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UC Berkeley Offering Starcraft Course
The Tumeroks blog reports that the University of California, Berkeley is now offering a class on Blizzard's Starcraft real-time strategy game. "This course will go in-depth in the theory of how war is conducted within the confines of the game Starcraft. There will be lecture on various aspects of the game, from the viewpoint of pure theory to the more computational aspects of how exactly battles are conducted. Calculus and Differential Equations are highly recommended for full understanding of the course. Furthermore, the class will take the theoretical into the practical world by analyzing games and replays to reinforce decision-making skills and advanced Starcraft theory."
It's a "DeCal" class run by students. Although a decal class requires a sponsorship from a professor, it is neither taught nor closely supervised by a professor.
the Balanced Annihilation mod really lets you enjoy strategy to a decent level of detail, while slashdot readers should really have a look at the geeky Kernel Panic mod ...
cheers from XXX ;^)
with due rezpect to LAP, eXe and others
starcraft has been patched and refined so many times since 1998 that it is a near perfect example of balanced strategy which requires long term planning as well as short term planning, instant decisions and twitch.
there is no 'annihilation' mode in starcraft. you have to carefully craft your strategy.
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In tetris, you often have to make complex decisions: getting single lines quickly or more lines later on.
Should you create a 'bad' line (piece does not fit)(to fill in later) or make future shapes less likey to fit.
ERR 411[Max number of witty sigs reached]
And unless you're playing one of those lame unlimited resources maps stealing drones or SCVs is useless. It's almost always a waste of time and resources.
If you had four buddies colluding in a 3v3 then you weren't really playing the game, you were just being jerks. If you had three in a 3v3 (all on one team) then it is a valid strategy. But it should never work against non-newbies since the other team should outnumber your SCVs by the time you reach their bases. Or at least the third target should have real defenses and a strong economy by the time you reach him and be able to counter you easily.
It's actually an even more complex and more interesting thing to study than chess, despite its "humble" origins as just a video game played by the masses. Players have to work with incomplete knowledge (they cannot see all of the opponents' pieces, like in chess). Notice also that opponents was plural -- enemies may turn on each other, or gang up on you. Also, in chess you have time to sit and think (aside from not overrunning the game clock), whereas in RTS games, sitting and thinking is rarely valuable: usually you're better off doing something than nothing at all.
...and that's just from the point of view of a human player. Now, try getting an AI to play an RTS instead of chess, and I think you'll quickly find the complexity of the game to be quite a challenge.
Unfortunately you are anonymous, but in case you read this:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/games/7eaa/
Is this the game? I just chose an online retailer, there are probably brick and mortar stores.
This is the company that makes the above one:
http://www.khet.com/
Perhaps you are thinking of this: http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/games/7eaa/
Cause that's where the non-professional journalist / not-even-amateur blogger submitter got the story. Duh. Easiest answers are usually the best.
I feel a little nerdish for doing this, but....
There's no such thing as a Robotics Lab in Starcraft. There is, however, a Robotics Support Bay and a Robotics Facility, but those are Protoss buildings. Having a Terran and a Protoss prerequisite makes so sense. Perhaps you meant a Physics Lab? Now if you excuse me, I have to dodge the incoming projectiles that have been thrown at me by people who don't give a shit.
*ducks
Abaddon: An Xbox 360 Indie game
The class website has already posted the first three weeks of homework assignments, and the syllabus. There are sections for notes and for classwork, but they are blank. From the syllabus, this is the projected course load:
(Tentative) Course Outline:
Week 1: Orientation / Competitive Gaming Industry Overview / * StarCraft Boom in Korea
Week 2: Units, Strength, Weakness, Attributes, Stats
Week 3: Fighting Micro and Unit Use
Week 4: Army Movement and Positioning
Week 5: Expo and Macro
Week 6: Building Placement and Base Layout
Week 7: Scouting and Counters
Week 8: Harass
Week 9: Overloading the Enemy, Multi-plays
Week 10: Economic Basis, Micro vs Macro
Week 11: Timing and Evaluation of Resources
Week 12: Deception
Week 13: Mindset and Series Play
Week 14: Tournament
About the use of the campaign editor, I think it's likely that they will make use of it briefly to outline specific situations. However, there are third party starcraft map editors that are more powerful than the built-in one, and for any custom maps, it's likely that SCMdraft will be the map editor of choice. Based off of the course syllabs, my guess is that they will focus on pro maps both new and old, and all-time favorites.
This sig is neither interesting, nor humorous. Including meta-humor.
Ahem, this is untrue. The zerg could capture Terran command centers thus creating zerg human hybrids that you could run in to enemy units and blow themselves up. I think the grand parent was thinking of Command and Conquer though, where taking over buildings was possible.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com