TeamLiquid.net interviews Dustin Browder

[Gifted]

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[Gifted]

What are some of your favorite quotes from this interview? Why do you like that quote?

Does it alleviate a concern you had? Does it reconfirm a hope you held onto? Do you think Dustin Browder has a firm grip on what truly needs to be done to get this game to where it needs to go?

Do you think that you'd be able to do a likewise job in his shoes or do you value his expertise?

[DemolitionSquid]

What are some of your favorite quotes from this interview? Why do you like that quote?

The whole thing just validates everything I've said. Choice is good, the devs want choice. Macro doesn't have to be boring and repetitive. Maps should not be final balance, they're just forced to be because of the nature of diversity.

Does it alleviate a concern you had? Does it reconfirm a hope you held onto? Do you think Dustin Browder has a firm grip on what truly needs to be done to get this game to where it needs to go?

My only concern for a long time has been the macro mechanics, and the tweet a few days ago relieved that a bit. I think the devs are finally understanding that competition is supposed to be fun.

Do you think that you'd be able to do a likewise job in his shoes or do you value his expertise?

I could eat him for breakfast. His head is egglike enough methinks.

Offtopic: I'd also like to state that any leaking TL may have done in the past has no influence on my opinion of them; everyone makes mistakes.

[Gifted]

Thanks for answering the questions, I look forward to other people's answers as well and hope they just don't focus on replying to yours *chuckles* Here's to hoping ^^

Regarding other sites on the other thread, let's just drop that subject as a whole and thank them now for the contribution they just brought to the community. I'd consider this one a fantastic one in terms of a read.

[Norfindel]

TL: To follow that up, what types of challenges do you face when trying to balance the needs of the casual player versus the rage of hardcore players like in the progaming community. You had mentioned the macro mechanics being a big one.

DB: Sure that's definitely a big one – it's a place where we feel we can definitely do better but it then does break other systems. You know a great example I love reading on Teamliquid and elsewhere were not so much that you guys were missing clicks – some people said that and I didn't agree with that – but that we were missing the difference between a macro player and a micro player.

It's all about a difference in playing style. The problem is to enhance that difference, while at the same time keeping the level of quality, and not just add something that will accomplish that, even if it's not at Blizzard quality. They know they can do better with the macro mechanics.

TL: Up until Blizzcon we had heard a lot about the Queen and in previous interviews, yourself and other members of the development team had said they found Zerg to be the be pretty weak. Now when we got to Blizzcon we played and released an article where we had said we found the Queen's macro mechanic to be extremely powerful (perhaps too powerful). So a big discussion spurred from that about why was the development team finding Zerg to be so weak vs. our play test. Now obviously we only had a limited amount of time with the build, but do you have any thoughts on that?


So it's very possible that you are correct even with your limited play time. But simply, we have too limited a player pool and we are not pushing it as much as maybe we should. So who knows? We'll find out when we get to beta what the reality of that stuff is. It doesn't really...well it matters to me right now and we are going to keep working on it, but we've got plenty of time for those kinds of adjustments.

He almost says "it doesn't really matters" . But really, i think they're going to do whatever they can right now, then they will see in beta what happends with the mechanics, tweak or change whatever they see needs changing. So, i don't expect them to come with a perfect solution right now.


I really do feel like using map balance as a method of racial balance is something that the community has quite correctly evolved because we aren't doing a lot of patches. And so you guys have taken over the balance for us in many ways by doing the map balance which I think is glorious and I think you do a great job. But initially we won't be doing that because we know we can patch and will be patching frequently. So initially we'll be doing the balancing with the races themselves. As time goes on we may evolve, I don't know right now. We may evolve into a similar type of formula where we are doing more with map balance but we may not. Certainly for the next few years with the expansions we are going to be doing a lot of stuff with the races.
This is good. Terrans were too reliant of terrain all the time in BW. If they have a good choke and/or high ground made all the difference in the world to them.

But we're going to do everything you can to make it as flexible as possible to do everything creatively on your feet at the time. So you can't just become complacent and memorize a build and just run with it.

It's going to be kind of a constant arms race. We're going to be looking for ways to make it a flexible game where there's always new decisions to be made and always creative problems being presented to you. At the same time, the community is going to be looking to break that – you guys are going to be looking for ways to make just one build that always wins. Because that's what I always want to do - always win.

So that's going to be the challenge for us, and again it's not that we are trying to destroy anything specific to the original Starcraft, but we are trying to limit anything that comes up where its like “that's the obvious move.”

That's the stuff! Options! The higher the amount of options available to the player, the higher the possibility that someone does something unexpected, and unexpected stuff is the key of RTS gameplay. If you can surprise the enemy, with an unexpected but valid build, scouting becomes much more important. If you can choose several responses to an enemy build, it won't be predictible.

[Spartan]

Really nice interview. Though most of it has been reiterated countless times it is still good to know they're sticking to what they say.

[ArcherofAiur]

Can we talk about the best line of the whole interview.

The benefit you guys bring to the game, the passion and knowledge this community brings has been a huge benefit working on the game. It's had a huge influence and I think it has made the game a lot better.

That is why I am part of the SC2 community!

[DemolitionSquid]

I'm just here to be a douche.

[Spartan]

You're doing a bad job at it.

[Hamshank]

This was a great interview as always -- thanks for sharing it.
Lots of new information.

I wonder what he meant about "juicy patches", it sounded like he was hinting about DLC, possibly paid? It would make sense, it's such a money maker.