Dustin Browder On Relearning RTS Design

[Daishi]

When Gamasutra asked Dustin Browder if he brought anything from his previous work on RTS titles to the table at Blizzard, he replied,

At the end of the day, no. Not a damn thing. [laughs]

At the end of the day, I learned nothing. I thought I was more prepared than I was when I came here, because I'd made RTS games at that point for five or six years. I thought, "Okay, I've got some chops here," but Blizzard is really its own beast.

...I had to relearn kind of all the basics all over again, because the games that I'd made before were fundamentally not designed be an e-sport. They were not designed that way.

The article goes on to uncover some aspects of the complex design process for Starcraft II. As development for both games wraps up in 2010, we'll get to see whether Wings of Liberty, designed to target the opposite side of the spectrum, will appeal to more gamers in the States than Tiberian Twilight.

Dustin Browder was lead designer of Red Alert 2, Generals, their respective expansion packs, and The Battle for Middle Earth while working for Westwood/EALA, and is currently working as lead designer of Starcraft 2.

Link

[Statalyzer]

That kind of increases my interesting in Starcraft II knowing that the lead designer was the same guy who designed RA2.