Meeting Dustin Browder - Page 6

On March 05 2011 16:50 eviltomahawk wrote:

I've always thought of the Thor as Browder's way of injecting a bit of C&C into SC2.

Think about it. Almost all the C&C games include the Mammoth Tank or a close derivative of it (such as the Apocalypse Tank or the Overlord Tank): a high hitpoint, high armor, dual barrel, anti-air missile shooting monstrosity.

The Thor is basically a Mammoth Tank in the world of SC2, which I enjoy considering that I also come from a C&C background. Nothing is more satisfying than massing a huge number of Mammoth Tanks or Thors and rolling over the enemy. Nothing is more tragic than watching your army of Mammoth Tanks or Thors somehow getting owned despite your expectations otherwise.

Also, I've always thought of the Viking as the true successor to the Goliath. In fact, I've always considered the Viking to be a flying Goliath with the anti-air power and range of the original Goliath, only with better mobility since it flies.


Anyways, it's cool to hear Browder's opinions about SC2. Interesting to see him have trouble including the Thor and Mothership into the game due to their questionable unit roles. It seems that because they unveiled the Thor and Mothership as major units early in SC2's development, Blizzard has tried really hard to somehow shoehorn them into the game despite their questionable roles in an e-sports focused game.

I also love how Browder waves around his C&C background proudly. C&C is an excellent series of games (except for C&C4, and to a questionable degree post-Westwood games like Generals and onwards). I still consider Red Alert 2 to be the most fun RTS I've ever played (sorry BW), and it's awesome to see Browder, lead designer of RA2, to still have his groove in SC2.

Making the game to fit an eSport makes it difficult to make interesting campaigns while keeping the game balanced.

On March 05 2011 14:43 malphigian wrote:


I hate to axe grind here but this is so messed up I feel obligated so, again:
The OP is lying, this was not an interview, this is somewhat distorted version of Browder's GDC talk rewritten as an interview for some bizarre reason

If anyone doesn't believe me, I'll post some stills from the talk once the GDC site puts them online. A mod should really edit the first post because this is really weird.

On March 05 2011 17:54 BisuDagger wrote:



In his presentation he addresses this whole issue. Basically, SC2 has been created for game flow that adheres to eSports game type. This means that the curve of interest in the game is handled differently then in a campaign. Dustin said that when the campaign levels were created that most people ended up turtling in their starting base and building up until they were strong enough to overrun the AI. The natural style of play online prevents people from turtling on one base and expanding outward. The example he gave was in the mission where infesteds attacked during the night. The day/night cycle encourages the player to go out and do raids while recovering from the night. Of course, even in this level, you can turtle and win eventually but the model for that level proved more people were motivated to take chances during the day. To summarize, coming up with ideas to keep the player activity high in missions is a difficult task and is the reason why HoTS is taking so long to be finished since the game was designed for an eSports styled game flow.

On March 07 2011 11:07 DarkDolphin wrote:
where could i watcha video of "making Starcraft 2 an eSport." did someone record it>???

The original size of the ultra used to be able to hide 20 lings under it.

I knew right away and hated the idea of the mothership. But the mothership is badass and thought it would be a great unit for non serious gamers to have available.