Blizzard Answers Your Questions and More 368
Last week we asked for interview questions to help supplement our face-to-face interviews at Blizzcon. Over the course of the two-day con we were able to sit down with StarCraft II's Dustin Browder, Diablo III's Leonard Boyarsky, WoW's J. Allen Brack, and Battle.net expert Rob Pardo to answer a few questions on each of the four major camps in Blizzard at the moment. Since this wasn't a usual Slashdot-style interview, we tried to use as many of your suggestions as possible, but the conversation often took us in a unique direction once it got rolling.
Dustin Browder — Lead Designer, Starcraft 2 Slashdot: How much of the team has already rolled over to Heart of the Swarm?
Dustin Browder: Almost no one. Occasional meetings with Cinematics team, who wants to get a jump on things, and the occasional water cooler conversation. Pretty much everyone is focused entirely on Wings of Liberty.
Slashdot: How much of your work from Wings of Liberty will you be able to duplicate throughout the other two installments of the trilogy?
Dustin Browder: Very little. We have tools and we have an engine, and that's huge. We also have a lot more knowledge of what we're trying to accomplish with the scenes and with the story, so we have a lot of benefit from the software that is already created and a lot of knowledge to help us move faster.
Slashdot: How many of those software tools are going to be available to the community-at-large?
Dustin Browder: As many as we can. Certainly the data editor, the map editor, and the terrain editor. That lets users create pretty much anything the design staff can create. Since the story-mode stuff is put together by one of our designers — he collects the art from cinematics and makes it all happen — all that stuff is accessible as well. I'm not gonna lie to you and tell you this stuff is easy; this guy is really smart, and this stuff is complicated, but it's totally doable. We have seen our fans do some amazing things in the past with a very limited toolset by comparison. In this case we're really hopeful that they will do a lot of cool stuff. I can't even guess what they are going to do. [Dustin gave a panel later on in the day where demonstrated some of the things that Blizzard employees had done in their spare time just playing around with the tools. A few examples were; an "Uberlisk" which had a number of spine crawlers on his back and wandered around terrorizing a board filled with hostiles, a zoomed-in third-person action game with a Ghost as the main character, with the ability to interact with "quest givers" and actually go inside buildings and underground, and a top-scrolling space shooter.]
Slashdot: There has been some talk that the streamlining of commands has been moving the focus away from actions per minute [APM]. How important is APM as a metric for you and will we see a decline in the importance of this metric?
Dustin Browder: That type of feedback is incredibly important for us. We want players making smart decisions all the time and we want a lot of skill required to play this game at the highest levels. We absolutely want the best players to be the best players. We're not looking to even out or flatten the skill curve so that "everybody can be a winner." This is not the first grade. We want this to be tennis, baseball, football, whatever, we want this to be a game that requires real skill. But at the same time we don't want this to be a bunch of bogus skill. We have definitely gotten rid of some clicks, but we have also added some clicks back in. We got rid of some clicks in terms of how you had to select your buildings and how you had to give build commands, but we also made sure that we had the finest amount of control at the same time.
When we originally put it out there we said you could double-click the barracks and hit 'M,' and you get five marines, one from each barracks for instance. The fans were outraged and we kind of ignored them, saying, "Whatever, this is a better gameplay experience," but as we played it, we realized that it wasn't a better gameplay experience. Maybe when you hit 'M,' what you really wanted was three marines and two marauders, and you couldn't do that. Instead we have said you can select all of your barracks at once, but each click sends a build command individually to each of those barracks. So now you are able to hit "M, M, M, D, D." This gave us a decent amount of clicks, but actually the correct amount of control. That's actually the control you wanted as a player. We weren't looking to hurt you by giving you too many clicks or hold your hand by taking away some of the gameplay experience. We were actually giving you the controls that made you powerful by having the correct balance between the two.
Also we have a bunch of macro mechanics in the game to encourage players to control their economy better, because as you know in Starcraft, economy is king. One of the things that we loved about the original Starcraft was not so much that we want you to click a bunch, but that there was a lot of tension between players who were micro-oriented and players who were economy-oriented. For instance, if you are playing Zerg and are micro-oriented and I'm playing Zerg and I'm economy-oriented, we're kind of playing two different races — not exactly, but a little bit. We're having a very different experience, and that style difference now becomes the interesting problem for both of us, and that is what we're really pursuing with a lot of this stuff. So, we've definitely taken some clicks away, but we have added some back, and I think the fans will be fine with it. Certainly the hardcore fans I've spoken with, who have actually had a chance to play the game, seem to be very positive about the experience.
Slashdot: It looks like the new league system is going a long way toward making the play experience much better across the board, and will allow people to grow at their own pace. What can you tell us about how this system works?
Dustin Browder: We think this system will really help a lot of players. Even if you are going to stay down in the copper league forever, at least you are playing against your skill level and can hope to win something. In Warcraft 3, minus the "Smurfs" who would come through and ruin everybody's day, we had a pretty good matchmaking system and you could win about half your games. I know most people would prefer to win about 70% of their games, but that would mean someone else has to lose 70% of their games, and we don't want that. If we can match you against your skill level, I think that's where you wanna be and you'll have a good time. So now, if I can put you in a bronze league of 100 players and all those players are your skill level, that means you have a shot of being number one in that league at the end of the season. I think that is going to be a lot more fun for people. When you go to play intramural softball, you know Sammy Sosa isn't showing up. While it might be fun for about two minutes, it would ruin the game and no one would have a good time. If we can keep everyone organized into the skill level they belong I think everyone will have a lot more fun.
Slashdot: What kind of side projects is Blizzard looking at? Any possibility of expanding things to the console, tangentially-related mobile games of any kind, or maybe another pass at Ghost?
Dustin Browder: Starcraft 2. That's about it. We're really focused and we don't mess around with a research division or anything like that. When we think of cool ideas, we build them until they are done and we don't stop. We had the mobile Armory that we announced, but that's more of a support tool than a new game or stand-alone app. For console, we certainly don't have anything that I'm aware of that's going on right now. I'm not saying we wouldn't explore it down the road; it could be a very real possibility. All of us play console games and we all love our XBoxes, Wiis, and Playstations. The gamers are there, the fanaticism exists in the building, it's just a question of when it will bubble to the surface and find a successful outlet.
Slashdot: How do you see ongoing content being developed? You have the main trilogy, but once you are done with that, do you see discrete content releases of some sort, ongoing smaller patches, or maybe even interesting things like the holiday patches in WoW? The new Battle.net framework seems to offer you a lot more options for keeping people up-to-date.
Dustin Browder: The holiday stuff is certainly something we would like to explore via free patches, just to throw it out there. Other smaller patches like new maps or bug-fixes would also certainly come quickly as it was needed. What additional content we actually choose to possibly charge for, I don't know, but I think it would have to be something of extreme value in order to get excited about that. We don't like putting out stuff that we feel dirty about. We argue about it quite a bit, what is enough value and what isn't, what did it cost us, what do we have to charge, those kinds of decisions. Most of those decisions happen above my level, which is great, but certainly the teams have a great deal of influence over those decisions. Most of that stuff, at least initially, will be more patch oriented, but if we find something that is of real value we'll discuss it.
Slashdot: With Starcraft being so data-oriented, you have already put out some really cool tools for recap and data-analysis. Is there any hope of external APIs so that third party developers can do things like scorebots, profiling, armory-type tools that don't necessarily live within Blizzard?
Dustin Browder: Certainly a lot of that stuff is exposed and is possible for players to get their hooks into. I don't know what will happen ultimately with that, but I'm certainly hopeful that we have a large, happy, thriving community of people developing third-party support tools.
Slashdot: As Linux and open source continue to gain popularity and market share, is there any hope of Blizzard allowing some of the internal Linux-based tools and clients to make their way into the public domain, even if they weren't supported?
Dustin Browder: I have no idea what the rules surrounding that are or why that may or may not happen. I don't know of any plans, but that doesn't mean they aren't happening out there. Certainly we have supported the Mac for years and years and definitely plan to continue to do so. We try to support other platforms, but at this point I don't know of any specific plans for Linux.
Slashdot: The other question that is a constant concern within the fan base of Starcraft is the question of disallowing LAN play. How are you solving problems like making sure this is a valid replacement for LAN plan; security, reliability, speed, or even people playing behind things like NAT routers?
Dustin Browder: These are issues that we continue to address as we go forward. Some of these things we have some plans for, but not all of them. It is something that we definitely plan on working on as we go forward to make sure we have things in place to handle every possible user case out there. We just know from WoW that most people can connect online and play. There are some cases out there, some legitimate-use cases — that aren't just people that refuse to buy a modem or are crazy and weird and living in a closet. We want to make sure we are able to support these legitimate-use cases for LAN play and make it accessible to those users, but we're still trying to identify all of those and decide which cases are legitimate and which are not. These are definitely legitimate concerns, and we're certainly looking to address them.
Leonard Boyarsky — Lead World Designer, Diablo III
Slashdot: I noticed that you have moved away from the strict left mouse/right mouse ability limitation and have created more opportunities for players to map keys and use abilities beyond the two major "equipped" abilities. What was the driving reason behind this decision?
Leonard Boyarsky: Well, we had that to some degree in Diablo II, it was just really inaccessible and not fun. Our main goal is to have the player focus on two skills and maybe that alternate ability that you can tab in, while moving some of the more passive or non-targeted abilities to the hotbar. Of course, minor refinements are going to continue to go on as we develop, but we wanted a way for you to augment your main skills. In a game like Diablo, your character is really defined by what your main attack is. Unless you are a real hardcore user, you probably aren't going to be switching up attacks constantly.
Slashdot: With the advent of the new Battle.net features and the evolution of gameplay in Diablo III, do you anticipate any major changes to the PvM Ladder setup or maybe some specific PvP elements?
Leonard Boyarsky: A lot of the stuff being developed for Starcraft II and Battle.net, we want to incorporate. All of the community features and chatting across games is very important and we'll definitely incorporate that where it makes sense. We haven't talked a lot about a PvP component, but we think it is a great aspect of the game. The part that we didn't like from the earlier games is that people could turn hostile at any time and stab party members in the back. The people who get upset that we're not going to have that aspect are generally the people who would kill their party members at a moments notice. So, maybe we'll find something where they can all go stab each other in the back apart from the people who don't want that as an experience. As far as specifics for PvP, rest assured that we're going to come up with whatever we can that is the best possible PvP experience for a Diablo-style game. Right now, we're really focused on the co-op play and using whatever we can from Battle.net to enhance that experience.
Slashdot: When you integrate with Battle.net, will that also integrate with other data streams? Recently when they were discussing World of Warcraft's integration with Battle.net, there was the possibility of a guild news RSS feed. Can we expect to see things like data export and clan support?
Leonard Boyarsky: I don't really know what the plans are for that, but I would assume if they are going to have something like that for WoW or StarCraft II and it works out, there is no reason why we wouldn't integrate that into Diablo III. I'm not the most technically-minded person; I'm more on the artistic/creative side of things, but we talk all the time about how to get all the community stuff that we can in, even if it isn't there at launch, so that it becomes this fantastic player experience.
Slashdot: Speaking of the artistic side of the house, are you looking to leverage your community for artistic injections into the Diablo III universe, like custom levels, modding, or even total conversion mods that just utilize the Diablo III engine?
Leonard Boyarsky: We discussed that early on because Starcraft II is doing so much modding support. But when you look at the style of game that Diablo is, it is based around a lot of random content. So when you look at it from that standpoint, someone might be able to make some very specific content, but the basis of what we're providing for the player is a random system. So are they just going to provide a different random system? Also, the creation of our art is very intense in terms of not only the talent and technical expertise required to get it into the engine, but manipulating it and using it with our tools. It would take a lot of work to make that friendly for the end user who didn't have a programmer there to help them figure out some of the finer points. We just didn't see the bang for the buck in doing something like that and it was never really a big part of the Diablo fan base. Having said that, if someone comes along and takes the Diablo engine and makes a fantastic game out of it, more power to them. We just didn't feel that was where we could add the most value for the players, because that just isn't what the community is about.
Slashdot: The Diablo franchise is especially iconic for things like easter eggs and secrets. Can we expect the same of depth in Diablo III? Any hints?
Leonard Boyarsky: No, no hints. They wouldn't be easter eggs then. We'll probably drop some hints here and there, maybe post some easter eggs on the web for people to dig out. Maybe some red herrings to send people in the wrong direction, but most of that stuff just comes naturally during development. As you develop areas, these things come up, and we're always throwing around ideas. So yeah, we talk about that all the time, and we are planning on doing quite a bit of that stuff.
Slashdot: I'm sure you guys are tired of the LAN dispute, but what specific things are the Diablo team looking at in terms of trying to provide value from Battle.net to assuage some of the fear that this is just an inconvenient take on DRM?
Leonard Boyarsky: Well, once again, I'm not the most technically-minded person and I want to get you guys a really good answer for that. I don't want to steer you guys the wrong way. Right now most of the implementation of Battle.net is Starcraft-focused, so I know that is our goal right now, but I know Rob [Pardo] has talked about how their fans use LANs for tournaments and the like ,so they have talked about how their fan base might need some kind of deployable LAN solution. The Diablo team is in the enviable position of letting them work out how all that is going to work and how they are going to solve all of those contingencies. Hopefully our track record will speak for itself and our fans can take us at our word that we are doing this not because of any business model or corporate mandate. We believe that we can give the best multiplayer experience by going in this direction. Just in terms of philosophy, we're all about making choices for the gameplay and then worry about the monetization later, which is great because there are many companies out there that go the opposite direction.
Slashdot: One of the things some of our readers really want to know is: what are the biggest deficiencies that you are seeing from young college grads trying to break into the industry? What words of wisdom could you impart to people trying to get their start, especially with respect to gaming?
Leonard Boyarsky: I can speak a little bit more to the artistic stuff because of the position I'm in; that's how I came up. I would say that, from an artistic standpoint, it's not about how well you use 3D Studio Max. Obviously you need background in some sort of 3D program, unless you just want to be a concept artist, but it's more about just being a great artist and having a great artistic eye. The same thing goes for creativity; it's more about having something to show that shows what you can do. If someone comes in and has something to show, it doesn't matter where they went to school or what they accomplished at school; it's what we can see. Because there are so many people out there that have resumes with great schools, it just really comes down to what they can do. If I find someone who just blew me away, I could care less if they even have a diploma. I think the biggest thing you can tell people is to do stuff on their own. It's probably easiest as a level designer, because you can get a Half-Life or a Quake and build your own levels, and then you have something to show. The more stuff you do just shows your passion, your creativity, your ability, as opposed to trying to get a job first if that makes sense.
J. Allen Brack — Production Director, World of Warcraft
Slashdot: What caused you to make the new level cap 85 as opposed to increasing it the usual 10 levels.
J. Allen Brack: Well, we looked at a lot of the things that we wanted to do for this expansion. Going back and revamping the old world and bringing the level of quality of the experience of the 20-60 game up to the level you saw in Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King was a hugely monumental task. We also looked at how much people say they like leveling, then tried to balance that with people who say the game doesn't start until max level, and tried to figure out what the right decision for the game was. We definitely didn't want to feel like we were trapped into adding 10 levels every time, because I think we could make an expansion that was very compelling where we didn't add any level increase, and I think there are situations where we would want a 20 level increase. It all comes down to what the right decision for the game is.
Slashdot: Can you describe the difference between this expansion and previous ones in terms of the time and difficulty it took to revamp an existing area versus creating an entirely new area?
J. Allen Brack: Well, this is actually, by far, the largest expansion that we have ever done. We are creating five new zones completely from scratch for level 80-85, we're also going back and retouching a lot of the existing zones. Some of the existing zones have been very good and have worked out very well and some of them we have always regretted and not worked out very well at all, but we're going back and evaluating those on a zone-by-zone basis. Many of the old zones are actually getting rebuilt from scratch just due to the massive amounts of changes.
Slashdot: How are you going to manage the difference between someone who has just purchased vanilla WoW versus someone who has all of the expansions up to and including Cataclysm?
J. Allen Brack: Well, we haven't talked about launch plan specifics, but we do want everyone to get Cataclysm. It is our intention that the world will experience the cataclysm for every player regardless of patch level. There are a couple of reasons for that, but one of the main reasons is we want people to play together and the idea of having segregated the players into the "bought Cataclysm" and "didn't" camps is really not the right decision. The other thing is that Cataclysm has lore and a reason behind it, so it doesn't really make sense to have it happen for some players and not for others.
Slashdot: There has been a lot of talk about the new phasing technology that allows entire continents to change. Was that very difficult to implement compared to what was already in Wrath of the Lich King?
J. Allen Brack: Yeah, it was. In Lich King, we didn't really have the ability to do terrain; we had the ability to skyboxes, quests, and effects, but now we have the ability to have different versions of terrain that get triggered based on other events. One example is being able to go into a cliffside dwelling and down into the storm cellar to weather a storm and when you come out, the entire cliff has been sheared off and there is nothing left. It's pretty exciting.
Slashdot: We have heard a lot about how StarCraft II is going to integrate with Battle.net, and a little about what World of Warcraft is going to do. Is there more coming?
J. Allen Brack: Sure. Battle.net is going to be the way that all players log into Blizzard games in the future. We have optional Battle.net conversion right now, but that will be mandatory at some point in the not-too-distant future. Once we have that integration, we'll layer the Battle.net features on top of World of Warcraft. We're not talking about changing the way that Guilds or Friend Lists work for Battle.net; it's more of just adding a layer of Battle.net features and community features on top of the existing game.
Slashdot: Has there been any talk of making APIs or data feeds that would allow fan sites or forums to integrate game data directly?
J. Allen Brack: That is an interesting idea. Yeah, we have seen a lot of neat little apps come out of the armory, to a degree that I don't think we really anticipated. There are now loot apps, community aggregation apps, and others, but we certainly were not prepared for the amount of traffic that is just to gather data from the armory for other apps.
Slashdot: The EVE team recently announced a project called Dust 514 that is a separate game that hooks into the EVE universe. Has Blizzard considered any side projects that might have some tie in to existing games?
J. Allen Brack: We typically think about things as a team — in my case, World of Warcraft — and what we could do within the existing WoW universe. Something like that offers a lot of wish fulfillment for me as a gamer, and we definitely talk about what kind of gameplay experience that we want to offer with each expansion, so we definitely have a lot of new things that we're talking about for Cataclysm, just not quite that extreme.
Slashdot: How about a console version for WoW?
J. Allen Brack: Console is one of those things that we probably talk about once every six months. I have probably met with Microsoft two or three times to discuss what it would be like to have WoW on the console. Where we are today, and I can't say we'll always be here, but right now WoW is very much designed for the mouse and keyboard interface, and doing another type of control scheme would be very challenging. I think it will be done, and if we had started WoW with the idea that we would move to console, I think it would be a much different game and the control scheme would support that.
Slashdot: Once the Battle.net integration is complete, you'll be able to talk to friends from different servers and even different games. Has there been any talk of being able to form instance groups across servers?
J. Allen Brack: Yes, and we're actually doing that in an upcoming patch. In 3.3 we're going to revamp the Looking For Group interface to allow that. The idea wasn't necessarily for existing players that are in a guild at high level, it's more for the people who want to run Wailing Caverns on a character that is level appropriate.
Slashdot: Lately there have been some problems with instance server congestion; is that something you are focused on?
J. Allen Brack: We're hugely focused on it. I mentioned the cross-server instancing — that is also a part of that solution as well. We have some technology that allows multiple servers to share certain instance blades and that gives us a lot of efficiency. We're going back and reconfiguring all of our servers for this, so it should be done before we launch 3.3.
Slashdot: There is always a call for increased support (even if it isn't official) for Linux, Wine, etc. Is there any possibility that future support for WoW on the Linux platform could grow?
J. Allen Brack: We have been a long time supporter of alternate platforms with the Mac, and have supported many of our games on both PC and Mac, so we're a big supporter of platform independence. We have experimented with a Linux client back in the day, but right now it is a resource problem. We have to consider how many resources it would take to put out a Linux client versus how many people would actually use something like that. We have to consider how many people aren't playing WoW right now and would if we had a Linux client. Or is it people who play already and just want support in their preferred operating system? If we decided to support a new platform, we would have to figure out how many game features we had to give up development on in order to develop a new client.
Rob Pardo — Executive VP Game Design
Slashdot: Is there any any possibility that Battle.net might interact with other systems like XBox Live, Steam, or other games?
Rob Pardo: I think there is the potential to do something like that, but there are certainly no immediate plans. We certainly are trying to engineer the platform in a way that it could do those sorts of things, and we have talked about trying to link in things like Facebook, Twitter, and mobile applications. We definitely have kept in mind that if we do go to console, we can still use Battle.net, in which case we would have to talk to things like XBox Live. So while there are no plans to do something like that, we certainly are keeping it in mind.
Slashdot: Are you thinking about making any APIs for Battle.net that would allow the community to start scraping some of the data directly?
Rob Pardo: That is a question I'm not entire sure of the answer, so I don't want to screw it up. Probably not extensively, but I know that in the past we have done things with game results and similar things, plus we have the Marketplace, which is a pretty big area. But we don't have plans to allow people to reconfigure Battle.net in a major way like that add-on system for WoW.
Slashdot: Now that you have mentioned the Marketplace, is there going to be an approval/rejection system for the things that are uploaded?
Rob Pardo: Yes there will, although our philosophy will probably be more of an iPhone philosophy and less of an XBox philosophy. We really want to try to have the community itself manage that, but we will probably still need some sort of light approval system to make sure that there aren't any viruses or wildly objectionable content. I really don't want us trying to make a quality call; that's where I don't want us to be.
Slashdot: Apple has been taking a lot of heat lately for how opaque they are when they reject a particular app. When you reject something, is there going to be some indication or explanation why?
Rob Pardo: I would hope so, but it's all new to us, so I can't tell you how it's all going to work. We have never done anything like this before, but we know where we want to be philosophically. We have done a lot of research on the other services, but I'm sure there will be lots of surprises to us when we start rolling it out.
Slashdot: We have heard a lot about how Starcraft II is going to be affected by Battle.net. Can you tell us a little bit about how Diablo III and WoW might be integrated?
Rob Pardo: Nothing specific yet, because all of our focus is on StarCraft II. But certainly, since I have been really involved with Battle.net, it's something that is always on my mind. A lot of the Starcraft II design was done so that it could be agnostic to our other games, so I would say that assuming everything goes well and the new service is as great as we want it to b,e I would imagine that you would see something very similar. There will obviously be Diablo-specific features that don't make sense for StarCraft II and vice versa, but as far as the always-connected experience and being able to talk across games, I would expect the same experience.
Slashdot: The LAN-play question has been a major issue. What are you doing to facilitate gameplay between people who are in the same room?
Rob Pardo: There are definitely some things we are investigating. Whether or not they will be in at launch, I don't know. I really think that the vast majority of people wont have an issue. Even if you look at Warcraft 3, which did have LAN play, the vast, vast majority of people played on Battle.net and that was what, seven years ago? So I think that it is a very small percentage of people that will be affected, and only a small percentage of the time. That said, we are looking at some technology that would allow us to detect a peer-to-peer connection if we detect something like a high latency over a certain amount. Unfortunately, this would only be able to work for custom games, since we need to ensure the accuracy of competitive or ladder games via Battle.net.
Slashdot: Are there any plans to build in some sort of reputation tracking to see how often someone has disconnected from games in progress or partakes in harassment of some sort?
Rob Pardo: No, there isn't at the moment, although it is something I'm interested in looking at in the future. We have talked a lot about it; it was one of those features that when we tried to develop a good social rating system we didn't see a great one out there that we could point at. It is a pretty tricky system to design, but it is something that I would like to tackle; maybe in the expansion.
Slashdot: With World of Warcraft, there are regional server groupings. How is Battle.net going to integrate with different parts of the world?
Rob Pardo: I believe the current plan is to do a similar approach to the way WoW is set up, so there will be large regional breakdowns. Hopefully in the future we will even have the ability for you to move around, but that isn't decided yet.
OS X map editor? (Score:2)
I still want to know if their map editor for starcraft 2 will be available for osx.
Biased source (Score:5, Insightful)
We just know from WoW that most people can connect online and play.
I wonder how many people play WoW offline?
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We just know from WoW that most people can connect online and play.
I wonder how many people play WoW offline?
Those are called "Pen and Paper Roleplaying Games", son.
Dungeons and Dragons [wizards.com] is the most popular one. If it seems superficially similar to WoW, it is because it predates it for 30 years and many of the WoW concepts were inspired by it.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Well, to be fair, the Warcraft RPG was a licensed D&D product, and published under the d20 license. It was one of the few third-party games to actually bear the D&D logo.
The World of Warcraft RPG, conversely, was published under the OGL. I never picked them up, so I can't speak as to what was or wasn't updated between editions.
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This is now perfect for WoW players.
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Then came the expansion where they plagiarized an entire zone and enemies from The Dark Crystal.
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Plenty of private server software available.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder how many people play WoW offline?
Um... I do. In fact, I have NEVER been online with WoW. I run a small private server and play alone. I was heavily involved with Everquest from Phase 2 beta all the way through the release of Kunark. After EQ went public, I found that I REALLY didn't like playing with other people. What I DID like (and LOVE) is playing in a large world where I can explore on my own. Quest on my own. Need a group of 50 people to take something down? Fine. It may be cheating,
Re:Biased source (Score:5, Funny)
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Digital divide FTW! (Score:4, Insightful)
So I guess all those gamers who live in a rural, dial-up only area (and there are more then one might think) are just crazy and weird closet dwellers? The more this guys talks the more I think SCII will be a pass for me.
Re:Digital divide FTW! (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe what you're describing ("all those gamers who live in a rural, dial-up only area") would fall under the "legitimate-use cases" to which he refers, and very clearly dissociates from the "crazy and weird" contingent.
Reading comprehension for the win?
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"We just know from WoW that most people can connect online and play."
No, actually, most people cannot "connect online and play". That guy, and apparently you, have some pretty serious brain damage if you think that dial-up is that rare. Not to mention having LAN parties in places that flat out don't have a network connection, or at least not one accessib
Blizzard, WOW, SC II and Diablo III (Score:5, Funny)
Blizzard might as well just come right out and say it "If you don't have broadband, we don't care about you.".
That isn't exactly what they are saying. What they are really saying is, "If you don't play WOW, we don't care about you." And of course, all WOW players have internet connections, most of them broadband.
You see, Blizzard is like a bad parent, and WOW is like the spoiled, favorite child. WOW is the child star who brings a lot of income to the family, and so her parents dote on her and her friends. Diablo III and Starcraft II are mostly ignored, and there is some question as to whether they will ever reach maturity.
The only reason Blizzard even lets SC II bring friends home, is so that maybe they can hook up with WOW, which admittedly is a little sicker in my analogy than reality.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
A little wide of the mark, I suspect. I'm a WoW player, so I have a different perspective on this.
WoW is very, very profitable for Blizzard; no denying that. However, Blizzard have always underestimated the resources that are needed to sustain a product of WoW's scale. In the early days, it was hard to blame them too much. When WoW launched, its subscriber figures shot up within the first 48 hours to the kind of levels that no other MMO had been able to dream of. That Blizzard hadn't planned for this (and h
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Of course, I'm sure all the outrage across the internet is people just making stuff up. Or maybe they're all pirates! Oh wait... the pirates will still hack SCII to play without WAN access, and legit players will just not buy it. Win-win!
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Re:Digital divide FTW! (Score:4, Informative)
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I wonder how that 60/40% correlates to those that would buy/play PC video games.
However, just the basic numbers of 60% being able to connect via broadband and 40% not being able to refutes the posters claim that "most people cannot "connect online and play". . as most people can.
Re:Digital divide FTW! (Score:4, Insightful)
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That comment pisses me off almost as much as the comment in the article...
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I had a friend who was adamant on staying on dialup despite the fact that $localCableCo finally lowered the price of their broadband and basic cable package to below the cost of her dialup and 2nd line. Bizarre to say the least.
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In a game, it makes no sense to leave out options that are obvious, LAN play is pretty obvious, even if 95% of the people buying your game won't use it, if it isn't difficult to code and maintain you have nothing to
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Middle of Nowhere? And you have broadband? I don't think you know where the middle of nowere is.
At my parents home a few years back:
1: could not get cable.
2: could not get dsl.
3: could not get dialup
4: could not get cell phone service, no towers nearby.
5: could not get a voice land line (oh, the phone company was happy to charge for one, but you could barely hear the dialtone strait from the box outside due to the static).
At my friends house while in college: The cable company promised broadband "real soon"
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If it's a priority that you have a decent connection, you'll get a decent connection. It's pretty hard to make an argument that there are "avid" gamers out there without a decent connection. If you're that "avid", you're going to do what it takes to get hooked up.
I've got a friend who runs a network services business. One of his clients has a ranch in Colorado, and he wanted to be able to access all of his data while on the ranch. Due to the fact that the ranch house was several miles away from the near
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If it's a priority that you have a decent connection, you'll get a decent connection.
I know a full-time programmer, at home the most he can get is dial-up (or more recently cell phone internet which requires him to be in a specific location in his house just to get signal, costs a ton and can't download much). He doesn't really live in the "middle of nowhere" but he doesn't live in the city. He has called every major ISP and gotten the "we're expanding in your area in the next 6 months!" for about 5 years now. Theres no way he can get beyond dial-up, even crappy DSL is a no-go.
And hon
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If they have an isolated ranch in Colorado yet run such a business that they -must- access their data, chances are they make lots of money.
Yeah, they do. I think that guy in particular was a lawyer, I'm not sure though.
Not necessarily $50k, but yeah you're essentially setting up your own infrastructure. Your programmer friend could find someone who does have broadband and get a long-range wireless network set up for the cost of the antennae plus the ISP fee. I actually wasn't aware that wireless even had that kind of range until I heard about this particular job. Turns out that there are quite a few high-gain antennae [wirelessne...oducts.com] out there, for a coup
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Just because I am no long affected by the lack of internet does not mean these conditions do not persist for hundreds of thousands to millions of americans.
My college friends are still living in the same location, though they did eventually get a not quite broadband connection from comcast. Unfortunately most of us have wives and children now, so all night LAN parties are a rare occurrence. It is still our preferred mode of play. And with battle net as is, we would be unable to play starcraft 2 as a group a
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
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Battle,net is for matchmaking - the actual game traffic should stay local. That's a problem if you have no internet connection, and Blizzard needs to sort that out, but LAN play with a satellite or dial-up connection should work (assuming Blizzard doesn't totally drop the ball, as they occasionally do at release).
Re:Digital divide FTW! (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, yeah, we get it: you enjoyed that feature in the past game. But is it really that big a deal? Is this really the number one thing you base a purchase decision on? I mean, I'm not going to go as far as saying "get a grip," since, at minimum, it's at least a much bigger deal than the idiotic Fallout 3 complaints, and frankly I don't know how big LAN play is. I do know that I've personally used it... once? Ever?
Yes it is a big deal son.
Some of us really liked getting together with other humans in the real world and playing Starcraft and are rightfully pissed at the growth of DRM and built-in-obsolescence.
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I'm getting fucking sick of hearing it over and over and over whenever the topic comes up.
Well maybe you should ask Blizzard to put the LAN back in so people will stop bitching about it then?
Just cope and move on.
This is slashdot, just because you are a fanboy with your mommies credit card numbers doesn't mean the haters are going to stop bitching...
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Re:Digital divide FTW! (Score:4, Insightful)
They aren't going to and all the whining in the world isn't going to change that. There is only so many times you can whip a dead horse before it just becomes nothing more than a pile of bloody meat.
O I know they aren't going to put it back.. which is why everyone will be downloading this via torrent and feeling good about it...
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Maybe YOU should just cope and move on? Or actually be helpful, and advocate Blizzard correcting the problem?
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Seriously, you could probably could the number of internet-less LAN parties held last year on one hand.
Well since I held about 30 myself I'd have to think you are wrong....
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Re: (Score:2)
It would be as if Bethesda wouldn't let you play Fallout 3 without authenticating on their own servers every time it started. That would be outrageous!
Re:Come out of the woods, Mr. Kaczynski (Score:4, Informative)
So yes, people in rural areas can have access to indoor plumbing, but not high-speed. I've lived in that situation and it's probably more common than you think.
Re: (Score:2)
It not so far fetched. 20 years ago, more households had color TV than indoor plumbing. It wouldn't surprise me if 20 years from now more households had broadband than indoor plumbing.
In any case, a dial-up line should be enough for Battle.net to play matchmaker with the PCs in your house and start a local game, unless Blizzard really screws this up. Being Blizzard, it probably will be totally screwed up at release, and fine 6 months later.
SC2 Lan Play (Score:5, Insightful)
We just know from WoW that most people can connect online and play. There are some cases out there, some legitimate-use cases â" that aren't just people that refuse to buy a modem or are crazy and weird and living in a closet. We want to make sure we are able to support these legitimate-use cases for LAN play and make it accessible to those users, but we're still trying to identify all of those and decide which cases are legitimate and which are not. These are definitely legitimate concerns, and we're certainly looking to address them.
So they think since the people that play WoW, which is online only, have Internet that SC2 players don't need LAN support? That's great logic.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Starcraft has sold 11 million units worldwide. That's pretty good, it's one of the best selling games of all time.
World of Warcraft has over 11.5 million monthly subscribers. More people play WoW in one month than the copies of SC sold in a decade.
So, when you consider target audience, and whether or not they're likely to have an internet connection... yeah. SC2 is going to sell really well.
Not including LAN play is a calculated risk that I think will pay off just fine. Reduce the pirates, increase reve
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Not including LAN play is a calculated risk that I think will pay off just fine. Reduce the pirates, increase revenue. Works for me!
But that's the issue. It will not reduce the pirates. If anything it is more likely to increase the pirates. Someone will crack the game and add LAN play in or someone will publish a battle.net emulator like bnetd. The game will be pirated the same with or without LAN. This is just Blizzard intentionally crippling functionality.
Re: (Score:2)
Now I won't. If a pirated copy is released with the LAN issue fixed, I would be very tempted. Still probably won't pirate it; I've got other games to play. But what does Blizzard care? Either way, they've lost a sale. I know it's just one, but it's going to be repeated a substantial number of times.
Plus, once a company go
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Er, why do you care how many games the content is split into? I care that I get X hours of fun gameplay for $Y. I doubt I'll ever play SC2 online, but if the first single-player game has enough content for what they charge, I'm in. If it's a 5-hour game for $50, no thanks, even if the content isn't split. Three shoret episodic releases at a low price: fine. Three full length releases at full price: awesome.
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Starcraft has sold 11 million units worldwide. That's pretty good, it's one of the best selling games of all time.
World of Warcraft has over 11.5 million monthly subscribers. More people play WoW in one month than the copies of SC sold in a decade.
So, when you consider target audience, and whether or not they're likely to have an internet connection... yeah. SC2 is going to sell really well.
World of Warcraft players are World of Warcraft players, many exclusively. I don't know just how much of the WoW subscriber base one can claim as interested in any RTS games, Starcraft or otherwise.
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I think you are misreading their answer. I'm not satisfied with their answer either, but it helps to understand it. They are saying MOST of their customers are connected to the internet, and this is obviously true - the vast majority of people who play computer games have online connections. They do admit there are legitimate users who will be hurt by this, and they are looking into it. The reason why I am not satisfied with this answer is that I do not believe they will do anything about it.
I just hope whe
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Games that are based on static maps however have a need for more connection options. The few LAN parties I have been to relied pretty heavily on LAN play. Sure a few people can all go and get on the same CS server and
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Why does everyone assume that all the game traffic would go through Battle.net? That's not how things work today with Battle.net, and it would be pretty silly. Forcing the matchmaking service to use Battle.net is a great way to do copy protection. Sending some post-game meta-data to help with ranking and such sounds good too. Forcing the game traffic through a chokepoint would really be pointless, even for pure-internet play.
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So they think since the people that play WoW, which is online only, have Internet that SC2 players don't need LAN support? That's great logic.
No, they know how many people play WoW so they know that they don't need the people who need LAN support for the game to be incredibly successful. Basically, what they are saying is that the benefit to them as a company of forcing everyone through battle.net is worth the cost of losing the people who need LAN support because the percentage of the total potential custo
Grapefruits and baseball bats. (Score:5, Insightful)
What's that, you say? Most people playing WoW have Internet connections? Unbelievable!
Seriously, though, I'm not putting down money for SC2. This is just not okay.
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Blizzard: "We ignored everyone who couldn't connect to the internet for WoW and we made a shit load of money. We'll continue to ignore them and make another shit load of money."
Slashdot: "I'm not going to buy it then."
Blizzard: "We can't hear you over the sound of how much money we're making."
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Oh, yes. The pain of an extra $60 in my wallet! I don't know how I'll possibly be able to carry around that kind of weight! I might actually have to eat food that I purchase from the market! I might have to attract a female mate and take her on a date! The possibilities are paralyzingly endless!
Moreover, I don't know what I'll do with my spare time! How will I ever be able to spend my nights slaughtering Zealots with my armies of 'Lings and Hydras without StarCraft II at my side? The feeling of excitement a
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I'm starting to suspect they did it on purpose... I mean, what better way is there to glean the raging-est of nerds from their playerbase than to remove an antiquated and largely unnecessary feature? The best part is that out of the 100 or so people who will actually boycott it, I'd bet that only 10 of them or so actually threw a LAN party that lacked internet access within the past five years.
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How, exactly, does the honest consumer lose here?
I really can't picture the person who hosts LAN parties, yet does not have an internet connection.
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I really can't picture the person who hosts LAN parties, yet does not have an internet connection.
That used to be pretty common, as you'd rent space to host the LAN party if you had half a clue, and the venue often lacked a connection. Today wireless has made that almost a non-issue, though I do hope Blizzard does somehting for those corner cases.
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Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
TL:DR (Score:4, Interesting)
Slashdot: The other question that is a constant concern within the fan base of Starcraft is the question of disallowing LAN play. How are you solving problems like making sure this is a valid replacement for LAN plan; security, reliability, speed, or even people playing behind things like NAT routers?
Dustin Browder: These are issues that we continue to address as we go forward. Some of these things we have some plans for, but not all of them. It is something that we definitely plan on working on as we go forward to make sure we have things in place to handle every possible user case out there. We just know from WoW that most people can connect online and play. There are some cases out there, some legitimate-use cases â" that aren't just people that refuse to buy a modem or are crazy and weird and living in a closet. We want to make sure we are able to support these legitimate-use cases for LAN play and make it accessible to those users, but we're still trying to identify all of those and decide which cases are legitimate and which are not. These are definitely legitimate concerns, and we're certainly looking to address them.
Translation: Our WoW players say lan play is over-rated, so that's why we're not including it. *facepalm* AN RTS IS NOT AN MMORPG!! RAAAAAAEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEGGGGGGG.
Anywho This is not an excuse for leaving out lan play and does nothing but insult lan parties. If you don't have a modem, you must be crazy and wierd and living in a closet.
Just saying that this reply feels like a massive FUCK YOU to every person who owns multiple star craft 1 keys for use at a lan.
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But the problem is that there are so many workarounds to use a single key for essentially limitless Lan plays, which means that Blizzard gives out 20 free Singleplayer & LAN versions of their game when they sell 1 copy. With an MMORPG, you can ensure that everyone who plays has purchased a version. Thats all they really want to achieve - and Battle.net appears to be their only way at the moment.
But like they said, they're feeling their way through it.
My bet is that if SC2 doesn't sell well, they'll add
I Am Not Sure They Are Wrong (Re:TL:DR) (Score:2)
While cleaning up the PC, I saw that WC3 was still installed. I remember when I was playing this "hard core" I always went through Battle.net. After thinking about it a little more, the thought moving machines (my gaming PC is somewhat expensive) from my home to another location and use a LAN that maybe crawling with malware and god knows what else, even if I use super hardened settings and fully updated AV and firewall protection, is totally unappealing and I came to realize why I never cared about LAN.
Why Go Anywhere? (Re:) (Score:2)
Why would I want to go to a "major LAN Party" where I wouldn't be surprised if a majority of /. users would rather spend their vacation elsewhere as well? Why would a majority of computer users out there would want to go a "major LAN Party"? None of my friends (all of who are over 30) ever want to or have a desire to go to a "major LAN Party". Was there even a "major LAN Party" at QuakeCon? There probably was but coverage I've read from it doesn't seem too interested in talking about it.
Lets face it: On
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Um, yeah, LAN parties are downright notorious for being overrun with people who've bought multiple license keys.
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Just saying that this reply feels like a massive FUCK YOU to every person who owns multiple star craft 1 keys for use at a lan.
I'm not all that happy about their decision, but how are they telling the SC 1 players to fuck off? Presumably they can still play SC 1, so their multiple copies are hardly wasted.
Of course, perhaps you mean that the people who play on LANs are not as important to Blizz. The answer to that appears to be a qualified "yes".
I'll be honest. I played a fair bit of SC and never owned my own copy. Granted it wasn't a pirated version as much as it was a borrowed one, but there you have it. LAN players do not r
So many words. (Score:2)
How times change (Score:5, Insightful)
How many questions there would have been answered by bnetd already, had Blizzard not sued them for daring to be compatible with Battle.net? And nary a mention of the debacle - nice to see how these days Slashdot as a whole rolls over on Free Software as soon as they are bribed with something shiny.
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"nice to see how these days Slashdot as a whole rolls over on Free Software as soon as they are bribed with something shiny."
THESE days? As opposed to?
I remember the days of Rob "CmdrTaco" "Debian rulz" Malda running off to run Halflife-2 under Windows, rather than saying "Screw that - if you don't support Linux I ain't playin'".
The /. crowd always has taken teh shinee over Free Software, when the two were mutually exclusive.
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I remember the days of Rob "CmdrTaco" "Debian rulz" Malda running off to run Halflife-2 under Windows, rather than saying "Screw that - if you don't support Linux I ain't playin'".
Well, in one scenario he gets to play Half-Life 2. In the other scenario, he doesn't.
If you *truly* want to promote Linux, the worst thing you can do is put people down for exercising their own freedom and running the software they want to run, even if that means running Windows to do it. To try and coerce, through shame, Linux conformity is no better than a cult. If shaving your head and making a vow of celibacy were so great, people wouldn't need to be coerced into doing it.
If you want to promote Linux, m
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Yes, how dare they leave out something from five freakin' years ago, from an interview about an upcoming game?
Time to let that one go, I think.
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(You know damn well that was the only point of bnetd.)
Scroll up and read the questions. There's plenty of interest there for features that an open-source server could provide without waiting around for Blizzard to implement it. Data feeds. APIs. Federation. Solutions to congestion. Alternative platforms. Interoperability with other services. The problem of app rejections. LAN play. Reputations.
If you seriously think that the only reason for an open-source server is so people can copy the game i
Re:How times change (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, there are tons of things that an open source server could provide. But they aren't doing this to help solve Blizzard's problems, they are doing it for the intellectual challenge and to allow people to play pirated copies of the game online. Listen, this is Blizzard's game. If they provide a service 10 years after a game is released, it shows a hell of a commitment to that game. Yet instead of acknowledging how much support they give for a really old game, you want to cry and moan about something that was designed to allow people to play the game without paying the people who created it.
Quite frankly, it is people like you who give the open source community a bad name. You refuse to admit the reality of the situation. You refuse to understand the other side (i.e. software developers should be able to protect their software from pirates). You expect everything for free...because Blizzard quality games can be produced by anyone? Give me a break. If these bnetd guys were so fantastic, then maybe they should have created their own RTS. Instead, they chose to build off of proprietary software. This is their stupidity. If they wanted to do this, they should have went to Blizzard and got written documents that said that they could. They didn't, they are stupid, and Blizzard acted the same way any sane software developer would have.
Slashdot breeds a culture that allows you guys to thrive. It is this groupthink attitude that just because something is open source it is inherently good and that all proprietary software is bad. It is garbage. There is a balance to everything. If people want to make a living off of software, this is how it is going to be. If the world was the way you wanted it to be, Starcraft would have never existed in the first place. Grr, people on here...it is like there is a Fox News for open source. It makes you all extreme and retarded.
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Its funny how, if you replace Blizzard with 'the music industry', bnetd for BitTorrent and games for music, your post reads exactly like what RIAA execs often say.
Yet, since it goes in benefit of WoW's papa instead of the guys behind Britney, you get modded up instead of down as you deserve. Shameful, both for you in particular and for Slashdot in general.
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Pirating was the main reason for bnetd. Period. If you can't come to terms with this, then you aren't living in reality.
At the time bnetd came out, battlenet was a miserable experience. I can easily see this originating among a group of people who just wanted to play without all the hassle, with no intention of pirating. The fact that it made pirating a little easier is a separate issue.
My personal experience with bnetd...
I had 4 friends that I played regularly with, and over time we all moved in different
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Nice job of ignoring the fact that when bnetd was being devloped Blizzard battlenet was down at least 30% of the time because it couldn't handle the load.
Dodging the question (Score:5, Informative)
Translation We have no damn idea, but were going to make it up as we go.
SC2 for the new Dota? (Score:2)
It dawned on me just now that there isn't a new RTS Warcraft game - and given how much customization will be in SC2, do you guys think DOTA will get transformed into something workable in SC2?
I'm curious what kind of user generated content will be created, and I'm glad to see that Blizzard is finally embracing it for how much it really does contribute to their games.
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The RPG-style leveling thing wasn't available in SC1 at all - you could only do it by replacing the player unit entirely. Similarly, there was no inventory.
Nothing I've yet heard about SC2 suggests that SC2 will have these elements (which were critical to making DotA what it is). Mind you, I'm unsure how much longer DotA itself will last. Try Heroes of Newerth, for example, and you'll see what you can really do when you have a game/game engine designed from the ground up for DotA-style gaming.
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I heard a rumor that Icefrog, the maintainer of DoTA Allstars (I know he's not the original DoTA creator), has been given either employment or special access to the SC2 Map Editor and is working on RPG/RTS maps for Blizzard.
Personally I think it would be awesome to incorporate some of the DoTA elements into SC2. Also,
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There's supplying it and then there is embracing it. The Scenario editor in Starcraft is hardly a tool for content generation, aside from the 5 different types of "Use Map Settings" that become popular, (Defense, Impossible AI, Run away, Race, and RPG) there really wasn't anything AMAZING to come out for StarCraft. I wasn't aware Warcraft 3 had anything spectacular in terms of editting software. Warcraft 3 had DotA, which wasn't really anything terribly new but a fun addictive game-type. And World of Warcra
What the hell? (Score:5, Insightful)
Second of all, how would they know? LANs aren't connected to the internet. They are likely to be played on computers not connected to the internet. There is no way of knowing how many people play LAN games over Internet games, other than surveys. Which is silly since most LAN players aren't likely to see these surveys, as they are likely taken online. Online when you log into the game/game's website. And if you don't use the internet to play, why would you check the website?
I just wish they'd cut the crap and say they are concerned about piracy and want to be able to boast higher numbers on their servers. They want everyone connected to Battle.net even if they aren't playing their games (see Steam's default auto-launch feature). They aren't satisfied with having the #1 pay-for-play American MMORPG in the world (I wish they'd stop claiming 'most populous MMO'). They want to claim they have the most players in the world playing their games by claiming everyone is logged into Battle.net.
Also, as someone who only plays SCII on a LAN at LAN parties, you guys can go straight to hell.
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I've only seen Starcraft played on a LAN.
While Blizzard sees only those playing on line. In numbers which can be counted.
There is no way of knowing how many people play LAN games over Internet games, other than surveys. Which is silly since most LAN players aren't likely to see these surveys, as they are likely taken online.
It's even sillier to argue that the gamer with access to a LAN doesn't have at least some minimal access to the net -
if only over a publicly accessible terminal.
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or configuring everyone's different laptop to work with that specific model of router (a nightmare with WiFi).
First of all, I don't consider configuring WiFi a nightmare hell, and I work on IT, doing it frequently. It is one of the things that simply just work.
Second of all, you would need to go through this nightmare for LAN play as well, unless you intend on hosting a lan party to play the game on single player?
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Blackrock mountain changes (Score:2)
*sigh* I missed the question session. :(
What I would really like to know is if Blackwing Lair will still be available to run. I have been holding for 2 years now a quest to go there, but I have yet to find anyone on my server interested in going. I just want to be able to see it and complete the quest. Even 20 levels too high for the raid, I can't go by myself, because the first fight requires at least 5 people and probably more just due to the mechanics of the fight.
If /LFG weren't so worthless, I would
not an answer, except in the subtext (Score:2)
SC2 LAN play?
There's no answer there, except a "keep your money, 'cause we don't give a damn about customers that we can't nickel and dime over the 'net" in the subtext.
"... but we're still trying to identify all of those and decide which cases are legitimate and which are not"?
LAN play for purchased games/licenses is ALWAYS legitimate you corporate weasel.
Battle.net DRM scheme (Score:2)
I really wonder what manager decided that taking LAN support out of the game was a good monetary decision. There is no reason for it not to degrade gracefully to a "could not connect to battle.net, would you like to start a LAN game?" option. (aside from DRM, which is a silly argument since pirates will patch battle.net out of the game in a heartbeat) Even Steam has an offline mode, and the ability to play your games on the LAN.
It clearly offends people to be told how they can use the game they legitimat
My take: (Score:2)
Slashdot: There has been some talk that the streamlining of commands has been moving the focus away from actions per minute [APM]. How important is APM as a metric for you and will we see a decline in the importance of this metric?
Dustin Browder: That type of feedback is incredibly important for us. We want players making smart decisions all the time and we want a lot of skill required to play this game at the highest levels.
Reading the answer here left me a bit amazed at the hubris that Blizz has. Don't get me wrong SC was a great game for it's day but do they honestly think that RTS games did not evolve past it? RON's feature set alone when dealing with buildings and units blows SC's very very dated method away. And RON is even pretty dated at this point. (Sadly I've yet to find a decent replacement for it however as the RTS genre seems to have been watered down quite a bit, but that's another rant.)
Slashdot: How about a console version for WoW?
J. Allen Brack: Console is one of those things that we probably talk about once every six months. I have probably met with Microsoft two or three times to discuss what it would be like to have WoW on the console. Where we are today, and I can't say we'll always be here, but right now WoW is very much designed for the mouse and keyboard interface, and doing another type of control scheme would be very challenging. I think it will be done, and if we had started WoW with the idea that we would move to console, I think it would be a much different game and the control scheme would support that.
That last sentence is
How Long to Level Up Now? (Score:2)
Can you cut them a little slack (Score:2)
I'll be as annoyed as anyone else if SC2 really truly doesn't allow multiplayer without an internet connection. But I'm not sure that's even exactly what they have said will be required. I think the relevant quote was in the D3 section:
"Hopefully our track record will speak for itself and our fans can take us at our word that we are doing this not because of any business model or corporate mandate. We believe that we can give the best multiplayer experience by going in this direction. Just in terms of philo
Re: (Score:2)
How are we supposed to trust a company that made a change to a working part of their game that provides signifigant drawbacks and NO benefits to the consumer?
They made a corporate decision to fuck the consumer. Trust them at your own fucking peril.
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You don't even know what they've actually done yet. When the game comes out, if it lacks a feature that you crave, I don't blame you for getting upset and refusing to buy it. But why not wait until you actually know what it is they've done before you crucify them?
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StarCraft II BATTLECHEST (Score:2)
I for one don't mind waiting until 2013 to buy the StarCraft BattleChest with all 3 volumes for $49.
But if you think $180 for a video game is okay with you, then go right ahead.. "Moneybags".
Magical LAN numbers (Score:2)
Even if you look at Warcraft 3, which did have LAN play, the vast, vast majority of people played on Battle.net and that was what, seven years ago?
Really, and where do you get these numbers from? I hope to hell that these numbers are not coming from battle.net.
I have been playing Starcraft/Warcraft multiplayer for years. only in the last 1 1/2 have I been playing "online" and only War 3 gets that through battle.net. for some reason Starcraft is frankly unplayable through battle.net so it gets Hamachi, where as War 3 is fine with minimal lag. Should I "assume" that Blizzard have a telepathic ability to know in which scenarios every one of their gam
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I think they're smoking the wads of cash they rake in from WoW, and they don't want to restrict said cash flow by providing a method for cracked versions of the game to play together without an internet connection.
It seems to me that they could solve this with a handshake that set up of the game over Battle.net, but then allowed the majority of the game data to flow directly between the computers. Unless of course there's some other flaw in this that I can't see.
3do offered a rebate on a homm SOD for people who (Score:2)
3do offered a rebate on a homm SOD for people who payed for the older ver as SOD was exp but it also came with the full game.
So Blizzard should offer the others games at lower price as a EXP only and full price as a full game.