leipzig Games Convention.

13 Comments to “BlizzCast Episode 1: Interview with Sam Didier”

1. i luv guardians — January 11, 2008 @ 8:06 am
   

   ooh…so the ‘teeth’ the dark templar had were probably hydro or zerling teeth and the weird carapace on their head were all zerg stuff

2. i luv guardians — January 11, 2008 @ 8:09 am
   

   zergling looks cool too….shorten the body of the zergling like the concept art pls

3. George — January 11, 2008 @ 8:45 am
   

   Agreed!

4. Rob — January 11, 2008 @ 9:35 am
   

   Just another appeasement to keep the fan’s mouth shut and not to have to reveal any new information… same thing goes for the battle tank.. “why presenting new units if we can show em picture of a unit that they have already seen a thousand times?!”

5. Dill — January 11, 2008 @ 10:31 am
   

   If the game is taking awhile to develop, it makes sense that little good information will be released, and that the time will be used to fill in extra details.

6. Atican — January 11, 2008 @ 10:47 am
   

   Have they told us whether the Zerglings will be able to jump off cliffs and whatnot because of their wings?

7. Bherm18 — January 11, 2008 @ 10:50 am
   

   I think the new Dark templar look sweet, except for the new weapon. It looks like there’s no way to attack effectively with it. what’s it gona do stab, the enemy and himself at the same time? (this gets a bit nerdy) If you look at all the personnel units (there’s not many) for the Protoss, all the weapons are fixed it to the armor; zealot’s psiblades are on the arms as do old Dark Templar, dragons cannon is on the back, Achon has a psychic attack as does Tassadar, making the unit one with its weapon, which follows the Protoss philosophy of the perfection of war. This new weapon just looks unwieldy and not very assassin like.
   This was really bugging my friend and I.

   P.S.
   You can see Zeratul fighting Kerrigan’s heal, just like in the concept art post back in October in the Kerrigan’s mighty heel post, in the E3 release trailer “hell its about time” around 3:43 you see Zeratul block a few kicks.

8. whiteknight — January 11, 2008 @ 11:23 am
   

   * About the Zerglings: “It’s StarCraft II, baby, you know. We don’t want to be doing something we did ten years ago and just doing a 3D version of it.”

   must be for whole game not just zergling

   i don’t want starcraft2= starcraft 3 d

   ps. look like WoW is most important thing for blizzard since
   it make them most money

9. Lonia — January 11, 2008 @ 11:35 am
   

   I am not sure if zerg were in Shakuras planet.
   If zergs were there fighting with dark templars for so many years enough to develop new style of fighting, then why didn’t Kerrigan know where is Shakuras. If any zerg were there, kerrigan would know, right?

10. Aaron Kaplan — January 11, 2008 @ 2:33 pm
    

    “It’s StarCraft II, baby, you know. We don’t want to be doing something we did ten years ago and just doing a 3D version of it.”
    So… could somebody please explain 90% of the new Protoss buildings and about 50% of the new Terran ones?

11. i luv guardians — January 12, 2008 @ 4:19 am
    

    Bherm18…i agree wif u..dark templar weapon looks extremely horrible when they are attacking(i mean the gameplay) but it does look freakishly cool on the concept art

12. The_banana_republic — January 12, 2008 @ 6:49 pm
    

    I dont know of any other way to inform you that:

    “blizzard have…” should be “blizzard [has]…”

    Is there a place where we can email these things?

13. nobodyx — January 23, 2008 @ 5:49 pm
    

    Well, just give Dark Templar a kickass samurai sword since he’s a Ninja-like. A nice sword looks much better on DT.