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On January 24 2009 04:46 Amarxist wrote:
When people argue for the physical aspects of the game (which I can understand, it is impressive to see 500 APM, and it is as much a part of the game as everything else virtual), I can only think of one thing. I mean it really drags in my head and i'm not convinced that a game needs to have a physical dexterity barrier for it to be played.
When you think about it, there's game, yes a game, a game just like Starcraft. With a rich history dating to 500 years past, and even further then that. They call it the King's Game, it requires no physical dexterity what-so-ever (a paralyzed man could play this game). It is and it's players have been revered throughout the world for their prowess in it.
What game is it? Chess
It's a strategy game just like Starcraft, although it's turn based rather then real time. But for those who say that a game would lack depth, challenge, longevity, competitiveness and whatever else. Do you really think that's true? Chess has been around for 500 years and much longer then that through it's predecessors. It's a pure mind game, no physical prowess required to execute even the most adept moves.
I understand that Chess may not be the game for some people, but don't downplay another game for not being the game YOU want it to be.
Actually, Chess and Starcraft have one big difference. Chess is a game of completely open knowledge whereas Starcraft is a game of hidden knowledge.
I prefer emphasizing the physical aspects in SC2 (as far as SC:BW) for no other reason than because it takes practice and dedication and often times reflects how good you are at the game. It's not necessary to keep these physical aspects at such a level but I guess I'm just stuck on "don't fix what's not broken".
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good read imo.
I agree with a lot of wat ur saying. but i still think atleast AUTOmine should leave. right now
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On January 24 2009 10:45 NatsuTerran wrote:Show nested quote +
If the game works like how its marketed, and you if "win" mechanically by being good at doing commander-like things, than there is no split in the community. If there is strange tasks that doesn't feel quite right, like having to go back to base every 20 seconds to move a worker, than the casual folks would be annoyed and the player base would be split. If it is at all possible, it would be best if EVERYTHING in the game is built out of intuitive and thematic concepts. The game maker are suppose to build a game that fits the player base's ideas and biases about what he should do, as opposed force a new set on him.
That's why nobody likes Starcraft yah. Show nested quote +The skill ceiling is very much a myth created by unimaginative players that can not imagine any skill outside the one they have already. Even for a strategically degenerate game like RPS (rock paper scissors) could run a tournament where skill exists (due to non-ideal random number generation by humans or seeded programs) shows that strategy and skill exists as long as a human is the opponent and the game have even one element of randomness and complexity. If a game only have a circular build order counter (bo1>bo2>bo3>bo1), the game can be unboundedly skillful in the metagame, where competitive players would spend all their time computing Bo probability. Well a great deal of players like me don't care about any form of skill other than physical. It's just the most interesting to us. For example, when I took martial arts, I never cared to learn technique application, when to do what etc. I just wanted to practice roundhouse kicks on a heavy bag over and over and over again until it was as damaging as a kick from the really big guy in class. I could care less if it was time to clinch or time to elbow or knee, I enjoyed pwning opponents with superior mechanics. In much the same way, I can have just as much fun practicing macro on my own and doing mock micro or whatever without even needing an opponent. There's just something extremely enjoyable to me about muscle memory, whether it's about worker building every ten seconds, proper MA technical ability, throwing a ball through a hoop, hitting a ball with a bat, spinning a ping pong ball, or any other similar task. It's just what I enjoy seeing as the primary skill factor involved. I like to think of strategy as a tie breaker between two equally skilled players. I don't see strategy as a skill in itself. As for the Chess comment, I liken Chess to a SC match where both players are equally skilled, and thus have to use strategy to see who wins. With that said there is no harm for someone like me to learn Chess. I just have a problem with people with inferior mechanics beating someone just because of their tactics (cheese?). And since Chess has no mechanics it's fair game. But to change a video game, something that has by tradition always required muscle memory, to allow some random noob to win just by thinking harder is a huge slap in the face to the guy who actually trains his hands on the keyboard.
This guy nailed it, he really did. And I'd like to add, about the "cheese" strategies. A player with better mechanics can even overcome a "cheese" tactic, and that provides for some of the most entertaining starcraft out there.
Strategy is an important part of SC as well, and provides for many shouts of excitement, but it has to be combined with mechanics or the game will not be any more fun or competitive than other flashy RTS games.
when you watch a pro game, the only times you hear the crowd go nuts is when amazing control is displayed, a blunder in control happens, or intelligent or sneaky tactics are used. people who call mechanics as "mindless" may be right on the surface, but they are missing the point entirely.
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On January 24 2009 11:10 BanZu wrote:
Actually, Chess and Starcraft have one big difference. Chess is a game of completely open knowledge whereas Starcraft is a game of hidden knowledge.
This is really, really important. Games where both sides have imperfect knowledge of the other open up more strategies of deception, and encourage drawing conclusions from imperfect data. It's a bit like poker, where you try to draw conclusions about the other guy's cards from imperfect data like his behaviour or his betting patterns. Or, for that matter, like military intelligence, which always consists of spotty knowledge from which a coherent theory of what the other guy is trying to do is put together. This, to me, is one of the big, big defining features of Starcraft.
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Fun is what gets people into competitive play.
When you read interviews of the OLDER Korean pros - everyone started because it was such a fun game. More recent pros may also have started because they envied other pros - but when SC was released there was no pro scene yet.
Fun must be there to begin with, otherwise people don't start with it, and once they start they will try to get better and better so there needs to be a balance and an open skill ceiling. Additionally, there needs to be tons of other players so that you get games constantly, and the pro scene which slowly manifests itself needs to be visible for other players (through replays, VODs, spectators in games) which then is an influence for them (so that they see how good the best ones are so they can see their goal: to become better than these players are). Another bonus is if the game is well suited for spectators (which SC is): one important thing there is that it's fast, has lots of action, and is well readable (i.e. not confusing). For the spectator, it must be like a Hollywood summer blockbuster superhero action movie: fast, furious, polished, easy to understand and fun.
It also needs to attract lots of people. Because your game might be the best in the world, but you need players who actually play it. I mean if I say I'm good at Nethack no one really cares because no one knows the game (so they can't even tell if that's a good thing or not because they don't know how hard it is to become good at it, and they won't even bother to find out because it has ASCII graphics and a complicated user interface), while if I'd say I'm good at Starcraft there would be much more influence because everyone knows the game and knows that it's quite hard too.
So you need to design your game so that even retards can play it, otherwise you're missing out on a TON of players. Blizzard always does that - their games are incredibly easy to get into, there's almost zero learning required except when you start competing against other players in which case you need to know good builds, strategies, timing and have good mechanics.
Another thing to consider is that a complete newbie playing Fastest Map Possible with 40 APM and Protoss is just as important to the game as a progamer. Because if you simply get rid of all the noobs, you'll end up with a game with about 1000 players tops, and no one would bother to create tournaments for a game with only 1000 players, however skilled they are. There would be no audience, so it would be irrelevant. It would be like Nethack - played by a few nerds who might be extremely good at it, but the rest of the world wouldn't know the game at all or give a shit.
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Starcraft is an RTS. Chess is a TBS.
The fact that SC is real-time means that the mechanical, physically challenging, monstrous APM side is a feature of the game and genre, and simply can't be removed. Unless both competitors are competeing on a similar mechanical level (real-time), strategy very rarely enters the picture.
Methodical thinking and meticulous planning is why we watch chess; StarCraft's insane micro, positioning and macro are dependant on the stressful and adrenaline fueled real time aspect of the game.
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I disagree with sheepyd's view. The real time in RTS refers to the concept that you are limited in reaction time. This also has to do with physical finesse, but the grand idea of Real Time Strategy is that you have to react quickly on the mental plane. It is the scouting of build orders and adapt, getting unit composition and position correct, that's where the difference is between RTS and TBS. In chess, unit positioning is everything, but you can take your time to think things through. (well most official matches are with a clock, anyway, but I am generalizing here.)
To people who say that being the best, mechanically, gives you a thrill.. well, imagine the thrill of finally outplaying your opponent with mind tricks, rather than clickerdeclicks? If the physical demands are very low but the strategical depth is great, then as a mechanical man, you might get defeated every time. But when you finally got the knowledge to beat your opponents, there is just as much reward. This has nothing to do with the game being physical or not, it has to do with it being fun and balanced. It is a separate debate altogether, what you desires are for a game as to the balance between physical demand and automation.
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Bill307
Canada9103 Posts
On January 23 2009 17:16 SWPIGWANG wrote:
2. What is "fun"
...
I. Consistent Challenge: Challenge is fun. A game must provide some challenge at every phase of the game. This is where many games fails, since the player is bored doing things like executing a mindless BO. It is not about absolute skill requirements to win, but down time in a match where player and watcher attention drifts. The important part is to tune the game so that every phase require attention, is important and has interesting things going on. In other words, importance of time has to be balanced. Never should a game be pointless in the first 5 minutes for only 10 seconds of worthy battle followed by another 5 minutes of dull clean up of someone refusing to gg.
In addition to challenges of control, there needs to be consistent intellectual challenge, over phases of an individual game and the game's lifetime. This comes from Diversity in the game, which results from BALANCE, depth, probabilistic factors and variation between the individual games played (aka maps, settings, etc). The topic is large enough for its own thread.
I have done some thinking about issues like this for my own game project. Here are my thoughts as they relate to SCBW / SC2 / RTS.
One thing about high-level competitive play that makes it less fun -- in ANY genre -- is that the overall strategies tend to converge to one or more optimal strategies. This convergence is unavoidable, and it can lead to very repetitive and uninteresting games in the worst cases. The way to keep the game interesting and non-repetitive (and thus more fun) at this level is to aim to make each match different from the last in spite of this convergence of strategies. The players must be encouraged to use their intelligence and their creativity to adapt to each match's unique circumstances. And the more often they have opportunities to be creative and intelligent, the better.
For this discussion, let us assume that if we make every match unique, then it will entail intelligence and creativity from the players. Obviously this isn't always true: if I ask you to add two numbers, I can make the numbers unique each time, but it doesn't make the task any more interesting because solving it is systematic and mechanical: it's something a computer could easily do. But this issue deserves its own discussion. In any case, intelligence and creativity can only come into play when unique (or rare) situations arise in a match, so that is our starting point.
Moving on, an obvious way to make each match different is to introduce randomness. With some exceptions, this is generally unwanted. So let us assume our game will have NO randomness at all. How else can we make individual matches unique if the players are aiming to do the same optimal strategies every time?
The key lies in player-vs-player interaction. Whenever two players interact on the battle field, the outcome is always different. Sometimes the difference is a handful of HP, or a few zerglings. And sometimes it is much more significant, such as a loss of workers or an important building. In any case, the interactions have to be meaningful enough that they can cause a sort of "butterfly effect", where if things do not go exactly as planned, then the player's build/strategy will drift farther and farther away from their "cookie-cutter" build/strategy. (For example, losing even a few workers early on will noticeably affect the timings of ones build.) Otherwise, the small differences between different outcomes will not affect the players' overall game plans, and the matches will be essentially the same until something meaningful does happen.
Therefore, perhaps we should design the game so that the ideal strategies encourage early, meaningful player-vs-player interaction?
But there is a problem: in the RTS paradigm, the players must ascend a tech tree, and doing so grants them access to a much wider variety of tools, but it requires an initial investment first. Similarly, expanding can also increase their options since they have more income to work with. If player-vs-player interactions are too important, then the players will be unable to invest in teching or expanding, because they will need every last bit of resources to fight with their opponent. In particular, while the players are low on resources, the ability to have meaningful interactions is almost mutually-exclusive with the ability to tech/expand: if a player is free to invest in tech/expansion, then their opponent's units must not be very meaningful since the player can deal with them despite having a significantly weaker army!
Now that we have scratched the surface, we can see that making every match significantly-different right from the start (without relying on randomness) is not a straightforward issue, which helps explain why RTS games seem to have trouble achieving it. Let alone the issue of what kinds of differences will force the players to use their intelligence and creativity to adapt, as opposed to differences that are like changing the values of variables in a mathematical formula -- differences that can be overcome systematically? I'll stop here, since these are deep questions and I do not have the time to dive deeper into them at the moment.
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Bill307
Canada9103 Posts
Clearly, from skimming some of the posts in this topic, there are (at least) two different aspects of SCBW -- and many other games -- that make it fun, as both a player and a spectator.
One is the intelligence and creativity aspect: adapting to the unique, complex situations that arise (and from the spectator's point of view, seeing something different happen each time, and seeing the players make intelligent and creative decisions).
Another is the mechanics aspect: having the physical and mental skills to have high apm, good macro, good micro, and so on (and from the spectator's point of view, seeing mechanical feats that make you stare in awe).
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On January 24 2009 19:48 Bill307 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2009 17:16 SWPIGWANG wrote:
2. What is "fun"
...
I. Consistent Challenge: Challenge is fun. A game must provide some challenge at every phase of the game. This is where many games fails, since the player is bored doing things like executing a mindless BO. It is not about absolute skill requirements to win, but down time in a match where player and watcher attention drifts. The important part is to tune the game so that every phase require attention, is important and has interesting things going on. In other words, importance of time has to be balanced. Never should a game be pointless in the first 5 minutes for only 10 seconds of worthy battle followed by another 5 minutes of dull clean up of someone refusing to gg.
In addition to challenges of control, there needs to be consistent intellectual challenge, over phases of an individual game and the game's lifetime. This comes from Diversity in the game, which results from BALANCE, depth, probabilistic factors and variation between the individual games played (aka maps, settings, etc). The topic is large enough for its own thread. I have done some thinking about issues like this for my own game project. Here are my thoughts as they relate to SCBW / SC2 / RTS. One thing about high-level competitive play that makes it less fun -- in ANY genre -- is that the overall strategies tend to converge to one or more optimal strategies. This convergence is unavoidable, and it can lead to very repetitive and uninteresting games in the worst cases. The way to keep the game interesting and non-repetitive (and thus more fun) at this level is to aim to make each match different from the last in spite of this convergence of strategies. The players must be encouraged to use their intelligence and their creativity to adapt to each match's unique circumstances. And the more often they have opportunities to be creative and intelligent, the better. For this discussion, let us assume that if we make every match unique, then it will entail intelligence and creativity from the players. Obviously this isn't always true: if I ask you to add two numbers, I can make the numbers unique each time, but it doesn't make the task any more interesting because solving it is systematic and mechanical: it's something a computer could easily do. But this issue deserves its own discussion. In any case, intelligence and creativity can only come into play when unique (or rare) situations arise in a match, so that is our starting point. Moving on, an obvious way to make each match different is to introduce randomness. With some exceptions, this is generally unwanted. So let us assume our game will have NO randomness at all. How else can we make individual matches unique if the players are aiming to do the same optimal strategies every time? The key lies in player-vs-player interaction. Whenever two players interact on the battle field, the outcome is always different. Sometimes the difference is a handful of HP, or a few zerglings. And sometimes it is much more significant, such as a loss of workers or an important building. In any case, the interactions have to be meaningful enough that they can cause a sort of "butterfly effect", where if things do not go exactly as planned, then the player's build/strategy will drift farther and farther away from their "cookie-cutter" build/strategy. (For example, losing even a few workers early on will noticeably affect the timings of ones build.) Otherwise, the small differences between different outcomes will not affect the players' overall game plans, and the matches will be essentially the same until something meaningful does happen. Therefore, perhaps we should design the game so that the ideal strategies encourage early, meaningful player-vs-player interaction? But there is a problem: in the RTS paradigm, the players must ascend a tech tree, and doing so grants them access to a much wider variety of tools, but it requires an initial investment first. Similarly, expanding can also increase their options since they have more income to work with. If player-vs-player interactions are too important, then the players will be unable to invest in teching or expanding, because they will need every last bit of resources to fight with their opponent. In particular, while the players are low on resources, the ability to have meaningful interactions is almost mutually-exclusive with the ability to tech/expand: if a player is free to invest in tech/expansion, then their opponent's units must not be very meaningful since the player can deal with them despite having a significantly weaker army! Now that we have scratched the surface, we can see that making every match significantly-different right from the start (without relying on randomness) is not a straightforward issue, which helps explain why RTS games seem to have trouble achieving it. Let alone the issue of what kinds of differences will force the players to use their intelligence and creativity to adapt, as opposed to differences that are like changing the values of variables in a mathematical formula -- differences that can be overcome systematically? I'll stop here, since these are deep questions and I do not have the time to dive deeper into them at the moment.
You really hit the nail on the head and furthermore I want to extend on why this makes sense in a practical application. As we all know anyone who picks up starcraft nowadays will watch replays, copy build orders, and repeat. There's no creativity, no room for error, you do what you see and nothing more. On the other hand, when Age of Empires 3 came out there wasn't anything new for RTS at the time, sc and wc3 had been out for a while already and so it was pretty cool.
Needless to say I was able to come up with my own strategies and really out think people, sure perhaps some people had lesser mechanics and sure maybe a lot of people just sucked, but the bottom line is that it was so much fun to come up with new and unique strategies. I think this is what Blizzard is going to achieve by 1.) making the battlefield more dynamic and not so typical and 2.) coming out with multiple expansions(new units will cause people to come up with new strategies if the units aren't under powered, period.)
"...to allow some random noob to win just by thinking harder..."
I hope you realize how completely contradictory this statement is. Its like anything, some people can win with brains, some can win with brawn. You're saying because you can kick a bag harder that you're supposed to automatically win even though he ran circles around you mentally? Sorry, but that's just the wrong thing to say, gaming is what...99% mental? Pressing a key isn't much physical exertion compared to the brain power required.
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Bill307
Canada9103 Posts
On January 24 2009 05:51 MuR)Ernu wrote:
Comparing chess and starcraft is just silly. Why not compare chess and soccer too? They both need some strategy right?
No, chess= 100% mindgame.
Starcraft= Mindgame/Physical. Depending on your playstyle the procentages change. Some people are like 80% strategy and 20% mechanics, etc.
It's a completely different thing. Starcraft is basically a physical sport in a way, but still strategic. Actually videogames go in their own category in sports, nothing is really similar.
And if you make an RTS without the physical side, it most likely will suck. It's not just all that fun imo.
It's funny that you're implying Chess is pure strategy, because that's pure nonsense.
Chess is 100% mental tasks, true, but those tasks are, like in SCBW, split between mechanics and strategy. Some examples of Chess mechanics:
- Remembering opening books.
- Keeping track of how many pieces attack and defend each square.
- Being able to visualize and remember a large number of different positions in ones head while simultaneously performing other mental tasks with these positions.
In Chess, one can easily beat an opponent with weaker mechanics even if the opponent has much better strategical thinking. The extreme case is a computer, which has really only one strategy, "play the best move", yet with sufficient memory and processing power (and smart algorithms, and a strong opening book) can defeat even the most brilliant human.
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Bill307
Canada9103 Posts
By the way, imo it's easy to see that StarCraft, at a high competitive level, is 99% memory and mechanics.
Why? Because (as far as I've heard) a progamer's training schedule consists entirely of practice time.
Practice (with the addition of proper sleep) is the one and only way to improve your memory and mechanics skills. Strategy, on the other hand, requires not only practice, but also time spent thinking about the game outside of the game. Improving your strategy requires reflection, and discussion with your friends. If you do not spend time thinking about strategy, then your strategical thinking will never improve: all you will ever know is that strategy A performed better than strategy B in your practice games.
Now I'm sure progamers (at least some of them) will think about and talk about strategy during their spare time. But the fact that their schedules (as far as I know) don't explicitly set time aside for strategic discussion is imo a very strong indicator that having a good strategic mind at that level is completely unnecessary.
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On January 24 2009 20:18 Bill307 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2009 05:51 MuR)Ernu wrote:
Comparing chess and starcraft is just silly. Why not compare chess and soccer too? They both need some strategy right?
No, chess= 100% mindgame.
Starcraft= Mindgame/Physical. Depending on your playstyle the procentages change. Some people are like 80% strategy and 20% mechanics, etc.
It's a completely different thing. Starcraft is basically a physical sport in a way, but still strategic. Actually videogames go in their own category in sports, nothing is really similar.
And if you make an RTS without the physical side, it most likely will suck. It's not just all that fun imo. It's funny that you're implying Chess is pure strategy, because that's pure nonsense. Chess is 100% mental tasks, true, but those tasks are, like in SCBW, split between mechanics and strategy. Some examples of Chess mechanics: - Remembering opening books. - Keeping track of how many pieces attack and defend each square. - Being able to visualize and remember a large number of different positions in ones head while simultaneously performing other mental tasks with these positions. In Chess, one can easily beat an opponent with weaker mechanics even if the opponent has much better strategical thinking. The extreme case is a computer, which has really only one strategy, "play the best move", yet with sufficient memory and processing power (and smart algorithms, and a strong opening book) can defeat even the most brilliant human.
Hmm, this is sort of getting into the issue of what actually counts as "strategy". After all, how is "play the best move" not the ideal strategy?
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On January 24 2009 05:51 MuR)Ernu wrote:
Comparing chess and starcraft is just silly. Why not compare chess and soccer too? They both need some strategy right?
No, chess= 100% mindgame.
Starcraft= Mindgame/Physical. Depending on your playstyle the procentages change. Some people are like 80% strategy and 20% mechanics, etc.
It's a completely different thing. Starcraft is basically a physical sport in a way, but still strategic. Actually videogames go in their own category in sports, nothing is really similar.
And if you make an RTS without the physical side, it most likely will suck. It's not just all that fun imo.
Also, sc2 will probably still be "hard" and still has some of the physical aspect. But why play it when there is a lot better game around?
From what i have seen i like SC more.
These things i don't like about sC2:
-3d graphics (not really all that important but i like 2d more).
- MBS, automine, infinite unit selection, autocast, uber unit AI. (more like the fact they
made it easier.)
*Also the fact that they easified it by making macro too easy, and then adding stupid shit like the gas mechaninc and that dark pylon stuff.
- The fact that it will be "complete" only after like 4years(the expansions and patching).
Now some of you might think its fine but i don't.
Interesting. So if Starcraft 2's first part came out, you would rather play another game, perhaps even its predecessor? Well what if Blizzard started changing the game to react to gamers' disgust at it which would be reflected in forums and sales? Would you come back? The game isn't going to be perfect the first time around. Very few engineering innovations are when they hit the market after testing, similar to game design.
Perhaps the alpha testers didn't think mbs was bad and didn't write about it, so now us TLers have a comic contest to win to get Blizzard to change it in the beta.
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On January 24 2009 10:45 NatsuTerran wrote:
to allow some random noob to win just by thinking harder is a huge slap in the face to the guy who actually trains his hands on the keyboard.
Thing is, to a lot of players, it is the exact opposite. It is equally a huge slap in the face to someone who put in countless hours trying to come up with the best possible builds, counters, timings, army positions and game plan, to lose to a mechanical player who has zero strategical knowledge. In it's core an RTS is a strategy game and strategy should prevale over mechanics.
A lot of RTS fans think that mechanics should be the tie-breaking aspect incase two players have similar strategical prowess, and not the other way around.
While we may not agree with the above-mentioned players, reality dictates that Blizzard must keep their wishes in mind when creating Starcraft 2.
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By the way, the physical side of starcraft is mostly muscle memory, and reflexes. You are supposed to be able to do the BO, micro and macro without thinking about it. If you can't do that, you are not able to play really, because you would be too slow.
Its sort of like playing piano for example, you need to have every note in your muscle memory, so you can play it without thinking too much.
And when you are VERY good, that you can find any note at any moment, you can start to improvise and play songs quickly by ear.
Actually martial arts are by a large part mental too. You need to know how you do the techniques, nad you have to be able to read your opponent.
And those who are good mechanically do play somewhat strategic too. Or more like tactically.
You need to know how to micro, how to position units and stuff.
Nobody wins with "pure" mechanics really.
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In some sense, the brain is a muscle in the sense if you train it, it gets better at a task. Except for a very small group of tasks that require communication, most things the brain is capable of lies outside the consciousness. For fast real time games, strategy is prep one does before the game, as strategic thinking is far to slow. One plays test games and cross reference the data, find something works and practice the hell out of it so it become reflex. Consider speed chess: It is decided by heuristic pattern recognition that comes from training in normal games.
Well, pretty much everyone intelligent is capable of reasoning and strategy. What differentiate good and bad players is memory of game events after all....
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One can even say that strategic thinking can be divorced from the player. Someone generate the table of solutions (by this own strategic thinking, statistical or mechanical mathematic brute force or something else) and give it to the players to memorize. Why bother learning strategy when it can be outsourced to the couch?
Just look at the "game theory" school of poker playing comes from memorizing a ton of computer tables.
Perhaps the increasing in computing power would cause a collapse of strategy as we know it as we give it a bit more time. Massive start and end game tables for chess is already around and the secret to the computer's strength....
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On January 24 2009 10:45 NatsuTerran wrote:
to allow some random noob to win just by thinking harder is a huge slap in the face to the guy who actually trains his hands on the keyboard.
Wow. I wonder if I should take this quote around the RTS world and both for the lulz and to illustrate how strange the cross section of RTS players have grown. The irony is just a bit too much. (or is that really a troll?)
I don't mind a mechanical game and I spend a bit of time playing stepmania but the genre we are discussing is Real-Time Strategy. What this means for a number of players is something like Turn Based Strategy but with more synchronized explosions.......
Just how far have the genre went to become the playground of twitch players?...
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On January 25 2009 01:45 SWPIGWANG wrote:
In some sense, the brain is a muscle in the sense if you train it, it gets better at a task. Except for a very small group of tasks that require communication, most things the brain is capable of lies outside the consciousness. For fast real time games, strategy is prep one does before the game, as strategic thinking is far to slow. One plays test games and cross reference the data, find something works and practice the hell out of it so it become reflex. Consider speed chess: It is decided by heuristic pattern recognition that comes from training in normal games.
Well, pretty much everyone intelligent is capable of reasoning and strategy. What differentiate good and bad players is memory of game events after all....
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One can even say that strategic thinking can be divorced from the player. Someone generate the table of solutions (by this own strategic thinking, statistical or mechanical mathematic brute force or something else) and give it to the players to memorize. Why bother learning strategy when it can be outsourced to the couch?
Just look at the "game theory" school of poker playing comes from memorizing a ton of computer tables.
Perhaps the increasing in computing power would cause a collapse of strategy as we know it as we give it a bit more time. Massive start and end game tables for chess is already around and the secret to the computer's strength....
Play the opening like a book, the middle game like a magician, and the endgame like a machine.
Famous quote from Rudolf Spielmann, a chess writer.
Memory is used at the start when both players have limited and explored options - in SC:BW it´s called build orders. The endgame as well, it´s just blowing up buildings - usually the looser recognizes that and surrenders (how many pro-games end in "GG" rather than a "real" win?)
The "fun" part in Strategy games is when its NOT computable, when creativity, intution and experience are the deciding factors.
Again:
On January 25 2009 01:45 SWPIGWANG wrote:
Massive start and end game tables for chess is already around and the secret to the computer's strength
Well, what are computers good in? Memorization and calculations, ergo the booring parts.
Blizzard already shorted the unfun starting phase when they increased peonnumbers to 6.
TL:DR
When we talk about Strategy we want to put emphatis on the aspect that a computer would be bad in because only then it´s "fun" Strategy (creativity, intution and experience) instead of looking up Spreadsheets.
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EPT
