Interview With Alan Feng of Starcraft College Class Fame

An anonymous reader writes "GosuGamers has posted a very interesting interview with Alan Feng, talking about the course he is teaching on game theory when applied to Starcraft at the University of California at Berkeley. We discussed early news of the class back in January. 'I studied what I knew: history and mathematics. With my fairly good mathematics background, I came up with all sorts of equations, tables and charts to give me the best result in every case. For instance, I once worked out using the binomial theorem that it is slightly more beneficial to send new workers to the *edge* of a mining line rather than the center. Over the course of maybe 3 minutes, this kind of movement will let you mine about 300-500 more minerals than you normally would. Ultimately, I failed at my pro-gaming bid, but, my year of study of StarCraft gave me something that I think no other SC player can offer the academic world: rigorous proof and analysis. And because of my calculations, my proofs, and most importantly, the way I can connect these calculations to real-life examples I was able to present it in a way that Haas Business School would accept as a topic for teaching.'"

Comments

Life - what life?

[Nasajin]

I really, really hope that we'll be able to apply a lot of this stuff to SC2 since it would be a shame to have SC1 be such a perfect reflection of life.

I don't know about you, but I wouldn't be using Starcraft as a metaphor for my life. I find the real world to be a lot more like Diablo. Persistently equipped with sub-standard equipment, battling hordes of the walking dead, and never enough money.

Re:Life - what life?

[RuBLed]

Are you implying that beer = potions? I'm with you on that one then.

Re:Life - what life?

[flyingsquid]

Portal. Endlessly jumping through hoops and they keep raising them higher and higher. You're promised it will all be worth it if you can navigate through this fiendish maze... but after a while, you start to wonder, what's the purpose of it all? Is your promised reward just a lie?

Interesting Stuff

[Sparton]

I actually saw some of this a few days ago on David Sirin's Blog, and found it quite interesting. There's a fair bit of looking into the design of the game, in addition to the micromanaging for more competitive players. A worthy read for a system designer.

AI in RTS Games

[SpottedKuh]

Anyone interested in the serious (mathematical, formal proofs, etc.) side of RTS games may find the following an interesting companion read: ORTS. The goal of this project is to develop an RTS platform that can serve as a testbed for real AI research. In other words, a supercomputer could play against you, or even help you by controlling some of your units (roll your own client).

I'm not involved with this project in any way, but it looks pretty exciting. It looks like a bunch of people who contributed to this project wound up at Bioware.

Re:I 3 Starcraft

[stafu]

A- or above on ICCup or it never happened. :)

(ICCup)

Starcraft relies a lot on clicking fast

[averner]

While Starcraft isn't mindless, clicking quickly is an important skill. It's as much of a sport as a strategy game.

On one hand you have games like Chess, Go, and Wesnoth, where you think about your move, then perform it in a manner that does not rely on lightning reflexes. On the other you have games like first-person shooters, fencing, basketball, and hockey, where reaction speed is very important.

But in the middle lies Starcraft. While claiming Starcraft is a pure click-fest is a bit of a stretch, it does rely partially on reflexes. If Starcraft is to be studied academically, sports theory is as important as game theory. Otherwise, purely turn-based strategy games are probably better for this kind of analysis.