Gamasutra.com has posted an excellent interview with Dustin Browder, leader designer of StarCraft II, that focuses Blizzard's game design within StarCraft II's development. In the interview, Browder explains his role of designing all aspects of the game and and also speaks about how data gleaned from the beta experience should be handled with caution from a developer's standpoint. Browder also mentions how Blizzard has been focused on how StarCraft II will drive eSports forward and speaks about what the community is expecting from the sequel from a competitive perspective.
Gamasutra: On the notion of the e-sports phenomenon, there are some people for whom StarCraft is a fundamental competitive dynamic; it makes sense to them that StarCraft II still relies on that same dynamic, in the same way football hasn't changed its basic competitive form in many, many years. Then there are the people who are more dismissive, who say, "Well, it's the same thing I played ten years ago, but in 3D." How do you address that second group?
Dustin Browder: For us, we're not trying to be innovative. We're not trying to change for change's sake. We're just trying to make a quality product. We definitely felt like there were some things from the previous game that were very high quality that we weren't super confident we could do a ton better. I wouldn't have a lot of enthusiasm to make Siege Tank 2.0. Siege Tank is good. It's a good unit.
It's much the same as the guys who are making Civilization or Team Fortress. They're making iterative changes to a quality product to do something really, really great.
But for the guys who are saying, "I just need new," we've created a whole solo play experience which we feel really scratches that itch, that is a brand new experience.
It gives them a new way to play RTS games that they haven't played in our games before. I know other games have done a similar experience, but we feel we've got a very high quality version of a non-linear RTS experience.
We really think that's an area where players who are just bored of RTS can have a lot of fun. But for the multiplayer experience, we're much more about quality than in showing off, if you know what I'm saying.
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Source: Gamasutra.com - StarCraft II: Building on the Beta
