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Jozrael · 04-16-2010, 09:58 AM

An Extensive Interview With StarCraft II's Design Director - Features - GameInformer.com

A lot of you mentioned how multiplayer was overwhelming. While reading this article, I was very happy to see they went over this exact attribute:

How do you plan to introduce newer players to hardcore competitive play?

I'll say two things about that. One is that I would definitely encourage the players out there who got lucky enough to get a [beta] key who are thinking of it as a demo not to think of it as a demo. What we've done with the beta is fundamentally very similar to putting out a beta of level 80 World of Warcraft arena with no buildup before that. That would be the most difficult thing to learn. This is really a chance for us to test our play balance with players of all skill levels, but players who are already committed to learning and playing the multiplayer experience and don't feel too bad if they lose a game. For the final game, we've got twenty-plus hours of campaign, which will get players familiar with and comfortable with the controls, familiar with and comfortable with resourcing, give them a basic understanding of some of the counters in the game, but just give them 20 hours of sort of comfortableness with the game, much as you would when you're playing through 20 hours of questing in WoW. It doesn't teach you how to do high-end raiding, but it gets you comfortable with the UI and it gets you comfortable with your character. So we've got that.

Then we've got our challenges. Our challenges are about ten maps that teach you the fundamentals of online competitive play. They teach you how to defend against rushes. They teach you how to build up your economy. They teach you some of the basic counters for the three races. They teach you how to block your choke. They teach you all kinds of stuff that you will need to understand on some basic level to play in the competitive environment. Then we have five different difficulties of AI that you can play against to learn your race. Obviously the race in solo play for Terrans is a little bit different from the race in multiplayer. If you want to learn Zerg or Protoss, you can go to those AIs and battle it out against them. We've also got an auto-matchmaker for cooperative against the AI that will hopefully get you to a position where you're more comfortable playing online and more comfortable playing in a team environment.

We're definitely going to be looking at Achievements and other tools to encourage our players, once they graduate from cooperative vs. AI to move into team play before they move into 1v1. We're going to offer 4v4 and 3v3 to encourage them to get into a team play environment, get with a team. It's a much more casual environment than the 1v1; you've got somebody to help you play with, you've got allies who can come to your rescue if you get into a little bit of trouble. We really consider the 1v1 the final endgame arena-style gameplay that we hope players will only get to after 30, 40, 50, 60 hours played depending on their enthusiasm for it. That's my hope as a designer, but whether any of that works out is anyone's guess. We're going to try to do anything we can with the UI and with the Achievements to encourage players to follow some kind of arc like that so that by the time they get to 1v1 hopefully they're feeling very comfortable with the game and they're ready for it -- they're not just thrown into the deep end.

04-16-2010, 09:58 AM	#82 (permalink)
Jozrael Junkie	An Extensive Interview With StarCraft II's Design Director - Features - GameInformer.com A lot of you mentioned how multiplayer was overwhelming. While reading this article, I was very happy to see they went over this exact attribute: How do you plan to introduce newer players to hardcore competitive play? I'll say two things about that. One is that I would definitely encourage the players out there who got lucky enough to get a [beta] key who are thinking of it as a demo not to think of it as a demo. What we've done with the beta is fundamentally very similar to putting out a beta of level 80 World of Warcraft arena with no buildup before that. That would be the most difficult thing to learn. This is really a chance for us to test our play balance with players of all skill levels, but players who are already committed to learning and playing the multiplayer experience and don't feel too bad if they lose a game. For the final game, we've got twenty-plus hours of campaign, which will get players familiar with and comfortable with the controls, familiar with and comfortable with resourcing, give them a basic understanding of some of the counters in the game, but just give them 20 hours of sort of comfortableness with the game, much as you would when you're playing through 20 hours of questing in WoW. It doesn't teach you how to do high-end raiding, but it gets you comfortable with the UI and it gets you comfortable with your character. So we've got that. Then we've got our challenges. Our challenges are about ten maps that teach you the fundamentals of online competitive play. They teach you how to defend against rushes. They teach you how to build up your economy. They teach you some of the basic counters for the three races. They teach you how to block your choke. They teach you all kinds of stuff that you will need to understand on some basic level to play in the competitive environment. Then we have five different difficulties of AI that you can play against to learn your race. Obviously the race in solo play for Terrans is a little bit different from the race in multiplayer. If you want to learn Zerg or Protoss, you can go to those AIs and battle it out against them. We've also got an auto-matchmaker for cooperative against the AI that will hopefully get you to a position where you're more comfortable playing online and more comfortable playing in a team environment. We're definitely going to be looking at Achievements and other tools to encourage our players, once they graduate from cooperative vs. AI to move into team play before they move into 1v1. We're going to offer 4v4 and 3v3 to encourage them to get into a team play environment, get with a team. It's a much more casual environment than the 1v1; you've got somebody to help you play with, you've got allies who can come to your rescue if you get into a little bit of trouble. We really consider the 1v1 the final endgame arena-style gameplay that we hope players will only get to after 30, 40, 50, 60 hours played depending on their enthusiasm for it. That's my hope as a designer, but whether any of that works out is anyone's guess. We're going to try to do anything we can with the UI and with the Achievements to encourage players to follow some kind of arc like that so that by the time they get to 1v1 hopefully they're feeling very comfortable with the game and they're ready for it -- they're not just thrown into the deep end.