EPTBlizzard Fansite Community Summit 09
Every year, Blizzard invites members of the Starcraft, Warcraft, and Diablo community sites to it's Irvine headquarters for a special pre-Blizzcon event called the Fansite Community Summit. This year I had the chance to represent Teamliquid, and really had my eyes opened to one of the grayest areas of discussion on this forum...what actually goes on at Blizzard Entertainment.
At 9:30 on Thursday. I met downstairs with a slew of other NWEs (Nerds with Egos) and was handed an NDA by Bashiok, the Diablo 3 community manager. Many familiar sites were present including Starcraft:Legacy, Gosugamers, PGR21, Broodwar.de and after a short wait we all jumped on the bus and headed off to Blizzard HQ.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Kennigit/Blizzcon_2009_Photos/nova_2.png)
hubba hubba
Theatre Event
We were shown a sneak peak of Diablo 3 which would be shown on the floor the next day – of course we weren't allowed to talk about it but apparently it managed to sneak it's way onto the internet anyways...Bashiok did a quick play through one of levels to be shown at Blizzcon and even for a relatively casual Diablo fan it looks like it's shaping up to be a really good game. We finished up, and I realized that the person sitting next to me was an admin from PGR21 – Sam. If you aren't aware of this Korean esports site, PGR21 is regarded as the highest quality korean progaming forum – members are required to wait 2 months after registration before they can even post (...and you kids think we are hardcore) replies let alone make threads. After sharing some progaming tales and agreeing to meet up later for dinner, we all headed off for the real meat of our visit – a tour of the Development Area.
Starcraft 2 Development Area
Sorry – no cameras allowed. The team is broken into Artists, Designers and Programmers all of whom have their own separate work areas/lounges but have a common room where they can congregate and create magic/wizardry. We first made our way through the Artist area which featured a sea of models, manga posters, toys, and concept art. We were able to see some of stuff the artists were working on – one asked if any of us were from mmo-champion.com because “if you need to use the bathroom I know where you can take a leak” - I laughed, not sure if anyone else got the joke. On an unrelated note I saw that Sam Diddier had a parking violation notice stuck on his office door. I love the idea that you can head a metal band, direct art on of the most hyped games of the last two years but still not be immune to parking tickets – fantastic.
The Programmers. As colorful and inspiring as the artist area was, the programmers were a complete juxtaposition – blank walls, clean tidy surfaces and white boards with some coding scribbles. A few coders were quietly typing away but the whole area was much more quiet and stoic than its neighboring designer/artist offices (i guess it needs to be that way to harbor clean coding practices...).
In the Designer area we saw David Kim in his office and when I called him “Oh SC2 Bonjwa” he laughed but insisted on being very humble about his #1 position...i felt he should have flexed or bragged about destroying everyone at Blizzard since 2009 – humble shmumble. Karune tried to take us the the Diablo 3 development area, but as was to be expected, it was a minefield of PR nightmares/leaks waiting to happen – off to lunch we went!
Developer Lunch
Lunch was where my whole notion of Blizzard's developers really changed. I think a lot of people in this community have this idea that because we aren't communicated with directly by developers on the SC2 team that they a) don't read the forums b) Are too busy to keep up to date with community feedback – both of these are false.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Kennigit/Blizzcon_2009_Photos/RichTony.png)
Tony (Producer on Starcraft 2), Rich (Level Designer on Starcraft 2)
Tony and Rich were nothing but class – seriously, just two cool guys who clearly love the jobs they've been blessed with. We spent about half an hour talking about everything from “terrible terrible damage” (an out of control joke that infects every discussion/meeting..they love the youtube montages) to the LAN issue, to development in general.
Tony described his job as one that changes on a daily basis. Typically he is required to meet with Dustin and other team leaders /members to ensure that deadlines are being met and that schedules are coordinated accurately between each part of the development team. Rich who is a map designer works on both single player and multiplayer maps. I asked him how much influence he takes from Proleague maps and he noted that a lot of the internal maps he and other map designers work on have their roots in professional Korean maps. He also mentioned that he had seen the thread a couple days earlier about having lava rise in multiplayer maps – they are listening kiddies. He thought it was a great idea and wanted to explore it more – one of the biggest points he pressed home to me was that he wants a lot of feedback on what we think of maps especially when we hit beta.
We touched on the LAN issue briefly but as was to be expected they couldn't be too direct ...they are discussing options etc but they both mentioned that one of the defining reasons for the old gas mechanic being removed was the response from the community – keep that in mind in the future when posting your bleeding heart tirades about the horror that is Starcraft 2 macro (the new mechanics are awesome). Rich is a big fan of GOMTV and Tony recounted his trip to Korea for the Starcraft 2 announcement as being “eye opening” when he saw the reaction of korean fans to the big reveal.
We always see smiling faces in interviews with Blizzard employees but I asked them how much stress they feel and if the magnitude of this project had ever lead them to think “...woah”. Tony said that “well, we are basically creating the sequel to Korea's national sport...” but when you are surrounded with a team of people as passionate about what they do as Blizzard's employees are, the negative effects of stress aren't as big factor as one might imagine.
David Kim
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Kennigit/Blizzcon_2009_Photos/DavidKimCross.png)
"Quiet, i'm thinking about timings"
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Kennigit/Blizzcon_2009_Photos/DavidKim_Talk.jpg)
"Let me throw some knowledge at you nerds"
What a guy. I've spent years listening to top Broodwar players lecture each other on timings but listening to the guy who's job it is to create those timings was a leap in thinking. David "The SC2 Bonjwa" Kim a game balancer for Starcraft 2. He plays the game, tweaks everything from build times to unit stats and releases a new internal build of the game up to 5 times per day. We talked briefly about some of the concerns people had had previously with the surround AI and the muta stacking. Muta stacking is doable but not in the same fashion it was for Broodwar, you can spam click your group of mutas and they will group but not to the degree of the game's predecessor. Honestly though, after 2 days of playing around with the new Zerg tech tree I don't see this to be an issue – there will be more discussion about that in our Gameplay writeup once we finish it.
David noted our concerns about the surround AI especially with early game harass (1 zealot/probe for example). He said that the team don't really see it as an issue because Starcraft 2 is much more about unit position (you can hold a zealot between certain mineral patches and not be surrounded) and that he is just as effective as he was in Broodwar. "Once you get the hang of how it plays, it's fine".
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After lunch we headed back to the theatre where Karune and Rob Simpson (The Real Voice of Esports) casted a match for us. Can't talk about it – it was amazing.
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Blizzard gave each attendee a piece of signed art from Peter Wei who is one of Blizzard's concept artists as a gift and shortly after we jumped back on the bus to head back to our hotel and rest up (get drunk) before Blizzcon the next day.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Kennigit/Blizzcon_2009_Photos/signedart.png)
Overall it was a humbling and eye opening experience. The guys at Blizzard who I met are as smart and enlightened as the general reputation would have you believe. More importantly however, they are down to earth and open to everyone's opinion (including the community), and I was left with the impression that these are just some really hard working guys who have been blessed with the chance to develop some of the best games in the world. Starcraft 2 is in very capable hands and I can't wait to have another taste of the Starcraft 2 pie once beta hits.
+ Show Spoiler +
(July 17th 2009 yo)
I want to say a big thank you to the developers who came to talk with us and let us tromp through their offices and to Karune and the rest of the community team who work way harder than I usually give them credit for. They continue to plan great events like this and keep us in the know.
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In a few days we will be releasing our report on Blizzcon as a whole and following that a report on the state of multiplayer game play in the Blizzcon build of Starcraft 2.
Stay tuned!
I hope so!
![[image loading]](http://media1.break.com/dnet/media/2009/2/95%20Internet%20High-Five.jpg)
