So What we've got~~

Renee

你自己看看这个帖子的日期~~

而且我打不开你那链接也懒得用代理~~

疯人￠衰人

LSS说的连接就是这些玩意，鸟文不通，蕾妮大大自己看吧
WWI 2008 StarCraft RTS Fansite Event Part 2

This article is the second one about the Fansite Event at WWI 2008 in Paris. If you haven't read the first article, that's recommended to do, but most questions are completely fine to read on their own and it isn't required reading to understand the context of this second half.

Karune continues to explain the current game design in the excruciating details that StarCraft fans love to read.

In this second part we discuss:

Release date.
StarCraft 2 Beta.
Blizzard Forum Chaos.
Hacking in StarCraft.
Diablo 3 Development.
Blizzard Releasing Info.
The StarCraft II 3D Engine.
The Marauder.
The Jackal.
Zerg Creep.
The Ability "Ensnare".
Map Editor.
Dark Templar Influences.
Psionic Storm Artwork.
The Mighty Carrier

In the first part of the discussion touched subjects such as Hive Queen changes, resource management, single player, StarCraft broadcasts, infestation and community responses among many other things.


The Questions

When is StarCraft II Done?
As was not really surprising, Karune did not have a clue ("I honestly don't have a clue"), but he discussed a bit on how the actual game development progress worked. Right now they have started to work more on Single Player [Editor's note: Rob Pardo said in an interview that the Single Player campaign is about 1/3 done.], so that will make it easier to say how close they are when done with that. As we know Blizzard have taken the stance to really perfect the Multiplayer aspect of the game before doing anything else, it would probably be an indication that they are nearing the end of the production cycle as they are putting energy into Single Player now.

Dustin Browder said to me, other fansites and other press at BlizzCon 2007 that the game was about 50% done at the time, and he hinted at that the progress have accelerated over time, so it doesn't have to take another 4 years before launch - obviously!

As for the current progress, Karune mentioned that as soon as new stuff are added to the game, a whole new array of work is needed, and in essence, they are almost taking a step back in progress. What he probably means is that as new things are added to the game, the whole project becomes that little more "broader", and the relative progress on the new scale might be smaller. They would naturally not loose progress per se when adding units, just adding more required work to the total.

Even races that were basically done, like the Terrans that Karune thought started to take a solid shape, has still received improvements as of late. They got more polygons, and new textures - a lot of the work is in the details, both in terms of graphics as well as gameplay. The Blizzard dev team are even adding new units on the board at this stage, and making significant changes to other units. An example is a new Protoss Pylon they have been toying with, a Dark Pylon, that doesn't give energy, but instead cloaks all the units around it. As it reveals Phase Cannons when they shoot, it is useful mainly to hide tech buildings. It wasn't added to the WWI build, and Karune did not know if it will appear in the game.

On the whole, there really is no answer to when the game is done.
StarCraft 2 Beta
A related question that naturally came up after the question of release date is the StarCraft 2 Beta. There are currently no timeframe on when the beta is starting, and as the game is only in pre-alpha at the moment, so not even playable by Blizzard employees in Europe, or elsewhere outside the Irvine office. The Beta isn't imminent. Still, some sort of closed, small Beta might be coming sometime soon. It will probably start small, similar to the WarCraft III one, and us fansites (sites such as StarCraftWire.net) are definitely considered the "closest inner circle" of people outside the company.


Blizzard Forums - A Mess
The natural continuation of Community responses to changes is of course Battle.net, and its sub-par quality compared to the WoW-boards. It seems apparent that the reason why no revamp has been made recently is because they are working on some huge changes. The info we got from the Diablo 3 panels as well as Karune seems to indicate this as well: There will be a whole new system for the site, and all the boards will be moderated on a standard equal to WoW. Some of the reasons why this has been delayed are the intense work on the Diablo 3 site as well as content pages for StarCraft. By content pages, he meant things like character bios and unit lore.


Hacking in StarCraft II
The ever existing question of any big game is hackers, and the way that hacks can grief gameplay for any user. Karune mentioned that the anti-hacking of StarCraft will be even more vigilant than the ones for WarCraft 3, and steps will be taken to prevent hacks to the greatest extent possible. It's a high priority and will definitely be addressed. [Editor's note: Seeing as the reply was similar to Diablo 3, and the mentions of Battle.net there were quite similar, I suspect that the anti-hacking efforts of Blizzard are closely tied in to the new Battle.net.]

What definitely became clear is that the new Battle.net will be: "so awesome".


Diablo 3 Development Question
- Will D3 be "open dev" like SC2
- Sorry, I don't know I guess that's up to the D3 guys. Drysc is the new D3 CM by the way.

Additional Information Before BlizzCon
We were all curious if there was going to be any new information available before BlizzCon, but the stance by Blizzard is in general to let any major anouncements be a "big deal", and while there will always be new announcements, they will probably only show of minor things before then, or make "proper" announcements in between. [Editor's note: That just means if there are any major news, it won't be in a Q & A session with Karune]


StarCraft II 3D Engine
Whether or not StarCraft 2 shares 3D engine or not was not 100% answered by Karune, but he said that they are probably not the same. One of the fansite representatives mentioned that a colleague had told him that the type of engine looked a lot alike, and that they might indeed be the same. Seeing how Blizzard usually makes every game from scratch, and usually not even name their engines, Karune thought it seemed very unlikely. He didn't know for sure, but the answer left little doubt that they are indeed separate engines. [Editor's note: WE do actually know that Blizzard have licensed Havok, so they could potentially both be using that engine.]


The Marauder
One of the fansite editors thought that the Marauder might be a bit weak for its current role, and just had general doubts about the uses of it. Karune replied that the Developers actually quite like the Marauder, and a lot of work has recently gone in to giving him new cool idle animations. [Editor's note: This is an indication on that the unit probably will stay in, and not change that much, as Samwise said they mostly only put extra work on units they believe will make a longer appearance.] They are used to keep things off of the Marines, and works well together with Medivac Dropships.

This tactic has more a feel of StarCraft than Brood War, as the Marines need to conserve their StimPacks, and more micro is required to keep opposing units away.


The Jackal
The Vulture has more or less been replaced by the Jackal, but at the same time, they don't have the same "shock absorption" of the Vultures, and Protoss Collossus destroy them like ants. Karune said that they are actually indeed quite balanced. While they are very weak against Colossus, they do have an extremely powerful attack against infantry. The upgrade to double the fire range is on the limit if being overpowered, but on the whole, it's all quite balanced.
Zerg Creep
The new Zerg Creep is a lot better than the old incarnation, and basically all attending fansites agreed on this notion. The new highlights, as well as tendrils on the sides does indeed make it feel more alive. The new way Creep Tumors work also enhances the importance of Creep, and makes it feel both more alive as well as dangerous, as it hurts buildings that come in contact with it. This even gives Overlords an offensive ability, as they can Creep an area around an enemy building.


The Ability Called "Ensnare"
The Ensnare ability is currently not in place, and it seems like it will not be available either. At least there are no direct plans for it. A member of the group suggested that it might be a good idea to put that ability on to the Terran Medivac Dropship. Over all, there are a lot of details they have not touched upon yet. They are on the fence about Ensnare, as they are on the Ghost ability EMP.


Map Editor
In addition to Battle.net, the new and improved StarEdit will get a great enhance. One of the features that has been mentioned before is that it seems we will be able to create custom races in StarCraft II. It was hinted on by Sigaty, and Karune went all the way, saying that with the new editor, it's possible for players to create "every single race for every single RTS game ever released". If this is just a manner of showing how easy it is to change association and stats, or if it actually might mean that the editor will come with some simple 3D model editor or texture editor is hard to say. It does indeed not seem unlikely.


Dark Templar Influences
The discussion sailed on to Protoss and their new Dark Templar influences in units and buildings. The Dev team is looking to add some type of additional "defensive" buildings with Dark Templar influences, and the Dark Pylon came up in discussion again, as well as the fact that the only other proper Dark Templar building is the Dark Obelsik. In either way, Dark Templars will hopeful get more defensive buildings associated with their style.
Psionic Storm Art
Quite a few fansite editors were disappointed in the Psionic Storm animation. It looked too much like the old Corsair. It's a line bolting down that hits, and then sparkles. Not very impressive at all. Karune replied with that this is an area that might get improved, and as it's art, it can easily be an upgraded animation. In addition to that, screenshots don't capture the Psi-Storm very well. [Editor's Note: Still, he said this to a group of a dozen StarCraft 2 fans that had played the actual game that same day. We have seen its animation, and that is not related to screenshots.]

The Mighty Carrier
In a previous build, Carriers had replaced 4 of their Interceptors for "Escorts", and could use them for better protection. In the WWI build, they were gone, and instead Carriers now start with 8 slots for Interceptors again. Even before the Escorts, they had 8, so the question to Karune is why they did away with that upgrade at the Fleet Beacon. Karune speculated that they got more after the Escort revert, but that wasn't really true. In fact, he was unsure of these decisions by the dev team, and he can't really know everything either.

On the other hand, the decision of removing the Escorts was that the player could just as well use Phoenixes with that money, and as they stay they can be of further use to the player. This was the primary reason they were cut; they just didn't have a strong enough role.


After this little chat, that went on longer than we really thought about, we went back inside, and headed over to a number of machines in the StarCraft 2 area to start gaming. I have already made a short description of my StarCraft 2 Gameplay Intro. Make sure to check back at the WWI Coverage for more information on this.