Last weekend, Dustin Browder had emerged from Blizzard’s Dev campus and has given quite a lengthy interview to Ziff Davis’s 1UP, one of the world’s largest gaming websites. The interview contained few unknown details, but, again, has provided an updated “State of Development” view on StarCraft 2.

Ironically, while both Diablo 3 and StarCraft 2 appear in 1Up’s  “25 of the Most Anticipated Video Games of 2009“, Thierry Nguyen (1Up’s writer) seems to have a very realistic view on Blizzard’s schedule, reminding everyone of its famous “when it’s done” mantra.

1UP: First off, some of us were wondering: Do you ever feel limited in the ability to be creative design-wise because of the StarCraft legacy? Do you find yourself caving in to pressures to appease your older fans at the cost of innovating the game?

Dustin Browder: No, not at all.

RIGHT. StarCraft fans are not only loyal and passionate, they are also quite loud. While Blizzard has the amazing knack for delivering masterpieces in consecutive fashion, Blizzard’s fan base deserves credit for providing the constant stream of feedback most companies can only dream of.
A significant portion of said base has been familiar with StarCraft’s look and feel for a decade, and while gamers do not want to end up with StarCraft 3D, it’s safe to assume that the change will not be as drastic as it was with WarCraft 3.

game sold more than 9.5 million copies worldwide, so even though StarCraft today has a reputation as a super hardcore RTS game, it truly did have mainstream appeal.

StarCraft is perhaps the closest thing to becoming the modern equivalent of chess. While many gamers are familiar with the game’s basics and have played some multiplayer StarCraft games, there also exists a large group of professional players, which has taken the game to a depth level matched only by games which have existed for centuries.

So once we ship the core game of StarCraft 2 and start delving into the expansions, we’ll have a great deal of that infrastructure under our belts and be able to concentrate primarily on content creation for the two expansion sets.

Remember that technically, StarCraft 2’s multiplayer experience won’t be finished either. As mentioned earlier, every expansion will contain new units (or mechanics) which will add to each races’ arsenal. The expansions are projected to be released year after year in consecutive fashion, which means it’ll take StarCraft 2 a minimum of two years to reach the point where the multiplayer game is finalized with all available units. This is when the game can begin the long process of balancing, hopefully maturing slowly into a masterpiece worthy of its legacy.

It doesn’t make sense for Kerrigan to be flying around in a battlecruiser and picking out mercenary missions for cash, which is what you’ll be doing with Raynor in the core game’s campaign. So we’ll be doing something different with Kerrigan to get her to evolve and grow her Zerg army. Meanwhile, Zeratul’s Protoss campaign may require you to engage in diplomacy with the different Protoss tribes in order to gain access to…

This is quite different from StarCraft 1 and just about every other RTS game to ever hit the market. Blizzard’s investment in the not-part-of-actual-RTS details of the Single Player Campaign is quite staggering.

We’ve put by far, the most amount of work into the Terrans — the other two campaigns are still in planning and concepting

…Being able to focus on one race for 26 to 30 missions gives us the breathing room to give players meaningful choices…

Three months ago, on October 13, the status did not appear be much different...

according to Chris Sigaty, lead producer, they are now finishing “Wings of Liberty“, the Terran campaign.

Dustin Browder: You’re certainly going to see other major characters like Kerrigan and Zeratul make significant appearances and impact in the first campaign…

It looks like Blizzard is working in full force to finish the first part of the single player campaign while finalizing the multiplayer game in order to launch StarCraft 2 within the next few months. Will we see a beta soon?

Related Posts:

• » Two Massive Q&A Sessions: Battle.Net and Beta In-Depth
• » StarCraft 2 Beta: Protoss Strategies Overview
• » StarCraft 2 Beta: Yo Mommaship Got Nerfed
• » StarCraft 2 Beta: First Gameplay and Battle.net Impressions

18 Comments to “1UP’s Wings of Liberty Interview Extract”

1. SikTh — January 7, 2009 @ 5:14 pm
   

   Well, at least Dawn of War 2 is coming out on the 27th of February.

2. evglmg — January 7, 2009 @ 6:00 pm
   

   I hope this time is real because is taking soo much long for release the first part of the game yet and we have to wait more 2 years to we have the game complete all 3 races in campaign mode well i hopy is true i can´t wait

3. BarGamer — January 7, 2009 @ 6:28 pm
   

   Personally, I speculate the Zerg Campaign will be about harvesting new species to get the upgraded Zerg units. That would be AWESOME.

4. Battlarmd — January 7, 2009 @ 9:36 pm
   

   so basically it is 2 expansion sets guarenteed. which is good.

   For multiplayer… maybe Blizz can expand a new type of RTS, something with a map and every battle matters… Kinda like mixing RISK into SC2, that will be quite awesome. (though some folks might find it frustrating when they are under attack.) but just another idea to make the multi-player deeper.

   I still think there should be something to do with higher orbit units… I want to see a deeper SC2, not just ground and simple air units…

   anyone with me?

5. 프로 게이머 — January 7, 2009 @ 9:49 pm
   

   @ BarGamer:
   There’s already a game like that, its called Spore. Go buy it!

   @ Battlarmd: Ever watched progamers playing? You’d be surprised just how much depth stracraft actually has when it’s played at the competitive level. The whole idea behind starcraft wasn’t that there are a million different unit’s, whose rolls overlap pointlessly, but there are just a few well thought out and balanced units. Thats what i think the problem with the CnC series was; you have a tank… then you have 5 different kinds of more powerful tanks, and same with infantry! Its starcraft’s simplicity and polish that has lead to its longevity, and i think blizard’s primary goal right now should be balance and multiplayer appeal.

6. BarGamer — January 7, 2009 @ 10:13 pm
   

   I already played Spore. Cell thru Civ was alright, Space was a horrible, horrible, GRINDFEST. I quit after I cheated all the way to -Spoilers and Such-.

   And I meant Armory and the ‘buying’ of units, not Campaign. The Campaign will probably about Kerrigan kicking the Terran’s and Protoss’s butt all over the sector, lol

7. evglmg — January 7, 2009 @ 11:18 pm
   

   But Main problem is how long we can wait more??? because is taking soo long to get hands on the game i think everybody here think the same i know they talk about quality i agree with blizzard but this “quality” is taking too much time for first part the game out i saw the batlle reports the grafics and all the map is perfect

8. Lipton — January 8, 2009 @ 1:09 am
   

   Beta def Spring or possibly early Summer… I predict a late Summer release or early Fall

9. Battlarmd — January 8, 2009 @ 2:34 am
   

   프로 게이머
   yeah, I have watched, the game play is ok, I am not disagreeing with that. but then I am saying that the dimension of the game is still SC1… just better, in everyway. Which is GREAT ! but I somehow… expected blizz to toss in another dimension when it comes to a sequel..

   so that’s all I am wanting…

10. THE_BANANA_REPUBLIC — January 8, 2009 @ 3:36 am
    

    As usual, excellent summary and speculation by the sc2blog. Apt use of photos and photos’ captions.

    As hinted by the blog, the ambitious blizzard developers should really take it upon themselves to develop new mechanical nuances in the successive expansions. I suppose that pretty much goes without saying, since most of these things develop organically based on the user input.

    I believe that *waiting* for the release won’t be an issue. I want a finished and wholesome game of chess. Blizzard wont have to worry too much about marketing: I cant see people being put off from purchasing the game “because it wasn’t released soon enough.” Like the game’s announcement, our panties will once again be wet when we’re given a shipping date.

11. Joe — January 8, 2009 @ 3:52 am
    

    Battlarmd, I think I would be taken by a type of RISK style gameplay to occur over battle net as a tournament type.

    Is this kind of what you are suggesting?

    It would be players (usually of the same race) formimg factions, claiming terrotory, and … um… harvesting resources. Another faction might want to invade; An enemy player might enter your sector, and you have to defeat them in a match to defend your sector.

    Of course you’re not always online to defend your sector, so a match will have to be arranged by the system. If you don’t attend your match, you lose! That’ll teach you for not checking your bnet-mail!

    And there would need to be some additional draw for owning a sector… maybe because of ’special resource type’ you get some of the extra upgrades from the single player campaign that don’t make it to the regular multiplayer. If your clan has lots of these things and trade minerals between sectors, then you would have a serious arsenal at your fingertips!

    So you could do all kinds of things as a player, such as be a diligent clan member and defend your sector. Or perhaps you’re fed up with your sector and want to push off, using some ’special resource type’ to buy your way into another sector. Or perhaps you like double crossing your teammates, and decide to start a rebellion, attacking from the inside, just as your new friends show up to claim the sector!

    It could allow for a community driven story of war and conquest, where millions of players can be observed taking over sectors all over the virtual universe!

    Bah! this is getting lengthy!

    Regardless of how cool it would be to see a kind of Risk mished into battle.net, I’m sure whatever blizzard will do to battle.net will be the extra depth we’ll all come to appreciate.

12. Battlarmd — January 8, 2009 @ 4:17 am
    

    yes, that is about what I have in my mind. So while the game battling mechanism is just RTS, and pure RTS. On top of it, we add a strategy component.

    so you can join a faction, and you might be stationed at a certain spot to defend a border. The enemy will never know how defended a border really is.. (maybe that info can be given for by some in game items, like a xel’naga satillite or something.)

    then to determine the fight, you will start a battle, some border fights on certain planets might trigger a 2 v 2 or a 3 v 3 fight to make things interesting… etc.

    the whole idea.. is to expand your terrority in the universe, keep it well defended.. and invade others.. it will be very interesting to watch people get involved with the game then. Flaming forums and daring each other to invade etc… the community should have a blast this way…

    but yeah.. that was what I was thinking..
    since Blizz want to keep the RTS similar to SC1.. I thought.. why not add the new dimension on the other level?

    just thinking out loud..

13. Joe — January 8, 2009 @ 6:27 am
    

    Yea, it would be interesting,

    Who knows, maybe they have been thinking the same thing, but not announcing it yet? I mean, it does sound similar to the single player component.

    Can’t let all of that single player content, and various ideas from the community go to waste!

14. evglmg — January 8, 2009 @ 7:47 am
    

    I just thinking about the olds maps of starcraft (crash insane luker defender, matrix defender, Dota etc etc etc) will be like old times starcraft i should create a map with that name will be fun on map setting will be fun alot

15. Johner — January 9, 2009 @ 4:09 am
    

    Updates has been sparsed from Blizz these days.

    I think people want to hear units unveils/upgrades.

    but so far, all we have is how big units continue to suck.. like the thor/colossus.. my bet would be the ultralisk sucks too.

    why don’t they give these bigger units a RESPECTABLE damage grade, and manage the balance through attack cooldown and unit limitation. (like 5 only, or 8 only.)

    it is sad to see what happened to the Thor.. it was a good idea. Just limit it to two per players, and you won’t have seige tanks useless….

16. Joe — January 9, 2009 @ 8:15 am
    

    Yes, there is something disheartening about seeing colossus being picked off by a few small melee units such as zerglings. It doesn’t make any sense!

    I don’t agree with a unit limitation, but it seems the system is a little too simple in these cases, breaking the illusion.

17. THE_BANANA_REPUBLIC — January 10, 2009 @ 3:02 am
    

    Vote for your preferred Dark Templar model for multiplayer on the sc2 website.

18. evglmg — January 10, 2009 @ 9:24 am
    

    I already did i chosse the number 3 randonly i think is a perfect choice i liked the classic on too of curse the segund is amazing too