War on Terrans

Definitely - not just on the achievement system, but all of the learning from World of Warcraft is a big factor in StarCraft II, and certainly with the Battlenet experience. The social of WoW are such a big part of it.

There's a lot of collaboration between the strike teams, where developers on other teams take a look periodically at what other teams are doing and provide feedback.

In fact one of the engineers that worked on the achievement system for World of Warcraft also contributed to the achievement system for StarCraft II.

Battlenet is definitely our platform. It really depends on the game - I think for StarCraft II it's a little bit more challenging to figure out how you'd integrate that, but with World of Warcraft we're in beta right for remote access to the Auction House.

What that means is that with your mobile device, or web-based browser, you can connect to WoW and access the Auction House. For free you can browse, and with additional costs to your subscription we actually allow you to place items there for sale, as well as bid on items.

For us, looking at things like web browsers, mobile devices and social networks, it's about identifying what we can do within the scope of those things to enhance the gameplay experience that we already provide through our game clients and platforms.

It's a differentiator. The ability to be able to integrate the platform into the game is really what differentiates Battlenet from other services that act more like a shell on top. The examples would be the unlockable decals or portraits you get in the game for earning achievements - certainly the ladders and match-making are StarCraft's specific functionality.

I would definitely say it's about the functionality we want to implement and deliver to the fans. If we're developing Battlenet, our platform allows us to prioritise the future sets, and the order in which we want to deliver them to fans - and not be subject to the mercy of whatever else people are doing.

Not right now - no plans. But if you look at the micro-transactions for World of Warcraft as an example, as much as possible, we're not trying to do anything that impacts the gameplay experience, or affects the integrity of the game world at all.

I think micro-transactions probably don't make sense for a game like StarCraft II. Unless we decide to do something much more extensive with player profiles, then maybe we'll evaluate it.

But for me personally what I think is most exciting and what I want to see implemented and executed on well, is the StarCraft II marketplace - we talked about it at Blizzcon, where the community makes its own maps, and has the mechanism to distribute those maps to the rest of the community.

Historically, with a game like Warcraft III there's no easy way to get your map into the hands of the community.

The latest is that we submitted an updated build, and it's received a 12-plus rating.

Well the biggest factor is that if you have an 18-plus rating, it's really hard to get the game into game rooms for people to play - and that's where a lot of people play games. So we want to make sure that we can get the game into as many people's hands as possible.

You know what? We submitted a build with changes, and they didn't really tell us what the big difference-maker was. We're just happy to get the rating.