Can Blizzard top itself with 'StarCraft II?'

Speaking of secrets, what is your timeline for release for “StarCraft II?”

It’s a secret! I can give you the old Blizzard mantra of: “It’ll ship when it’s ready,” but it’s something that historically, we’ve learned to keep release dates really close to the vest. I think all game developers are extremely optimistic, and we used to give optimistic dates and we’d disappoint our fans when we didn’t hit them. So now, I think we’ve just gotten more gun shy. The only thing I can give you [that’s] concrete is it’s not going to be this year. Some people were hoping, because of how advanced the game looks, that we’d have it out by Christmas, but that’s definitely not happening.

That’s a pretty long development cycle, if you started work on “StarCraft II” in 2003.

Different companies have different philosophies on how long they spend on products. I think we…have smaller development teams than other companies in the industry, and that turns into longer development cycles. We’re very iterative in our approach to game development. We can really look at the game and make really big decisions on redoing whole aspects of the game.

“Warcraft III” as an example: About two years in, we overhauled a large portion of the game because we just felt like we were going in the wrong direction. We’re able to do that because we have smaller teams and we give ourselves time to iterate through the product. You see a lot of companies that are so focused on the release date that they put 100-person, 200-person teams together to hit that date, and at that point you’re really the runaway train. You have to hit that date and live with decisions that you might not have been 100 percent happy with. We take the opposite approach.

You’re never going to be 100 percent happy with anything you do. How do you scrap something and change direction without it being demoralizing to the team?

It’s a challenge. But that’s the discipline, and I think the results speak for themselves — even though, a lot of times throughout the process, it’s a leap of faith that [the process] is going to result in a quality product. But when we hit that ship date and we have our champagne party and it blows up, everyone’s like “Oh, now I get it.”

Are all of the key roles filled on the “StarCraft II” team? And what’s the size of the team now that it’s in full production?

All the key roles are filled, and we’re running approximately 40 people.

Are the teams pretty even at Blizzard?

“StarCraft II” is actually one of the smaller teams.

How many people work there?

Worldwide, it’s approximately 2,000 — and the majority of that is support for “WoW.” Development is really a small subset of that [2,000] number.

The real-time strategy field is crowded right now with quality titles like “Supreme Commander,” “Company of Heroes,” and “Dawn of War.” How will “StarCraft II” distinguish itself?

We’ve definitely never been shy to go into a crowded field, especially a genre that historically we’ve been one of the kings of. “StarCraft II” will distinguish itself really well through online play. We’re building it to be the best competitive RTS on the market. RTSs, especially the ones you mentioned, are focused on single-player only.

We really are hoping to innovate more in the single-player [game] than we have in the past — we’re just not releasing details about it yet. But our story and our world and our IP [that] we developed in “StarCraft” is superior to what we’re going to be competing against.

“StarCraft II”s biggest competitor probably is “StarCraft.” How will you top that game and convince players that this isn’t just “StarCraft” in 3-D?

Blizzard Entertainment The advanced 3D engine in "StarCraft 2" can support hundreds of on-screen units, along with special graphics effects.

That’s a really good question. It’s not so much beating “StarCraft” that’s the problem, it’s beating people’s perception and nostalgia of “StarCraft.” “StarCraft” was and is a great game, but it’s certainly an older game. Across the board, “StarCraft II” is a better game in a lot of ways.

Will it live up to that nostalgia? Time will tell.

What new technologies can players expect to see in “StarCraft II?”

The first one is an enormous graphical improvement by going to 3-D.

We’ve also added things like a physics system in the game…we’re not really utilizing it for gameplay as much as for graphical improvement. Like, you’ll see things like debris that will actually fall apart, which adds more immersion and a lot more realism.

Online, we’ve learned a lot. In the original “StarCraft,” there was no online matchmaking system. That’s going to be huge…for “StarCraft II.” In “Warcraft III,” you had to press the “play game” button and it’d put you in a game with similarly skilled people. We’re going to do yet another improvement on that system for “StarCraft II,” which is going to be huge for the online market — especially broad market users.

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