Fans are never shy of criticizing Blizzard teams. And while it's tough to imagine the intense scrutiny doesn't affect developer sanity to some degree, StarCraft II lead designer Dustin Browder can say for a fact his game is better for it.

I asked Browder how that feedback factors into Blizzard development during an interview at the company's headquarters last week. Other topics included Battle.net, the singleplayer content, and the decision to keep StarCraft II looking like StarCraft.

Shack: I played a version of StarCraft II two years ago, then last year, and now today. With the game being in a playable state for so long, obviously this has been a considerable iterative process for you guys. How has the experience been on your end?

Dustin Browder: Hard. [laughs] Yeah, it's easily the most challenging development environment I've ever worked in. It's really exacting. We're really focused on quality, and that doesn't mean--when I first thought about, I want to work at Blizzard, it's going to be so cool--I thought we would make the game and then polish it. But no: we polish it. That's what we do.

We make and polish at the same time, as we go. So you don't get to jam in a bunch of stuff, and then just redo it. I mean, you do that, but you fix it as you go, so it's always currently the highest quality experience we can figure out. So you're always a minute away from being done--not really, but you know what I mean? You're always trying to make it as strong as you possibly can. You're always arguing about the smallest detail. You're always working on the littlest, tiniest thing you can think of to improve the game.

I can't tell you how many times--we have selection geometry in the game. When you do a click, we don't test against every poly in the game. It would be insane. We have a sphere, or a square, or a variety of shapes that surround each unit, so that we test against a smaller set of polygons so that it doesn't consume our performance every time we make a click. Um.. I can't tell you how many times I've stared at that. [laughs] With every unit up on the screen, and just.. [gasp] "That guy has a little corner sticking out! I should be able to click on that! Why can't I click on that?" And we do that again and again and again as we go through.

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You know, if the Probe has an ear that's sticking out, and you click on that and nothing happens, you're not going to care. But if everything in the game has that, you're going to care. You're going to start to think--maybe you won't know that the selection is crappy. Maybe it's just like, "This game doesn't feel good." And maybe if you're more skilled, "This selection is bad." And if you're awesome, "The probe selection is bad." So we have to work on every tiny detail as much as we can, and it's exhausting.

Shack: How much is this a reactive process--in other words, based on feedback you're receiving--and how much is it internal polishing?

Dustin Browder: Some of both. Obviously right now before beta it's mostly us, with some reaction. After beta, it kind of goes the other way. Right now we're definitely doing most of the stuff internally, with some external feedback. Obviously we watch the boards and a lot of sites, including our own of course, and we kind of see what people are seeing, and try to understand what their concerns are. And we try to make a decision, are those concerns real, or is it because they haven't played the game yet? And that's the toughest call right now.

When we go to beta, we won't have to answer that question. We'll know then for sure that he just doesn't like it. And that's an even harder choice at that point--well, he doesn't like it, but if other people like it, what do we want to do? But we definitely look at the boards to see what's going on out there, and a lot of the stuff that people are worried about, macro vs. micro decisions--

Shack: Mutliple building selection..

Dustin Browder: Yeah. What do we say? Do we agree? Do we not agree? What do we think? We watch it very carefully.

Shack: Taking that specific issue, is that something you were greatly concerned about already?

Dustin Browder: I would say that the community in many cases has definitely raised our enthusiasm to solve a certain problem. We were always aware that macro and micro was a problem that we wanted to deal with. Their enthusiasm for it made us more enthusiastic. While we were always aware that multiple building selection and some of our other automated features was a concern, their concern raised our enthusiasm to deal with the issue, and certainly influenced what we were looking at doing.

Unfortunately I can't say, "They told us to do that and we did it," which is what everyone wants to hear. At the end of the day that's not usually what happens. We usually end up taking it and saying, "They said to do this, but we think this will solve that issue, or one part of that we don't care about, but this part is huge."

Shack: The graphical iteration seems like another place where the fans may have had some impact. The game certainly looks more grimy than it once did.

Dustin Browder: I think so. I mean you can ask our art guys, but I think the fan reaction was part of it. There was internal reaction as well. We were like, "Ehh, our stuff looks a little too shiny." Then the fans kind of dogpiled. So like I said before, the fans don't really force our hand, but they definitely get our attention. We're like, "Oh.. we agree." [laughs] You know what I mean? "Yeah.. you guys are right. You guys are right!" And that's totally good. It gives us additional pressure to sort of do it.

Shack: That kind of improvement seems like a nice byproduct of your development process. As much work as it must be to keep the game constantly up to spec, the fact that you do have something current and fairly robust to show off allows people to have that reaction.

Dustin Browder: And allows them to comment in a way that feels legitimate. Like, "I don't like the way that looks." It's like, well, that is the way it looks. Maybe you don't like it, but.. some people we do disagree with.

The team colors were a big contention. I think generally, not that we can't be convinced--somebody on the boards will blast us--but I think it helps a lot. It helps a lot, and I don't think it looks that bad in-game. But a lot of folks don't like it. So we're not always in agreement with the community.

There are definitely times where the community says, "You should do this," and.. look at the WoW forums. If you look at the WoW forums, WoW is the worst game ever made. I don't agree. [laughs] I think WoW is really cool. If six people bought it, I would still think that is a cool game. We won't always agree with the community, but at the same time they definitely have an influence, they definitely have a voice, and it's a voice that's been very helpful to us.

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