对星际争霸2首席设计师Dustin Browder采访

星际争霸2的首席设计师Dustin Browder最新访谈

上周一，我拜访了暴雪总部期待着看一看新版战网在多人BETA方面的进展。不幸的是，他们还在进一步订定许多战网特性，我只能脱离，也没法推测预期中的多人测试何时才能开始。

“我们还在为战网奋战，只是还有点悬而未决，”星际争霸2的首席设计师Dustin Browder告诉我，“我也不想这样，不过事实摆在那儿。”

当我问及BETA测试的时间时，Browder给了个老套的“当统统就绪的时候”的答复。测试预计会在今年夏天的什么时候开始。

还好我得到机会和Browder进行更详尽的交谈，详尽的遮盖了SC2这一续作那漫长的发展阶段。在这一过程中，设计师分享了一些令人愉快的关于单人游戏内容的详细信息。下面是完整访谈的一些预览：

Shack:我两年前玩过星际争霸2的一个版本，然后是去年，以及当代的今天。我得说照旧会有重复的内容，但是这并不是我们的本意。对此你有何感想？

Dustin Browder: 挺艰难的。（笑）是啊，这大概是我呆过的最具有挑战性的开发环境了。这真的挺费劲的。如果结构太过于复杂，那就很也许无法理解。这就是我们所做的。

我们正试着做的更好点。我们会尽也许的让它们有所不同。有个任务里你得和虫族赛跑，看谁能先到达同一个神族基地尝试达成目标。

Dustin Browder: 是啊，我知道。我们总是为了最小的细节争论。我们总是致力于那些你能想到的最细节的地方以完善整个游戏。

我没法告诉你具体的次数——在游戏中我们得选择几何体。当我们点击一下的时候，我们不会去逐个测试游戏里的每个多边形。这真令人发狂。但是如果游戏里的所有工具都这样，那我们就得细致了。与此同时，我认为玩家们——我们显然在星际争霸2中学到许多，我想这支团队在魔兽争霸3中甚至学到更多关于战役方面的工具。（笑）在屏幕上所有的单位里，只有（喘气）那一个有一个角伸出来！我应该能点击那个的！为何我没法点击那个？我们一次一次又一次的做，并且我们做到了。

你知道，如果只是一个探测器（Probe）有个耳朵伸出来，你在那上面点了下但是啥也没发生，我们也许不会去管它。我们有一个球体，或者一个立方体，以及多种形状围绕着每个单位，如此我们测试一套比较小的多边形，这样子就不会在每次点击的时候消耗太多的性能了。我们就得开始想——也许我们发现这个选择是错误的，也许就像“这个游戏感觉不咋地”。你想要能把三台雷神运进战场的鼎力大举神力运输机，而且它看起来也可以办到？许多各种各样的疯狂的元素只会在单人战役里出现。也许你非常厉害，“那个探测器的选择是错误”。于是我们得在每个细节上尽也许的精益求精，这可不是个省力的活。

Shack:我们能谈谈战网吗？

Dustin Browder:我不知道，试试看吧。让我们看看他们会在我们说到哪的时候出来阻止，怎么样？（笑）
我没法告诉你几多工具因为实际上，我说的任何工具都也许只是扯淡首席设计师Dustin。你知道，以前是你去买一个游戏和两个资料片，当代是你去买一个游戏，然后你再去买两个资料片。我也不想这样，不过事实就是这样。我今天所说的不代表最闭幕果。它当代还只是个带有各种我们很不喜好的问题的版本。这从来不意味着这会是最终版本。但是我们正在一步一步接近最终版本。

我们一边制作同时一边完善，这是我们的要领。

我们希望战网能支撑非正式联赛，专业联赛和顶尖级联赛首席设计师Dustin。你要么上到高地去要么就死。你大概可以猜到其中的不少工具，但是，什么能实现而什么不能，下一个补丁会包含什么——在这些的基础上我们决定我们所要做的。

Dustin Browder:这就像是一个15到45分钟的小游戏。

Shack: 于是统统都还悬而未决么？

Dustin Browder:还有不少工作要做。很也许我今天给你展示了整个战网，但是我保证来日诰日它就会变得有点不同了。我想这真的会让他们大吃一惊的，我们会拭目以待的。统统都只是时间问题了。

Shack:关于单人战役，以及游戏将会是三部曲形式的决定——的回应，我想，应该是各式各样的吧。有些人，包括我本身，认为事实会证明这种分割会是好的，然而其他人依然抱着怀疑的态度。

所以我们总是离竣工只有一步之遥——不全是这样，不过你知道我的意思吧？我们总是尽我们所能试着把它做得更强力。也许他们不会喜好，但是这没什么。我们还在为之奋战，它还悬而未决。唯一不同的是以前是一个游戏和每个资料片里都有三个战役，而当代是每个资料片里分别有一个战役，这就是唯一的不同。

新的多人单位，性能方面的提升，战网的改变，我们的锦标赛系统的改进以及任何这些资料片里会包含的工具都会和以前那样。所以我们不妨这样看：看啊，我们当代在做两个母巢之战，但是我们会让你亲身实践整个故事而不是做那种一下就过去的10个任务的战役，我们所做的是让每个游戏讲述一个单独的故事。
所以我不觉得我们有任何想要榨取任何人额外的钱的意图。这种事情每每会发生。这只是游戏内容的组织方式发生了变化。

Shack:你们还没有展示什么单人游戏部分的内容，这也是一个招来不少怀疑的因素。你觉得人族战役会有足够吸引人的惊喜之处吗？

Dustin Browder:我希望是这样。那将会相当庞大。

Dustin Browder:尽我们所能吧。玩家可以本身做出选择——RTS是代表性的，你得一步一步来。如果你接到一个你没法应付的任务，我想你最好照旧先转头。恩，你没法转头了。

（笑）我在想你们什么时候才能在电子商店里弄到这游戏。

于是你卡在这了，这很糟糕。但是当你卡在某处的时候，你可以暂时先放弃，“我会回来报仇的，我会去弄点更强力的工具然后回来让他们付出代价”首席设计师Dustin。唔…我都不知道我到底盯着那个几多次了。在那些任务中你所要去做的那些事情，我们认为那些真的都是很酷的工具，也许玩家们会大吃一惊。

在一个任务中，每5分钟熔岩就会升起杀死地面上的每个工具。所有的工具都会死。我们还希望增加更多关于好友和游戏录像分享的功能。在另一个任务中，被感染的人类会在夜里发动攻击，但是他们白昼的时候都藏在地里，所以你需要顶住夜里的攻击，就像你是在《我是传奇》里一样，“我撑下来了！”然后天明了，“杀光他们，趁他们在睡觉杀了他们！”然后你冲出去尽也许快的杀死他们，然后当夜幕降临的时候你就得回去然后继续抵挡打击。

在一个任务里，你得防备一个正在一点一点被感染的人族殖民地，你得使用所有的火力来抵挡那些被感染的单位。还有一个任务是一个孤身一人的幽灵特种兵试图影响整场战斗的进程。所以每一个任务都像是一个微型的小游戏。

Shack:是啊，听起真不错首席设计师Dustin。

我今天有一个设计会议，会议是关于战网设计的。任务的有趣程度在于它的长短。但是每个任务有其各自的特点首席设计师Dustin。

Shack:这么说的话，你刚才说的那些就是最独一无二的任务吗，或者还有其他典型点的？

这真的和你之前见到的任何我们做过的工具都不同。这么长的时间里游戏不停处于可玩的状态，很显然对于你和你的伙计们来说这是一个反复修改的过程。所以我们并不是把一堆工具都塞进去，然后修改它。所以如果我们有个想法，我们会试着尽也许让这个想法与众不同。还有一些与之有关的完全不同的亮点。

Shack:这在某种形式上听起来有点像是魔兽世界里的任务。

Dustin Browder: 没错，我同意。我的意思是，我们那么做了，但是我们按我们的要领去修正它，于是它总是保持眼下我们能做出来的最高质量。还有一些在古老的禁忌的空间站中的战斗，极度的空间环境将会对你的单位造成伤害。我们加入了各种元素。我们不停致力于保证质量，但这并不意味着——我起首想到的是，我想要在暴雪工作，这将会是多么酷啊——我想我们会做出游戏然后完善它。每一个任务都是一个小游戏。

我们所有的时间几乎都花在这上面——我们想到一个听起来很酷的点子，然后我们去做了，等等，如果我只是这么做然后造到200人口，然后我就可以获胜了。（叹气）这是一个在什么更有趣和什么感觉起来更独一无二之间不停核对和平衡的过程，这真的挺麻烦的。这些就是我们为之努力的单人战役，这真的花了相当长的时间。所以我想对于许多玩家来说这将会是很棒的独一无二的亲身实践。这将给玩家带来许多选择。

他们可以选择任务的目的，他们可以选择升级哪些单位。所以如果你喜好护士，于是，嘿，我这有一些升级能让你把他们变得非常强力于是我们就不会把他们加入到多人游戏中。我们有各种升级——哦，你想要一个能进八个人的碉堡还带有三层护甲吗？那就拿去吧。也许你比其他人越发熟练，“这个选择是错的”。所以工作还在继续，但是与此同时这些设计真的是很冲动人心。


原文:

[SC]星际争霸2的首席设计师Dustin Browder最新访谈

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/59317

Last Monday, I visited Blizzard HQ expecting to get a look at the new Battle.net in advance of the multiplayer beta. Unfortunately, the team is still finalizing many Battle.net features, and I left without an estimate on when the anticipated multiplayer test would begin.

"We're still working on Battle.net, and it's kind of up in the air," StarCraft II lead designer Dustin Browder told me. "I kind of wish it wasn't, but it kind of is."

Browder gave the typical "when it's ready" response when asked of a beta timeframe. The test is scheduled to begin sometime this summer.

However, I did get a chance to talk at length with the affable Browder, thoroughly covering the reasons for the sequel's lengthy development period. In the process, the designer shared some exciting details on the singleplayer portion of the game. What follows is a late-night preview of the full interview, to be published later today:

Shack: I played a version of StarCraft II two years ago, then last year, and now today. With the game being in a playable state for so long, obviously this has been a considerable iterative process for you guys. How has the experience been on your end?

Dustin Browder: Hard. [laughs] Yeah, it's easily the most challenging development environment I've ever worked in. It's really exacting. We're really focused on quality, and that doesn't mean--when I first thought about, I want to work at Blizzard, it's going to be so cool--I thought we would make the game and then polish it. But no: we polish it. That's what we do.

We make and polish at the same time, as we go. So you don't get to jam in a bunch of stuff, and then just redo it. I mean, you do that, but you fix it as you go, so it's always currently the highest quality experience we can figure out. So you're always a minute away from being done--not really, but you know what I mean? You're always trying to make it as strong as you possibly can. You're always arguing about the smallest detail. You're always working on the littlest, tiniest thing you can think of to improve the game.

I can't tell you how many times--we have selection geometry in the game. When you do a click, we don't test against every poly in the game. It would be insane. We have a sphere, or a square, or a variety of shapes that surround each unit, so that we test against a smaller set of polygons so that it doesn't consume our performance every time we make a click. Um.. I can't tell you how many times I've stared at that. [laughs] With every unit up on the screen, and just.. [gasp] That guy has a little corner sticking out! I should be able to click on that! Why can't I click on that? And we do that again and again and again as we go through.

You know, if the Probe has an ear that's sticking out, and you click on that and nothing happens, you're not going to care. But if everything in the game has that, you're going to care. You're going to start to think--maybe you won't know that the selection is crappy. Maybe it's just like, "This game doesn't feel good." And maybe if you're more skilled, "This selection is bad." And if you're awesome, "The probe selection is bad." So we have to work on every tiny detail as much as we can, and it's exhausting.

Shack: Can we talk about Battle.net?

Dustin Browder: I don't know. Let's try. Let's see where they stop us, right? [laughs]
I can't tell you a whole lot because in reality, anything I say might be a lie. We're still working on it, and it's kind of up in the air. I kind of wish it wasn't, but it kind of is. What you saw today is not where we're going. It's a version that we have that has a lot of problems that we don't like. It was never meant to be the final version, but we're getting further and further away from that being close to the final version. We're trying to do more and more stuff.

We're hoping to have support for casual leagues, support for professional leagues, hardcore leagues. Hoping to do a lot more with friends, more with replay sharing. A lot of it you can probably guess, but what makes ship, what doesn't, what comes in later patches--what we decide to do with it exactly does depend. And I've got a design meeting today, and it's about what's going on with Battle.net.

Shack: So it's all up in the air then.

Dustin Browder: There's just a lot more work to do. I could probably show you a full flow of Battle.net today, but I guarantee tomorrow it would be a little different. So work is going on on that, but at the same time the design is "wheeeeeeeee!" And where it's at in the schedule is also sort of free-form right now.

Shack: In terms of the singleplayer campaign, and the decision to include one per game--the response, I think, has been mixed. Some people, myself included, are betting that the content will ultimately justify the split, while others are still skeptical.

Dustin Browder: Yeah, no I know. And maybe they just won't like it and that's the way it is. You know, previously you were going to get a game and two expansions. Now you're going to get a game and you're going to get two expansions. The only difference is that instead of having three campaigns in the game and in each of the expansions, there will be one campaign in each of these expansions, and that's the only difference.

New multiplayer units, improvements to performance, changes to Battle.net, improvements in our tournament system or whatever--all that stuff will come with these expansions just as it would have previously. So we just view it as, look, we're just making two Brood Wars now, except instead of having a bunch of ten-mission campaigns which are too fast, and don't let you experience the full story, we're taking all of that work and putting it into a single story per game.
So I don't think there was any intention to milk anybody of any additional money. This was always going to happen, it's just where the content is placed is now different.

Shack: You haven't shown much of the singleplayer component, and that may be one reason for a lot of the skpeticism. Do you think the Terran campaign will catch some people by surprise?

Dustin Browder: I hope so. It's going to be pretty huge. It's really different than anything you've seen before in our titles. This is sort of a level of choice and options for the player--RTS is typically, you're on the rail man. And if you get a mission you can't beat, I guess you'd better take it back. Well, you can't take it back anymore.

[laughs] I'm [thinking] of when you could take games back at [Electronics Boutique].

But you were just stuck right, and that's terrible. But now if you get stuck, you can go, "I'm going to come back to this one. I'm going to go myself something powerful and come back here and make this one suffer." At the same time, I think players--we learned a lot obviously in StarCraft, and I think this team learned even more in WarCraft III, in terms of the kinds of mechanics that you're going to get in this campaign. The kinds of things you're going to be doing in missions, I think is pretty cool stuff that maybe players aren't quite prepared for.

We've got a mission right now where every five minutes, lava rises and kills everything on the ground. Everything dies. You've got to get to the high ground or die. We've got a mission right now where infested Terrans are attacking at night, but they're hiding in the ground by day, so you need to just hold out all night long like you're in I Am Legend. Like, "I've got to live!" and then day, "Get 'em! Kill 'em while they sleep!" And you run out and you burn everything as fast as you can, and then when darkness starts coming you have to get back and hide out.

We've got missions where you're trying to defend a Terran colony that's getting infested one piece at a time, and you've got to try to put out all these fires while fighting off these infested units. We've got this mission where you are a lone ghost trying to influence the course of an entire battle. So each of these missions is like a little minigame.

Shack: Yeah, that's what they sound like.

Dustin Browder: It's like a 15-45 minute minigame. Depending on how fun the mission is it'll be longer or shorter. But each one is its own little game for you to play.

Shack: At this point, are they mostly unique missions, or are there archetypes?

Dustin Browder: As much as we can, as much as we can. I'm sure there's repeated content, but it's not by choice. As much as we can we try to make them different. So if we have a hold-out, we try to make the hold- outs different as much as possible. There's some mechanic about it that's fundamentally different.

Shack: It almost sounds similar to the approach taken with the World of Warcraft quests, in a way.

Dustin Browder: At its best. At its best it is, I agree. We've got missions where you're racing against the Zerg, both fighting your way to the same Protoss base trying to reach a goal. We've got battles on ancient forbidden space platforms where the very space itself damages your units. We've got all kinds of crazy stuff. So this is what we're working on the solo campaign that takes so much time. Each mission is a little game.

And we do this all the time--we come up with a little mechanic that sounds really cool, and we go, wait a minute, what if I just do this and build the 200 food and I'll win. [sighs] It's a constant check and balance between what is fun, what feels unique, and what's too fancy. What's just over-the-top too complicated, can't possibly understand it. So I think for a lot of players it'll be a pretty unique experience. It offers a lot of choice for the player.

They can choose the order of the missions, they can choose which units they want to upgrade. So if you love yourself some medics, hey I got a couple upgrades for you they would make them so powerful we'd never put them in multiplayer. We've got a couple upgrades in there--oh, did you want an eight-man bunker with three armor? Go you. Did you want a Hercules dropship that can carry three Thors into battle, and looks like it can? There's all kinds of crazy stuff that you only get through the solo campaign. I think it'll really rock 'em, but we'll see.