Human eye does not see in frames per second. It has a certain data transfer speed, and the way brains process the information is also not as discrete as you might want to wish.
For example, the flicker fusion point (inability to distinguish alternating black and white images) is somewhere around 60fps and the army has done experiments on showing images for a very short time to see whether they could be identified by pilots. The shortest intervals were way less than those postulated even by the flicker fusion point. It also matters greatly how large amount the object moves in your absolute field of vision between frames for your brain to understand motion and simulate smooth movement. Your brain has interpolation algorithms that piece together information streams to form smooth motion.
HDMI is for passive entertainment, not twitch action games. The dynamics and requirements are entirely different, yet you're using them just the same. The standards also exists because of legacy reasons concerning existing video material, processing speeds and data storage limitations of existing media. Compromises to provide best image quality with certain limitations for consumer use. Perhaps you would want to investigate what kind of framerates and response times the US army uses in their remote feeds and huds etc.
You can do a double-blind test with your friends. Normalization can be done between having them use 30 vs 30, 60 vs 30 both ways and 60 vs 60. If you can wait until January (when I have time), I can help. If you really think the results will be news, you may want to publish, but I fear they are not.
No need to use strong language and unbacked opinions. You are simply incorrect.
Put two FPS players of similar skill in front of a computer. Configure the computers so that the other shows 30fps and the other shows 60fps (easy to do in Quake and most other shooters). No matter what you may hope for the truth to be, the player with the 60fps display will have an enormous advantage.
It is extremely easy to test this yourself, just go play a game and record your performance by some metric while alternating the frame rates. I am willing to test it with you, if you wish.
This is highly a matter of preference. I feel that 25fps is just flat out unplayable and anything under 60 is distracting and annoying. I believe that most gamers would agree. I always cut detail and effects to get 60fps, even if this means the game will look like shit. Framerate is life.
So no, based on your description, the top of the previous generation is NOT able to play those games in the environment you defined. You would need around twice the GPU power for that. The benchmarks suggest that 7970 won't cut it either.
This probably isn't worth a post, but I want to give Firefox props for the option of turning that interface off. I did so, and got back the clean and simple interface from Firefox 3.x.
I actually I tend to exclusively use programs that allow this, as Interfaces differing from the visual standard set by all your other programs is distracting.
Yes, but did you note that the institute's press release put the lower bound of the density of that object at that of Platinum. Ie. this is not a real white dwarf, but a remnant of the core of a star. If only a tiny fraction of the original mass is present, as they postulate, I see reason why the remaining matter would be degenerate. The gravity well might not be deep enough for that.
This has no bearing on whether it is actually diamond, though. Your notion of the presence of oxygen is correct and I have no clue what happens to CO-compounds in that kind of pressures.
I don't recall ever being too young to go to the library unsupervised. And yes, Milo Manara and was there next to to Goscinny, Franquin and Herge, though I recall being a bit too embarrassed to read them at the time (this embarrassment didn't last forever, though). I also recall trying to read Sinuhe at the age of 10, though not finishing because the text was so heavy.
Anyway, I'm trying to say that not leaving your child unsupervised in the library because some words are bad and others aren't, seems insane and counterproductive. I'd like to hear even one example of anyone being harmed by reading a book (the Bible and Quaran do not count). What kind of fetish you have for protecting (constricting) your children anyway?
No problem, I wasn't insulted in any way. I stated the comment as a logical fallacy precisely because I knew, that this was going to be said, and that I also consider it the "correct" answer.
What my actual point tried to be, and what some people here already responded to, was that most of the people here using tor don't really have anything to hide and don't seem to have any use for Tor, yet they worry about these things and make their life more complicated for no apparent reason. I see that as paranoia getting in the way of your daily activities or even gnawing at your quality of life. For example, what would these people do if they didn't have tor at some specific machine? Would they just stop using the internet?
A secondary purpose was to get a random sample of reasons people actually have for using Tor. I'll post it here for your enjoyement too:
I counted the "ohnoes my ISP will flag me and my roommates totally sniff my packets all the time" as paranoia. I didn't count non-firsthand usage statements as anything and didn't flag any answers as trolls. The ratio of people who needed Tor versus those who just use it seems to be 5:9 in this sample. Interesting stuff.
I understand that what I'm going to ask is almost a logical fallacy in Slashdot, but I'm going to ask anyway.
Why exactly are you making things complicated for yourself and using Tor in the first place? A person as paranoid as you would use only properly secured banking connections and reputable services anyway, so the chance of any identity theft whatsoever is minuscule. I really can't think of any credible motivation for completely endorsing anonymity except the fear of being caught surfing something explicitly illegal. However, the amount of replies in this thread and their tone suggest, that you can't all be 3rd world revolutionists or Chinese students circumventing the Great Firewall.
Is this just a matter of principle, or do you actually have something to hide? If it's the principle, what are you hoping to accomplish and why? If you're into snuff or whatever, I really don't care, but at least one anonymous reply confirming this would be amusing.
This is not a troll. I'm genuinely interested. Technical answers about repercussions I may have not understood, are not only accepted, but appreciated.
Had I the points, I'd mod you up. I wholeheartedly agree with this, as I remember the kids in my high school (not in America, though) complaining that they would not need whatever what being taught to them at the moment, and that thus concluded that their failure in it was inconsequential.
I never heard people question the importance of learning math, though.
That may be an embarrassment, but 2D Boy still made a million gazillion dollars with a game that was easily available for free, because many people felt that their game was worth the prize they asked for it. Exactly the same is going on now with Minecraft. It simply doesn't matter if a fuckton of people pirate your game, if enough people do decide to pay for it.
The article also mentions, that another data point, a game with DRM, suffered exactly the same piracy figures. The point isn't that 90% of the population playing the game will pirate it, if they can do it easily. It is that 90% will pirate it. Period. How much different do you think it is with movies or books? How many people will loan those from their friends or the library? How many would pay for them, were there no other way to obtain them?
By now I am convinced, that only a fraction of people appreciate CULTURE (games/books/movies/music) enough to pay for it. You cannot force the rest to pay for it anyway, so why bother. DRM offers no benefits for neither the company or the customer.
For reference, these days I own close to 150 games, but many of my friends have bought only a couple. I've discussed this, and the figure was startling for them, as paying for culture sounds alien for them outside some specific titles they appreciate enough (one owns all the Civ games, but nothing else, another owns just Half-Life 2 and some indies). A couple of them are poor enough, that were they forced to buy games, they'd just abandon the hobby entirely.
Army of Two effectively does not have a single player campaign, as the mechanics and design of the game emphasize co-operative play with another male human, with whom you have a healthy, intimate relationship (ie. the aggro/baiting/diversion combat, stage design with split routes, and the blatantly homosexual themes). It plays very well, as both planning and synchronous effort are mandatory to survive most scenes. Having also played Gears of War, which had a much worse mission design, I would specifically recommend Army of Two for these very reasons.
The other games are not built around co-op gameplay, so concerning them your point is valid.
What games, in general, nowadays often lack is a good story, humour, interesting characters etc. A combination of those things, any combination, will do to keep one interested.
This is, of course, a matter of opinion, but frankly, I think game makers should rethink their business strategies. Even though Indiana Jones was just a bunch of pixels in Fate of Atlantis, I still felt the somewhat oppressive and clammy atmosphere in the maze, trying to avoid encounters with similarly pixelated Nazis. That is called immersion, folks. It is what makes any kind of entertainment enjoyable.
I grow tired of having to read this same drivel each and every time there is a game article in Slashdot. Again, I also feel obligated to point out that you are simply plain wrong. Games haven't gone anywhere, it's just that you've taken the wrong train. I have carefully analyzed my own perception of the matter, accounting for my limited ability to experience games nowadays (time), and come to the conclusion that the release rate of culturally important games with a strong story has either remained constant or increased. I could simply paste you a list hundred names long, but anybody can do that - since you've already decided that modern games suck, it probably wouldn't even do any good either.
Yes. Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis was and still is an excellent adventure game. On the other hand, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade always was and still is a lousy adventure game. What a surprise you didn't mention it. This is a simple case of a selection bias arising from your poor knowledge of recent releases and excellent knowledge of releases during your childhood. You simply choose not to correct for the effect of this bias when evaluating modern digital art.
I said I won't paste a list a hundred names long, but what about two? Let's say only from the year 2009. Machinarium The Void
I know I'm probably a bit immature and this is not even on topic, but these posts endorsing or even accepting censorship of the internet always feel depressing. I remember how in my youth, Internet was one of the free territories, disjoint from actual reality - where parents and other boring adults could not function and thus had no authority over.
Sure, I saw my share of Japanese women in dubious activities, but why should anyone care? Seriously. What about the kids of the future? Where do they go if they just want to see some porn or play unnecessarily violent videogames?
I wish more games had the kind of encyclopedia/holodeck that provided information on the game world and history. I know that it's from the RPG, but it was still huge for me, and made a great game even better.
You misunderstood. I was only critizising the rose-tinted glasses old games wear when they reminiscence ancient games and imagine that they really played them for 500 hours. This just isn't true and those games never existed. Take a realistic angle andlook through your own list again. I'm commenting on the first for the sake of example.
- Planescape Torment
~30 hours to finish, each subsequent replay much faster as you skip most of the dialogue (the main content of the game). Considering that the game mechanics in this one are real crap and imbalanced, and that you see most of the story in one go, it doesn't really have that much replay value. Granted, it is one of the best games I've played, but nowhere near even 100 hours of entertainment....
In my opinion, games wherein the plot is not the driving factor (for ex. UFO Enemy Unknown and perhaps Civ games for those who like inane micromanagement) give the best replay value, as you're not just skipping dialogue that you've read multiple times over. These don't last forever either, as all strategy games against a computer are ultimately unsatisfying, but they go a long way if the mechanics are well thought out.
tl;dr: The whole mentality that 50 bucks should buy 500 hours of single player entertainment is deeply flawed and delusional. Yet every time a game article goes up, someone brings it up and starts blabbering about supposed past games that easily fulfilled this criteria. Face it. The only way 50 bucks buys 500 hours of quality entertainment is when you play Starcraft or Tem Fortress or some other title wherein other people supply the competition and social aspect, which game designers are and have always been unable to provide.
I dare anyone to name even one game that fits that dreamy criteria. Nethack and ADOM are the only ones that I can think of which would be even close, but in my experience, the desire to actually beat them all over again arises more from neurosis than how fun it actually is.
I've heard rumors of people like you who equate graphical quality with actual merits, but couldn't find them in real life. However, there you are.
I'm willing to admit that Crysis was fun when you weren't fighting aliens, but the plot damn sure wasn't interesting. Also, like in Far Cry, once the extraordinary elements like mutants and aliens step in, the game just turns into shit. I don't even get it. The game didn't need aliens and Far Cry didn't need mutants. All they did was deviate from the fun of actually waging non-railroaded war in a jungle. Even this no longer feels special, as games like Battlefield Bad Company 2 allow you to do the same with your friends against other humans.
Extremely interesting. What the summary doesn't point out is that the boa had in fact mated with multiple males before this virgin birth, so in fact it could have used the traditional method too. I thought animals only did this when they had no access to sperm.
That is actually very interesting and I did not know that. I assumed that the lack of micro arises from the computers' lack of positional awareness of the game state. Ie. the sense in transfusing with queens or burrowing with roaches heavily depends on the composition of the opposing army and whether he is focus firing, does he have detection available.
In other words, the value of the micro tricks you mention is questionable in the sense, that could you build the AI to be able to routinely create situations where it would be able to exploit those heavily. The only one of your mentions, which I see being totally OP in actual combat situation is the ability to dodge incoming shots with blink stalkers.
A lot of people seem to complain about this and especially about the realtime requirement in strategy, but the truth is that in addition to the kind of economically suboptimal rush build orders you seem to hate, there are strategies designed to securely carry you into the midgame, where the opponent no longer benefits from memorized build orders.
Moreover, the whole gripe seems misplaced, as I doubt that the same players are against people memorizing openings in chess, board states in go or probabilities in poker. It's simply being intimidated by people better in the game than you - being afraid of losing. You must realize that a video gaming company the size of Blizzard is very aware of this, and the whole mentality is precisely why Starcraft has a very friendly ladder system, which tries to match you against people of your own skill level.
There actually is games like that, and has been for quite a while. Oldie strategy games like VGA Planets, which did not have a realtime component at all, had autonomously fought, crudely simulated battles. More modern Play-By-E-Mail -strategy games like Dominions also do this, but include more simulation and a lot more complexity.
Gratuitous Space Battles, on the other hand, is a yet more recent game consisting of nothing but pre-programmed battles on custom-built space ships. Haven't played that, though.
Slashdot Mirror
Human eye does not see in frames per second. It has a certain data transfer speed, and the way brains process the information is also not as discrete as you might want to wish.
For example, the flicker fusion point (inability to distinguish alternating black and white images) is somewhere around 60fps and the army has done experiments on showing images for a very short time to see whether they could be identified by pilots. The shortest intervals were way less than those postulated even by the flicker fusion point. It also matters greatly how large amount the object moves in your absolute field of vision between frames for your brain to understand motion and simulate smooth movement. Your brain has interpolation algorithms that piece together information streams to form smooth motion.
This has some information, but not many references: http://www.100fps.com/
Wikipedia has more stuff and it's a starting point to look for research. Here's some by BBC on fast-moving objects in sports: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/whp/whp-pdf-files/WHP169.pdf
Also, you can test the difference of 30 and 60 fps here: http://frames-per-second.appspot.com/
At least to me, it is blatantly evident.
You were wrong, and acted like an ass over it towards me and other posters. Will you please apologize and shut up?
HDMI is for passive entertainment, not twitch action games. The dynamics and requirements are entirely different, yet you're using them just the same. The standards also exists because of legacy reasons concerning existing video material, processing speeds and data storage limitations of existing media. Compromises to provide best image quality with certain limitations for consumer use. Perhaps you would want to investigate what kind of framerates and response times the US army uses in their remote feeds and huds etc.
You can do a double-blind test with your friends. Normalization can be done between having them use 30 vs 30, 60 vs 30 both ways and 60 vs 60. If you can wait until January (when I have time), I can help. If you really think the results will be news, you may want to publish, but I fear they are not.
No need to use strong language and unbacked opinions. You are simply incorrect.
Put two FPS players of similar skill in front of a computer. Configure the computers so that the other shows 30fps and the other shows 60fps (easy to do in Quake and most other shooters). No matter what you may hope for the truth to be, the player with the 60fps display will have an enormous advantage.
It is extremely easy to test this yourself, just go play a game and record your performance by some metric while alternating the frame rates. I am willing to test it with you, if you wish.
This is highly a matter of preference. I feel that 25fps is just flat out unplayable and anything under 60 is distracting and annoying. I believe that most gamers would agree. I always cut detail and effects to get 60fps, even if this means the game will look like shit. Framerate is life.
So no, based on your description, the top of the previous generation is NOT able to play those games in the environment you defined. You would need around twice the GPU power for that. The benchmarks suggest that 7970 won't cut it either.
This probably isn't worth a post, but I want to give Firefox props for the option of turning that interface off. I did so, and got back the clean and simple interface from Firefox 3.x.
I actually I tend to exclusively use programs that allow this, as Interfaces differing from the visual standard set by all your other programs is distracting.
Lander story time: http://chanarchive.org/4chan/r9k/3823/today-we-tell-stories#3262375
4chan may be the cesspit of the internets, but sometimes they make worthwhile things.
Yes, but did you note that the institute's press release put the lower bound of the density of that object at that of Platinum. Ie. this is not a real white dwarf, but a remnant of the core of a star. If only a tiny fraction of the original mass is present, as they postulate, I see reason why the remaining matter would be degenerate. The gravity well might not be deep enough for that.
This has no bearing on whether it is actually diamond, though. Your notion of the presence of oxygen is correct and I have no clue what happens to CO-compounds in that kind of pressures.
I don't recall ever being too young to go to the library unsupervised.
And yes, Milo Manara and was there next to to Goscinny, Franquin and Herge, though I recall being a bit too embarrassed to read them at the time (this embarrassment didn't last forever, though). I also recall trying to read Sinuhe at the age of 10, though not finishing because the text was so heavy.
Anyway, I'm trying to say that not leaving your child unsupervised in the library because some words are bad and others aren't, seems insane and counterproductive. I'd like to hear even one example of anyone being harmed by reading a book (the Bible and Quaran do not count). What kind of fetish you have for protecting (constricting) your children anyway?
No problem, I wasn't insulted in any way. I stated the comment as a logical fallacy precisely because I knew, that this was going to be said, and that I also consider it the "correct" answer.
What my actual point tried to be, and what some people here already responded to, was that most of the people here using tor don't really have anything to hide and don't seem to have any use for Tor, yet they worry about these things and make their life more complicated for no apparent reason. I see that as paranoia getting in the way of your daily activities or even gnawing at your quality of life. For example, what would these people do if they didn't have tor at some specific machine? Would they just stop using the internet?
A secondary purpose was to get a random sample of reasons people actually have for using Tor. I'll post it here for your enjoyement too:
Illegal activities - 1
Malware countermeasures - 1
Network restriction circumvention (ie. porn) - 4
Paranoia - 4
Principle - 5
I counted the "ohnoes my ISP will flag me and my roommates totally sniff my packets all the time" as paranoia. I didn't count non-firsthand usage statements as anything and didn't flag any answers as trolls. The ratio of people who needed Tor versus those who just use it seems to be 5:9 in this sample. Interesting stuff.
I understand that what I'm going to ask is almost a logical fallacy in Slashdot, but I'm going to ask anyway.
Why exactly are you making things complicated for yourself and using Tor in the first place? A person as paranoid as you would use only properly secured banking connections and reputable services anyway, so the chance of any identity theft whatsoever is minuscule. I really can't think of any credible motivation for completely endorsing anonymity except the fear of being caught surfing something explicitly illegal. However, the amount of replies in this thread and their tone suggest, that you can't all be 3rd world revolutionists or Chinese students circumventing the Great Firewall.
Is this just a matter of principle, or do you actually have something to hide? If it's the principle, what are you hoping to accomplish and why? If you're into snuff or whatever, I really don't care, but at least one anonymous reply confirming this would be amusing.
This is not a troll. I'm genuinely interested. Technical answers about repercussions I may have not understood, are not only accepted, but appreciated.
Had I the points, I'd mod you up. I wholeheartedly agree with this, as I remember the kids in my high school (not in America, though) complaining that they would not need whatever what being taught to them at the moment, and that thus concluded that their failure in it was inconsequential.
I never heard people question the importance of learning math, though.
That may be an embarrassment, but 2D Boy still made a million gazillion dollars with a game that was easily available for free, because many people felt that their game was worth the prize they asked for it. Exactly the same is going on now with Minecraft. It simply doesn't matter if a fuckton of people pirate your game, if enough people do decide to pay for it.
The article also mentions, that another data point, a game with DRM, suffered exactly the same piracy figures. The point isn't that 90% of the population playing the game will pirate it, if they can do it easily. It is that 90% will pirate it. Period. How much different do you think it is with movies or books? How many people will loan those from their friends or the library? How many would pay for them, were there no other way to obtain them?
By now I am convinced, that only a fraction of people appreciate CULTURE (games/books/movies/music) enough to pay for it. You cannot force the rest to pay for it anyway, so why bother. DRM offers no benefits for neither the company or the customer.
For reference, these days I own close to 150 games, but many of my friends have bought only a couple. I've discussed this, and the figure was startling for them, as paying for culture sounds alien for them outside some specific titles they appreciate enough (one owns all the Civ games, but nothing else, another owns just Half-Life 2 and some indies). A couple of them are poor enough, that were they forced to buy games, they'd just abandon the hobby entirely.
Army of Two effectively does not have a single player campaign, as the mechanics and design of the game emphasize co-operative play with another male human, with whom you have a healthy, intimate relationship (ie. the aggro/baiting/diversion combat, stage design with split routes, and the blatantly homosexual themes). It plays very well, as both planning and synchronous effort are mandatory to survive most scenes. Having also played Gears of War, which had a much worse mission design, I would specifically recommend Army of Two for these very reasons.
The other games are not built around co-op gameplay, so concerning them your point is valid.
Parent is still not modded up to 5, so people with the capability should correct this.
Are you seriously implying that the Postal series have been considered good games?
What games, in general, nowadays often lack is a good story, humour, interesting characters etc. A combination of those things, any combination, will do to keep one interested.
This is, of course, a matter of opinion, but frankly, I think game makers should rethink their business strategies. Even though Indiana Jones was just a bunch of pixels in Fate of Atlantis, I still felt the somewhat oppressive and clammy atmosphere in the maze, trying to avoid encounters with similarly pixelated Nazis. That is called immersion, folks. It is what makes any kind of entertainment enjoyable.
I grow tired of having to read this same drivel each and every time there is a game article in Slashdot. Again, I also feel obligated to point out that you are simply plain wrong. Games haven't gone anywhere, it's just that you've taken the wrong train. I have carefully analyzed my own perception of the matter, accounting for my limited ability to experience games nowadays (time), and come to the conclusion that the release rate of culturally important games with a strong story has either remained constant or increased. I could simply paste you a list hundred names long, but anybody can do that - since you've already decided that modern games suck, it probably wouldn't even do any good either.
Yes. Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis was and still is an excellent adventure game. On the other hand, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade always was and still is a lousy adventure game. What a surprise you didn't mention it. This is a simple case of a selection bias arising from your poor knowledge of recent releases and excellent knowledge of releases during your childhood. You simply choose not to correct for the effect of this bias when evaluating modern digital art.
I said I won't paste a list a hundred names long, but what about two? Let's say only from the year 2009.
Machinarium
The Void
I know I'm probably a bit immature and this is not even on topic, but these posts endorsing or even accepting censorship of the internet always feel depressing. I remember how in my youth, Internet was one of the free territories, disjoint from actual reality - where parents and other boring adults could not function and thus had no authority over.
Sure, I saw my share of Japanese women in dubious activities, but why should anyone care? Seriously. What about the kids of the future? Where do they go if they just want to see some porn or play unnecessarily violent videogames?
Mod parent up please.
I wish more games had the kind of encyclopedia/holodeck that provided information on the game world and history. I know that it's from the RPG, but it was still huge for me, and made a great game even better.
You misunderstood. I was only critizising the rose-tinted glasses old games wear when they reminiscence ancient games and imagine that they really played them for 500 hours. This just isn't true and those games never existed. Take a realistic angle andlook through your own list again. I'm commenting on the first for the sake of example.
- Planescape Torment
~30 hours to finish, each subsequent replay much faster as you skip most of the dialogue (the main content of the game). Considering that the game mechanics in this one are real crap and imbalanced, and that you see most of the story in one go, it doesn't really have that much replay value. Granted, it is one of the best games I've played, but nowhere near even 100 hours of entertainment. ...
In my opinion, games wherein the plot is not the driving factor (for ex. UFO Enemy Unknown and perhaps Civ games for those who like inane micromanagement) give the best replay value, as you're not just skipping dialogue that you've read multiple times over. These don't last forever either, as all strategy games against a computer are ultimately unsatisfying, but they go a long way if the mechanics are well thought out.
tl;dr: The whole mentality that 50 bucks should buy 500 hours of single player entertainment is deeply flawed and delusional. Yet every time a game article goes up, someone brings it up and starts blabbering about supposed past games that easily fulfilled this criteria. Face it. The only way 50 bucks buys 500 hours of quality entertainment is when you play Starcraft or Tem Fortress or some other title wherein other people supply the competition and social aspect, which game designers are and have always been unable to provide.
Can we finally move on as a community?
I dare anyone to name even one game that fits that dreamy criteria. Nethack and ADOM are the only ones that I can think of which would be even close, but in my experience, the desire to actually beat them all over again arises more from neurosis than how fun it actually is.
I've heard rumors of people like you who equate graphical quality with actual merits, but couldn't find them in real life. However, there you are.
I'm willing to admit that Crysis was fun when you weren't fighting aliens, but the plot damn sure wasn't interesting. Also, like in Far Cry, once the extraordinary elements like mutants and aliens step in, the game just turns into shit. I don't even get it. The game didn't need aliens and Far Cry didn't need mutants. All they did was deviate from the fun of actually waging non-railroaded war in a jungle. Even this no longer feels special, as games like Battlefield Bad Company 2 allow you to do the same with your friends against other humans.
Extremely interesting. What the summary doesn't point out is that the boa had in fact mated with multiple males before this virgin birth, so in fact it could have used the traditional method too. I thought animals only did this when they had no access to sperm.
That is actually very interesting and I did not know that. I assumed that the lack of micro arises from the computers' lack of positional awareness of the game state. Ie. the sense in transfusing with queens or burrowing with roaches heavily depends on the composition of the opposing army and whether he is focus firing, does he have detection available.
In other words, the value of the micro tricks you mention is questionable in the sense, that could you build the AI to be able to routinely create situations where it would be able to exploit those heavily. The only one of your mentions, which I see being totally OP in actual combat situation is the ability to dodge incoming shots with blink stalkers.
A lot of people seem to complain about this and especially about the realtime requirement in strategy, but the truth is that in addition to the kind of economically suboptimal rush build orders you seem to hate, there are strategies designed to securely carry you into the midgame, where the opponent no longer benefits from memorized build orders.
Moreover, the whole gripe seems misplaced, as I doubt that the same players are against people memorizing openings in chess, board states in go or probabilities in poker. It's simply being intimidated by people better in the game than you - being afraid of losing. You must realize that a video gaming company the size of Blizzard is very aware of this, and the whole mentality is precisely why Starcraft has a very friendly ladder system, which tries to match you against people of your own skill level.
There actually is games like that, and has been for quite a while. Oldie strategy games like VGA Planets, which did not have a realtime component at all, had autonomously fought, crudely simulated battles. More modern Play-By-E-Mail -strategy games like Dominions also do this, but include more simulation and a lot more complexity.
Gratuitous Space Battles, on the other hand, is a yet more recent game consisting of nothing but pre-programmed battles on custom-built space ships. Haven't played that, though.
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/Illwinter/DOM3/DOM3_page.html
http://www.positech.co.uk/gratuitousspacebattles/