對星際爭霸2首席設計師Dustin Browder采訪

星際爭霸2的首席設計師Dustin Browder最新訪談

上周一，我拜訪了暴雪總部期待著看一看新版戰網在多人BETA方麵的進展。不幸的是，他們還在進一步訂定許多戰網特性，我隻能脫離，也沒法推測預期中的多人測試何時才能開始。

“我們還在為戰網奮戰，隻是還有點懸而未決，”星際爭霸2的首席設計師Dustin Browder告訴我，“我也不想這樣，不過事實擺在那兒。”

當我問及BETA測試的時間時，Browder給了個老套的“當統統就緒的時候”的答複。測試預計會在今年夏天的什麼時候開始。

還好我得到機會和Browder進行更詳盡的交談，詳盡的遮蓋了SC2這一續作那漫長的發展階段。在這一過程中，設計師分享了一些令人愉快的關於單人遊戲內容的詳細信息。下麵是完整訪談的一些預覽：

Shack:我兩年前玩過星際爭霸2的一個版本，然後是去年，以及當代的今天。我得說照舊會有重複的內容，但是這並不是我們的本意。對此你有何感想？

Dustin Browder: 挺艱難的。（笑）是啊，這大概是我呆過的最具有挑戰性的開發環境了。這真的挺費勁的。如果結構太過於複雜，那就很也許無法理解。這就是我們所做的。

我們正試著做的更好點。我們會盡也許的讓它們有所不同。有個任務裏你得和蟲族賽跑，看誰能先到達同一個神族基地嚐試達成目標。

Dustin Browder: 是啊，我知道。我們總是為了最小的細節爭論。我們總是致力於那些你能想到的最細節的地方以完善整個遊戲。

我沒法告訴你具體的次數——在遊戲中我們得選擇幾何體。當我們點擊一下的時候，我們不會去逐個測試遊戲裏的每個多邊形。這真令人發狂。但是如果遊戲裏的所有工具都這樣，那我們就得細致了。與此同時，我認為玩家們——我們顯然在星際爭霸2中學到許多，我想這支團隊在魔獸爭霸3中甚至學到更多關於戰役方麵的工具。（笑）在屏幕上所有的單位裏，隻有（喘氣）那一個有一個角伸出來！我應該能點擊那個的！為何我沒法點擊那個？我們一次一次又一次的做，並且我們做到了。

你知道，如果隻是一個探測器（Probe）有個耳朵伸出來，你在那上麵點了下但是啥也沒發生，我們也許不會去管它。我們有一個球體，或者一個立方體，以及多種形狀圍繞著每個單位，如此我們測試一套比較小的多邊形，這樣子就不會在每次點擊的時候消耗太多的性能了。我們就得開始想——也許我們發現這個選擇是錯誤的，也許就像“這個遊戲感覺不咋地”。你想要能把三台雷神運進戰場的鼎力大舉神力運輸機，而且它看起來也可以辦到？許多各種各樣的瘋狂的元素隻會在單人戰役裏出現。也許你非常厲害，“那個探測器的選擇是錯誤”。於是我們得在每個細節上盡也許的精益求精，這可不是個省力的活。

Shack:我們能談談戰網嗎？

Dustin Browder:我不知道，試試看吧。讓我們看看他們會在我們說到哪的時候出來阻止，怎麼樣？（笑）
我沒法告訴你幾多工具因為實際上，我說的任何工具都也許隻是扯淡首席設計師Dustin。你知道，以前是你去買一個遊戲和兩個資料片，當代是你去買一個遊戲，然後你再去買兩個資料片。我也不想這樣，不過事實就是這樣。我今天所說的不代表最閉幕果。它當代還隻是個帶有各種我們很不喜好的問題的版本。這從來不意味著這會是最終版本。但是我們正在一步一步接近最終版本。

我們一邊製作同時一邊完善，這是我們的要領。

我們希望戰網能支撐非正式聯賽，專業聯賽和頂尖級聯賽首席設計師Dustin。你要麼上到高地去要麼就死。你大概可以猜到其中的不少工具，但是，什麼能實現而什麼不能，下一個補丁會包含什麼——在這些的基礎上我們決定我們所要做的。

Dustin Browder:這就像是一個15到45分鍾的小遊戲。

Shack: 於是統統都還懸而未決麼？

Dustin Browder:還有不少工作要做。很也許我今天給你展示了整個戰網，但是我保證來日誥日它就會變得有點不同了。我想這真的會讓他們大吃一驚的，我們會拭目以待的。統統都隻是時間問題了。

Shack:關於單人戰役，以及遊戲將會是三部曲形式的決定——的回應，我想，應該是各式各樣的吧。有些人，包括我本身，認為事實會證明這種分割會是好的，然而其他人依然抱著懷疑的態度。

所以我們總是離竣工隻有一步之遙——不全是這樣，不過你知道我的意思吧？我們總是盡我們所能試著把它做得更強力。也許他們不會喜好，但是這沒什麼。我們還在為之奮戰，它還懸而未決。唯一不同的是以前是一個遊戲和每個資料片裏都有三個戰役，而當代是每個資料片裏分別有一個戰役，這就是唯一的不同。

新的多人單位，性能方麵的提升，戰網的改變，我們的錦標賽係統的改進以及任何這些資料片裏會包含的工具都會和以前那樣。所以我們不妨這樣看：看啊，我們當代在做兩個母巢之戰，但是我們會讓你親身實踐整個故事而不是做那種一下就過去的10個任務的戰役，我們所做的是讓每個遊戲講述一個單獨的故事。
所以我不覺得我們有任何想要榨取任何人額外的錢的意圖。這種事情每每會發生。這隻是遊戲內容的組織方式發生了變化。

Shack:你們還沒有展示什麼單人遊戲部分的內容，這也是一個招來不少懷疑的因素。你覺得人族戰役會有足夠吸引人的驚喜之處嗎？

Dustin Browder:我希望是這樣。那將會相當龐大。

Dustin Browder:盡我們所能吧。玩家可以本身做出選擇——RTS是代表性的，你得一步一步來。如果你接到一個你沒法應付的任務，我想你最好照舊先轉頭。恩，你沒法轉頭了。

（笑）我在想你們什麼時候才能在電子商店裏弄到這遊戲。

於是你卡在這了，這很糟糕。但是當你卡在某處的時候，你可以暫時先放棄，“我會回來報仇的，我會去弄點更強力的工具然後回來讓他們付出代價”首席設計師Dustin。唔…我都不知道我到底盯著那個幾多次了。在那些任務中你所要去做的那些事情，我們認為那些真的都是很酷的工具，也許玩家們會大吃一驚。

在一個任務中，每5分鍾熔岩就會升起殺死地麵上的每個工具。所有的工具都會死。我們還希望增加更多關於好友和遊戲錄像分享的功能。在另一個任務中，被感染的人類會在夜裏發動攻擊，但是他們白晝的時候都藏在地裏，所以你需要頂住夜裏的攻擊，就像你是在《我是傳奇》裏一樣，“我撐下來了！”然後天明了，“殺光他們，趁他們在睡覺殺了他們！”然後你衝出去盡也許快的殺死他們，然後當夜幕降臨的時候你就得回去然後繼續抵擋打擊。

在一個任務裏，你得防備一個正在一點一點被感染的人族殖民地，你得使用所有的火力來抵擋那些被感染的單位。還有一個任務是一個孤身一人的幽靈特種兵試圖影響整場戰鬥的進程。所以每一個任務都像是一個微型的小遊戲。

Shack:是啊，聽起真不錯首席設計師Dustin。

我今天有一個設計會議，會議是關於戰網設計的。任務的有趣程度在於它的長短。但是每個任務有其各自的特點首席設計師Dustin。

Shack:這麼說的話，你剛才說的那些就是最獨一無二的任務嗎，或者還有其他典型點的？

這真的和你之前見到的任何我們做過的工具都不同。這麼長的時間裏遊戲不停處於可玩的狀態，很顯然對於你和你的夥計們來說這是一個反複修改的過程。所以我們並不是把一堆工具都塞進去，然後修改它。所以如果我們有個想法，我們會試著盡也許讓這個想法與眾不同。還有一些與之有關的完全不同的亮點。

Shack:這在某種形式上聽起來有點像是魔獸世界裏的任務。

Dustin Browder: 沒錯，我同意。我的意思是，我們那麼做了，但是我們按我們的要領去修正它，於是它總是保持眼下我們能做出來的最高質量。還有一些在古老的禁忌的空間站中的戰鬥，極度的空間環境將會對你的單位造成傷害。我們加入了各種元素。我們不停致力於保證質量，但這並不意味著——我起首想到的是，我想要在暴雪工作，這將會是多麼酷啊——我想我們會做出遊戲然後完善它。每一個任務都是一個小遊戲。

我們所有的時間幾乎都花在這上麵——我們想到一個聽起來很酷的點子，然後我們去做了，等等，如果我隻是這麼做然後造到200人口，然後我就可以獲勝了。（歎氣）這是一個在什麼更有趣和什麼感覺起來更獨一無二之間不停核對和平衡的過程，這真的挺麻煩的。這些就是我們為之努力的單人戰役，這真的花了相當長的時間。所以我想對於許多玩家來說這將會是很棒的獨一無二的親身實踐。這將給玩家帶來許多選擇。

他們可以選擇任務的目的，他們可以選擇升級哪些單位。所以如果你喜好護士，於是，嘿，我這有一些升級能讓你把他們變得非常強力於是我們就不會把他們加入到多人遊戲中。我們有各種升級——哦，你想要一個能進八個人的碉堡還帶有三層護甲嗎？那就拿去吧。也許你比其他人越發熟練，“這個選擇是錯的”。所以工作還在繼續，但是與此同時這些設計真的是很衝動人心。


原文:

[SC]星際爭霸2的首席設計師Dustin Browder最新訪談

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.