Samwise Didier - Page 2

Will you go entirely back to the drawing board completely with the next expansion?

Yeah, but the thing that is kind of fun about it is, it is going to let us take a break from the typical Terran grit and grime and chunky heavy metal kind of stuff. We are going to be able to embrace this more fluid, organic, spiky kind of horrific-looking vibe. Now who knows where Kerrigan will be standing watching the news if that is even part of it. But we can go from a TV screen that is all infested over or something that is more organic. It is still kind of open. I am kind of looking forward to jamming on those ideas and seeing what we can come up with. We really don't have a lot of that done right now.

We have ideas, but it is a lot cooler to just kind of wait until we are ready to start jamming on that than to start working on something and then it either gets put in and everyone is like, "Oh yeah, we have a better idea," so that was kind of wasted. I want to focus all the guys, what they are working on now, on getting out the Wings of Liberty. If we have three more weeks, then I want three more weeks of art put into the single player missions to make planet Kastenar that much more different than Valhalla and Altheon and stuff like that.

So when the delay was announced officially, were you glad to have more time to put into it?

You know at the end of all this, it doesn't matter. Well it matters, but whether Starcraft 2 comes out now or six months from now, three years from now when you are playing the game still, you are not going to say, "Oh yeah. I remember that game was delayed for X amount of months." You are just going to be going, "God, this game kicks butt!" Right? It is the same with a lot of our games. People have had to wait for our games, but it seems that is the way to do it, because you are going to keep playing them, right? I mean people are still playing the original Starcraft, still playing Diablo, still playing WoW. And WoW originally came out, what, almost five years ago?

I mean we have expansions and stuff, but by waiting, by making these games good, it is worth the wait. You are going to come back to it. It is like you go to a restaurant and there is a 45 minute wait, but if you get the best chow in the world there you are going to keep going there. You aren't going to go to some place that sucks. Our games can't suck. They got to be awesome.

So what was you background before you came to Blizzard?

I studied in the halls of the of the Orange mall movie theater. I drew Conan on the back of the bathroom check logs, swept up popcorn, and cleaned up Coke spills. All that led to me opening for Ozzy. I started thinking, "I can be playing for Ozzy instead of doing this." And that was the start of everything.

How long have you been at Blizzard?

Since '91.

So quite a while.

Yeah, the Jurassic period.

So what do you tend to play if you are not working? I know you guys are busting your butts right now, but do you play games at all on your own?

Yeah, yeah. I haven't played WoW in a couple weeks or a month just because I haven't had a lot of time. I just got done playing Prototype, which was really fun. It had a lot of the elements of GTA, which I love, combined with the Spawn character type things; awesome.

And an Activision title, we might add.

Oh, that is right! Yeah, it was fun. And I have been actually goofing around on the ... god, here is another plug, the Warcraft Peggle.

Peggle is addictive.

I never really played Peggle before, right? Love, absolutely love Left 4 Dead. Can't wait for the new one to come out. Other than that it has just mostly been ... now when I come home, because I finished up some games, I mostly draw now. It is nice. I sit in front of the computer and I go, "Well I can either be playing Left 4 Dead again or whatever ... Peggle, or I could be drawing."

Are you a pen and paper guy or do you use a Wacom tablet and a computer?

You know it just depends on where I am at. When I am hanging out with the kids or whatever, I am drawing on a big sketch pad and I will scan that in later and either color it or leave it pencil and paper. Or if I am up in the computer area with all the people hanging out, I will just start coloring on something that I had started or sketch something. Yeah, it just kind of depends. I really love pencil and paper because it has that feel. But otherwise I will just do something in Photoshop for fun.

Cool. Well, thanks man, and break a leg or a larynx or whatever tonight.

Thanks!