A dissertation on how nerds mate?

Wow, that was pretty interesting.

I've wasted many hours with Starcraft (the first version), and I do remember thinking "Holy crap how are my fingers moving this quickly?"

MOAR VESPENE

My wife for hire

cretinbob: A dissertation on how nerds mate?

Oh. It's someone who is farking terrible at video games making the incorrect correlation that the only people who are good at video games are shut-ins. Nothing important to see here. Carrying on to the relevant comments in this discussion thread.

And, as expected, interesting piece. It's always been my opinion that top-flight real-time strategy games are in a completely different plane of existence when it comes to the skill set required to perform well. Fighting games come close, but multitasking separates the RTS from just about everything. Not many other games combine multitasking with split-second reflexes.

Everyone knows you can't build on the creep.

dummy.

Jamdug!: Everyone knows you can't build on the creep.

dummy.

Minecraft?

UrCa: I forgot what I was watching exactly, but in a video I recall hearing that someone whose APM wasn't necessarily too high to begin with just did erroneous clicking the majority of the time to condition himself to be able to do clicking that meant something. I guess consider it like a jogger who jogs in place at a red light. They're not going anywhere, they just wanna keep the flow going.

See: Guitar Hero players who rapidly press different patterns of fret buttons before the song actually begins.

Peki: I disagree with the article. I don't think gamers are multitasking. I think they are using muscle memory to learn a kind of finger dance routine to free up their brain for responding to important events. You play a game long enough you know what strategy works for you in the least amount of time possible. Eventually, clicking A to get B tech to get C building to build X fighter becomes habit. I doubt the pros build more than a small percentage of the game's available buildings and technology, instead only focusing on what gets them where they want to go the quickest. There are fewer variables actually in play than what the scientists and author might think.

Blizzard's best strategy games (StarCraft: Brood War, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne) have nearly-perfect cyclical balance (minus Orc vs. Undead) and any changes in the metagame can be adjusted through map design. I still see completely new and original strategies used in Warcraft III and my understanding is that competitive StarCraft: Brood War recently ushered in an era of fast-expanding Terrans against Protoss, something that was thought to be absolutely inconceivable in the previous metagames. The ability to shift strategy on the fly is far, far more important in those games than I've seen in any other real-time strategy games.

The article is referring to the actual process of focusing energy and effort on multiple areas at once during the mid-to-late game, where you're building units back at your base while focusing on the dropship you're sending towards the enemy's main base while micromanaging your troops during an assault on one of the enemy expansions. Which situation do you spend the most active energy on? Blizzard's strategy games haven't been "send it and forget it" games since Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness came out. In order to make your attack work, you have to use those units effectively. While StarCraft strategy is actually fairly simplistic even compared to other real-time strategy games (and certainly simplistic compared to 4X strategy games), that rote strategy still has a dynamic edge to it (the positions you attack in the mid-to-late game will always change depending on how you want to play the map) and when combined with the actual mechanical skill required to perform those strategies, makes for a game flow and mental scrutiny that doesn't exist anywhere else.

That's what the article is referring to. There's a stress to performance in StarCraft and Warcraft that is really unemulated in any other video games and they're trying to figure out if that combination of multitasking and mechanical skill can be studied and harnessed for real-world application. Personally, I'm the best real-time strategy player in my group of friends (mostly playing Warcraft III and both StarCraft games) and I'm the only person who can carry an active conversation while playing any other video game or working on something else. They have trouble doing that. It's possible scientists are on to something.

Geotpf: This many decisions per minute is why I prefer FPSes. My brain simply can't handle the whole map; it's too much work. I play games to have fun, not to work.

Looking at a complicated battlefield with all sorts of hazards, building your economic machine, creating a carefully-considered army, attacking several positions at once, and watching your opponent's defenses absolutely crumble under your might is as fun as it gets.

OMG ZERG RUSH

nohit: OMG ZERG RUSH

kekeke

J. Frank Parnell: an elite player can perform about 5 or 6 actions a second, which translates into a flurry of key presses and mouse maneuvers (see video, above).

If you watch the pros there's a whole lot of what i call 'nervous clicking' that gets added to the tally of actions. They are doing a lot of stuff, for sure, but there is a status thing now about performing the most actions, and anyone who doesn't partake in redundant actions is at the bottom of the list, so pretty much everyone does it.

This.

I remembered when I played RTS (or when I had the time to play them), a lot of clicking was hammering the barracks or some other building when its progress bar was nearing completion so it could begin training troops right away with no idle time. Now, is that considered one action or a dozen?

I've never been any good at RTS games, and never really enjoyed them. The last ones I tried were the Homeworld games, and it always irritated the hell out of me that while I was simultaneously focusing on research and development, building a defense and manufacturing ships appropriate for the upcoming attack, some jerks in a flight squadron a thousand klicks away are radioing me "running out of fuel here..." and sustaining heavy damage. How about this, idiot. Unless I order you on a suicide run, do what any real pilot would do, and head the fark back to the nearest support vessel for refuel/repair, or retreat if the damage gets too bad and wait for retrieval. Don't make me micromanage your ass.

The article is wrong from the very beginning: Koreans aren't human. Humans can't do that many things at once at that speed. If the SE Asians ever pool that potential into something more productive to their country, we're farked.

Virtuoso80: and that girl narrating is Miss Oregon 2011, who is dating the head of the team. Not too shabby if you ask me.

Are you really, honestly suggesting that men with money are able to attract women?