This course will go in-depth in the theory of how war is conducted within the confines of the game Starcraft. There will be lecture on various aspects of the game, from the viewpoint of pure theory to the more computational aspects of how exactly battles are conducted. Calculus and Differential Equations are highly recommended for full understanding of the course. Furthermore, the class will take the theoretical into the practical world by analyzing games and replays to reinforce decision-making skills and advanced Starcraft theory.
Props to my guildies (who shall remain anon!!) for sending this over.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
One of my guildies was raving about this last night; I didn't have the heart to mention how I managed to get credit for multiple SF classes in college and grad. school and that teh awesome has always been available in Teh Acadehmy for those willing to wade through course catalogues. Also? Every SF class I ever took was cross-listed to multiple departments, so I fulfilled CRAZY distribution requirements reading shit I was going to read (to the detriment of my acquaintance with the canon) anyway. Of course, it did mean I had to read "Woman On the Edge Of Time" like a gazillion times. There's always a price.
Oh God Yes. Total Annihilation... what an amazing game. Kind of proved that if a game was great enough, you could get by with a total lack of any kind of brand or backstory.
Calc, diffyQ, and video games? I'm there, my brother. Now if we can just add some linear algebra, I can completely geek out.
Group Theory FTW. Cycles, broken symmetry, vector transformation between the races!
TA was one of the rare games that completely reinvents a genre. At the time, it was owned by the Command And Conquer franchise. TA took the basic formula and expanded it into the stratosphere.
Along with such resounding success, though, comes the inevitable growing pains. Starcraft and TA had amazingly integrated and complex units, designed to function together on the battlefield.
The biggest problem, though, tended to be that in pvp games, people would take the cheapest, earliest available units, build a shitload of them, and zerg the hell out of you before you could even get a decent amount of defense up. We used to have arbitrary rules like "okay, no attacking for 10 minutes". I was glad that they actually built this rule into Supreme Commander.
Zergs have lived on, however. Espcially in pvp-based MMO's. Planetside kind of embraced this and due to the FPS-based nature of the gameplay, a group of disciplined defenders (or attackers) could overcome a numerically superior force. In auto-targeting fantasy-based MMO's, this tends not to be the case more and, far more often than not, sheer numbers would seal the deal.
Scott,
Are you playing Supreme Commander?
I haven't in a few months, but I was using the dual-screen setup when I was. It would be easy enough to dust it off and get 'er installed. I think I have the expansion pack version.
Is that a challange?
Glad to see you coming the RTS dark side, TNC.
Coates, you played Total Annihilation?!?! I'm shocked. I remember when StarCraft came out, SC and TA were semi-competitors: clearly both the best at what they did, there was a very clear dividing line between the people who played each. I'm actually sad to say, I never played TA...
Also, for those who complain about zergling rushes - they're a little irritating, but if you can figure out what to do about them you can learn to take advantage of them (assuming you survive, which should be possible and certainly was in SC).
This may be a hoax. From the Buzz Out Loud podcast on CNet :
There is no Starcraft class at UC Berkeley
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/28/109240
Undoubtedly, someone will send you this link. I will save you the 5 minutes of googling required to discover it is bogus.
1) Syllabus for alleged class is not on a UC Berkeley website
2) Search of online class schedule for instructors FENG, ALAN return no classes for Spring 09
3) google search for ” Alan Feng UC Berkeley” returns only references to the bogus syllabus, or hits for different spellings.
Buzz on,
engnr_chik from the chat room
"Also, for those who complain about zergling rushes - they're a little irritating, but if you can figure out what to do about them you can learn to take advantage of them"
I definitely agree with that, but I always felt it cheapened the game. You can almost feel the disconnect between all the lofty ideas flying around the design meetings. Those ideas turn into functional models and code. Those models and code then never really get used (especially the Tier 2 and Tier 3 examples) because everyone just spams cheap units at each other in tournaments.
Once again, I would forward Eve Online as the antithesis to this phenomena. The Alliance Tournament, which is developer sponsored and extremely lucrative if you win, brings the absolute best of the best from all corners of the game, completely and utterly pimped out in the most expensive gear (which, in Eve, goes boom forever if you die).
BTW, direct2drive is downloading my copy of Sup Com as we speak, er, type.
jwag,
The Starcraft course at Berkeley is a "DeCal" course. DeCals are low-unit courses that are designed and taught by students under minimal faculty supervision. Alan Feng is almost certainly a student and thus his name wouldn't show up in any faculty directory, search, etc. Additionally, it is not unusual for any Berkeley course, DeCal or not, to be hosted off the Berkeley servers. No big deal.
The original Warcraft and the Steel Panthers series were some of the first computer games I ever played way back when. Those, and the ST:TNG Final Unity game.
Highly Recommend trying out Dawn of War and DoW II when it comes out in a couple of months.
Is this being taught in the States or Seoul?
Have you been on anytime in the last 5 years?
I haven't played a single American, let alone a single player living outside Korea. It is a form of chess in Korea, cheat programs aside, the competition coming out of the peninsula is unmatched.
Like all online play, sucks getting punked by a 10 year old.
Beyond the boom and the beauty, I could never really get into RTS too much. Far too much twitch and too little tactics. The slower, plodding, epic feel of the Total War franchises (Rome ftw) and a good space 4x done properly (MOO2...not in any universe MOO3) are way more my style. Sure...takes weeks to play out a single game, but wtf?