StarCraft 2 - Your Questions Answered

Avalanche Studios has chosen a "generic" US voice for Max from their forthcoming Mad Max videogame. As Aussies and fans of the fiction, we can't let this stand. Sign our petition!

Big Shoes to Fill, Bat Shoes

We have a chat with Warner Bros Montreal about their mammoth task of taking up a Batman Arkham entry. Are they up for the task? Click here to find out!

Preview of A Pirate's Creed

AusGamers takes an advanced look at Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag the popular series' foray into piracy. Click through for both our dev interview or preview

Infinity Ward Interview

AusGamers caught up with Infinity Ward veteran Mark Rubin to talk about Call of Duty: Ghosts. We discuss servers, mods, player handholding and more. Click here!

StarCraft 2 - Your Questions Answered

Post by Steve Farrelly @ 10:38am 27/07/10 | 14 Comments

We attended the very successful launch of StarCraft 2 last night in Brisbane, which drew a massive crowd and showed you could very easily maintain the attention span of some 2000-odd hardcore gamers for more than two-hours. We'll have some awesome video of the night coming up soon, but today Dan and I will be heading out to catch up with SC2 producer, Kaeo Milker, to talk to him about everything StarCraft 2, Blizzard and Battle.net.

What we want from you, is any questions you'd like answered during said interview. And remember, this guy has been living and breathing this game and Blizzard lore in general for a long time, so it doesn't matter how hardcore your query is. Drop us a line in the Comments section to shoot us a question to throw Kaeo's way.

Also, be sure to check out two new SC2 vids we've posted up today: "Campaign Overview" and Battle.net Overview".

blizzard starcraft 2 kaeo milker

Link

slamma
Posted 11:30am 27/7/10

yeah ask him to get their shit together with diablo 3

Link

FaceMan
Posted 11:45am 27/7/10

60 days is too long.
I can play the old SC on US Servers right now.

Link

Phar4oh
Posted 11:51am 27/7/10

I'm curious if bringing the game to the consoles is on the cards, and if so; has cross platform play been considered?

Link

Phar4oh
Posted 11:56am 27/7/10

I also want to know why Blizzard focuses on PC gaming while so many other companies see the console market as the cash cow (considering also how testing becomes more simplified on consoles due to standard hardware specifications). This seems to be becoming more rare.

Link

Phar4oh
Posted 11:58am 27/7/10

also, when are blizzard going to create a Starcraft themed FPS? it would be like a successful AVP...lol

Link

Hogfather
Posted 12:05pm 27/7/10

I also want to know why Blizzard focuses on PC gaming while so many other companies see the console market as the cash cow (considering also how testing becomes more simplified on consoles due to standard hardware specifications). This seems to be becoming more rare.

Because Blizzard make a ridiculous amount of money with their PC titles, with franchises (mmo and rts) that just don't translate well to the console. The strategic tie with authenticated online play makes piracy a non issue. I don't think they would save much in testing costs (certainly not as a percentage of the project budget anyway).

Link

Methz
Posted 12:11pm 27/7/10

I think if you do some digging on the interwebs there's an interview with one of the senior WoW dudes and he talks about why their focus is pretty much solely on pc.

Link

Carson
Posted 12:11pm 27/7/10

I also want to know why Blizzard focuses on PC gaming while so many other companies see the console market as the cash cow (considering also how testing becomes more simplified on consoles due to standard hardware specifications). This seems to be becoming more rare.

Because PC > conslols.

Link

Phar4oh
Posted 12:55pm 27/7/10

"Because PC > conslols."

Not from a development point of view. With PC's, you have to worry about performance scaling, different GFX cards, drivers, retarded user configurations, operating system security models etc

With consoles, you create 1 version for 1 hardware spec, test it, it works? slap it on a disc and feed it to the masses. Profit.

Link

ara
Posted 01:00pm 27/7/10

I also want to know why Blizzard focuses on PC gaming while so many other companies see the console market as the cash cow (considering also how testing becomes more simplified on consoles due to standard hardware specifications). This seems to be becoming more rare.

premiss is false.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/07/01/epic-its-a-myth-that-weve-abandoned-the-pc/

Link

konstie
Posted 12:59pm 27/7/10

With consoles, you create 1 version for 1 hardware spec, test it, it works? slap it on a disc and feed it to the masses. Profit.

not if your game is a piece of shit

Link

ara
Posted 01:03pm 27/7/10

I'm curious if bringing the game to the consoles is on the cards, and if so; has cross platform play been considered

haha. http://www.rahulsood.com/2010/07/console-gamers-get-killed-against-pc.html

There was a project that got killed at Microsoft. This project was designed to allow console gamers and PC gamers to interact and battle over a connected environment. Personally I wish it would have stayed the course. I've heard from reliable sources that during the development they brought together the best console gamers to play mediocre PC gamers at the same game... and guess what happened? They pitted console gamers with their "console" controller, against PC gamers with their keyboard and mouse.

The console players got destroyed every time. So much so that it would be embarrassing to the XBOX team in general had Microsoft launched this initiative.

Link

DM
Posted 01:31pm 27/7/10

I'm curious if bringing the game to the consoles is on the cards

Thought they have said before they wouldn't bring WoW to the consoles, so that just leaves diablo and starcraft, both of which I never see going there due to the type of games they are. Diablo did but that was ages ago back in PS1 days.

I also want to know why Blizzard focuses on PC gaming while so many other companies see the console market as the cash cow

I would say it's a few reasons combined. Their battle net system pretty much eliminates piracy when it comes to multiplayer and their games have brutally awesome multiplayer. I personally think the reason though is because they are 1 of the few respected companies left (think what you will about WoW) that people know won't fuck them when it comes to games. People just trust them and whenever they release a new game, all you have to really say is "blizzard have a new game out" and someone will buy it for that fact alone. They are a dying breed of gamers who make games for the PCs first.