Metalopolis prone to close positions, why?

On February 16 2011 04:50 Toast.yum wrote:
nkr: Yes it is

On February 16 2011 04:52 magha wrote:


Taking sample sizes of 100 would prove that nobody in history has ever won a lottery.

On February 16 2011 04:48 skirmisheR wrote:
I think 100 games is enough if you get that extreme results from it, but really 72? That's sick, could someone else do the same thing? Or we could count every time we play metalopolis/LT how many close/far positions we spawn on

On February 16 2011 04:56 Liquid`Tyler wrote:

I hope you are agreeing with Toast.yum and making the additional point that an appropriate sample size is specific to the situation.

On February 16 2011 04:52 magha wrote:


Taking sample sizes of 100 would prove that nobody in history has ever won a lottery.

On February 16 2011 04:52 magha wrote:


Taking sample sizes of 100 would prove that nobody in history has ever won a lottery.

On February 16 2011 04:58 Frozenserpent wrote:
People are fucking retarded and need to learn some basic statistics before they say something like "not big enough sample size".

Even 50 can be sufficient to obtain a p-value < 5%.

In this case, p-value is definitely low enough to reject the assumption that it's 1/3rd.

Obviously if you want the exact ratios you'd want to expand on the larger sample size, but this is conclusive to determine that it's not 1/3rds.

On February 16 2011 04:58 Frozenserpent wrote:
People are fucking retarded and need to learn some basic statistics before they say something like "not big enough sample size".

Even 50 can be sufficient to obtain a p-value < 5%.

In this case, p-value is definitely low enough to reject the assumption that it's 1/3rd.

Obviously if you want the exact ratios you'd want to expand on the larger sample size, but this is conclusive to determine that it's not 1/3rds.

On February 16 2011 04:58 Frozenserpent wrote:
People are fucking retarded and need to learn some basic statistics before they say something like "not big enough sample size".

Even 50 can be sufficient to obtain a p-value < 5%.

In this case, p-value is definitely low enough to reject the assumption that it's 1/3rd.

Obviously if you want the exact ratios you'd want to expand on the larger sample size, but this is conclusive to determine that it's not 1/3rds.

On February 16 2011 04:58 Frozenserpent wrote:
People are fucking retarded and need to learn some basic statistics before they say something like "not big enough sample size".

Even 50 can be sufficient to obtain a p-value < 5%.

In this case, p-value is definitely low enough to reject the assumption that it's 1/3rd.

Obviously if you want the exact ratios you'd want to expand on the larger sample size, but this is conclusive to determine that it's not 1/3rds.

On February 16 2011 05:02 TBO wrote:


The problem here is that you have millions of players who play 100 games on metalopolis and a few of them will get extreme results (and those will post in the forums), even if it is 1/3 chance.

If you have 100.000 people throwing a coin 15 times, you will get quite a few (6 in average) who will get a 15-0 or 0-15 result.

Only if lots of people get the same results as the topic creator, one could assume it is conclusive.

On February 16 2011 05:05 Soma.bokforlag wrote:


you shouldnt call people retarded when you obviously doesnt understand statistics. if you make enough studdies some of them will turn out faulty results even if the method is correct 99.9% of the time.

in this example, it is possible that the author of the thread felt "damn, i get alot of close positions" and therefore examined his stats.. the rest 99.99% of players which have a more even distribution never gave it a thought and probably are closer to correct ratios

edit. TBO was quicker than me..

On February 16 2011 05:02 TBO wrote:


The problem here is that you have millions of players who play 100 games on metalopolis and a few of them will get extreme results (and those will post in the forums), even if it is 1/3 chance.

If you have 100.000 people throwing a coin 15 times, you will get quite a few (6 in average) who will get a 15-0 or 0-15 result.

Only if lots of people get the same results as the topic creator, one could assume it is conclusive.

On February 16 2011 05:09 aristarchus wrote:
TBO wins the thread. This is definitely a statistically significant result, but I still don't believe it. Lots of people probably try this stuff, and a small number get really weird results and then post here. (This is a problem with academic research too - the way you settle it is to do more tests independently, and also to have some healthy skepticism about the likelihood that blizzard screwed something this simple up in that weird a way in the first place.)

On February 16 2011 05:09 Liquid`Tyler wrote:




Ah, you guys aren't likely to get your PHD's when you can't even understand the OP's testing methods. He didn't examine the games that gave him the feeling that he got close positions. He got that feeling and ignored those games and loaded up 100 more games against the computer and recorded those results.

On February 16 2011 05:08 Deadeight wrote:




I know that if you analyse it statistically 100 samples is enough. The chance of getting that ratio is pretty low. And as Frozenserpent said the P value would be low.

But (if I understand OPs post correctly) the sample was not random. He looked at his last 100 games that he'd played on it right? Or did he play an extra 100 games?
Out of all the people who play it's pretty likely that this will have happened to someone. And when it does happen to someone that person will notice it.

Would be good if there was a way to check this without checking individual replays.

On February 16 2011 04:45 the p00n wrote:
I found this pretty weird so I actually started testing it against the computer.

On February 16 2011 05:09 Liquid`Tyler wrote:




Ah, you guys aren't likely to get your PHD's when you can't even understand the OP's testing methods. He didn't examine the games that gave him the feeling that he got close positions. He got that feeling and ignored those games and loaded up 100 more games against the computer and recorded those results.

On February 16 2011 05:09 Liquid`Tyler wrote:




Ah, you guys aren't likely to get your PHD's when you can't even understand the OP's testing methods. He didn't examine the games that gave him the feeling that he got close positions. He got that feeling and ignored those games and loaded up 100 more games against the computer and recorded those results.

Sample size of 100 proves nothing. Don't call people retarded and get a clue about what you are talking.

On February 16 2011 04:52 magha wrote:


Taking sample sizes of 100 would prove that nobody in history has ever won a lottery.

On February 16 2011 05:01 Alpina wrote:


Sample size of 100 proves nothing. Don't call people retarded and get a clue about what you are talking.

On February 16 2011 05:12 Alpina wrote:


So he could still be wrong, 100 games cannot prove anything, can they? People are saying that even if the chance of getting close positions is 1/3 the statistics made from 100 games can still be wrong..

On February 16 2011 04:59 RoyalCheese wrote:
because : !

On February 16 2011 05:12 Alpina wrote:


So he could still be wrong, 100 games cannot prove anything, can they? People are saying that even if the chance of getting close positions is 1/3 the statistics made from 100 games can still be wrong..

On February 16 2011 05:09 Liquid`Tyler wrote:




Ah, you guys aren't likely to get your PHD's when you can't even understand the OP's testing methods. He didn't examine the games that gave him the feeling that he got close positions. He got that feeling and ignored those games and loaded up 100 more games against the computer and recorded those results.

On February 16 2011 05:15 Vei wrote:
Lotto winning chances should theoretically be 1/# of ticket buyers.

On February 16 2011 05:20 Chill wrote:
Interesting. Instead of arguing about the reasonable sample size, let's either:
a) Figure out how we're going to test it with a larger sample size; or, prefereably
b) Figure out why Metalopolis is prone to spawning clone positions.

On February 16 2011 05:16 Liquid`Tyler wrote:

You are correct to say that it's wrong to utter the words proof and conclusion at this point, but the 100 game sample size shows that it's more likely than not (>50% chance) that close positions happen more than 1/3 of the time.

edit: And yeah, it's a lot higher than 50%, but since I haven't done the math I don't know what it is exactly and will leave that to someone else.

On February 16 2011 05:22 Wolf wrote:
Can't you look up the spawn location percentage chances in editor? Or, better yet, isn't it the same for all maps? 100%/number of spawn locations? We know Blizzard can eliminate spawns (see: Shakuras Plateau).

On February 16 2011 05:21 MorroW wrote:
i spawn close on metal like 50% of my games. maybe im just being biased cause im zerg and only remember the bad luck but still

they should make it like shakuras

On February 16 2011 05:22 Chill wrote:

I think the implication is that the programming says it should be random, but testing shows it isn't.

On February 16 2011 04:57 emythrel wrote:

The thing is that while there are 3 possibilities of positions, close ground, close air, cross. Each time you load up a game it has equal chance to roll any of them, completely independent of previous rolls, that means it will never go 33% under any sample size..... it could be 99% close ground positions in theory, thats the wonderful thing about randomness. While its not completely random, no RNG can be completely random, only as random as you can program it to be.

On February 16 2011 05:21 MorroW wrote:
i spawn close on metal like 50% of my games. maybe im just being biased cause im zerg and only remember the bad luck but still

they should make it like shakuras

On February 16 2011 05:20 Chill wrote:
Interesting. Instead of arguing about the reasonable sample size, let's either:
a) Figure out how we're going to test it with a larger sample size; or, prefereably
b) Figure out why Metalopolis is prone to spawning clone positions.

On February 16 2011 05:24 Twistacles wrote:
Do replay files have, hard-coded into them, some variable that stores spawn location? Because if it did, it wouldn't be too hard to code an application to go through a bunch of replay files.

On February 16 2011 05:09 Liquid`Tyler wrote:

Ah, you guys aren't likely to get your PHD's when you can't even understand the OP's testing methods. He didn't examine the games that gave him the feeling that he got close positions. He got that feeling and ignored those games and loaded up 100 more games against the computer and recorded those results.

On February 16 2011 05:28 Draconicfire wrote:


What if we started a research thread where people can post their replays on Metal and then tally it from there?

The only issue I see is if the same two people post the same replay, so it would count twice.

On February 16 2011 05:26 DueSs wrote:
Ah, I enjoy the banter--but really this is just measuring statistics-dick sizes. The OP just tried something as a hunch and posted his results. It's interesting and perhaps more valuable as something that might be a real thing. It instigates discussion and intrigue. It's a good thing.

On February 16 2011 05:21 MonsieurGrimm wrote:
We could make a new thread about it, and have people put their names in and have everyone do a sample of 10-20 then report back to the thread so nobody has to waste an hour on it...

That's not the whole story. It's possible that thousands of people are bothered enough by the observed frequencies to run tests. Of these only one leads to exceptional result and it's the only one that gets reported. OPs testing method is correct from his point of view, but underlying "drawer effect" should change how we interpret his result.

OK guys i have an idea. Everyone Start up ONE game against the computer! then vote in this pole with which spawn you got. This could increase the sample size by alot.

On February 16 2011 05:29 italiangymnast wrote:
OK guys i have an idea. Everyone Start up ONE game against the computer! then vote in this pole with which spawn you got. This could increase the sample size by alot.

On February 16 2011 05:12 Liquid`Tyler wrote:

How does he win the thread? While he makes a relevant point, he hasn't provided the data to prove that the phenomenon he claims is happening is actually happening. At the moment, he's relying on faith that nothing has caused a problem in SC2's ability to give random positions on Metalopolis.

On February 16 2011 05:31 gaheris wrote:

ahh but would he have posed anything if his results were within the norm??

On February 16 2011 05:33 JoeSchmoe wrote:


I'm already going to call bullshit on the first couple of votes. I refreshed the page and the poll just came up with no votes. I refreshed 2 seconds later and there were 2. Clearly they did not start a game against the computer like was instructed.

On February 16 2011 05:36 Centorian wrote:


Yeah the issue is people lying. Need to do something that involves posting replays. Which means it works easier if people do more than one.

On February 16 2011 05:33 aristarchus wrote:
I'm not sure what data he could possibly provide. He's saying that probably a lot more people than this have runs of bad luck and then say "Oh, I'll test this out." Of those people, some number will get statistically significant results even if there's nothing to find. Given the frequency of people on team liquid (the website, not the team) doing this sort of stuff, I think it's a pretty reasonable bet that lots of people try stuff like this and then find nothing and don't post about it. I'm not trying to say this shouldn't be investigated further, just that I think it's reasonable to see the false positive scenario as the more likely scenario. Remember that the other scenario involves blizzard failing to implement a simple rng correctly, and then thousands of other players never noticing that metalopolis spawns close positions with double the frequency it should. (If it was only off by one or two percentage points, it wouldn't explain these numbers at all.)

If you want to solve the problem TBO is talking about, you need to make sure that whoever is doing the confirming experiments for this result will report their results either way. Clearly people should test it themselves, but they should commit to doing so and posting the results regardless of what they find, so that this bias of only seeing significant results can't explain the findings.

On February 16 2011 05:09 Liquid`Tyler wrote:




Ah, you guys aren't likely to get your PHD's when you can't even understand the OP's testing methods. He didn't examine the games that gave him the feeling that he got close positions. He got that feeling and ignored those games and loaded up 100 more games against the computer and recorded those results.

On February 16 2011 04:52 magha wrote:


Taking sample sizes of 100 would prove that nobody in history has ever won a lottery.

On February 16 2011 04:52 magha wrote:


Taking sample sizes of 100 would prove that nobody in history has ever won a lottery.

On February 16 2011 05:40 TBO wrote:

My bad should read have read the thread more careful. However my statement is still partly true, at least if he has not been the only person doing the test. But just the only person posting it because he got this extreme results. And the results isn't too extreme btw, cumulated probability for close spots being 72 when probability for close spot being 1/3 in a sample size of 100 is 0,1066.

On February 16 2011 05:43 motbob wrote:
The sample size is plenty big enough to show a statistically significant conclusion. I'll run the relevant t-test later.

On February 16 2011 05:47 hypercube wrote:


Can you check your math? I got a z value of >8 (EV=33, SD=4,71), haven't looked up the actual probability but it must be really, really low. Someone posted 1:10^19 which sounds about right.

On February 16 2011 05:42 sob3k wrote:
We just need to talk to the SC2GEARS dude (Dakotafanning?) and ask him if its possible to whip up a position analyzer bit in the next release. Compared to what he's already done it should be simple and once run on even one regular players replay library you should have solved the issue.

On February 16 2011 05:48 philcorp wrote:



It really isnt. Go and ask a full lecture hall full of first year undergraduates to go and flip a coin 100 times. By the central limit theorem you expect a gaussian distribution about a mean of 50%. If your class is big enough you will get people who flipped a coin 80 or even 100 heads in a row. Funnily enough, if you actually carry out this experiment the students will fake the data and the distribution ends up being much more sharply peaked than it should.

On February 16 2011 05:00 eLiE wrote:
If my research class taught me anything, it's that you need a significantly high value to assume that you're getting close positions based on something other than chance. The book said 90% and up, and it's common to go as high as 95%.

I'll give the book example for clarity. If you flip a coin and it lands on one side 9 times out of 10, you can assume that the coin is likely rigged. Any less, and it's more likely that the coin landed the way it did due to chance.

EDIT: frozenserpent beat me to it, but a higher sample size always improves generalizability

On February 16 2011 05:48 philcorp wrote:



It really isnt. Go and ask a full lecture hall full of first year undergraduates to go and flip a coin 100 times. By the central limit theorem you expect a gaussian distribution about a mean of 50%. If your class is big enough you will get people who flipped a coin 80 or even 100 heads in a row. Funnily enough, if you actually carry out this experiment the students will fake the data and the distribution ends up being much more sharply peaked than it should.

On February 16 2011 05:48 MoonBear wrote:
I did a simple Binary Test on the data p00n provided. I considered the probability that close positions are more likely against the probability of close air and cross-map. Even allowing for a probability of such an event occurring as high as 0.65, your p value (0.038) would still suggest rejection of the hypothesis for a one-tail test and instead suggest that the true probability is much higher at the α=5% level. A probability of 0.7 gives a p value of 0.11 and so seems much more likely.

How to replays save positioning data? It'd be really time consuming to try and load up the same map constantly. Would it be possible to data-mine replays?

It may simply be the case that the algorithm for allocating spawn positions is skewed towards close positions. Since Blizzard can force no close positions on Shakuras Plateau, it stands to reason that it might be part of the map data itself. I don't know how to use the Map Editor. But perhaps someone could do some investigation to see if there are hard values encoded into the map?

On February 16 2011 05:47 hypercube wrote:


Can you check your math? I got a z value of >8 (EV=33, SD=4,71), haven't looked up the actual probability but it must be really, really low. Someone posted 1:10^16 which sounds about right.

On February 16 2011 05:53 TBO wrote:


Really shouldn't do math while learning for an linguistics exam.... been totally wrong of course.


http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=72 from 100 with probability 1/3

there you have it

On February 16 2011 05:49 aristarchus wrote:


The calculator at http://stattrek.com/Tables/Binomial.aspx gave me a p value of about 10^-15. (That's the probability of getting 72 or more close positions on 100 tries, and I believe it's done with precise binomial distribution calculations rather than approximations. Definitely the number should be some tiny decimal of that sort.

On February 16 2011 05:53 Zelniq wrote:
Has nobody even questioned whether or not the OP is telling the truth? smells like bs/trolling. can someone check his match history for 100 games on metal recently? he claims he's HUARGH (http://sc2ranks.com/eu/717496/HUARGH) on EU, division Scion Uncle http://sc2ranks.com/div/67191/division-scion-uncle

his most recent match history (http://eu.battle.net/sc2/en/profile/717496/1/HUARGH/matches) doesn't show any metalopolis games.

sure seems he's full of it. also I really doubt someone actually hosted a game, waited 10 seconds for it to start, scouted close positions (sent OL to close-air), or instead left and loaded replay, rinse and repeat 100 times.

On February 16 2011 05:48 philcorp wrote:

It really isnt. Go and ask a full lecture hall full of first year undergraduates to go and flip a coin 100 times. By the central limit theorem you expect a gaussian distribution about a mean of 50%. If your class is big enough you will get people who flipped a coin 80 or even 100 heads in a row. Funnily enough, if you actually carry out this experiment the students will fake the data and the distribution ends up being much more sharply peaked than it should.

On February 16 2011 05:52 hypercube wrote:


FFS, just run any statistical test, instead of relying on your (flawed) intuition. If you took statistics in college or university you have the tools, so just use them.

On February 16 2011 05:56 MoreFaSho wrote:

Isn't that the probability of exactly 72? That doesn't seem right to me.

On February 16 2011 05:56 Deadeight wrote:


He could've done it via single player not multiplayer custom game.

On February 16 2011 05:53 Zelniq wrote:
Has nobody even questioned whether or not the OP is telling the truth? smells like bs/trolling. can someone check his match history for 100 games on metal recently? he claims he's HUARGH (http://sc2ranks.com/eu/717496/HUARGH) on EU, division Scion Uncle http://sc2ranks.com/div/67191/division-scion-uncle

his most recent match history (http://eu.battle.net/sc2/en/profile/717496/1/HUARGH/matches) doesn't show any metalopolis games.

sure seems he's full of it. also I really doubt someone actually hosted a game, waited 10 seconds for it to start, scouted close positions (sent OL to close-air), or instead left and loaded replay, rinse and repeat 100 times.

On February 16 2011 05:56 MoreFaSho wrote:

Isn't that the probability of exactly 72? That doesn't seem right to me.

On February 16 2011 05:57 philcorp wrote:

All a test like the p-test will tell you is how far in the tail of the gaussian you are. Unlikely things happen, deal with it.

On February 16 2011 05:56 MoreFaSho wrote:

Isn't that the probability of exactly 72? That doesn't seem right to me.

On February 16 2011 05:59 Ihle wrote:

The page gives you both, but interestingly, it is more likeley to get 72 of 100 than getting 73 or more of 100, this means that the z value must be enormous.

On February 16 2011 05:58 Ludwigvan wrote:

Maybe in singleplayer you spawn differently than in multiplayer.

On February 16 2011 06:05 Zelniq wrote:

it's true he could have done it in singleplayer and it wouldn't show in match history apparently, it also avoids the 10 second countdown timer so it makes sense. I'm still very doubtful that he took the time to load 100 games and load 100 replays (to see spawn location, or instead wait to scout his opponent's base). I think we should assume bullshit unless he provides replays, they should autosave

On February 16 2011 06:05 Zelniq wrote:

it's true he could have done it in singleplayer and it wouldn't show in match history apparently, it also avoids the 10 second countdown timer so it makes sense. I'm still very doubtful that he took the time to load 100 games and load 100 replays (to see spawn location, or instead wait to scout his opponent's base). I think we should assume bullshit unless he provides replays, they should autosave

On February 16 2011 06:09 Seronei wrote:

You can join as spectator with 2 bots and it's much faster. It doesn't really take that much time to go through 100, shouldn't take more than 30seconds per game with this method.

On February 16 2011 06:05 Zelniq wrote:

it's true he could have done it in singleplayer and it wouldn't show in match history apparently, it also avoids the 10 second countdown timer so it makes sense. I'm still very doubtful that he took the time to load 100 games and load 100 replays (to see spawn location, or instead wait to scout his opponent's base). I think we should assume bullshit unless he provides replays, they should autosave

On February 16 2011 06:05 Zelniq wrote:

it's true he could have done it in singleplayer and it wouldn't show in match history apparently, it also avoids the 10 second countdown timer so it makes sense. I'm still very doubtful that he took the time to load 100 games and load 100 replays (to see spawn location, or instead wait to scout his opponent's base). I think we should assume bullshit unless he provides replays, they should autosave

On February 16 2011 06:09 Seronei wrote:

You can join as spectator with 2 bots and it's much faster. It doesn't really take that much time to go through 100, shouldn't take more than 30seconds per game with this method.

On February 16 2011 06:03 hypercube wrote:


You mean, it's more likely you get exactly 72 than 73 or more?
Surely, that can't be right

On February 16 2011 05:53 Zelniq wrote:
Has nobody even questioned whether or not the OP is telling the truth? smells like bs/trolling. can someone check his match history for 100 games on metal recently? he claims he's HUARGH (http://sc2ranks.com/eu/717496/HUARGH) on EU, division Scion Uncle http://sc2ranks.com/div/67191/division-scion-uncle

his most recent match history (http://eu.battle.net/sc2/en/profile/717496/1/HUARGH/matches) doesn't show any metalopolis games.

sure seems he's full of it. also I really doubt someone actually hosted a game, waited 10 seconds for it to start, scouted close positions (sent OL to close-air), or instead left and loaded replay, rinse and repeat 100 times.

On February 16 2011 06:28 Ludwigvan wrote:
I dont really know how it works, but if first the position of player 1 is created and then player 2, we have 12 possibilities and not 6.

On February 16 2011 06:34 Chill wrote:
Please notice the giant banner at the top... Let's assume there's a possibility that it's true. How do we test it going forward?

On February 16 2011 06:40 TheGrimace wrote:
I wrote this while updating my sc2gears, but once I got it loaded and checked a few replays, I realized it wouldn't work properly.

On February 16 2011 06:21 Annq wrote:



Matches against AI (singleplayer) arent listed in the match history? Atleast i think so

On February 16 2011 06:51 RoKetha wrote:


If you look at his map stats page, which you can clearly see includes custom games (and I think does not include ladder games), he's only played on Metalopolis 86 times, and the last time he played on it was January 10. It's hard to make sense of exactly where that data is being sampled from and if it won't count certain types of games, but at first glance it certainly looks like he didn't play 100 games there.

I don't actually know where Zelniq got the account name from though (possibly a PM?) because I didn't see it myself in the thread.

On February 16 2011 06:51 Chill wrote:

Is there a MASSIVE replay pack anywhere? Like 1000+ games on Metalopolis we can feed into SC2Gears?

Alternatively, is there any way to batch download from any popular replay upload sites?

On February 16 2011 06:55 gerundium wrote:


Be wary of replay packs. people select replays to go into those, which would make the test useless (for example i'd expect more frequent cross in packs due to higher potential for epic long games).
We would need to find a replay pack that is completely unbiased, which would mean manually loading up an x number of games in a row. Upload sites do not work because they suffer from the same selection bias as a replay pack.

There really is no other way for this to work otherwise that i can see.

On February 16 2011 06:51 Chill wrote:

Alternatively, is there any way to batch download from any popular replay upload sites?

On February 16 2011 06:56 Chill wrote:

Right, which is why I'm suggesting a tournament replay pack, such as the TLOpen or similar.

On February 16 2011 07:02 Dimagus wrote:
I will state this up front since some people think it isn't true. A sample size of 100 is absolutely, positively and definitely a statistically relevant sample size for Starcraft 2. We are not talking about 100 mathematical calculations that occur within a single minute, we are talking about 100 games of starcraft 2 which occur over days and weeks. The allowable statistical variance must apply to samples as low as 100, and not just 10,000 or million. If it doesn't then there is a flaw in the algorithm.

There is also the issue of non-random randomness. It is not simply enough that number of occurrences satisfy a statistical variability if patterns and streaks occur. Example: repeating the pattern 123412341234... 100 times will yield a perfect 25% for each of the 4 numbers, but it isn't random. Large patterns are easy to spot but small patterns and linked numbers may not be. Assume for metalopolis 1 is 9 o'clock, 2 is 12 o'clock, 3 is 6 o'clock, 4 is 3 o'clock. 1-2 and 3-4 correspond to close spots, 1-3 and 2-4 are close air, 1-4 and 2-3 are cross positions. The problem is that if 1-2 and/or 3-4 are linked then close spots will occur more frequently. Linked means that if a 1 shows up the next number is more likely to be 2 and vice versa.

72% (33% + 39%) with a 100 game size is unacceptable, so if the mods can curb the people going "come back with 10000" since they have nothing constructive to offer.

On February 16 2011 07:04 Myia wrote:
Ok, so, I have just done 50 (not 100 as of yet, as wondering whether I should continue after my results so far, which are little.. well, different from the OP's...) and have got the following results.

Player vc Computer on Metal

Close by Ground - 13
Close by Air - 19
Cross Positions - 18

Certainly more variance in the positions. But mind, this was a sample half as big as the OP's supposed size... But shows what I think, that it is indeed totally random. Perhaps the OP, if he did
the test, was just very very unlucky...

On February 16 2011 06:34 Chill wrote:
Please notice the giant banner at the top... Let's assume there's a possibility that it's true. How do we test it going forward?

On February 16 2011 07:06 gerundium wrote:


He could definitely have gotten the 1:10000 shot, it its at least way more likely that we are reading about a 1000 to 1 shot on here, because posting about something like this becomes more likely as someone tests this and comes up with a statistical outlier.

On February 16 2011 06:40 TheGrimace wrote:
...
How to check in sc2gears:

1. Open sc2gears, go to the replay analyzer and set chart type to "map view"
2. Drag and drop each replay
3. Note the spawn positions
4. Repeat
...

On February 16 2011 07:07 aristarchus wrote:
70% is far enough from 1/3 to be [...] definitely obvious to a pro who is carefully practicing the map.

On February 16 2011 06:56 Chill wrote:

Right, which is why I'm suggesting a tournament replay pack, such as the TLOpen or similar.