Kevin 'Karune' Yu has visited the Games Convention 2008 in Leipzig, Germany.

Of course Blizzard had a booth on the largest gaming fair across europe, where visitors were able to play  the StarCraft 2 Alpha and WoW: WotLK Beta versions.

We had the possibility to have a little chat with Karune about the convention and StarCraft 2. Beta date appearing? Unfortunately not. But loads of personal information.


MyStarCraft.de: Hello Karune! Even though most of us already know you I would ask you to introduce yourself to our community.

Kevin 'Karune' Yu: Well my name is Kevin and I guess you guys probably know me as Karune and I do community management for StarCraft 2. It's been quite a bless so far here at Leipzig.

What are your tasks at blizzard?

Like a lot of the community managers for World of Warcraft and such we are really trying to build a very lively and driving community for StarCraft 2 to be a very positive eSports game as well as a community building game as well to really build a surrounding around the actual game itself so we are really interacting with a lot of fansites, talking to a lot of fans making sure that they also get their input heard on the game that you know is been anticipated for 10 years as a sequel. It's been again really really fun.

We're here on the games convention in Leipzig. Did you even have the chance to watch all the stuff that is provided on this fair and what is your impression of this exhibition

I haven't already seen everything out there yet, I mean there are really so many things to see in these five halls with the main one. Leipzig is quite an amazing convention hall.  Seeing everybody out here especially on the weekend is been quite a sight. I mean it’s a lot bigger than even what E3 used to be. It's really quite amazing it's great to see all the german fans out here in one place to be able to check out all this games. Honestly is 's been quite a bless. I haven't quite seen again all things out there but I definatly look forward to check it out later once we're done.

We have a lot of people at the booths that are watching the programs especially at the Blizzard booth. It's really crowded here and hard to get through. Did you even see any reactions of the people at the GC? Are they satisfied with the program you’re providing. You can play SC2 and WOTLK, the beta version of the WWI. What do you think how the people find this?

Honestly I really do think they’re enjoying it quite a bit. I’ve been able to talk to a few of the fans already. It was a little more difficult to communicating with them but all the people I did talk to really love the game and they were glad to be waiting in the long long queues that we do have know just to be able to try out starcraft for even I think like 15-20 minutes each round. Almost all of the feedback I've gotten is  they’re really loving, everybodies waiting for the game to come out. Same thing with the beta. There's a huge anticipation to actually see the WOTLK trailer that was released in Leipzig too. So there's really overwhelming and positive reaction from the crowd. That’s really great.

And you have the possibilty to watch a liveraid with SK Gaming and things like this. That’s really great for the crowd I guess. Let’s get to the topic of SC2. What do you think are the main differences between the original starcraft and the second part?

Well I know it’s definately been a huge challenge especially for Dustin to reimagine Starcraft and to really be able to bring back a lot of what Starcraft 1 feel the competitive nature in the game into SC2. I think they’ve been doing a wonderfull job. Obviously it’s still work in progress there’s still work on it and they’re making tons of changes. Hopefully by the time we get to beta you guys will be really happy with the state of the product in beta. And into beta we will get a lot of feedback from a lot of the fans, including eSports community, pro players and so forth. Hopefully it will be everything you guys are really anticipating.

And you’re providing a lot of information for the different fan sites and for the community. Was this specifically planned before or didn't the public relations department just realize that their collegues talk so much?

I think a really big thing that Blizzard is already pushing a lot is empowering the community. Once the community really takes things on their own they really bring it to places that a lot of people don’t really expect. It’s one of the great things about blizzard I think is the fact that we are very real about the game what you seee that’s what it is we’re not gonna try to sell you something that you don’t want for sure. You are the guys out there playing the games and those are the people that their voices need to be heard and to be really represented. I think the fansites and the community in general is been doing a great job  of really form the passion I think that’s what all of us at Blizzard are already doing as well. It’s what we wanted to do when we’re playing games. That’s what we’re doing now.

we still have 3 races in sc2, the zerg, the protoss and the terrans. They got a lot of changes and new units and stuff like that. The zerg got the queen, the protoss the warp. What do you think is the main feature of the terrans?

The dropship is something that I think is quite underestimated. The dropship and also the medivac which is the medic right now provides a lot of mobility for the terrans. And those dropships heal like twice as fast as medics back in  Broodwar. So they’re really quite lethal and the marines themself I mean all the units kinda have more hitpoints now, they’re a lot stronger. A lot of people underestimate it especially if they haven’t played the game hands on.  We’re granting this still a lot of balance but I think there’s a lot of potential there to see those drops. Every race like you said really has an additional aspect of mobility like the warp and the nydus canal where you can move you’re whole entire army across the nydus canal. We’re still gonna have to see what everybody makes of these mechanics but it seems very promising so far.

Do you actually work together with the professionals of the original StarCraft or even the WarCraft III Scene to improve Starcraft 2?

Yeah definately. We’ve already been talking quite a bit with the professional players for both WC3 and for Starcraft but honestly most of the cooperation is going to be in beta where we really invite them to play and give us lots of detailed feedback. But they have already played so far at events like WWI, they’ve played at BlizzCon and so forth. Most of the reactions have been pretty good and again their voice is very important to us as well because they will be representing the game on the big screens. 

We had three big announcements in the past year, not only Starcraft 2 but WOTLK as well and Diablo 3 recently in Paris. The hype about SC2 got less with the announcement of D3. How will SC2 again be as interesting for the players after the announcement of D3, because I think many people just think hooray D3, I will definately play this.

Well, one of the things that I think isn't quite true is Starcraft 2 beeing somewhere lost in there. StarCraft still has a very very strong following  and the people who love it, I mean RTS is still pretty significantly different than an RPG. So people will definately follow and are still very excited for it. I don’t think Diablo really takes away from that. And Diablo could be a very awesome game aswell but with each of these franchises there’s definately huge groups of fans. A lot of crossover aswell. So I think it’s gonna be just as exciting, it’s gonna be great.

Did you even have the chance to play Diablo 3?

Actually no i haven’t really got a hands on time with diablo 3 i mean for starcraft it’s been pretty busy just to keep up the starcraft 2 changes that are going on and every single week ther’s like new changes and so forth. I definately want to get around to it i’ve talked to Jay Wilson and some other guys. They’re always telling me always great things  about the game and it looks great from wwi. Hopefully i’ll get myself in there one of these days.

Back to StarCraft 2. What do you like most in Sc2?

Well personally one of my favorite things ist hat i think that the development team has done a such a great job of making each of the races feel so powerfull. There’s new mechanics, like you know protoss  for example having warpin, being able to warp in your army and to really surprise the enemy in many different places. Protoss is usually considered a slower faction in the original StarCraft but I think this new added sense of mobility really is intimidating. It’s a different type of intimidating than like a shuttle whith the drop and kinda things but it’s still quite the same that where you have to make sure you’re always covered, you’re always scouting, you’re always watching and so forth. And I think they’ve done a great job of adding this type of element to all three sides in a very unique ways as well. The game definitely still feels very StarCraft but the new elements they’re introducing really go along with what’s already there quite well.

The protoss have the mothership. There were many changes with this unit in the past months. What do you think what role has the mothership know?

Well currently it’s a very support role. It’s able to kinda recall you’re army to the motherships position. It’s a slower, very slow moving unit that’s also very powerfull as far as hitpointswise. So it’s a great unit to support you’re army. We are moving are kinda moving away from the original mothershop having the black whole, planet cracker and so forth. But who knows, I mean a lot of these abilities we’re still playing with them a lot we’re still balancing and we gonna find the best place for the mothership. Currently we’re testing that support role and it seems that goes.

With every week we’re moving towards the beta. Can we get a specific date or is it still closed?

Unfurtionately you know we at blizzard  do well of these dates but when it’s ready for beta it’s gonna be out. We do wanna make sure that the game is quite playable and we can make he most use of the feedback especially for a lot of the balance and stuff. Finding that magic formular of those units so they’re working together in a way that’s very positive to make the game both competitive and fun. Fun for new people that are just joining in, fun for the people who already been playing StarCraft very hardcore. Once the dev team is confident enough that they have that down than I think that’s when beta is gonna kick around.

Can we expect any new announcements at the blizzCon this year?

It’s definitely one of those things where we have to wait and see but historically at blizzCon we have talked about a lot of new things so I think it’s defiantly worth keeping your eyes on blizzCon for sure.

Were looking forward to the new information which will be provided in the coming weeks and months concerning all the games blizzard develops at the moment. Thank you for this interiew

Thanks a lot.