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Beyonder
Netherlands15103 Posts
On September 13 2011 01:22 ishyishy wrote:
I'm not sure what this is actually doing. What can be gained from this? What is the average player going to gain from this?
Here is one of my favorite quotes: "Why aren’t parents bugging their kids to memorize TvT builds, or practice their 4-gate, or watch replays from their mandatory daily laddering session, or write an essay about how they can improve their game?"
Obviously this is an exaggeration (or is it?!?!). There are plenty of more important, more useful things people do to improve things about themself. For example, physical exercise. This will help you in more ways than sc2 will ever help you.
Getting people to believe that endless sc2 practice will help improve their life or health or whathaveyou is just going to hurt the next generation. You honestly think that some highschool kid can benefit from playing 40 games of sc2 a day while their grades slip? People with full time jobs dont have time to play sc2 for more than 1-2 hours a day, if that.
This has to be a joke: "The SC2 interface is surprisingly similar to software designed for command and control centers in emergency management, where the goal is to deploy emergency personnel (fireman, paramedics and police) to crisis areas, while protecting strategic locations (bridges, reservoirs, etc.)."
You are honestly trying to relate a video game that has no real world significance to something that saves peoples lives? In sc2 you can make endless mistakes and it doesnt matter. A fireman or a police officer makes 1 mistake and it can mean the death of a person. Mistakes in sc2 can be forgiven and fixed, mistakes in these other areas are unforgivable.
For people as talented and intelligent as you are, I'm sure you can fabricate this study into something believable, but I am not going to believe it for a second. I'm not some guy that doesnt support gaming or thinks that video games are ruining society, but this is going a bit too far. I really hope you guys prove me wrong, but I see nothing but a huge waste of money and time coming out of this.
I would love for you to read the research by De Groot and Chase and Simon as an example on what such research exactly entails and what implications and consequences there can be. For example, research on chess expertise has provided unique insights into our the way our memory functions and on expertise acquisition and development. People benefit from such research on a daily basis, and you are likely one of the people benefiting from it (be it in your school system, or during your sports activities). From the moment we are born we are acquiring expertise, it is an ever present factor.. gaining insight on the specifics of expertise in Starcraft on such a scale could very well be generalized to all sorts of fields outside of gaming, just like research on chess has been generalized to what you do on a daily basis.
On September 13 2011 01:27 ishyishy wrote:
People "play" real world experience simulators for practice in these kinds of fields, they dont take sc2 seriously. You will never see a sc2 simulator class at a police academy or a military training facility lol.
Yet where do you think the design of these simulators come from (e.g., air traffic controll, flight simulators)? They in partcome from studies such as this one; they are in part designed by experts on research in the field of expertise acquisition. The design of the simulation at your police academy or at the military training facility could very well be based on research done in different domains (e.g., chess, but now also SC2). Its the way it works 
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Every aspect of this project is simply amazing. You're doing amazing work here man. Keep us updated on how its going. After participating in the study I signed up for the newsletter, but thus far havent gotten anything! This post is encouraging though. If you need volunteers for anything. Whether it be interfacing with the community, or mundane things, i'd love to help. Is there anywhere someone could find an opportunity like that with your study?
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+ Show Spoiler +On September 13 2011 01:22 ishyishy wrote:
I'm not sure what this is actually doing. What can be gained from this? What is the average player going to gain from this?
Here is one of my favorite quotes: "Why aren’t parents bugging their kids to memorize TvT builds, or practice their 4-gate, or watch replays from their mandatory daily laddering session, or write an essay about how they can improve their game?"
Obviously this is an exaggeration (or is it?!?!). There are plenty of more important, more useful things people do to improve things about themself. For example, physical exercise. This will help you in more ways than sc2 will ever help you.
Getting people to believe that endless sc2 practice will help improve their life or health or whathaveyou is just going to hurt the next generation. You honestly think that some highschool kid can benefit from playing 40 games of sc2 a day while their grades slip? People with full time jobs dont have time to play sc2 for more than 1-2 hours a day, if that.
This has to be a joke: "The SC2 interface is surprisingly similar to software designed for command and control centers in emergency management, where the goal is to deploy emergency personnel (fireman, paramedics and police) to crisis areas, while protecting strategic locations (bridges, reservoirs, etc.)."
You are honestly trying to relate a video game that has no real world significance to something that saves peoples lives? In sc2 you can make endless mistakes and it doesnt matter. A fireman or a police officer makes 1 mistake and it can mean the death of a person. Mistakes in sc2 can be forgiven and fixed, mistakes in these other areas are unforgivable.
For people as talented and intelligent as you are, I'm sure you can fabricate this study into something believable, but I am not going to believe it for a second. I'm not some guy that doesnt support gaming or thinks that video games are ruining society, but this is going a bit too far. I really hope you guys prove me wrong, but I see nothing but a huge waste of money and time coming out of this.
The idea is that sc2 is a series of problems that one has to find solutions to or lose. "Experts" in sc2, or pros, are better at this than others and total newbs are just bad at it, with varying degrees in between.
This holds true for every other field on the planet. For example, if I were to just jump into a managing situation having no prior experience, I'd flounder like a bronze player unless I had help. As opposed to if I've been a manager for 10+ years where I'd walk in, assess the situation, and get to work. And, of course, there are varying degrees between.
Furthermore, sc2 undoubtedly takes a level of discipline to become good at. Is it ridiculous to think that kids could learn discipline, the advantage of having a plan, learning to pick certain battles and leave others, among other things from this game, all while NOT sacrificing their grades? Personally, I think not. It's not uncommon to think of life in terms of a game one plays extensively.
For example, a kid has homework, he knows there's going to be more the next time he goes to class, he could procrastinate (and play sc2), inevitably allowing hw to accumulate, his grades slip, etc, or just do the hw, then, if he has time, play sc2. Now I play zerg, so my racial analogue, if you will, is that I can make drones or make an army to defend your push. Answer is pretty obvious: make an army ('cause losing is dumb).
Using sc2 as a teaching tool isn't really that much of a stretch. As many know, brood war was used at Berkely as a teaching tool. Many were open to it then, even more are open to it now.
Think creatively. Games have the potential to be an amazing learning tool, at the very least. Give them their chance. There's no reason not to.
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Regarding ishyishy's post.
It's not about what the average player can gain from this. It's about what mankind can gain from this.
Playing starcraft is more important than anything you learn in school except reading & math. School is mainly a tool used to turn you into a fool who can sit still, take orders & memorize. There is a reason powerfull people keep their kids out of it or were there many billionaire kids in your school? Starcraft teaches you to think for yourself, act independantly & take the consequences of that.
Starcraft has real world significance. Maybe you have you heard about war, resource management & planing?
Lastly isn't starcraft/life all about wasting time ;-)
Take your bronze league skill in understanding life and try not to propagate it. Atleast until you've been to the end and know how the world really works.
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United States5162 Posts
On September 13 2011 01:22 ishyishy wrote:
I'm not sure what this is actually doing. What can be gained from this? What is the average player going to gain from this?
Here is one of my favorite quotes: "Why aren’t parents bugging their kids to memorize TvT builds, or practice their 4-gate, or watch replays from their mandatory daily laddering session, or write an essay about how they can improve their game?"
Obviously this is an exaggeration (or is it?!?!). There are plenty of more important, more useful things people do to improve things about themself. For example, physical exercise. This will help you in more ways than sc2 will ever help you.
Getting people to believe that endless sc2 practice will help improve their life or health or whathaveyou is just going to hurt the next generation. You honestly think that some highschool kid can benefit from playing 40 games of sc2 a day while their grades slip? People with full time jobs dont have time to play sc2 for more than 1-2 hours a day, if that.
This has to be a joke: "The SC2 interface is surprisingly similar to software designed for command and control centers in emergency management, where the goal is to deploy emergency personnel (fireman, paramedics and police) to crisis areas, while protecting strategic locations (bridges, reservoirs, etc.)."
You are honestly trying to relate a video game that has no real world significance to something that saves peoples lives? In sc2 you can make endless mistakes and it doesnt matter. A fireman or a police officer makes 1 mistake and it can mean the death of a person. Mistakes in sc2 can be forgiven and fixed, mistakes in these other areas are unforgivable.
For people as talented and intelligent as you are, I'm sure you can fabricate this study into something believable, but I am not going to believe it for a second. I'm not some guy that doesnt support gaming or thinks that video games are ruining society, but this is going a bit too far. I really hope you guys prove me wrong, but I see nothing but a huge waste of money and time coming out of this.
If the study goes as Dr. Blair intends, they hope to gain insight into the ways that people gain skill and improve in SC2. For the average SC2 player, this could show them ways to improve that they may not have considered. For example, in an interview Dr. Blair did he brought up an interesting chicken/egg problem in SC2. Does you improving your APM improve your multitasking, or does improving your multitasking help your APM? Obviously, it seems clear that it's a combination of both, but with this study it's hopeful that they can come to a more precise conclusion about how these two factor relate.
In a broader sense, multitasking and understanding how people juggle information is relevant to a wide spectrum of jobs. SC2 is itself is not relevant to managing a emergency situation in specific, but the skills involved are. Multitasking between different problems at different locations or juggling information and resources are things that are very important; and while you may not being able to use specific SC2 knowledge in those situations, the general ability in those skills certainly helps. So if we can better understand how people learn and gain ability in these types of skills, we can understand better how to teach people these skills.
Plus, large 'expertise' studies rarely(never?) have sample sizes in the thousands that have a large range of skill levels. Simply being able to do a study of this size with this many different levels of skill will give a better understanding of how 'experts' utilize information and movement compared to a novice.
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i've been studying psychology for the last 4 years being bored and not knowing what precisely to do with it, but try to help ill ppl, do some therapeutic business. good to see how broad possibilities rly are. u just gotta get a bit creative ... and willing to do shit out of the own - lets call it - comfort zone. gl with that project!
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Amazing post, really. There are two big passions in my life: science and skill based games. ScienceCraft? Yes please, and more!
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Woo! Cognitive Science represent! I graduated from the UC Berkeley with a bachelor's degree in Cognitive Science.
I'll definitely participate when I get home from work.
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On September 13 2011 01:22 ishyishy wrote:
I'm not sure what this is actually doing. What can be gained from this? What is the average player going to gain from this?
The research isn't trying to help the average player.
On September 13 2011 01:22 ishyishy wrote:Here is one of my favorite quotes: "Why aren’t parents bugging their kids to memorize TvT builds, or practice their 4-gate, or watch replays from their mandatory daily laddering session, or write an essay about how they can improve their game?"
Obviously this is an exaggeration (or is it?!?!). There are plenty of more important, more useful things people do to improve things about themself. For example, physical exercise. This will help you in more ways than sc2 will ever help you.
No. His analogue was musical instruments.
On September 13 2011 01:22 ishyishy wrote:Getting people to believe that endless sc2 practice will help improve their life or health or whathaveyou is just going to hurt the next generation. You honestly think that some highschool kid can benefit from playing 40 games of sc2 a day while their grades slip? People with full time jobs dont have time to play sc2 for more than 1-2 hours a day, if that.
2 strawmen.
On September 13 2011 01:22 ishyishy wrote:This has to be a joke: "The SC2 interface is surprisingly similar to software designed for command and control centers in emergency management, where the goal is to deploy emergency personnel (fireman, paramedics and police) to crisis areas, while protecting strategic locations (bridges, reservoirs, etc.)."
You are honestly trying to relate a video game that has no real world significance to something that saves peoples lives? In sc2 you can make endless mistakes and it doesnt matter. A fireman or a police officer makes 1 mistake and it can mean the death of a person. Mistakes in sc2 can be forgiven and fixed, mistakes in these other areas are unforgivable.
Its similarity as OP put them has nothing to do with consequences of mistakes. I'm seriously shocked that your grammar isn't horrendous.
On September 13 2011 01:22 ishyishy wrote:I really hope you guys prove me wrong, but I see nothing but a huge waste of money and time coming out of this.
You have not even read an abstract and seem to be unfamiliar with the study's goals. What the hell are you criticizing.
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On September 13 2011 01:22 ishyishy wrote:
I'm not sure what this is actually doing. What can be gained from this? What is the average player going to gain from this?
Here is one of my favorite quotes: "Why aren’t parents bugging their kids to memorize TvT builds, or practice their 4-gate, or watch replays from their mandatory daily laddering session, or write an essay about how they can improve their game?"
Obviously this is an exaggeration (or is it?!?!). There are plenty of more important, more useful things people do to improve things about themself. For example, physical exercise. This will help you in more ways than sc2 will ever help you.
Getting people to believe that endless sc2 practice will help improve their life or health or whathaveyou is just going to hurt the next generation. You honestly think that some highschool kid can benefit from playing 40 games of sc2 a day while their grades slip? People with full time jobs dont have time to play sc2 for more than 1-2 hours a day, if that.
This has to be a joke: "The SC2 interface is surprisingly similar to software designed for command and control centers in emergency management, where the goal is to deploy emergency personnel (fireman, paramedics and police) to crisis areas, while protecting strategic locations (bridges, reservoirs, etc.)."
You are honestly trying to relate a video game that has no real world significance to something that saves peoples lives? In sc2 you can make endless mistakes and it doesnt matter. A fireman or a police officer makes 1 mistake and it can mean the death of a person. Mistakes in sc2 can be forgiven and fixed, mistakes in these other areas are unforgivable.
For people as talented and intelligent as you are, I'm sure you can fabricate this study into something believable, but I am not going to believe it for a second. I'm not some guy that doesnt support gaming or thinks that video games are ruining society, but this is going a bit too far. I really hope you guys prove me wrong, but I see nothing but a huge waste of money and time coming out of this.
I don't mean to be offensive, but I don't think you have a very rounded perspective on what it takes to be successful in StarCraft. Obviously memorizing build orders for StarCraft 2 won't directly make you a better student, as build orders have an extremely limited application; however, the process of learning a strategy and putting it into practice is an extraordinarily valuable skill. The dedication, mental prowess, skill, and decision-making skills involved in StarCraft can all be directly translated into a plethora of other fields and activities. I've heard many professionals, in varying fields, compare the concepts of micro and macro to many real-world situations; one of these examples came from a doctor that reached out to Sheth after he did his streamathon for Docters without Borders.
Your point of 'mistakes don't matter in Starcraft' is valid if you only consider the narrow scope of having fun on ladder. From a professional players point of view, one mistake can mean the difference between 1st place and 2nd place, which is generally a significant sum of money. It can mean the difference of letting yourself down, which is a force that can be quite powerful and detrimental to one's spirit (see's Day9's 100th daily, and you'll more clearly understand what I mean).
All in all, I don't think you should be so eager to shit on someone's goals towards furthering the Starcraft scene in the eyes of the general population.
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On September 13 2011 01:22 ishyishy wrote:
I'm not sure what this is actually doing. What can be gained from this? What is the average player going to gain from this?
Here is one of my favorite quotes: "Why aren’t parents bugging their kids to memorize TvT builds, or practice their 4-gate, or watch replays from their mandatory daily laddering session, or write an essay about how they can improve their game?"
Obviously this is an exaggeration (or is it?!?!). There are plenty of more important, more useful things people do to improve things about themself. For example, physical exercise. This will help you in more ways than sc2 will ever help you.
Getting people to believe that endless sc2 practice will help improve their life or health or whathaveyou is just going to hurt the next generation. You honestly think that some highschool kid can benefit from playing 40 games of sc2 a day while their grades slip? People with full time jobs dont have time to play sc2 for more than 1-2 hours a day, if that.
This has to be a joke: "The SC2 interface is surprisingly similar to software designed for command and control centers in emergency management, where the goal is to deploy emergency personnel (fireman, paramedics and police) to crisis areas, while protecting strategic locations (bridges, reservoirs, etc.)."
You are honestly trying to relate a video game that has no real world significance to something that saves peoples lives? In sc2 you can make endless mistakes and it doesnt matter. A fireman or a police officer makes 1 mistake and it can mean the death of a person. Mistakes in sc2 can be forgiven and fixed, mistakes in these other areas are unforgivable.
For people as talented and intelligent as you are, I'm sure you can fabricate this study into something believable, but I am not going to believe it for a second. I'm not some guy that doesnt support gaming or thinks that video games are ruining society, but this is going a bit too far. I really hope you guys prove me wrong, but I see nothing but a huge waste of money and time coming out of this.
None of your examples make any sense whatsoever. He's comparing a kid practicing piano 1 to 2 hours a day to playing starcraft in that time instead, not forcing your child to play video games all day.You wouldn't even think of bring up the idea of exercise if it weren't for the thought that gaming causes you to not exercise which is ridiculous. In high school i played 5x more video games than any of my friends and was in far better physical shape then any of them.
The significance in the software design is obvious in that you have previous training doing similar exercises. They are able to repeat these exercises to obtain the skill needed in order to save peoples lives. You think those people go into a situation where someones life is on the line before they have had training? Your mindset is the exact problem with how people perceive gaming.
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Completing the survey now! This is an excellent research topic! Starcraft > Piano :D
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I remember a really good quote from Jeremy Wolfe (is/was a psych professor at MIT) who said (huge paraphrasing) "Pavlov was pretty much just a normal guy, what made him different is that when the rest of us saw something and thought to ourselves "That's interesting!" he thought "That's interesting! I wonder why?"" which is pretty much how I feel now. I look at Starcraft and I'm like "Cool!" while you guys think "holy shit, look at this potential."
Love it. Wish I could submit more than one replay to help things!
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On September 13 2011 01:54 oZe wrote:
Playing starcraft is more important than anything you learn in school except reading & math. School is mainly a tool used to turn you into a fool who can sit still, take orders & memorize. There is a reason powerfull people keep their kids out of it or were there many billionaire kids in your school? Starcraft teaches you to think for yourself, act independantly & take the consequences of that.
As if school doesn't teach you how to think for yourself, act independently, and accept the consequences of your own actions. If it doesn't, then you're not taking advantage of your schooling. And yes, this applies to terrible inner-city schools as well. There are things you can blame your school on -- opportunities missed, the terribly bureaucracy that might end up ruining your entire life several years down the road -- but if you think that school is only "a tool used to turn you into a fool who can sit still, take orders & memorize," then maybe you should take a look at yourself in the mirror and ask whether or not that was your own fault.
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What analyses are planned?
Will Blizzard let you publish their league-division algorithm, or will the journals let you get away with not having the mechanism for skill levels?
Are there any plans for a follow-up longitudinal study on improvement in a smaller cohort of participants over time?
Is there a bias in the replays being submitted being more likely to include wins than losses? Or is it possible to extract the league of the opponent in each game and look at both players? Is there any reason to expect that a game that results in a win might impact the variables you study differently from a game that results in a loss?
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Very nice read. I posted some replays (;
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On September 12 2011 14:42 CrushDog5 wrote:
Why aren’t parents bugging their kids to memorize TvT builds, or practice their 4-gate, or watch replays from their mandatory daily laddering session, or write an essay about how they can improve their game? Diligently mastering StarCraft 2 develops fine motor skills and strategic thinking, it trains both planning and time critical decision-making, it helps develop mental toughness, it encourages reflection and analysis, and it offers the myriad benefits of any serious pursuit; yet these rational, caring parents diligently limit their kids “screen time” to an hour a week.
Brilliant.
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If people have questions, chances are I've answered them in at least one of three places:
Original TL thread, here
Reddit AMA, here
One hour interview with InfestedMrT for rCraftGaming on Twitch, here
(They do King of the Hill tournaments for all levels, you should check them out)
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On September 13 2011 01:22 ishyishy wrote:
This has to be a joke: "The SC2 interface is surprisingly similar to software designed for command and control centers in emergency management, where the goal is to deploy emergency personnel (fireman, paramedics and police) to crisis areas, while protecting strategic locations (bridges, reservoirs, etc.)."
You are honestly trying to relate a video game that has no real world significance to something that saves peoples lives? In sc2 you can make endless mistakes and it doesnt matter. A fireman or a police officer makes 1 mistake and it can mean the death of a person. Mistakes in sc2 can be forgiven and fixed, mistakes in these other areas are unforgivable.
For people as talented and intelligent as you are, I'm sure you can fabricate this study into something believable, but I am not going to believe it for a second. I'm not some guy that doesnt support gaming or thinks that video games are ruining society, but this is going a bit too far. I really hope you guys prove me wrong, but I see nothing but a huge waste of money and time coming out of this.
I take it that you do not work in a field of applied science or mathematics, although I'm sure you benefit from those things. The idea here is to use SC2 to refine existing models of learning and memory which can then be applied to any area that involves training people. Just because 2 things are not the same (SC2, emergency management) does not mean they do not have SIMILARITIES.
The concept that two things can have similarities but not be the same is fundamental to science, which relies heavily on using models to refine things in the real world.
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EPT
