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Blizzard Embraces The Rush In StarCraft II
If you've ever played StarCraft multiplayer, then you're probably familiar with the concept of a Zerg rush -- when a competitor in a multiplayer StarCraft match attempts to end a match early by throwing tons of low-level units at their opponent's base. If you're a proponent of this tactic, you're sick and cheap, and I don't want to talk to you. However, Blizzard themselves may not mind so much.
Recently we interviewed StarCraft II design director Dustin Browder and asked him about some of the imbalance issues that Blizzard has been trying to solve with the beta going on right now. Surprisingly, Browder revealed that although they want to solve serious imbalances and make sure there are counters in place for any strategy, the developer is not at all against users developing clever rush strategies.
From the interview:
"We also want some of these rushes to be possible. A lot of players will look at that and say, 'Well, that's just broken. Why don't you just beat that out of the game so it's not even possible?' But for us at Blizzard, we really embrace the rush. For us, the ability to win or lose this game at any time is one of the things that makes it so exciting, that makes it such an intense emotional experience. There are definitely players out there who don't want that intensity in their lives. I understand. They're like, 'I don't want to lose a game, thank you very much, let alone in the first 20 seconds.' But we feel like that's part of what makes the game really exciting."
"Because when you see that load screen end, you know it's on. Every move you make for the next fifteen minutes could determine your victory or defeat. We definitely embrace the rush, we just want to know that some of these strategies are as easy to block as they are to do. When we see a strategy that's really easy to do but very, very difficult to block, that's when we have a problem."
What are your feelings on rushes in real-time strategy? Frustrating? Part of the fun? Or just a fact of life?
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