EsportsJohn Profile Blog Joined June 2012 United States 4833 Posts #1



BlizzCon Interview

with Matt Morris



StarCraft: Brood War is without a doubt the greatest competitive game of all time. Nearly twenty years after its release in 1998, it's still being played competitively around the world by seasoned pros and challengers alike. It’s the game that jumpstarted esports in Korea and paved the way for the current esports landscape across the globe.



But if we’re honest, the game hasn’t aged well. Despite an active ladder supported by a dedicated community of followers, issues like port forwarding, lack of OS support, and an outdated resolution continued to plague users and prevent newcomers from enjoying the game experience.



That’s where StarCraft: Remastered came in. Ten years after the last balance patch, Blizzard picked up the game and decided to update it for modern computers and even took it a step further with a complete graphics update.



However, the last seven months after release have been a rocky, bug-ridden ride full of complaints. While numerous threads have popped up discussing the remaster and its successes and failures, no one has really been able to speak directly to the devs and get their thoughts. Luckily, while I was at BlizzCon, I got a chance to sit down and talk to Lead Designer on the Classics team, Matt Morris, to understand what his goals are and what we can expect as a community.







StarCraft: Brood War is without a doubt the greatest competitive game of all time. Nearly twenty years after its release in 1998, it's still being played competitively around the world by seasoned pros and challengers alike. It’s the game that jumpstarted esports in Korea and paved the way for the current esports landscape across the globe.But if we’re honest, the game hasn’t aged well. Despite an active ladder supported by a dedicated community of followers, issues like port forwarding, lack of OS support, and an outdated resolution continued to plague users and prevent newcomers from enjoying the game experience.That’s where StarCraft: Remastered came in. Ten years after the last balance patch, Blizzard picked up the game and decided to update it for modern computers and even took it a step further with a complete graphics update.However, the last seven months after release have been a rocky, bug-ridden ride full of complaints. While numerous threads have popped up discussing the remaster and its successes and failures, no one has really been able to speak directly to the devs and get their thoughts. Luckily, while I was at BlizzCon, I got a chance to sit down and talk to Lead Designer on the Classics team, Matt Morris, to understand what his goals are and what we can expect as a community. Miscellaneous

The Classics team has about 25 people on it.



Nobody knows the game better than the community.

“One of the biggest things for the devs was to always listen to the community because nobody knows these games better than the community.”





Goals

The original goal for SC:R was to update it for newer computers and eliminate the “tech debt”. This includes things like port forwarding, optimization for newer versions of Windows, etc.

“The original goal for StarCraft: Remastered was servicing the game. This was one of Blizzard’s pinnacle esports game. It’s a classic...so StarCraft was something special to the company.”

“We were starting to learn that some of the newer computers—some of the newer hardware, some software—just couldn’t run the game, and this started to become problematic...and then questions started being asked, ‘Is there something more we can do?’



As they delved further into alleviating the tech debt, they decided to add more things like 16: 9 widescreen resolution, updated graphics, matchmaking, observer mode, hotkeys, and integrating it into the “Blizzard ecosystem”.



Morris believes the team did a good job based on the original goal. Since release, the goal posts have moved further, and the team has struggled to identify and fix the issues.



No one is happy with where they’re at right now, and they have plenty more to do.

“No one on the team is 100% happy with where we’re at right now. That’s why we’re still working on it, we’re still trying to make some updates, we’re still trying to fix the hardware, we’re still working on the turn rate. We’re getting there.”



They are still focused on keeping the core gameplay intact.



Matchmaking

The Classics team isn’t done with matchmaking yet and are constantly working to improve it. Matchmaking is at the top of their list.

“We realize there’s still some issues there that we need to clean up there with the global matchmaking. It’s been a bit of a challenge for us...we’re still not done. There’s still some room for improvement there, and the guys are aware of it. They’re not just like, ‘nailed that one’.”



The league/ladder system for SC:R was designed as an experiment. More to come, including matchmaking up to 4v4.

“We don’t have the league system in yet. Right now, it’s the Frontier League. So it was kind our idea that this was the ‘beta’, so to speak. And so, that’s still not there. That’s coming around the corner. We want to do matchmaking for teams. We want 2v2 matchmaking, 3v3, 4v4. We want to start doing all that stuff, so...the team’s not done with the game.”



The goal for 2v2 matchmaking is sometime in 2018, no specifics.



Complaints about SC:R

Morris does not consider the current iteration of SC:R to be a “beta” but rather the best representation of what the pro players in Korea wanted.

“I wouldn’t say this has been an open beta. If there’s any disappointments, then their expectations were a little off-aligned from what our goals were, and our goals were to talk to Korea and the pro players in the scene who have really been holding up this game for us for so long. We were locked in sync for over a year going over to Korea often...for our expectations, we matched that, but the rest of the world has different expectations than what Korea had.”





If people are disappointed in SC:R, it’s probably because their goals were off-aligned with what the dev team’s goals were.



The Classics team worked closely with Blizzard Korea and the Korean pros to decide what to implement into the remaster.



Now they’ve shifted their focus to address what people in the West need including ping issues (dynamic turn rate).

“Korea was happy-ish. They liked it, and then the rest of the world started adding players to it, and now we’re listening to what they have to say, and a lot of those expectations were, ‘We’re okay if you mess with the game a little bit. We want a little bit better experience instead of a true 1:1 classic experience.’ So we’re having to weigh those two.”







Ping Issues

The team is aware of matchmaking issues due to the global pool of players. Blizzard is the only team that has done true global matchmaking so far.



Dynamic turn rate introduced—”we’re still not done yet”



Blizzard issues are not compatible with third party solutions.

“I can’t really speak to how those other platforms [Shield Battery, Fish, other latency-reducing platforms] have dealt with their issues. I know that in all my experiences on dev teams that as they start building their tech infrastructure, there’s always [different problems]. My problem would be definitely different from your problem even if we’re working on the same thing just because of the way you put things together, and that slowly tends to start moving things out of whack, so to speak.”



Blizzard is aware of communities and groups like Shield Battery and Fish and willing to talk to anyone who wants to talk to them.

“We’re well aware of these groups. We talk with them, we communicate with anyone who wants to talk with us.”





Hotkeys

It was assumed that hotkeys were a standard quality of life change, but pushback forced them to reconsider.

“We had a list of things that we’d want to do, what we kind of identified as, ‘this is not necessarily messing with the core gameplay, but [something] we felt like most games out there have’...like observer mode, the matchmaking, and when hotkeys came up, we were like, ‘oh yeah, of course you’d want hotkeys’. We thought that was the norm, but then later on, we find out it’s not the norm.”



All of the pros they talked to didn’t mind the implementation of custom hotkeys.

“Once we started talking about it, we got a lot of pushback. So we really had a hard look with them. We actually went back to Korea, and we got a lot of these pro players—because we were at that point where we were pretty far along, and we wanted to make sure that the game was [playable]. So they got to play it, and we would ask these questions about hotkeys down the road with all these guys, and they were all like, ‘it’s fine.’ But the forums and everywhere else had the perception that this would be awful and that certain pro players would start dominating.”





Warcraft 3

WC3 is receiving several updates to maps and items as well as some QoL patches.



The Warcraft community seems more open to core gameplay changes compared to the StarCraft community.







A huge thanks to Team Liquid for giving me the opportunity to interview Matt. He's an incredibly tall guy with lots of personality. I also want to extend a thank you to Back2Warcraft for helping me come up with a wall of Warcraft questions—it's a shame that I wasn't able to use them, but I hope we get to see something cool for Warcraft 3 very soon!



Banner credit: BlizzPro Banner credit: BlizzPro





Strategy

EsportsJohn Profile Blog Joined June 2012 United States 4833 Posts #2 Originally I was going to do a full writeup, but the combination of money woes + complete and absolute burnout post-BlizzCon prevented me from getting this done on time. To speed up the process and make sure that I got something out, I used a notation form which should be pretty straightforward. Strategy

TT1 Profile Blog Joined December 2008 Canada 9483 Posts #3 Thx for doing this, getting a time-frame for 2v2 matchmaking is new info. Don't think they ever mentioned that they'd do 3v3 and 4v4 matchmaking either. ab = tl(i) + tl(pc), the grand answer to every tl.net debate

mrwhite- Profile Joined March 2016 55 Posts #4 Thank you for sharing this interview with us. I think, what is happening atm is very interesting! Follow me on Twitter for relevant Warcraft 3 news: http://www.twitter.com/d4rkwc3

HaN- Profile Blog Joined June 2009 France 1822 Posts #5 Not sure how 3v3 4v4 is going to work.



The player base is divided between those who wants to play only on Hunters and those who also wants others / new maps and then you have the BGH / Fastest players.



I think they should make all the options available. Calendar

Radivel-X17 Profile Joined January 2006 Canada 137 Posts #6 Very interesting and a good update. Nice! X17 is still active, you know. But not really for BW, just in general. Check my profile for info, or join our Discord at https://discord.gg/dez6nHw

castleeMg Profile Blog Joined January 2013 Canada 697 Posts Last Edited: 2017-12-09 03:00:27 #7 its nice to see that they are actively working on the game but am i in the wrong if to be still upset about the game where its at? i mean how hard is it to launch a 2v2 and 3v3 ladder using the same format that the 1v1 uses and does a connection test between players, i notice on ps4 CoD and other games it will sometimes say checking connection to other players.... in the game lobbys before placing you into a game. im not sure if that is a latency test or just making sure u can get other players ips. im no computer wiz and i know nothing about creating games and making networks for them so its a little ignorant for me say this, but how did warcraft 3 have a well made 2v2 3v3 4v4 ladder in 2002 and it seems like the SC:R team is having an incredibly hard time keeping broodwar on the road, let alone making a team ladder... i know i sound bitter and stuff but am i not in the right?? it seems amateurish of them to be at this state 4 months after official launch AKA: castle[eMg]@USEast/ iCCup

ProMeTheus112 Profile Joined December 2009 France 1590 Posts #8 I think its natural that warcraft 3 players are more open to core gameplay changes because warcraft 3 is a great game but it feels like it has a few issues and could be even better

killanator Profile Blog Joined January 2008 United States 549 Posts #9 What foreign players did they talk to that are "okay if you mess with the game a little bit. We want a little bit better experience instead of a true 1:1 classic experience" DJ, put it back on!

CHEONSOYUN Profile Joined August 2017 367 Posts #10 :/



Whatever happened to Blizzard Soon?

It's not ready until it's ready; ready being absolutely polished. JAEDONG...!!! EFFORT IS ANGRY. ZERG...?!

Endymion Profile Blog Joined November 2009 United States 3670 Posts Last Edited: 2017-12-08 22:48:02 #11 On December 09 2017 06:29 killanator wrote:

What foreign players did they talk to that are "okay if you mess with the game a little bit. We want a little bit better experience instead of a true 1:1 classic experience"

they probably read the tl forums, there were tons of arguments (and still are)



edit ~ to the team's credit, latency in remastered is insanely good right now if you get into the right lobby. some of the lobbies feel just as good as lan, despite being US to korea or US to euro. i still can't even whisper people or access my profile though they probably read the tl forums, there were tons of arguments (and still are)edit ~ to the team's credit, latency in remastered is insanely good right now if you get into the right lobby. some of the lobbies feel just as good as lan, despite being US to korea or US to euro. i still can't even whisper people or access my profile though Have you considered the MMO-Champion forum? You are just as irrational and delusional with the right portion of nostalgic populism. By the way: The old Brood War was absolutely unplayable

Endymion Profile Blog Joined November 2009 United States 3670 Posts Last Edited: 2017-12-08 22:48:10 #12 double post.. Have you considered the MMO-Champion forum? You are just as irrational and delusional with the right portion of nostalgic populism. By the way: The old Brood War was absolutely unplayable

killanator Profile Blog Joined January 2008 United States 549 Posts #13 On December 09 2017 07:40 Endymion wrote:

Show nested quote +

On December 09 2017 06:29 killanator wrote:

What foreign players did they talk to that are "okay if you mess with the game a little bit. We want a little bit better experience instead of a true 1:1 classic experience"

they probably read the tl forums, there were tons of arguments (and still are)



edit ~ to the team's credit, latency in remastered is insanely good right now if you get into the right lobby. some of the lobbies feel just as good as lan, despite being US to korea or US to euro. i still can't even whisper people or access my profile though they probably read the tl forums, there were tons of arguments (and still are)edit ~ to the team's credit, latency in remastered is insanely good right now if you get into the right lobby. some of the lobbies feel just as good as lan, despite being US to korea or US to euro. i still can't even whisper people or access my profile though



I guess I don't see them...arguments for what exactly? Like people argue for multiple buildign selection, >12 unit selection etc? I generally see people not ever wanting that. I guess I don't see them...arguments for what exactly? Like people argue for multiple buildign selection, >12 unit selection etc? I generally see people not ever wanting that. DJ, put it back on!

fazek42 Profile Blog Joined April 2011 Hungary 423 Posts #14 On December 09 2017 07:40 Endymion wrote:

Show nested quote +

On December 09 2017 06:29 killanator wrote:

What foreign players did they talk to that are "okay if you mess with the game a little bit. We want a little bit better experience instead of a true 1:1 classic experience"

they probably read the tl forums, there were tons of arguments (and still are)



edit ~ to the team's credit, latency in remastered is insanely good right now if you get into the right lobby. some of the lobbies feel just as good as lan, despite being US to korea or US to euro. i still can't even whisper people or access my profile though they probably read the tl forums, there were tons of arguments (and still are)edit ~ to the team's credit, latency in remastered is insanely good right now if you get into the right lobby. some of the lobbies feel just as good as lan, despite being US to korea or US to euro. i still can't even whisper people or access my profile though



They are no arguments about having the classic 1v1 experience, it's just that we want other things on top of that as well (most of which we already did have with launchers). It's kind of silly to say that it's only the foreign community who wants these extra things, seeing that the koreans absoutely want it as well. Also kind of silly to not call it an open beta when it obviously was / kind of still is; but this is not to say that they aren't going in the right direction and we don't love them for it.



It's really amazing that we have Blizzard devs commenting on TL and it's really amazing that they are listening to us and doing what's best for the community and the game. Good times! They are no arguments about having the classic 1v1 experience, it's just that we want other things on top of that as well (most of which we already did have with launchers). It's kind of silly to say that it's only the foreign community who wants these extra things, seeing that the koreans absoutely want it as well. Also kind of silly to not call it an open beta when it obviously was / kind of still is; but this is not to say that they aren't going in the right direction and we don't love them for it.It's really amazing that we have Blizzard devs commenting on TL and it's really amazing that they are listening to us and doing what's best for the community and the game. Good times!

Jan1997 Profile Blog Joined April 2013 Norway 624 Posts #15 I would love some 3v3 & 4v4 ladder that's for sure. Do something today that your future self will be thankful for.

mishimaBeef Profile Blog Joined January 2010 Canada 2256 Posts Last Edited: 2017-12-09 02:51:06 #16 reaver ai still sucks...



hold position out of range behaviour still sucks...



probably more things that come to mind that they could mess with despite deviating from classic 1:1 experience



oh, start the game with 7 workers is another one



units and spells that are in the game but aren't really in the game... Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself. Go forward and make your dreams come true. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

NoS-Craig Profile Joined July 2011 Australia 2555 Posts #17 Thanks for posting stuff from the interview. Great to hear from a guy working at Blizzard. Warcraft 3 remastered should be fun also. I had a lot of good times playing WC3. Artosis loves Starcraft

Yiome Profile Joined February 2014 China 1687 Posts #18 Tbh the most interesting part is WC3 updates.

Some updates to make the game more friendly to new system would be great, even if it is not a full remaster.



EsportsJohn Profile Blog Joined June 2012 United States 4833 Posts Last Edited: 2017-12-09 08:44:53 #19 On December 09 2017 06:29 killanator wrote:

What foreign players did they talk to that are "okay if you mess with the game a little bit. We want a little bit better experience instead of a true 1:1 classic experience"



Tbh, he's probably referring mostly to community feedback via community sites (pretty much only TL) and ofc, the BNet forums that no one here uses.



Tbh, he's probably referring mostly to community feedback via community sites (pretty much only TL) and ofc, the BNet forums that no one here uses. On December 09 2017 07:32 CHEONSOYUN wrote:

:/



Whatever happened to Blizzard Soon?

It's not ready until it's ready; ready being absolutely polished.



Oh, trust me I got that. The final words of the interview were something to the effect of: "Everything is coming Soon(tm), we're working on it." :p



On December 09 2017 08:06 fazek42 wrote:

Show nested quote +

On December 09 2017 07:40 Endymion wrote:

On December 09 2017 06:29 killanator wrote:

What foreign players did they talk to that are "okay if you mess with the game a little bit. We want a little bit better experience instead of a true 1:1 classic experience"

they probably read the tl forums, there were tons of arguments (and still are)



edit ~ to the team's credit, latency in remastered is insanely good right now if you get into the right lobby. some of the lobbies feel just as good as lan, despite being US to korea or US to euro. i still can't even whisper people or access my profile though they probably read the tl forums, there were tons of arguments (and still are)edit ~ to the team's credit, latency in remastered is insanely good right now if you get into the right lobby. some of the lobbies feel just as good as lan, despite being US to korea or US to euro. i still can't even whisper people or access my profile though



They are no arguments about having the classic 1v1 experience, it's just that we want other things on top of that as well (most of which we already did have with launchers). It's kind of silly to say that it's only the foreign community who wants these extra things, seeing that the koreans absoutely want it as well. Also kind of silly to not call it an open beta when it obviously was / kind of still is; but this is not to say that they aren't going in the right direction and we don't love them for it.



It's really amazing that we have Blizzard devs commenting on TL and it's really amazing that they are listening to us and doing what's best for the community and the game. Good times! They are no arguments about having the classic 1v1 experience, it's just that we want other things on top of that as well (most of which we already did have with launchers). It's kind of silly to say that it's only the foreign community who wants these extra things, seeing that the koreans absoutely want it as well. Also kind of silly to not call it an open beta when it obviously was / kind of still is; but this is not to say that they aren't going in the right direction and we don't love them for it.It's really amazing that we have Blizzard devs commenting on TL and it's really amazing that they are listening to us and doing what's best for the community and the game. Good times!



There is a small inconsistency in his wording which I noticed while transcribing the interview. While he definitely refers to the league system (and therefore matchmaking as a whole) as a "beta", he then backtracks later when I asked him outright if he considered SC:R to be an open beta. Both quotes were printed in the OP.



He could very well have meant that the ranking system in particular was an experiment but considers the whole product a complete experience. It was just a little interesting to me that the word "beta" came up twice with differing responses. Oh, trust me I got that. The final words of the interview were something to the effect of: "Everything is coming Soon(tm), we're working on it." :pThere is a small inconsistency in his wording which I noticed while transcribing the interview. While he definitely refers to the league system (and therefore matchmaking as a whole) as a "beta", he then backtracks later when I asked him outright if he considered SC:R to be an open beta. Both quotes were printed in the OP.He could very well have meant that the ranking system in particular was an experiment but considers the whole product a complete experience. It was just a little interesting to me that the word "beta" came up twice with differing responses. Strategy

TaShadan Profile Joined February 2010 Germany 1944 Posts Last Edited: 2017-12-09 09:21:00 #20 “I wouldn’t say this has been an open beta. If there’s any disappointments, then their expectations were a little off-aligned from what our goals were, and our goals were to talk to Korea and the pro players in the scene who have really been holding up this game for us for so long. We were locked in sync for over a year going over to Korea often...for our expectations, we matched that, but the rest of the world has different expectations than what Korea had.”



Seriously? 1.16 was better in a lot of aspects and now the expectations are too high? This guy is kidding me right?



Actually i am quite pleased about the outcome of the game itself. But the infrastructure like BNET, which is still a buggy hell, is horrible.

I personally cannot play 5 games in a row without getting the error 6:10 message. Total Annihilation Zero http://www.moddb.com/mods/total-annihilation-zero

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