At BlizzCon we had the chance to sit down with David Kim, the Lead Multiplayer Designer on StarCraft II. With the multiplayer side of the game having received it's first major patch since the release of Legacy of the Void we talked about what it was like working on the game from the days to Wings of Liberty to today, how the team interacts with the community, and what it would take for an AI to beat the world's best StarCraft II player.

It was a fun, involved discussion, and one that fans of the game will definitely want to check out.

There’s no doubt that StarCraft II’s multiplayer is quite complex. Shifting gears a bit, with the recent announcement of Blizzard’s partnership with AI researchers Deepmind, do you think its feasible for an AI to beat a pro human player?

There seems to be a split opinion, because some people think along those lines. That StarCraft II is such a complicated game that it would be hard for an AI to play it. And I kind of lean on that side. On the other hand, if you had no restrictions on the AI I don’t think a human could beat it. For example, no matter how good a human is it’s physically impossible for a person to micro across multiple different screens. Because you can only really look at one screen. But with an AI, if you have no restrictions then it could be micro-ing perfectly in ten different places. So, there would have to be some sort of level playing field. Let’s say an AI was carrying out two different marine drops across the battlefield and micro-ing them all at the same time perfectly, then to viewers that would look like…

Like cheating?

Exactly, so as long as restrictions and rules are set then I think it would be very difficult for an AI to beat the best human player in the world.

Click Here for the Full Talking StarCraft II Multiplayer with Lead Designer David Kim