Karune is back on Official forum

[Blazur]

Yeah, they have some say, but they certainly don't dictate deadlines for the UI team. I don't understand why you people are so stuck up on how the art team is now affecting the delay of B.net... It's arbitrary discussion and pointless.

You have no idea what you're talking about. B.net is delayed because of programming issues, and the art team is now using that delayed time to polish more things that they deem need polishing. I wouldn't be suprised if the Thor/Carrier/Voidray, etc have all been touched up. Why you think the art team is slowing down B.net is beyond me. They are doing 1000x more work in the background OTHER than polishing up Zealots. You have no idea what goes on in the company and neither do I. But from my experience, things don't work like you say they do.

How do you know Blizzard is spending time ONLY on the Zealot? You do not. So ends the discussion.

Never did I claim the art team is holding up B.NET 2 (can we stop calling it 2.0?). My contribution to this discussion is a personal opinion that the Zealot looks great, and if they didn't invest time redesigning the Thor or Carrier I'll be disappointed. Plus I wanted to dispute the fact that the artists had no say in the visual direction of B.NET.

I deal with programmers and artists all day at work. But in my personal experience people aren't usually exceptional at either spectrum of creative talents. You're either a good programmer or a good artist...or a hybrid with a lesser mixture of skills. Usually you don't want programmers making the only decisions about the aesthetic direction of something if you want it to look good

[Nicol Bolas]

You people are actually trying to justify a remodel of the Zealot when the game is being delayed by b.net.

The point is that the people doing the remodeling can't help make B.Net get there any faster.

It's like building a house. You have architects, concrete experts for the foundation, and various other specialties. If the foundation people are late, the architect can't do a damn thing to speed it up; he doesn't know anything about building a foundation. So he may as well spend the time polishing up his blueprints.

I think the biggest point of contention is why is Blizz investing time revisiting the art of solid looking units (the Zealot) when so many other units are less desirable (Thor, Carrier).

Because:

1: They may not think that these units need polishing. They may like them as they are.

2: Nowhere was it said that only the Zealot got a visual upgrade. That the Zealot did does not preclude the possibility of other units getting some polish.

Also, I think it's naive to assume the art team has no say on the overall aesthetics of B.NET. Granted they may not know a thing about programming, but depending on their expertise they could offer a unique perspective on how user-friendly the UI could be, and how it could be made aesthetically more appealing without worrying about the nuts and bolts.

Of course the art team has a say in how the UI gets laid out. But that doesn't mean a thing if your network code doesn't run.

You can build a beautiful user interface from purely art-driven tools. But if the programming behind each button click isn't done yet, it doesn't mean a damn thing.

Didn't any of you people take Chemistry back in High School? Have you not heard of the rate determining step? There's nothing that the fast step can do to speed up the slow step, so the speed of the overall reaction is defined by the slowest step: the RDS.

Right now, it's programming for Battle.Net that is the RDS for StarCraft 2's Beta. So the art team (part of the non-RDS steps) decided to use the time to give some more things a polish.

[Blazur]

Of course the art team has a say in how the UI gets laid out. But that doesn't mean a thing if your network code doesn't run.

Funny you seem to believe differently.

Now, even if you're saying that the artists should be working on art assets for the B.Net interface, that makes no sense. The artists who work on models and textures do not do UI stuff; that's 2D drawings. Further, no game UI outside of a TBS game needs more than 1 artist, and even that's part time.

Oh and you can spare me your bullshit chemistry analogy. Only you can make an argument out of nothing. I swear you'd dig up some obscure parallel just to dispute an opinion. And in the end you still don't make a valid point because you'll just end up disputing your own claims for the sake of argument.

[Nicol Bolas]

Funny you seem to believe differently.

Obviously, you don't understand the difference between "art team" and "the artists who work on models and textures". One is a functional superset of the other; I'll leave figuring out which is which up to you.

Oh and you can spare me your bullshit chemistry analogy.

And what's bullshit about it? Making the claim that an analogy is false without bothering to actually prove that statement only shows the weakness of the actual claim.

I swear you'd dig up some obscure parallel just to dispute an opinion.

Opinions based on idiocy should be disputed. Because they're idiotic. Hence the idiocy.

[Blazur]

Opinions based on idiocy should be disputed. Because they're idiotic. Hence the idiocy.

Please do me a favor and update your sig with the following line: "Blah blah blah..."

And then once you've updated it, draw some wacky parallel to hamsters about why this line doesn't represent every argument of yours. And then dispute that argument in a followup thread with an analogy of how milk tastes better after eating chocolate.

[ArcherofAiur]

Loud Noises!

[Wankey]

Lets just agree the following:

A) Blizzard is touching up a lot of units in lieu of the delay, not just Zealot... by touching up Zealot, we can expect it has touched up A LOT of the other units as well
B) Blizzard never really announced a release date for SC2, only when its done. They were forced to say late 09 for business reasons
C) The art team has absolutely no say in programming B.net or has any hand in the delay
D) UI behind Battle.net is probably done, and probably isn't the reason behind the delay
E) Any further speculation about how the company is run is utter pointless unless you work directly with their high level dev team

[Pandonetho]

This thread is hilarious.

I think the fact that they've changed the Zealot art again is a good thing, as it gives us indication that the art is STILL being worked on.

Come on, it was Karune that stated that the Zealot was remodeled, he doesn't give us all the information that he knows. It's more than likely a bunch of other stuff is being remodeled as well.

Compare A: "We've got some cool art updates, the Zealot is even more badass looking than before"

to B: Silence

Which option seems to suggest that the art is being worked on? People are making a big deal out of nothing. Even if the art team somehow was holding up b.net or whatever, there's nothing you can do about so be patient for once in your lives.

[DemolitionSquid]

I cannot agree to those terms. Touching up the Zealot only shows me they're bored, there are many other units that need fixing. And the team designing the graphical b.net UI is invariably the same people designing the in-game UI and models.

[ArcherofAiur]

Touching up the Zealot only shows me they're bored

yes


Dustin Browder is bored.