光头：《星际争霸2》是一款更灵动的游戏

Browder: 'StarCraft II is a more mobile game'

在对很多职业玩家进行采访后，是时候对星际2的基础开发者们进行一些采访了。Gameinformer与自由之翼的首席设计师光头(Dustin Browder)坐到一起谈起了这款暴雪即将发售的即时战略游戏。光头提到了很多细节，关于最近封测的情况，关于他们对于正式版的一些计划。同时他也给我们分享了一些他的团队在开发SC2过程中一些有趣的怪癖。

After tons of interviews with pro-gamers it was time to get back to the very designer roots of StarCraft 2. Gameinformer sat down with Dustin Browder, Wings of Liberty's lead designer, to talk in large about Blizzard's upcoming RTS. Dustin discusses in great details the current state of the beta, their plans for the full version and also shares some interesting quirks his team has had during SC2's development.

Gameinformer首先问起了星际2与其前作的总体差异，光头提到了游戏本身的物理特性。

Gameinformer open up with a question about the overall differences between StarCraft 2 and its predecessor and to answer that, Dustin refers to game's physics itself.

-“显然，星际2是在很多方面都是比星际1更灵动的游戏。这一点我们可以从兵种和能力的多样性看出来。游戏中有很多灵活的选择，体现在舞蹈般的移动和紧张的攻防转换之间。我们经常看到大量大量的玩家在对抗的时候巧妙操作以抢占地形，选择合适的时机包夹对手，截断后援或者阻止对手逃跑。”

- “Obviously, StarCraft II is a more mobile game in many ways than the original StarCraft was. This is in some ways a function of the types of units we have. There's a lot of mobility in this game in terms of moving and dancing, attacking and retreating. We're seeing lots and lots of dancing between players as they vie for position, as they try to get in good flank attacks, and as they try to get in behind their enemies and prevent them from escaping.”

光头说起了诸如warp rush（曲光战机或是折跃门？）等一些特定的战术，这些原来在母巢之战中是不可能的，现在却明显的改变了这个游戏的思路，也给设计小组带来了大量平衡性的问题。不过有趣的是，还有很多灵活性和对抗中的自然而然的平衡是在最初设计的时候始料未及的。

Browder mentions some certain tactics, like warp in rushes for example, that weren't really possible in Brood War and that have obviously changed the way the game is played and also put a lot of balance questions in front of the designer team. Interestingly, though, all that mobility and the nature of the match-ups were not initially intended.

-“星际2的创作过程与其他即时战略游戏甚至魔兽3的创作过程都大相径庭。我们最初并未在脑海中设定任何目标，我想这一定让粉丝们抓狂吧。我们只是告诉自己‘我们要弄出一堆很酷的兵种，让他们每一个都看起来尽可能的酷，然后我们再来考虑怎么让他们互相打打杀杀，然后再根据需要进行调整。’因此我们一开始就没打算对什么种族特别做什么。我们的目的就是要让兵种都变的尽可能有趣，尽可能特别。以此我们也可看到各种族的演进和变化。”

- “Our creative process on StarCraft II was very different than the creative process I've used on other RTS games I've worked on or even on WarCraft III. We didn't set out with any goals in mind, and I'm sure that this will upset the fans terribly. What we did instead was that we said, "We want to make a bunch of cool units, and we're going to make each unit as cool as we can possibly make it, and then we'll see how it all works together, and we'll tune as necessary from there." So it was never our intention specifically to do anything exactly with the races. Our goal was to make the units as interesting as possible and as different from one another as we possibly could. From there we could see how the races changed and evolved.“

光头进一步解释说，正式这种做法导致了某些兵种的淫霸和比赛中兵种组合缺少变化的问题。然而，这位开发头头还是乐观的认为这种设计理念会在游戏最终成品里大放异彩。

Dustin further explains that precisely this approach has led to some unit imbalance and other gameplay issues like the lack of diversity in the zerg army composition in many match-ups. However, the lead designer is positive that the meta design of the game itself will lend colour to the final product.

-“星际与其他即时战略游戏有一些微妙的区别在于我们的游戏中确有一些三角制衡关系。但是我们还要努力协调很多的关系——特别是一些早期兵种——使其可以通过微操发生改变。”

- “StarCraft is a little different from other RTS games in the sense that we do have some triangles in the game, but we also try to make sure that a lot of the relationships -- between a lot of the early units, especially -- can be changed fundamentally with micro.”

-“我们可以看到自己所做的大量工作。一些游戏注重宏观，一些游戏注重微操。我们的目标是将两者结合起来。如果你是虫族玩家，可以选择成为运营型或者微操型虫子，或者介于两者之间的什么虫子。这对于大家来说都是一个很吸引人的理由，如果可以选择成为不同类型的选手，意味着即使是虫族内战也会打得像不同种族对战一样，因为也许我是偏重于经济运作而你偏重于战术变化。”

- “We see ourselves as doing a lot of everything. Some games favor a macro gameplay, and some games favor a micro gameplay. Our goals are to have both be possible. As a Zerg player, you can choose to be more of a macro Zerg player or more of a micro Zerg player, or anything in between. The reason this is so interesting for us is if we have that kind of choice for players, it means that even in a Zerg versus Zerg game, I could fundamentally be playing a very different race than you're playing because I'm playing a much more economy-based game, and you're playing a much more tactical-based game.”

随着采访的进行，大家又聊到了更多有趣的话题，其中一个就是新手入门教程的问题。如大家所见，光头和他的团队已经制作了一个20+小时的手把手教程，放在单人战役的最开始，以教会玩家基本的单位操作和资源采集，同时适应整个游戏界面。然而，这还只是教程中的一小部分。

As the interview progresses, more and more interesting topics are being discussed and one of them is the introduction of new players to hardcore high-level gaming. As it seems, Dustin and his team have created a step-by-step procedure, starting from as far as the solo campaign, which, with its 20+ hours of gameplay, will teach the player some basics about unit counters and resource gathering and will make them comfortable with the whole interface and the game overall. The campaign, however, is just a really small part of the tutorial process.

-“我们给自己一个挑战目标，那就是通过10个地图来教会玩家在线对战所需的基础。他们将教会你如何应对各种rush，教你如何发展经济，教你对抗三个种族的基本策略，还教你堵路口，总之教你各种对战中所需要理解的基础。”

- “Then we've got our challenges. Our challenges are about ten maps that teach you the fundamentals of online competitive play. They teach you how to defend against rushes. They teach you how to build up your economy. They teach you some of the basic counters for the three races. They teach you how to block your choke. They teach you all kinds of stuff that you will need to understand on some basic level to play in the competitive environment.“

-“另外我们有5级难度的AI供你挑战以学习你的种族。”光头继续揭秘他更大的计划。“显然在人族单人和多人游戏中会有一些差异的，如果你想了解虫族或者神族，你可以通过SM各种AI来学习。”

- ”Then we have five different difficulties of AI that you can play against to learn your race” continues Dustin, revealing his much larger plan. “ Obviously the race in solo play for Terrans is a little bit different from the race in multiplayer. If you want to learn Zerg or Protoss, you can go to those AIs and battle it out against them.”

在广泛的话题谈论中，光头还借机回忆了星际2开发早期的事情，他发现有一些很奇妙的事情，当初看来莫名其妙其实本身是非常非常有趣的。

Among the above widely discussed topics, Dustin Browder grabs the chance to get back in the early days of the StarCraft 2 development and he reveals some quite curious facts, that would currently seem baffling and really, really fun.

-“原来的那个腐蚀者把单位杀死以后可以将其感染成一个对空单位来射击敌军。你会看到一架维京覆满粘液向其他的维京射击，那些孢子还湿哒哒的往下滴。这简直太TMD酷了！太有虫感了，绝对恶！我非常想念那个单位给我带来的震撼，但是我只能说，那个东西实在太纠结了。”

- “We had a Corruptor at the time that every time it got a kill, it would turn that kill into a flying corrupted thing that would shoot at enemy forces. So you'd see a Viking that was all covered in slime and it'd be shooting at other Vikings and all these spores would be coming off of it. And it was really crazy cool! It felt so Zerg-y, it was so awesome! I definitely miss that vibe from that unit, but I gotta tell you, it was just chaos.”

-“玩虫族的时候你会碰到一种叫孢子兽的东西然后说，‘NNDX，这就是一个女妖吧？’我们尽力把她修改得像一个真正的高速女妖，她也确实像，‘额，伙计，但也不过是个女妖。’并没有从根本上改变其作用。我们有一些东西带有很多搞怪成分，这样可能更新鲜，但并不一定更乐趣。”

- ”You'd play as the Zerg with something called a Spore Beast and we'd say, "Oh my god, this is just a Banshee, isn't it?" We'd try to tune as like a really fast Banshee, and it was like, "Okay, dude, but that's still a Banshee." It hadn't fundamentally changed its role. We had some stuff that was a lot wackier, that felt more new but wasn't necessarily more fun.”

-“我们曾经在雷神背上配了巨型加农炮，超远程而且还片伤，那个看起来粉凶悍。可是这样一来就把攻城坦克挤到了很尴尬的位置上，有了雷神就不需要坦克，有了坦克就不需要雷神。”

- “We had these big cannons on the back of the Thor that did massive, long-range AOE [area of effect] attacks because that looked cool and it sure was fun to play with. It stepped on the Siege Tank in the worst way. You really didn't need a Siege Tank if you had a Thor, or if you had a Siege Tank you didn't need a Thor; one or the other.”

而且，显然单位修改已经成为星际2发售前开发小组不得不集中精力认真实现的主要目标。同时这也大大有助于从封测到最终产品的计划。光头还举了一些例子说明如何打断rush建筑顺序，另外解释了最近评论中提到的在两个镜像单位对战时由于光线问题难以辨别自己单位。

In addition, it becomes obvious that those changes are intertwined with more serious matters concerning the goals that lie ahead of the team prior to StarCraft 2's shipping. They also greatly contribute to the team's current impressions from the beta so far and their future plans about the final product. Dustin also gives specific examples about some broken rush build orders and the recently commented by Light problem about how hard it is to distinguish your units when two mirror armies clash.

-“一直以来我们不断严格严格再严格的要求，现在我们终于可以把这个激动人心的产品展示在大家面前。然后，我们要开始着眼于如何继续改进她了。”

- “All of the time, we were just getting it tighter and tighter and tighter, and now we've managed to get it in front of the community, which is really exciting. Now we're starting to see where we can continue to improve it.“

以上所有的话语，都越来越清晰地表明暴雪真心为我们奉上一款精雕细琢的，和母巢之战一样出类拔萃的，并再续其时代辉煌的游戏。

With all the being said, it is clearer and clearer that Blizzard would really like to give us as much polished product as possible which is distinctive from BroodWar and similar to it at the same time .

-“当载入画面结束的时候，你就知道有多飙了。”

- ”When you see that load screen end, you know it's on.”

goatton@163.com：翻译水品有限，附上原文请各位大大拍砖。

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