UC Berkeley Offering Starcraft Course 148
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."
Who woulda thunk (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Who woulda thunk (Score:5, Funny)
Who ever would have thought that the words "Zerg Rush kekekekkekekeeke ^_^" would have a legitimate chance of showing up on a final?
There, fixed that for ya.
A question ... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A question ... (Score:5, Funny)
The cost of the course is 50 minerals and 200 Vespene gas.
Prerequisites: Barracks, Robotics Lab.
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You're graded based on clicks per minute.
Re:A question ... (Score:5, Informative)
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
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I knew Robotics Lab wasn't quite right. It's been a very long time, and my Starcraft discs wont install under 10.5 (or was that Elite Force? one of my retro games needs classic to install, even if it has a universal binary once it's all up and running).
I would argue that in order to take a class on Starcraft, you'd be able to capture a Terran SCV and build yourself both prerequisites though.
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Just do the Windows install under WINE, still works flawlessly for me
God, I was running Starcraft in WINE way back when it was a super popular game such that that everyone in America was still playing it.
I think it was one of the first games they ever worked on getting working with WINE.
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The origional Unreal and Half Life were 2 others that also worked under WINE perfectly back in the day too. Unreal Tournament and Quake II & III had Linux binaries as well. The FPS genre did quite well under Linux in the 90's
Oh yeah. I was playing all the games that our LAN party played on Linux, while everyone else was using Windows. Well, except the one who ran OSX.
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I feel a little nerdish for doing this, but....
Okay, *THAT* has to be one of the funniest things I ever read on slashdot! We celebrate nerdishness. You'll probably be modded "informative" if anything.
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Wasn't it possible to capture enemy buildings? It's been ages since I played starcraft, b
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Ahh, it's all slowly coming back to me. In fact, as near as I can tell, I was thinking of the Zerg capturing terran command center. In most of my PVP games of starcraft all those years ago, it was terran v. Zerg, so the protoss mind control didn't happen that often. Still, it was awesome when it did!
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I don't think you have read this entire thread. The GP and GGP were saying you couldn't directly take over buildings in Starcraft (excluding the zerg queen being able to infest a Terran command center, but really it still becomes a Zerg building type (Infested Commanded Center)). Neither GP nor GGP were implying that it was impossible to have both buildings, just that there was no way to directly convert them to your side (like command and conquer).
Re:A question ... (Score:5, Funny)
Lesbians don't play Starcraft!
Although Kerrigan might be a lesbian - why else would she keep fending off the Toatally All Awesome Jim Raynor's advances.
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You sound like my ideal woman! Except for being a lesbian and all..
My lonely nights in the barracks must continue, and I don;t get to be Jim!
Re:A question ... (Score:4, Interesting)
As an anecdote, my buddies would join a game (no rules), all selecting terran, and then immediately rush a player simultaneously with all our SCVs, and then move on to the next player after their probes were dead and weren't building any, repairing each others SCVs as neccesary. We would then move onto the next player. If we had 4 people we always won 3v3 obviously, with 3v3 we would win immediately about 90% of the time assuming no one quit. Many people complimented us on our bizzare strategy
Not playing the game (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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Re:A question ... (Score:4, Informative)
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You'll be defeated by my bunker wall!!!!
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Supply depots wall!!!
Campaign Editor... (Score:1)
They could make some use of the Campaign Editor to create maps for specific examples, whether it be theory or history based.
Also, would be interesting to see the course material leak online, since plenty of people can go along with examples.
Re:Campaign Editor... (Score:4, Informative)
The class website has already posted the first three weeks of homework assignments [phswebs.com], and the syllabus [phswebs.com]. 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.
Taiwan went a different way with this (Score:4, Funny)
Student-run class, not taught by a professor (Score:5, Informative)
It's a "DeCal [decal.org]" class run by students. Although a decal class requires a sponsorship from a professor, it is neither taught nor closely supervised by a professor.
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Yep. My wife is a psychology grad student and aside from the practicums (which are, in and of themselves, real, live case studies), even the classes that are regular classes consist of a bunch of case studies.
So she's up to her ears in case studies. All I hear about all day are things like "More case studies! Argh!"
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poor choice for a contemporary RTS game... (Score:2, Informative)
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
no (Score:5, Informative)
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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Yes but it seems like they're talking about war theory, twitch elements wouldn't really fit into that. SC is very focussed on direct control skill which doesn't translate to real wars at all.
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sc can be won through either macromanagement strategy or micromanagement. the longer the game takes, winning through microing becomes increasingly harder. IF, someone is still able to win through micro at late game against an opponent who has superior macro, there is probably nothing you can teach that person in regard to war theory.
Re:poor choice for a contemporary RTS game... (Score:5, Informative)
Poor choice?
Starcraft is over 10 years old and is still one of the most popular online games in the world. Starcraft is still the most popular game at the world cyber games (professional online gamer Olympics). The game has set 4 Guinness records, including "Best Selling PC Strategy Game". Korea has three tv channels that broadcast nothing but Starcraft games 24/7.
All RTS games have balance issues when they start, and over time they are resolved. If you check out the top players in the world, you will notice that the spread for what race they use is pretty even. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarCraft_professional_competition [wikipedia.org]
Say what you will, but in my opinion, teaching a class like this with any game other than Starcraft would be insanity.
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Say what you will, but in my opinion, teaching a class like this with any game other than Starcraft would be insanity.
So, no Dead or Alive?
Even with a very large screen?
And live models to study the...
Ok, ok.
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Starcraft is the basics....you don't learn quantum physics until you learn regular physics...and before that you learn 2 + 2 = 4. Complicated games can't be anaylzed by N00BS as easily.
Re:poor choice for a contemporary RTS game... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, at least, that is what they claim to do.
Every RTS game that I have seen or heard of since Starcraft was released has sought to remove execution from the equation, and those which fail at balance inadvertently remove the strategy, as well. While lowering the execution bar makes the game more widely accessible for competitive play, the amount of depth in the game is lowered with it. Squad-based RTS are the most glaring example of this. In Starcraft, you could easily write entire books on each unit in the game and the various ways to micromanage them in nearly every situation in order to utilize them to their maximum effectiveness. To this day, people are still discovering small AI quirks which you can exploit to your advantage. In a squad-based RTS, however, this kind of control is removed from the player's hands. Units can only be given approximate orders, take cover on their own, are impossible (or incredibly difficult) to use individually, etc. Another major change is that the overall pace of combat in Starcraft is incredibly fast compared to most other RTS games since. In Blizzard's own WC3, for example, the unit health has been raised so high and the unit damage lowered so much that it takes an order of magnitude longer for units to be destroyed. Contrast this with Starcraft, for example, where the lowly zergling (when upgraded) is one of the highest DPS units in the game (and the highest by far when comparing by resource cost) and 2-4 of them can flatten almost any ground unit in a matter of seconds. You might argue that Starcraft has a relatively high unit count, which is why units in other RTS seem to die so much slower, and you'd be right. This is also yet another example of removing complexity and depth for the sake of accessibility.
Now, it's hard to fault game developers for these changes, though. The fact is that these days, the "hardcore" market is significantly smaller than the more casual market to which these games are catering to. Game companies are, in the end, looking to make money. Creating a game which can be played on a deep competitive level is either an afterthought at best, or more often, simply not considered. Starcraft is likely to be the last truly competitive RTS that we will ever see.
As a side note, if you're interested in the topic, I would recommend heading to http://www.sirlin.net/ [sirlin.net] and checking out their lengthy running discussion revolving around their hopes for Starcraft 2.
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Speaking of Korea, my first thought when I read the subject was to make a joke about Korean exchange students, but once again Slashdot beat me to it: how-about-a-korean-exchange-program
It IS the unofficial national sport of South Korea (Taekwondo is the official national sport).
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In Korea, only old people play Starcraft.
the younger kids all play a FPS called 'sudden attack' while the really young kids are addicted to 'Maple Story'
out of the 1500 12-16 year old kids I taught in Korea, only about 3 of them played star craft. all of them where in their final year of middle school. none of the younger kids were interested.
Just great (Score:1)
I can just imagine the first class. The teacher will be standing there wondering where all his students are, then all of a sudden... "ZERG RUSH!", and everyone tries to squish through the classroom door all at once.
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No, see, that's exactly the wrong strategy, because the classroom door is a natural choke point.
Instead, the students should ambush the teacher as he walks to class!
Admission Applications on the Rise (Score:4, Funny)
What no degree? (Score:2)
Until I can get my PhD in StarCraftery I will take a pass. Besides, I will likely be too busy playing to care.
Lab Fees (Score:1, Funny)
Back in the 90s... (Score:2)
Fake Fake and Fake (Score:1, Insightful)
You've been punked, /.
In case you can't find it in the course catalog.. (Score:1)
Whoa (Score:2)
Re:Starcraft theory... (Score:4, Insightful)
By breaking down and analysing the simultaneous equations involved in these decisions, voila, they make math "cool" and students actually want to go to class. Win-win.
Re:Starcraft theory... (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:Starcraft theory... (Score:5, Funny)
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I think this is also what the school is trying to see, although university level is a bit extreme, I tend to make it more into secondary high schools, to stimulate the students into learning.
I applaud the approach to better fit new times, but will be very slow to adopt this new strategy to learning.
Re:Starcraft theory... (Score:5, Interesting)
they make math "cool" and students actually want to go to class.
Keep in mind that it's at a university, not high school. The students are there because they chose to be there, and they're free to leave at any time they want to.
I'm not saying "don't make the subject matter fun": please do that. But say I were to hire you based on your understanding of game theory; would I rather have one who spent half a year on doing the math, do you think, or one who spent half a year on doing some of the math and another part just playing games?
Unless I want you as my StarCraft coach, you, as a student, will have better marketable value by doing the math.
And hey, for my Algorithmic Game Theory course, I presented a paper showing how employing a tit-for-tat strategy in bittorrent leads to a market equilibrium. So it's not like you're forced to do dull stuff.
[full disclosure about my biases: I think math is "cool" in its own right. Finite fields kick ass, Lagrange interpolation is awesome and solving linear recurrence relations using matrix exponentiation (yay, Fibonacci) is a really neat idea. Almost---but not quite entirely---unlike digital watches]
Summary: make the math as fun and cool as you want, but don't make it fun by taking out the math part of it.
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On the other hand, all I ever hear about hiring and degrees is that they don't care a whit about your actual education, since all that academic "theory" is supposedly crap anyway, right? All they want is proof that you can finish something. So people take that to heart and make courses like this, and then the people doing the hiring want to complain because we actually listened to them? People can't constantly go on about how worthless degrees are other than "for proving you can finish something" and then a
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You have a good point.
I'd have to know the details of the course to give a good answer to that.
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Except this isn't James Woods High School, this is UC Berkeley, which is (supposedly!) in the top 5 in the US for Mathematics programs.
If you need Starcraft to make math "cool" after having already taken Calculus and Diff Eq as prereqs, then something is seriously wrong with your choice of classes...
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Re:Starcraft theory... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Starcraft theory... (Score:5, Funny)
Not to mention having to do that research paper on dropping toast.....does it always land butter side down? What if both sides are buttered? What if neither side is buttered? Can you create some weird perpetual motion machine by buttering half of each side?
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Can you create some weird perpetual motion machine by buttering half of each side?
To achieve that, you need to attach the piece of buttered toast (buttered side up) to the back of a cat: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buttered_cat_paradox [wikipedia.org]
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But I don't want to fight the cat. I was thinking a set up more like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crookes_radiometer [wikipedia.org] with the black being buttered and the white being unbuttered. Set it up horizontally and see how it "falls".
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I tried that and came to a strong conclusion: the cat lands on its feet and the toast is butter-side up. Regardless, I did not eat the toast afterwards.
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They might even win an award for this:
'1999 IgNobel Award in Sociology: Steve Penfold, of York University in Toronto, "for d oing his Ph.D. thesis on the sociology of Canadian donut shops."' http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/1999/10.07/Ig-Nobels.html [harvard.edu]
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Re:Starcraft theory... (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't see how it's any different from say studying the theory of chess
Re:Starcraft theory... (Score:5, Funny)
Pew pew!
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Unfortunately you are anonymous, but in case you read this:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/games/7eaa/ [thinkgeek.com]
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/ [khet.com]
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Well someone must be teaching it - since they made it fit into an episode of The Wire and equated chess strategy with drug dealing practices in west side Baltimore.
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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 ga
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IIRC the only reason the AIs stand any chance in starcraft multiplayers is that they cheat.
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Actually, they really don't stand any chance unless the player(s) intentionally avoid certain strategies which badly exploit the AI. Playing against AIs can still be fun in a "Can I win without doing X, Y, or Z" type of way, but while SC's AI is very advanced for its day, it's not even close to a standard chess program in terms of skill required to defeat it.
On the other hand, SC2 will supposedly have an AI so good it will *not* need to cheat - either through seeing the whole map or getting extra resource i
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In Chess you have a few seconds to think about something, depending on how much time is on your chess clock; I may be able to spend 30 second deciding a move, some moves may take 3 seconds and others minutes.
Starcraft is realtime, and so moves are not discrete. In Starcraft, my decisions have an impact at the point they're made. If I need 3 minutes to decide how to handle a besieging army, it may be too late to build more forces; it may also be too late to actually resist, the game might be over. If I
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The worst thing is, they sound like those damn kids that beat you in chess and laugh at your face about it.
"Haha, I wouldn't move that bishop if I were you"
or
"Haha, do you really think those lurkers will be of any use?"
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If you do start to beat him, he will just drop out. This happens a lot, people just cant deal with loss.
Me and a friend use to team up. Both playing protos, he would focus on on building carriers, I focused on men, with a strong preference to worker drones, as they are the most powerful character in the game. So we build a small attack force, and with the men I attach a couple of workers. We drop them off all the chaos of war and fighting once the smoke clears we found that my worker has built a pilons wit
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Protoss, please.
And the guys who steal other guys are Dark Archons.
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Sorry I haven't played in years. Even though I had fun with the games, I didn't have it run my life and really get to know each character personally.
I never said I was a master, but it was sure fun to come up with different strategies, that some times completely obliterated the guy who though he was all that.
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How in the world was this modded insightful? Getting things wrong and defending yourself when you're wrong is insightful? You don't have to have something run your life to avoid giving inaccurate information about it.
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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.
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Island maps (of the non-unlimited-case variety) can make stealing another race worthwhile (and often possible, since Mind Control on a transport gets you whatever is inside s well). That said, serious players tend to avoid island maps, so I suppose the point is moot.
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Pfft, that strategy is nothing.
Try this one:
You and a friend team up. One member builds carriers, you use your dark archons to capture em way beyond your food limit. Imagine being the other guy suddenly swarmed with OVER NINE THOUSAND carriers (and 8 interceptors each). If you don't kill his base, it'll surely kill his computer.
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against: -protoss: i would storm the carriers with a group of archons, or target the main blimp with some corsars. you wouldn't even have the time to create your cannons.
-terran: sieged tanks wouldn't hesitate on eliminating all chances of canons. whilst my goliaths were targeting the blimps.
-zerg: no chance against of hydras hiding under a defiler cloud. maybe even a plague for good measure.
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That is why we launch some ground units too to fight those guys. The point isn't to win the battle but to stall until the cannons are made. For the most part people don't see the strategy as the game has blimps covering the guy building the cannons, so they just send guys to fight the blimps, whos goal is survive long enough to get the cannons up.
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I haven't played Starcraft online for a nearly a decade, so they may have patched my favorite strategy: using the Zerg Queen to parasite all available animals.
Since those units are never highlighted as hostile, players usually ignore them - killing them only if their presence interfered with a potential building site.
Once set, you'd have a bunch of covert spies all over the map. Flying animals were prized due to their mobility and were even less likely to be killed by players.
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