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On March 19 2013 06:32 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2013 06:16 CecilSunkure wrote:On March 19 2013 06:14 Grovbolle wrote:On March 19 2013 06:10 CecilSunkure wrote:On March 19 2013 06:08 Plansix wrote:On March 19 2013 06:02 CecilSunkure wrote:
Sadly doesn't sound like they have any employees that worked on or played Brood War. Explains all the headaches we've had on balance since SC2's release. I get a feeling of ego from his words "No we wouldn't dare go look at that old dusty tome". Can't we just admit that the guys that made Brood War made some golden decisions and then learn from them? I feel like some humility could go a long way.
Feels to me like an issue of "we have better tech and artists now, therefor we have better design too", when really the design skill seems to who knows where? I think the number of people who played broodwar on some sort of competitive level(that would be accepted by TL as competitive) that also have the programming/artistic/writing skills to work at Blizzard might be a very small group of people(ie, zero). Even DK has a degree in computer science along with being pretty good at games. Don't know who DK is, but I've done some professional design and balance work on a AAA RTS. Really it doesn't take a genius to come up with good decisions so much as someone that listens and has a proper sense of humility. David Kim Sure you can point out David Kim, but then I can point out the past couple years of SC2 balance. Maybe one guy isn't enough? Seems to me like things could have gone a lot smoother, and could go a lot better in the coming future. Edit: Well who knows, maybe the people for the job are just really hard to find. It could also be an issue of lack of supply. Lack of supply is the larger issue, I assume. Could you imagine trying to justify that persons salary without another skill set like programming? “So we would like to hire this guy for the balance team. He is really good at playing the previous game on a competitive level. No, no, he doesn’t program, but he has been a Korean B-teamer for Kespa team for 4 years. No, he doesn’t speak English. No, he has no computer skills beyond playing Brood War. Well, we do have another option for an English speaking player for the balance team. No, he doesn’t a degree in computer science, either.” I am pretty sure that is how the discussion would go.
You're really far off here...
Design and Product work is so far removed from programming that I've never seen that as a pre-requisite when hiring someone for that role. He works at a video game company sure, but everything he does is so abstracted from the actual code that him knowing how to program is completely meaningless.
This could be a coincidence or not, but in my career the worst PMs have always been those that thought they knew everything about programming, but usually they just illustrated the Dunning-Kruger effect. I've had good PMs who had a programming background of course, but by and large it's pretty irrelevant (except for those that throw it around like it gives their ideas more credibility).
But to your point, I would assume the biggest barrier to hiring someone for the job is how exactly you quantify what would make someone a good balance designer. I mean seriously, how could you prove it?
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Bisutopia19152 Posts
It seems like he was ashamed to get ideas from Brood War. I am tired of them saying that this is a new game when it is indeed a sequel to an amazing game. There is nothing wrong with drawing ideas from the something that is your own! They should embrace anything related to Brood War rather then side step it.
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On March 19 2013 18:45 heishe wrote:
The tournament system is the biggest feature I miss in Starcraft 2. So much fun was had in the Warcraft 3 tournaments (with their separate rewards, like portraits, also). I guess most guys on Teamliquid still were SC1 players so they don't know this feature at all, but if they did, the outcry for it would probably have been a lot bigger :D
This would've been such an awesome feature. Instead of needing third-parties like Playhem you could just join automated Battlenet tournaments with special rewards. Would also make Battlenet even more social and such.
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I can totally believe that there was a sort of convergent evolution from WoL to HotS to a more BWesque state.
For what I understand, when they made WoL they tried to avoid as much BW influence as they could, because they wanted the game to stand on its own as a "new" Starcraft, not SC2: BW 3D version. However, as they progressed it was obvious that BW did such a great job. The old game had interesting, compelling gameplay, and dynamic units. It's hard to avoid using ideas from BW, as much as they wanted to.
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On March 19 2013 19:45 vojnik wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2013 19:35 golgo_13 wrote:
Hard to believe people still take corporate BS at face value. These are the same managers and higher ups that gave you the Diablo3 farce, with all the lies and hype leading up to its release. how is this in any way relevant to the interview? Just go with that conspiracy idealistic nonsense to some other forum.
Isn't it obvious? If you believe anything these guys say, including any interviews they do, and expect them to not put a positive spin on every failure, every shortcoming, every underhanded money grabbing tactic, and instead fawn on every word that comes out of their mouths, you deserve to be fleeced.
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Saying that it's mostly a coincidence is a joke. Half the units in Starcraft 2 are HEAVILY influenced from Brood War.
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On March 19 2013 19:35 golgo_13 wrote:
Hard to believe people still take corporate BS at face value. These are the same managers and higher ups that gave you the Diablo3 farce, with all the lies and hype leading up to its release.
Chris Sigaty is actually the most alright dude you're going to find when searching for interviews with Blizzard. He's actually the one that first admitted that no-lan was partially because of piracy. I've never seen him bullshit in interviews, really.
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On March 19 2013 20:10 golgo_13 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2013 19:45 vojnik wrote:On March 19 2013 19:35 golgo_13 wrote:
Hard to believe people still take corporate BS at face value. These are the same managers and higher ups that gave you the Diablo3 farce, with all the lies and hype leading up to its release. how is this in any way relevant to the interview? Just go with that conspiracy idealistic nonsense to some other forum. Isn't it obvious? If you believe anything these guys say, including any interviews they do, and expect them to not put a positive spin on every failure, every shortcoming, every underhanded money grabbing tactic, and instead fawn on every word that comes out of their mouths, you deserve to be fleeced.
so far people are quite positive with HOTS and the direction is taking, so if you have any related comment to the actual topics discussed in the interview just stop with that kind of nonsence please. I am pretty much happily scammed by blizzard at the moment, i am enjoying every aspect of hots.
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On March 19 2013 20:20 heishe wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2013 19:35 golgo_13 wrote:
Hard to believe people still take corporate BS at face value. These are the same managers and higher ups that gave you the Diablo3 farce, with all the lies and hype leading up to its release. Chris Sigaty is actually the most alright dude you're going to find when searching for interviews with Blizzard. He's actually the one that first admitted that no-lan was partially because of piracy. I've never seen him bullshit in interviews, really.
No, "no-lan as a countermeasure to piracy" was the positive spin.
The real reason was and continues to be control. Control to prevent anything like KeSPA ever springing up again. Control so every tournament be vetted and blessed by Blizzard. Control such that Blizzard would have its grubby fingers in every pie. I'm sure if SC2 took off like they thought it would, they'd have charged customers for every last bit of trivial and taken-for-granted feature. It was only after they realized how fast WOL was sinking they allowed users the most basic features like single name-changes, better ways to distribute custom maps, etc.
Then they tried to pull the same shit again with another one of their popular franchises, Diablo3, building the whole game around the online store, sacrificing gameplay and user experience in the process. Who could forget the fiasco when that was released.
Yet people still think Blizzard makes truthfull statements in interviews? Blizzard may take pains to outwardly portray itself as a friendly, fun company that still has customer satisfaction as their number one priority, like they did in the old days, but their internal culture can be described by one simple statement. "FUCK THAT LOSER."
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On March 19 2013 20:09 Gravesong wrote:
For what I understand, when they made WoL they tried to avoid as much BW influence as they could, because they wanted the game to stand on its own as a "new" Starcraft, not SC2: BW 3D version. However, as they progressed it was obvious that BW did such a great job. The old game had interesting, compelling gameplay, and dynamic units. It's hard to avoid using ideas from BW, as much as they wanted to.
Really, because it seems like the opposite happened. Blizzard started development by recreating BW in the SC2 engine. They then added units on top of the existing BW favorites. For example, the Colossus wasn't intended to replace the Reaver, but as development went on they found that things like Dark Swarm, scarabs, Spider Mines etc. were incompatible with SC2's pathing AI.
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On March 19 2013 06:37 Lysenko wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2013 06:36 CecilSunkure wrote:On March 19 2013 06:32 Lysenko wrote:On March 19 2013 06:02 CecilSunkure wrote:
Sadly doesn't sound like they have any employees that worked on or played Brood War. Explains all the headaches we've had on balance since SC2's release. I get a feeling of ego from his words "No we wouldn't dare go look at that old dusty tome". Funny you'd say that, because Chris Sigaty was head of quality assurance on Starcraft: Brood War. Well I suppose I just don't understand what's going on in there then. Like the guy a couple posts up said, it's just that their philosophy with HOTS was to look at the game in front of them and figure out how to make it better, rather than say "how can we make this more like Brood War." I agree with that earlier poster that they're taking the right approach in that sense.
The thing is that they have NOT made the game "better" ... they made the game "easier to macro" and "lazy to manage units", but those things have a consequence and too many units in a tight formation are a pain to balance against each other compared to "just a handful" as it was in BW.
More flashy skills and so on is not the same as better.
On March 19 2013 20:44 golgo_13 wrote:
Yet people still think Blizzard makes truthfull statements in interviews? Blizzard may take pains to outwardly portray itself as a friendly, fun company that still has customer satisfaction as their number one priority, like they did in the old days, but their internal culture can be described by one simple statement. "FUCK THAT LOSER."
Their "not so truthful statements" should have been made abundantly clear when Dustin Browder stated (in one of the interviews from their tournament in China) that they wanted to make mech more viable in TvP ... and then did nothing to make it actually viable except to fiddle around with the units which didnt need to be fiddled with and added units in HotS which make bio better.
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What a load of bullshit..
I would of respected him a great deal more if he just admitted they took pages from the BW handbook. The Viper isn't the defiler redesigned? Bullshit. They realized that Zerg needed something like the defiler, took its core ability, added the new ability and made it a flying unit. That doesn't make it not darn near a copy paste. Now I am not complaining mind you. I think many of the "obvious BW units" were needed and add a great deal to the game. I am just calling bullshit on the statement "Oh it is just coincidence". SC2 players aren't stupid.
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On March 19 2013 21:41 Dekoth wrote:
What a load of bullshit..
I would of respected him a great deal more if he just admitted they took pages from the BW handbook. The Viper isn't the defiler redesigned? Bullshit. They realized that Zerg needed something like the defiler, took its core ability, added the new ability and made it a flying unit. That doesn't make it not darn near a copy paste. Now I am not complaining mind you. I think many of the "obvious BW units" were needed and add a great deal to the game. I am just calling bullshit on the statement "Oh it is just coincidence". SC2 players aren't stupid.
now suppose for a minute he speaks the truth. How can he possibly defend himself?
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On March 19 2013 21:41 Dekoth wrote:
What a load of bullshit..
I would of respected him a great deal more if he just admitted they took pages from the BW handbook. The Viper isn't the defiler redesigned? Bullshit. They realized that Zerg needed something like the defiler, took its core ability, added the new ability and made it a flying unit. That doesn't make it not darn near a copy paste. Now I am not complaining mind you. I think many of the "obvious BW units" were needed and add a great deal to the game. I am just calling bullshit on the statement "Oh it is just coincidence". SC2 players aren't stupid.
Dark Swarm and Blinding Cloud are very different, nearly inverses. One protects, one debuffs. The end result is superficially similar sometimes but Dark Swarm in SC2 would be completely insane. Also that the Viper flies isn't just a small thing. The Defiler is unique in BW Zerg army for how slow it is whereas the Viper is very mobile. Not close to a copy paste.
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What I would like them to admit openly (but I understand that they wouldn't, ever) is that with both WoL and HotS they began from a polished, well working current game (BW, then WoL, to some extent at least) and they *had to* just change it... for the sake of changing it. Not for the sake of "improving" it, necessarily. They just had to... pretend... they are producing something "new", so that they can put that on the market.
So they ended up destroying units and mechanics that were working great, just for the sake of change, and to be able to say: "Hey, here's a completely new product, we can claim a substantial price for it (and it will work, because it's a legendary franchise that people will buy no matter what)."
Anyway. CS is a cool guy in general, but the way he talks (he doesn't even remember the number of missions in WoL and HotS) nowadays he is more detached from these games and more of a manager guy. Which is a bit sad, even if expected.
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Canada11258 Posts
I kinda wonder the same thing as Cecil- although there is a fair number of people that worked onboth. But it is not about BW HD
Even if you look at the struggles that the community has had making Blizzard understand even what is meant by 'moving shot' and 'carrier micro' has seemed such an uphill battle.
As a D level Protoss on iccup, I don't actually understand how you can be familiar with competitive BW and NOT know the importance of moving shot in being the primary mover in making air harass interesting. And the fact that this sort of micro was only tried on one unit (the Phoenix) and even the implementation was not at all what was being described. (The difference in feeling is that of a whip crack vs a car constantly drifting around every corner it makes.)
And this is a micro mechanic (amongst others) that can be applied to absolutely any NEW SC2 unit and make it awesome. Applied learning, not copy/paste.
Or how Carrier micro had to be spelled out by Tyler (and in the end it was only half-implemented.) But it wasn't even the case of getting rid of carrier micro and adding something new and cool because this is SC2 and we're out to improve. It was just straight up gone. They were even going to ditch the Carrier because surprise, surprise it was a boring A-move unit. But it shouldn't have been a surprise because again as a D level Protoss player, even I knew about this micro. I couldn't have described it as succintly- these things usually take me 3000 words and lots of pictures. But I certainly knew about it and had practiced it from time to time.
Nor was it a case of getting rid of 'fighting the game' mechanics. Both carriers can be A-moved, no problem. But the part that made it interesting was completely gone and with no replacement. How was this stuff missed? I dunno, but it is curious nonetheless.
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On March 20 2013 07:21 figq wrote:
What I would like them to admit openly (but I understand that they wouldn't, ever) is that with both WoL and HotS they began from a polished, well working current game (BW, then WoL, to some extent at least) and they *had to* just change it... for the sake of changing it. Not for the sake of "improving" it, necessarily. They just had to... pretend... they are producing something "new", so that they can put that on the market.
I don't know, I keep hearing the pros talking about how HOTS is a much better game than WoL. That tells me that, while the desire to release an expansion surely was driving the need to make changes, the changes they made in multiplayer were probably with intent to improve the game.
As for Chris Sigaty, he's a producer, which means that a lot of the details are not his job. He's the guy responsible for making sure the right team is in place to handle the details.
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On March 20 2013 08:20 Falling wrote:
I kinda wonder the same thing as Cecil- although there is a fair number of people that worked onboth. But it is not about BW HD
Even if you look at the struggles that the community has had making Blizzard understand even what is meant by 'moving shot' and 'carrier micro' has seemed such an uphill battle.
As a D level Protoss on iccup, I don't actually understand how you can be familiar with competitive BW and NOT know the importance of moving shot in being the primary mover in making air harass interesting. And the fact that this sort of micro was only tried on one unit (the Phoenix) and even the implementation was not at all what was being described. (The difference in feeling is that of a whip crack vs a car constantly drifting around every corner it makes.)
And this is a micro mechanic (amongst others) that can be applied to absolutely any NEW SC2 unit and make it awesome. Applied learning, not copy/paste.
Or how Carrier micro had to be spelled out by Tyler (and in the end it was only half-implemented.) But it wasn't even the case of getting rid of carrier micro and adding something new and cool because this is SC2 and we're out to improve. It was just straight up gone. They were even going to ditch the Carrier because surprise, surprise it was a boring A-move unit. But it shouldn't have been a surprise because again as a D level Protoss player, even I knew about this micro. I couldn't have described it as succintly- these things usually take me 3000 words and lots of pictures. But I certainly knew about it and had practiced it from time to time.
Nor was it a case of getting rid of 'fighting the game' mechanics. Both carriers can be A-moved, no problem. But the part that made it interesting was completely gone and with no replacement. How was this stuff missed? I dunno, but it is curious nonetheless.
This is one of the biggest things that I dislike about Starcraft 2. The fact that not a single unit in the game other than the phoenix can attack while moving just makes the units so uninteresting to use. Not one unit in the game comes CLOSE to being as much fun to micro as the vulture. Muta micro on its own made me play some zerg in Brood War. There's nothing even resembling that sort of thing in Starcraft 2.
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That tournament system he was describing sounds really brilliant, hope to see it in LotV.
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Utterly ridiculous that he is trying to defend himself with "it is a coincidence",
The convergent design statement is very appropriate, and blizzard should realize that there is no way to create units without making them similar to units that we have seen before.
Instead of trying to defend themselves for something they dont have to, they should copy the shit out of everything that works and stand behind that decision.
They are trying too hard to come up with unique design (for no other reason than "just because") and end up creating the same stuff anyways (but then they try to cover it up because of their "pride").
Ridiculous.
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EPT
