This week, TeamLiquid got a chance to visit the Blizzard Headquarters on Monday for a press meeting regarding StarCraft: Remastered. During this visit, we were able to retrieve some crucial details regarding the game's release which includes game promises, the release date, and retail value among others. We were also able to play the newest build of the game and will share with you our experiences, including any changes that have been made to the client.
Finally, we sat down with the main players from the small classic team that are responsible for bringing us SC: Remastered. We ask them questions regarding the new graphics, observer mode, and the recent issues with the 1.18 patch.
There is a 1-to-1 art reproduction. A key point was made not to change the silhouettes of units There will be an observer mode, but it won’t go the all-out style that StarCraft II did.
The lack of observer features creates suspense.
Observers will be able to zoom mode
Lan mode will exist
Profiles will be getting an upgrade
Tabs in your profile include: Summary, Statistics, Replays, Seasons, Collections, Profile Settings
Statistics include winrate, winrate vs races, apm, resources collected, etc…
The chat looks more like SC2’s chat channels.
Accounts won't time out anymore after x days, meaning your account will never disappear due to inactivity.
There will be a global leaderboard/ladder similar to SC2.
The game comes out August 14th
Retail Price: $14.99 USD, 14.99 Euros
Interesting Tidbits
The StarCraft Remastered project began 18 months ago.
A core philosophy when designing the game was to not change the classics from a gameplay perspective.
“Don’t be disruptive”
The team has been to Korea 10 times last year.
1.17 was an intended patch that fixed compatibility issues, but it was pulled in the 11th hour because it might have fragmented the community.
1.18 was dubbed “The Sleeper Beta”
A key bug was found that when the refreshed rate was capped at 300/sec, some players’ commands wouldn’t go through because their apm was higher.
Up Close and Personal with SC:R
You often forget that you're playing a remastered version because of how close the current build is to the original. Features we discovered while playing the game:
There is a menu you can use to set your customizable hotkeys in the client.
Pressing F5 toggles between standard BW SQ mode and HD wide screen mode.
An option for an in-game clock now exists.
There is an option for the game to send out an alert when your apm drops below a certain threshold, either with text or audio. This feature was not yet fully implemented.
Interview with the Developers
Teamliquid: Can you introduce yourselves and your role on SC:R?
Pete: Pete Stilwell, Senior Producer at Classic Games.
Matt: Matt Morris, Lead Designer at Classic Games
TL: What would you say is the split in your roles between Senior Producer and Lead Designer?
Peter: I’m probably usually more aware of what’s want and Matt figures out how to make it happen. Or I’m the funnel? The conduit, there we go. I’m the conduit for information and for requirements and making sure that it actually comes to fruition through all of the developors, through the art team, through the engineers. And Matt takes the vision of “Oh, this is what people are asking for, let me figure out how to articulate that so the rest of the devs can make it a reality”
Matt: Looking at SC:R, the game design is already complete, right? It’s a well balanced game. There’s no community asking for a change in the Zealot or Dragoon or things like that. All the stuff in my day-to-day on the team is really working with the UI artists and the online engineers to put in the new game screens and stuff like that. Talking about matchmaking, ladder profiles, observer modes, how we’re going to get all these six campaigns from two different games on one screen. While I have a lot of design experience, most of my design at this point is about the user experience. That’s my contribution to team so far.
TL: Matt, you were on the SCII Co-op team prior to SC:R. However, it has been said that SC:R has been in the works way prior to your official move to SC:R. Were you internally working on SC:R way before that or did you move onto the team in the middle of development?
Matt: Even towards the end, I’d say. The things that Pete was pioneering with his team and the goal of classic games really appealed to me... I like the small team. I like the passion that these guys have put into the game. And that was the selling point for me.
Pete: If you backtrack twelve months, it was four engineers and me. And it was tech debt. Fix the old stuff, get it on the modern stack. It wasn’t design challenges or even art challenges really yet. It was just make the game compile again….It was just so much tech debt. That’s one of those kind of lessons learned. That we as a company need to do better to mothball things and make them easier to rediscover as a development team.
As soon as we got to that point, we talked about matchmaking, all these new things that roll around in a designer’s brain. That’s when we fired up that signal flare that we needed that type of person. And that’s when Matt came over.
TL: Have there been any new challenges the team has encountered since SC:R was announced a few months ago?
Peter: The biggest challenge, honestly, was the stuff with 1.18 with the inputs. We didn’t touch the gameplay engine, but we did have to touch the graphics engine. You need x number of refreshes in order to get the inputs in. This is why you see pros vigorously shaking their mouse to get their frame rate up, because the game used to refresh based on mouse cursor. When they’re shaking it vigorously, it’s so that when they’re at 300+ apm, they’re actually getting that framerate out of the game. We were trying not to mow peoples’ computers so we put that cap in. But that also meant that it was capping their inputs. It was one of those little things that drove us nuts. ‘We didn’t change anything about the gameplay.
Why are the inputs different?’ 1.18 was awesome in that it did smoke that out long before the Remastered was going to go out and tarnish that moment. 1.18 has been bittersweet in that respect. Some of the things we said with surety ‘We got this, no problem’ came out as like ‘Uh are you sure guys? Cause I see some inputs that are missing’. But again, great dialogue with the community. I’d be in tears if we couldn’t resolve it. But ultimately it was a tough situation that I think has turned to our advantage because it showed that we weren’t lying when we said we’ll do whatever we can to make it right.
TL: How has this particular issue been addressed? Has the frame rate been raised? Or is it gone altogether?
Peter: It’s a different answer for some of the different issues that have been resolved. We still do have the cap and the ability for the player not to melt their computer. The inputs are less tied to the actual framerates now. It still does require us to monitor the number of inputs though.
TL: In a recent press release, there were new official gifs and screenshots of SC:R. Some posters on Teamliquid noticed that some of the art assets were a bit different, specifically the models for Mutalisks and Archons and the death animations for Marines and Zerglings. Has there been a new direction with the art or is it just assets updating.
Pete: Oh a new iteration on art from what we first showed? Yea, just that; we’re refining. Every unit you mentioned was one of the ones we did earlier on. So it’s probably more that we’re giving them a pass to bring them more up to whatever standards we established for the other units that were done later on, because you always kind of find your way along the way. So it’s probably more likely that it’s just little tweaks that we’re making, which is still ongoing. That’s the fun thing. With the sprites and everything, it’s actually pretty easy to make a small change, export it, drop it in the game, and see if we like it or not, see if it’s juxtaposing properly against the tileset and things like that.
At first we basically had Jungle, one of the more popular tilesets that we used anyway. But then we introduced Ashworld and Twilight that are darker. Especially Ashworld that’s a bit busier with all the lava flecks everywhere. You start to realize, ah that’s not reading as well. Ultimately, above all else, you need it to play properly, read that this unit is still coming off of the terrain behind it. I would assume it’s just natural iteration.
TL: There has been negative feedback regarding some of the new models, especially the Archon.
Pete: There was a huge amount of chatter about his portrait and we agreed with it. There was also the fact that we gave to the forums a still of his portrait and the High Templar’s portrait as they were coming out of the shadows and gives you a quick glance as he’s coming into the light and back. We picked that moment just so we’d have something. Most of the time he’s in shadow, so the community was like “What the hell are you doing? This guy’s supposed to be in the shadow.” And then one of our devs who made a forum post (with the full portrait animation). As as soon as they saw he does spend most of his time in shadow and he just kind of pops out occasionally. They were like “Oh ok, you are maintaining it.”
We love the art critique we’re getting. And it helps us refine it. As you know with any project you love, you do get a little close to it sometimes and you need a fresh perspective on it. So it’s great that we are sharing things ahead of time so we can make course corrections. We have a very talented dedicated art team who wants to get it right. And sometimes if we introduce a little bit too much of our own flair, the community starts to say, “You’re a little too far away from what we expect the remastered to be,” that’s healthy.
Matt: I would say going back to one of your core values on the team, which is “listening to the community”. This is part of the process for us. We’re going to put out what we think is pretty good. And our job at this point is to listen to the community so if they have some criticism on the art, we can go back and we can make some changes. Even the stuff you’re playing right now, right now, Brian, the art lead on the team is walking around talking to some of the guys. He’s point out, yea we still need to fix this, we still need to fix that. It’s a work in progress so to speak. It gives of a chance to get it right.
TL: One of the new moderizations for SC:R is observer mode. We know some of the feedback you got from commentators is that one of the appeals of StarCraft is you don’t know exactly what’s fully going on. In the presentation, you mentioned you were careful which modern observer features to implement. Can you talk a little bit about that, how you chose which features would go in the final product. What’s an example of a feature you implement and what’s an example of a feature that you consciously left out for this reason?
Pete: Matt did most of the designing of how they work, but I’ll start with the setup, again, the conduit part of this. When we talked to commentators and fans that watch, there’s this sense that BW is a bit more visceral, a little bit more reactionary. If a team in football told you their play before they went up there and did it every play, it would be less exciting, because you’d be expecting what would happen. The discovery of that moment is what makes us react and guess what the next play will be and so on and so forth. If you inundate with too much information, you pull people out of that sense of discovery. They’re now doing too much analysis, too much forethought and too much ‘Oh the game is probably over now because according to this statistic, he now loses 97% of the time if this happens’. That’s terrible.
So we want to take more of the approach of: there’s some low hanging fruit, if you will. Here are some definite features and everyone across the board is like ‘I wish I could hit a button and all the UI would be gone and I could just enjoy a moment, a big battle.’ Things like that 100% should be in there. SCII has it and people have seen that and go ‘yea, that one’s right’. There are other things where people say ‘Don’t want that, don’t need that, keep it out of my game.’ And I think our approach is much more: let’s introduce some of the things that are across the board getting an endorsement on...and we’ll add in others over time. Rather than throw in too much stuff and either have it not used or change the way people watch it in a negative way, let’s be slow in our approach.
Matt: It’s built in a way so that we can scale. The feedback that we get about classics like this ‘Don’t change too much. Don’t change the gameplay. We’re familiar with the screens, we’re familiar with the way we get into the game.’ Getting onto the modern platform, there were some changes such as matchmaking environment.
But with observer mode, we had examples of two cases. We had SCI where you just have little minerals. And then you have SCII. So it was kind of a ‘start here and start talking to the community: What do you want to see?” And it just kept on coming down. So we’re more than what we were before but obviously not somewhere where SCII is. For us, that’s a good decision. If there’s an audience that wants to see more, we can add to it based on what everyone else wants. Versus we gave too much, they don’t want it, they hate it, and start scaling back.
"1.17 was an intended patch that fixed compatibility issues, but it was pulled in the 11th hour because it might have fragmented the community."
ya, unlike 1.18 and custom hotkeys along with a $15 price tag for ladder? more like "pulled because we couldn't monetize it correctly"
edit: "Pressing F5 toggles between standard BW SQ mode and HD wide screen mode." does that mean that 'bw sq' ISNT wide screen????????? only hd........? if so then it's a competitive disadvantage for not wanting to play with the new models...
Viper must be having an orgasm somewhere while reading all this nonsense about "creating the suspense"!
Anyway, the whole part about the observer mode is such an amazing description of what is currently wrong with almost all software - instead of letting the users (in this case the broadcasters) chose on their own from a variety of options, they are gonna not provide the options at all, because they know better and GOD FORBID there were some options that aren't commonly used or, even worse, the options were too many and "confusing", because everyone nowadays is a total idiot and can't handle more than three checkboxes per screen! There is so much shit like that across SC2, so I should be happy that the BW guys also get a taste of the brave new world.
I still don't understand what is the point of this whole thing when they aren't changing almost anything. We have known for a while that it wouldn't solve the reasons why I don't want to play BW and it apparently also is not going to address much of the reasons I don't want to watch it (apart from the terrible old graphics).
How about the clan system? You gonna need to create separate and new account to have your in-game clan tag to be changed? Or there is a join/leave clan system? (no idea how SC2 works).
On June 30 2017 20:54 opisska wrote: Viper must be having an orgasm somewhere while reading all this nonsense about "creating the suspense"!
Anyway, the whole part about the observer mode is such an amazing description of what is currently wrong with almost all software - instead of letting the users (in this case the broadcasters) chose on their own from a variety of options, they are gonna not provide the options at all, because they know better and GOD FORBID there were some options that aren't commonly used or, even worse, the options were too many and "confusing", because everyone nowadays is a total idiot and can't handle more than three checkboxes per screen! There is so much shit like that across SC2, so I should be happy that the BW guys also get a taste of the brave new world.
I still don't understand what is the point of this whole thing when they aren't changing almost anything. We have known for a while that it wouldn't solve the reasons why I don't want to play BW and it apparently also is not going to address much of the reasons I don't want to watch it (apart from the terrible old graphics).
I know that this is just your opinion, so it's difficult for me to say that you are outright wrong, because it is just your preference.
But as a BW player/watcher, my opinion is that your opinion is dogshit. People complain about BW "elitists" showing up in their SC2* forums and saying shit like "I don't want to play and I don't want to watch it either rofl," but here we are.
On June 30 2017 20:54 opisska wrote: Viper must be having an orgasm somewhere while reading all this nonsense about "creating the suspense"!
Anyway, the whole part about the observer mode is such an amazing description of what is currently wrong with almost all software - instead of letting the users (in this case the broadcasters) chose on their own from a variety of options, they are gonna not provide the options at all, because they know better and GOD FORBID there were some options that aren't commonly used or, even worse, the options were too many and "confusing", because everyone nowadays is a total idiot and can't handle more than three checkboxes per screen! There is so much shit like that across SC2, so I should be happy that the BW guys also get a taste of the brave new world.
I still don't understand what is the point of this whole thing when they aren't changing almost anything. We have known for a while that it wouldn't solve the reasons why I don't want to play BW and it apparently also is not going to address much of the reasons I don't want to watch it (apart from the terrible old graphics).
I have to repeat this, I am mostly disappointed in Observer mode not made better. I don't know how much fun I am going to have watching SC:R without such features. They should have included it and let tournaments/caster decide if to use or not.
On June 30 2017 20:54 opisska wrote: Viper must be having an orgasm somewhere while reading all this nonsense about "creating the suspense"!
Anyway, the whole part about the observer mode is such an amazing description of what is currently wrong with almost all software - instead of letting the users (in this case the broadcasters) chose on their own from a variety of options, they are gonna not provide the options at all, because they know better and GOD FORBID there were some options that aren't commonly used or, even worse, the options were too many and "confusing", because everyone nowadays is a total idiot and can't handle more than three checkboxes per screen! There is so much shit like that across SC2, so I should be happy that the BW guys also get a taste of the brave new world.
I still don't understand what is the point of this whole thing when they aren't changing almost anything. We have known for a while that it wouldn't solve the reasons why I don't want to play BW and it apparently also is not going to address much of the reasons I don't want to watch it (apart from the terrible old graphics).
I know that this is just your opinion, so it's difficult for me to say that you are outright wrong, because it is just your preference.
But as a BW player/watcher, my opinion is that your opinion is dogshit. People complain about BW "elitists" showing up in their forums and saying shit like "I don't want to play and I don't want to watch it either rofl," but here we are.
You are exactly the elitist nobody likes. He is not asking for observer tools to be forced to be always on. If they existed and if not having them is so superior then I am sure people will not be using them in major tournaments, right?
On June 30 2017 20:54 opisska wrote: Viper must be having an orgasm somewhere while reading all this nonsense about "creating the suspense"!
Anyway, the whole part about the observer mode is such an amazing description of what is currently wrong with almost all software - instead of letting the users (in this case the broadcasters) chose on their own from a variety of options, they are gonna not provide the options at all, because they know better and GOD FORBID there were some options that aren't commonly used or, even worse, the options were too many and "confusing", because everyone nowadays is a total idiot and can't handle more than three checkboxes per screen! There is so much shit like that across SC2, so I should be happy that the BW guys also get a taste of the brave new world.
I still don't understand what is the point of this whole thing when they aren't changing almost anything. We have known for a while that it wouldn't solve the reasons why I don't want to play BW and it apparently also is not going to address much of the reasons I don't want to watch it (apart from the terrible old graphics).
I have to repeat this, I am mostly disappointed in Observer mode not made better. I don't know how much fun I am going to have watching SC:R without such features. They should have included it and let tournaments/caster decide if to use or not.
That would never work. Everybody would turn everything on, and if they didn't, viewers would complain. Having Blizzard just send word down from above and decide to not add such features is the only feasible way to preserve the unknown. Whether or not that's a good idea, I don't know, but if their design intent is to hide stuff in obs mode, then there's no other way to do it.
On June 30 2017 20:54 opisska wrote: Viper must be having an orgasm somewhere while reading all this nonsense about "creating the suspense"!
Anyway, the whole part about the observer mode is such an amazing description of what is currently wrong with almost all software - instead of letting the users (in this case the broadcasters) chose on their own from a variety of options, they are gonna not provide the options at all, because they know better and GOD FORBID there were some options that aren't commonly used or, even worse, the options were too many and "confusing", because everyone nowadays is a total idiot and can't handle more than three checkboxes per screen! There is so much shit like that across SC2, so I should be happy that the BW guys also get a taste of the brave new world.
I still don't understand what is the point of this whole thing when they aren't changing almost anything. We have known for a while that it wouldn't solve the reasons why I don't want to play BW and it apparently also is not going to address much of the reasons I don't want to watch it (apart from the terrible old graphics).
I have to repeat this, I am mostly disappointed in Observer mode not made better. I don't know how much fun I am going to have watching SC:R without such features. They should have included it and let tournaments/caster decide if to use or not.
That would never work. Everybody would turn everything on, and if they didn't, viewers would complain. Having Blizzard just send word down from above and decide to not add such features is the only feasible way to preserve the unknown. Whether or not that's a good idea, I don't know, but if their design intent is to hide stuff in obs mode, then there's no other way to do it.
The problem I have as a caster is that I utilize these features for non-ASL events through the MCALauncher. So I'm still going to have to find a 3rd party program when I want to do any of my other casts (which is pretty much all of my casts now as I'm taking a break from ASL casting).
edit: I have never had anyone complain I have to many or little features in my casts.
On June 30 2017 20:54 opisska wrote: Viper must be having an orgasm somewhere while reading all this nonsense about "creating the suspense"!
Anyway, the whole part about the observer mode is such an amazing description of what is currently wrong with almost all software - instead of letting the users (in this case the broadcasters) chose on their own from a variety of options, they are gonna not provide the options at all, because they know better and GOD FORBID there were some options that aren't commonly used or, even worse, the options were too many and "confusing", because everyone nowadays is a total idiot and can't handle more than three checkboxes per screen! There is so much shit like that across SC2, so I should be happy that the BW guys also get a taste of the brave new world.
I still don't understand what is the point of this whole thing when they aren't changing almost anything. We have known for a while that it wouldn't solve the reasons why I don't want to play BW and it apparently also is not going to address much of the reasons I don't want to watch it (apart from the terrible old graphics).
I have to repeat this, I am mostly disappointed in Observer mode not made better. I don't know how much fun I am going to have watching SC:R without such features. They should have included it and let tournaments/caster decide if to use or not.
That would never work. Everybody would turn everything on, and if they didn't, viewers would complain. Having Blizzard just send word down from above and decide to not add such features is the only feasible way to preserve the unknown. Whether or not that's a good idea, I don't know, but if their design intent is to hide stuff in obs mode, then there's no other way to do it.
And we will complain even now, don't worry. SC2 also had basic observer tools at launch and they were improved upon later.
On June 30 2017 20:54 opisska wrote: Viper must be having an orgasm somewhere while reading all this nonsense about "creating the suspense"!
Anyway, the whole part about the observer mode is such an amazing description of what is currently wrong with almost all software - instead of letting the users (in this case the broadcasters) chose on their own from a variety of options, they are gonna not provide the options at all, because they know better and GOD FORBID there were some options that aren't commonly used or, even worse, the options were too many and "confusing", because everyone nowadays is a total idiot and can't handle more than three checkboxes per screen! There is so much shit like that across SC2, so I should be happy that the BW guys also get a taste of the brave new world.
I still don't understand what is the point of this whole thing when they aren't changing almost anything. We have known for a while that it wouldn't solve the reasons why I don't want to play BW and it apparently also is not going to address much of the reasons I don't want to watch it (apart from the terrible old graphics).
I have to repeat this, I am mostly disappointed in Observer mode not made better. I don't know how much fun I am going to have watching SC:R without such features. They should have included it and let tournaments/caster decide if to use or not.
That would never work. Everybody would turn everything on, and if they didn't, viewers would complain. Having Blizzard just send word down from above and decide to not add such features is the only feasible way to preserve the unknown. Whether or not that's a good idea, I don't know, but if their design intent is to hide stuff in obs mode, then there's no other way to do it.
And we will complain even now, don't worry. SC2 also had basic observer tools at launch and they were improved upon later.
Then go play SC2 and don't shit up the thread? That's what I implied to opisska but it seems you're too dense for the message.
On June 30 2017 20:54 opisska wrote: Viper must be having an orgasm somewhere while reading all this nonsense about "creating the suspense"!
Anyway, the whole part about the observer mode is such an amazing description of what is currently wrong with almost all software - instead of letting the users (in this case the broadcasters) chose on their own from a variety of options, they are gonna not provide the options at all, because they know better and GOD FORBID there were some options that aren't commonly used or, even worse, the options were too many and "confusing", because everyone nowadays is a total idiot and can't handle more than three checkboxes per screen! There is so much shit like that across SC2, so I should be happy that the BW guys also get a taste of the brave new world.
I still don't understand what is the point of this whole thing when they aren't changing almost anything. We have known for a while that it wouldn't solve the reasons why I don't want to play BW and it apparently also is not going to address much of the reasons I don't want to watch it (apart from the terrible old graphics).
I have to repeat this, I am mostly disappointed in Observer mode not made better. I don't know how much fun I am going to have watching SC:R without such features. They should have included it and let tournaments/caster decide if to use or not.
That would never work. Everybody would turn everything on, and if they didn't, viewers would complain. Having Blizzard just send word down from above and decide to not add such features is the only feasible way to preserve the unknown. Whether or not that's a good idea, I don't know, but if their design intent is to hide stuff in obs mode, then there's no other way to do it.
And we will complain even now, don't worry. SC2 also had basic observer tools at launch and they were improved upon later.
Then go play SC2 and don't shit up the thread? That's what I implied to opisska but it seems you're too dense for the message.
No I will not. I will play SC:R and complain about lack of Observer tools. What will you do about it?
On June 30 2017 20:54 opisska wrote: Viper must be having an orgasm somewhere while reading all this nonsense about "creating the suspense"!
Anyway, the whole part about the observer mode is such an amazing description of what is currently wrong with almost all software - instead of letting the users (in this case the broadcasters) chose on their own from a variety of options, they are gonna not provide the options at all, because they know better and GOD FORBID there were some options that aren't commonly used or, even worse, the options were too many and "confusing", because everyone nowadays is a total idiot and can't handle more than three checkboxes per screen! There is so much shit like that across SC2, so I should be happy that the BW guys also get a taste of the brave new world.
I still don't understand what is the point of this whole thing when they aren't changing almost anything. We have known for a while that it wouldn't solve the reasons why I don't want to play BW and it apparently also is not going to address much of the reasons I don't want to watch it (apart from the terrible old graphics).
I have to repeat this, I am mostly disappointed in Observer mode not made better. I don't know how much fun I am going to have watching SC:R without such features. They should have included it and let tournaments/caster decide if to use or not.
That would never work. Everybody would turn everything on, and if they didn't, viewers would complain. Having Blizzard just send word down from above and decide to not add such features is the only feasible way to preserve the unknown. Whether or not that's a good idea, I don't know, but if their design intent is to hide stuff in obs mode, then there's no other way to do it.
And we will complain even now, don't worry. SC2 also had basic observer tools at launch and they were improved upon later.
The key difference is that you can complain all you like at Blizzard (they don't give a shit, they're used to it), but for casters and content creators and such people it's a different story.
EPT
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