StarCraft II Developers Talk Single Player

17 Aug 2009 at 08:01:01 by Gunnar Petzall

IncGamers were invited once more to Blizzard HQ for a chat with the devs and a sneak peek on the progress of StarCraft II development. Blizzard naturally did not want us to cover multiplayer again, and gave us a very interesting look at the new single player mode and missions.

We have many new single player screenshots, new single player gameplay footage and a very thorough preview (released tomorrow) in addition to this interview where we talk to lead designer Dustin Browder, VP of creative development Chris Metzen and VP of game design Rob Pardo.

What's so exciting about StarCraft II's single player?

"Well, I think the biggest thing for us is the ability for you to choose missions as opposed to on a single rail right and the ability tocustomize your technology," Browder said to us. He thinks "those two things are the biggest things that allow the players to have a different gameplay experience then a lot of other RTS'es have given in the past."

In terms of single player aspects of RTS games, they are usually pretty linear and StarCraft II will try and change that. He said games that take you "straight on a rail" can be fun, "but its on a rail." With the added options for players, you can also choose just how much of the story and the universe you want to take part of. It "allows the players that are really fanatical about the lore to get very deep into the story," while at the same time giving gamers that just want to play the missions "the service level information and move on."

"It was more of a reaction to WarCraft III, honestly" Metzen, the loremaster of Blizzard, told us. WarCraft III and its expansion features a story that is very much embedded into the missions. It has alot of content, but also a completely linear progression. "So we took a few steps back looking as we built StarCraft II," he said. "We identified pretty early that we wanted the feel different." With a system where a player choose his own story "route", it's important that their context is not as immersed in the story. "We wanted the mission dynamics, the mission objectives and the amount of story happening to feel distinctly different from WarCraft III," which is why the team built the Story Mode.

Compared to StarCraft I and WarCraft III, Dustin thinks the big difference is the ingame cutscenes "to get a lot of details of the story we couldn't have done back in the day." The technology didn't exist back then "you either had to do a full pre-render or you had to do an 'in-mission cutscene' which didn't look very good," and was pretty limited. "There is a lot of background and a lot of action which we can see in these characters because we can do these ingame cutscenes. It gives us a lot more freedom to tell a lot more story then we ever could before."


So, how will the missions work in StarCraft II?

Browder said "I think I am most happy with the diversity of missions". All "-Craft" games [WarCraft, StarCraft] have had great diversity, but the team "makes sure that each mission is its own little mini game" in StarCraft II where each mission is unique. Browder said "each one of these mission could be a mechanic for a whole game but we make it just for one mission."

[Browder is quite excited talking about the game, talking really fast,waving his hands]. "We've got missions on lava worlds where you're fighting against rising lava all the time; we've got missions where you're stealing relics from Protoss; we've got hold-outs against the Zerg."

When picking missions, Blizzard don't want players to just pick between what race they should play: "Each mission should feel like its own custom experience," according to Browder, "that really gives you a chance to try out some new mechanics and play a crazy little mini-game each time you sit down to play a mission." There will always be "something that keeps you on your toes and keeps you thinking creatively and thinking differently when you come to each mission."

Our dear lead designer said the game is currently about 30 missions,which might change a little before release. 19 or 20 of those as part of the "critical path" of the story, but "that will also grow or shrink as we get closer to shipping and make more decisions."

"But we have a Battle Report screen I think is enabled in the build you are playing right now," he told us. It's a console on the Bridge in Story Mode "where you can see a whole list of the movies you have seen and a list of missions that you have played so you can play them at will. If you choose A we also put B in that list for you."

If you play these missions, they will not affect your continuity, but are there if you are curious of what happened in the other mission. "So you don't have to do like some "save game shenanigans," where you save, choose, play, load," he said.

The campaign is very individual, and because of this "there is no co-op campaign."

For the completionist who want to play all missions in their own continuity, "you could do it if you play the whole game twice and see everything," Dustin said, but most will likely just use the Battle Report console.

What was your thoughts behind the start of the campaign?

"It's a funky start right?" Metzen asked back. "It's a strange thing. We've always wanted to construct something that wasn't [a] typical video game intro," he said. "I wanted you to get a slow start in these characters."

Blizzard didn't want this story line to be "the same old same old thing," but as a top industry game developer expectations are always high, and it'sa fine line between doing somethign different and disappointing the fans who just want to blow things up.

Action components are very much needed. In either way Metzen told us "it's an experiment to start of a little slower. It has been interesting to see the reactions. A strange experiment, so we are still kind of: "Whoo, please work!", you know? But it has been a lot of fun."

So, what is this Story Mode then?

The Story Mode in StarCraft II is there to "pull a lot of character interactions out of the map experience and put them in their own space," according to Metzen who said the team wanted the game to have a bit of own sense of self: its own vibe. The intent from Blizzard is to give the space RTS "a little bit more retro than WarCraft III", which basically was a RPG in the shape of an RTS.

"It's a little more like adventure gaming to a degree," he told us."It's a little more ambient. You can click on objects and get information about the characters, the history, without it being this linear gameplay in front of you." Blizzard wanted to build a very different world that was attractive to the team. "So we are stilltrying to nail it in and figure it out."

The story mode in Wings of Liberty is either in a small bar on the desert planet Mar Sara (for the first three missions), or the interior of the massive spaceship Hyperion. This is "where you come in between missions to interact with characters, buy different technologies and make some choices about which mission you might want to take next," Browder explained. "One of the critical components of this space is that you can click on all of these characters and have conversations with these characters and learn a lot more about the StarCraft universe."

The original plans was for the Star Map on the Bridge of Hyperion to work as an encyclopaedia for all things related to StarCraft, but Blizzard is "doing a whole different UI for the planets," according to Dustin. Metzen explained the team "wanted the interface to be as clean as possible," and the team "pulled a little bit more away from the grinding 'Encyclopedia Galactica' idea. It just didn't take the shape that we were anticipating."

Blizzard feel "less is more" in this instance and the game "still got alot of lore based on the planets and their histories and their unique environments," according to Metzen. "There's some data there that gives you a sense of the context of each planet." Dustin also mentioned the interiors of Hyperion is full of people and objects to interact with for more background information.

Browder gave us a quick mention of all the Hyperion locations: "Now one of the first places you are probably going to go to when you come back to story mode from a mission is going to be the Armory. What you can do in the Armory is you can purchase different types of technologies to upgrade your units.

"Another place the players will often go to is the Cantina. In the Cantina there is lots of stuff you can do. This is a kind of storycentred kind of place. On of the most important things about this placeis this TV screen which gives you news reports. You can also come in here and buy mercenaries.

"Another location on the Hyperion that you might be visiting pretty frequently is the Lab. You can come here and see how your research is progressing. So you go out and you'll look for alien organisms that you have to find and collect. Once you find enough of them you'll unlock an upgrade.

"So once you're done with the Lab, the last place you're probably goingto go to is the Bridge. In the bridge we've got access to our mission selection. From here you can choose which kind of mission you want to do next. Between the Armory and this, this is the heart and soul of our story mode environment."

There is currently no way to undo tech choices, respecs if you will, and the team is currently discussing it. "There is all kinds of reason not to do respeccing," Browder told us. He don't want players feel they have to "respec" for every mission, but "at the same time, if you actually make a mistake you may want to get rid of it. So there is not a clear answer as to which way is better." The team is looking for somesort of clear answer. "So once we figure it out, we will go with it, but we are still debating it."

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