A Reasoning-Based Defogger for Opponent Army Composition Inference Under Partial Observability
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THE PRIMORDIAL ECONOMICS of CHEATING: Trading Skill for Glory Or Vital Steps to Evolved Play?
THE PRIMORDIAL ECONOMICS OF CHEATING: Trading Skill for Glory or Vital Steps to Evolved Play? Robert MacBride Games Programs, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC 3000 Australia (+61 3) 9925-2000 [email protected] [email protected] ABSTRACT firstly outline some of the ways in which ethics have been In a period marked by cultural, industrial and technological conceptualised in game play, following this; a look at a case convergences of new media platforms globally, what study of Melbourne MMO players and their definitions of constitutes ‘Situated play’? One of the key aspects of the the “ethics” in games through the rubric of cheating. global digital industries has been the increasing importance of locality in determining modes of game play. Far from The case study of MMO users in Melbourne will consist of homogenising game play, globalisation has resulted in users from over 10 ethnic backgrounds. The sample study “disjuncture” and “difference” at the level of the local. Take, will ask users about their definition of cheating and right or for example, the considerable successes of the Massively wrong game play so that we may mediate on some of Multiplayer Online scene; despite its movement towards the saliencies and nascent socio-cultural dimensions of play and idea of the connected gaming civilisation model, many locality. MMO are not global but, rather, played by certain communities that share linguistic, socio-cultural or political economy similarities. A considerably poignant example KEYWORDS would be the way in which different aesthetics appeal to Cheat, Debug, Trainer, Twinking, Build & Levelling guides, cultural contexts. The formulation of these distinctive taste Camping, Programming flaw exploitation, Walkthrough, cultures are marked by what Pierre Bourdieu noted as FAQ (Frequently asked question document), Patching, modes of cultural (productions of knowledges), social and Speed run, Gold/Stat farming, Ghosting, Unlockable, Easter economic capital. -
View the Manual
© 2011 1C Company. Developed by Digitalmindsoft. All rights reserved. This product contains technology licensed by Best Way. Index ===== Installation.....................................2 System Requirements ............................2 Installation ...................................3 Launching the Game .............................3 Profile .........................................3 Main Menu........................................3 Single Player....................................4 Game Menu ......................................6 Game Interface .................................8 1. Main Screen ...............................8 2. Minimap ...................................9 3. Squads - Panel of Quick Unit Selection ..10 4. Message History ..........................10 5. Mission Objectives .......................10 6. Control Panel ............................10 Controls........................................12 Alternate Selection ...........................13 Game Controls .................................15 Direct Control ................................19 Context Commands ..............................20 Infantry ......................................21 Vehicles ......................................22 Weapons .......................................24 Inventory .....................................26 Using Items ...................................27 Cover and Camouflage ...........................27 Other Features ................................28 Multiplayer - LAN...............................29 LAN Game Interface ............................29 -
All but War Is Simulation: the Military Entertainment Complex
1 THEATERS OF WAR: THE MILITARY-ENTERTAINMENT COMPLEX Tim Lenoir and Henry Lowood Stanford University To appear in Jan Lazardzig, Helmar Schramm, Ludger Schwarte, eds., Kunstkammer, Laboratorium, Bühne--Schauplätze des Wissens im 17. Jahrhundert/ Collection, Laboratory, Theater, Berlin; Walter de Gruyter Publishers, 2003 in both German and in English War games are simulations combining game, experiment and performance. The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has been the primary proponent of war game design since the 1950s. Yet, commercial game designers produced many of the ideas shaping the design of military simulations, both before and after the advent of computer-based games. By the 1980s, the seeds of a deeper collaboration among military, commercial designers, the entertainment industry, and academic researchers in the development of high-end computer simulations for military training had been planted. They built “distributed interactive simulations” (DIS) such as SIMNET that created virtual theaters of war by linking participants interacting with distributed software or hardware simulators in real time. The simulators themselves presented synthetic environments—virtual worlds—by utilizing advances in computer graphics and virtual reality research. With the rapid development of DIS technology during the 1990s, content and compelling story development became increasingly important. The necessity of realistic scenarios and backstory in military simulations led designers to build databases of historical, geographic and physical data, reconsider the role of synthetic agents in their simulations and consult with game design and entertainment talents for the latest word on narrative and performance. Even when this has not been the intention of their designers and sponsors, military simulations have been deeply embedded in commercial forms of entertainment, for example, by providing content and technology deployed in computer and video games. -
Dealing with Fog of War in a Real Time Strategy Game Environment
Dealing with Fog of War in a Real Time Strategy Game Environment Johan Hagelback¨ and Stefan J. Johansson Abstract— Bots for Real Time Strategy (RTS) games provide A. Research Question and Methodology a rich challenge to implement. A bot controls a number of units The main research question of this paper is: Is it possible that may have to navigate in a partially unknown environment, while at the same time search for enemies and coordinate to construct a bot without access to perfect information for attacks to fight them down. It is often the case that RTS AIs RTS games that perform as well as bots that have perfect cheat in the sense that they get perfect information about information? This breaks down to: the game world to improve the performance of the tactics 1) What is the difference in performance between using a and planning behavior. We show how a multi-agent potential field based bot can be modified to play an RTS game without FoWbot compared to a PIbot in terms of a) the number cheating, i.e. with incomplete information, and still be able to of won matches, and b) the number of units and bases perform well without spending more resources than its cheating left if the bot wins? version in a tournament. 2) To what degree will a field of exploration help the FoW bot to explore the unknown environment? 3) What is the difference in the computational needs for I. INTRODUCTION the FoWbot compared to the PIbot? In order to approach the research questions above, we will A Real-time Strategy (RTS) game is a game in which the players use resource gathering, base building, technological implement a FoW version of our original PIbot and compare development and unit control in order to defeat their oppo- its performance, exploration and processing needs with the original. -
Uva-DARE (Digital Academic Repository)
UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) Engineering emergence: applied theory for game design Dormans, J. Publication date 2012 Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Dormans, J. (2012). Engineering emergence: applied theory for game design. Creative Commons. General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam (https://dare.uva.nl) Download date:28 Sep 2021 The object in constructing a dynamic model is to find unchanging laws that generate the changing configurations. These laws corre- spond roughly to the rules of a game. John H. Holland (1998, 45) 4 Machinations In the previous chapter we have seen that there are no consistent and widely accepted methodologies available for the development of games. Yet, the number of attempts and calls for such endeavors, indicate that a more formal approach to game design is warranted. -
Visualization Techniques in Video Games
EVA 2008 London Conference ~ 22-24 July Veronica Zammitto _____________________________________________________________________ VISUALIZATION TECHNIQUES IN VIDEO GAMES Veronica Zammitto School of Interactive Arts and Technology Simon Fraser University 250 -13450 102 Avenue Surrey, British Columbia, V3T 0A3 Canada [email protected] / [email protected] http://www.sfu.ca/~vzammitt Abstract - Video games rely extensively on visual information displayed to the players. Current digital games show enormous amounts of data, and generally in complex 3D virtual worlds. During a game, there is new data added constantly, but it’s also important to have access to information already collected. Menus, minimaps, aiming cursor, character’s health and capabilities are some of the data categories displayed in games. This paper aims to identify how video games present useful visual information to the player, if principles of visualization are applied, and highlight techniques that would be addressed to games for improving their data visualization. VIDEOGAMES AND VISUALIZATION Videogames relies extensively on the information displayed on the screen. It is given to the user in many ways and is necessary for continuing and advancing through the game. If the information is not correctly visualized and the user misses it, it might jeopardize her performance; this would transform what is meant to be a pleasant activity into a frustrating one. Playing a game is an immersive experience, the interface should not be a reminder that this is all about a game, specialist game interface designers agree that a good interface is the one that is not noticed [3, 6]. It is considered that aesthetic is an important factor, and it should be consistent with the game world. -
HOW to PLAY with MAPS by Ross Thorn Department of Geography, UW-Madison a Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Require
HOW TO PLAY WITH MAPS by Ross Thorn Department of Geography, UW-Madison A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science (Geographic Information Science and Cartography) at the UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN–MADISON 2018 i Acknowledgments I have so many people to thank for helping me through the process of creating this thesis and my personal development throughout my time at UW-Madison. First, I would like to thank my advisor Rob Roth for supporting this seemingly crazy project and working with me despite his limited knowledge about games released after 1998. Your words of encouragement and excitement for this project were invaluable to keep this project moving. I also want to thank my ‘second advisor’ Ian Muehlenhaus for not only offering expert guidance in cartography, but also your addictive passion for games and their connection to maps. You provided endless inspiration and this research would not have been possible without your support and enthusiasm. I would like to thank Leanne Abraham and Alicia Iverson for reveling and commiserating with me through the ups and downs of grad school. You both are incredibly inspirational to me and I look forward to seeing the amazing things that you will undoubtedly accomplish in life. I would also like to thank Meghan Kelly, Nick Lally, Daniel Huffman, and Tanya Buckingham for creating a supportive and fun atmosphere in the Cartography Lab. I could not have succeeded without your encouragement and reminder that we all deserve to be here even if we feel inadequate. You made my academic experience unforgettable and I love you all. -
Openconflict: Preventing Real Time Map Hacks in Online Games
OpenConflict: Preventing Real Time Map Hacks in Online Games Elie Bursztein Mike Hamburg Jocelyn Lagarenne Dan Boneh Stanford University Stanford University Stanford University Stanford University [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Keywords-multi-player games, map hacks containing between 24000 and 36000 cells. Since RTS games Abstract—We present a generic tool, Kartograph, that lifts are real-time (as opposed to turn-based), players compete the fog of war in online real-time strategy games by snooping on thinking speed as well as strategy. Each player gather on the memory used by the game. Kartograph is passive and resources in order to build structures and units as visible cannot be detected remotely. Motivated by these passive attacks, in Figure1. As units move across the map, they encounter we present secure protocols for distributing game state among players so that each client only has data it is allowed to see. Our other players’ units and may fight or collaborate with them. system, OpenConflict, runs real-time games with distributed Most RTS games simulate a fog of war meaning that only state. To support our claim that OpenConflict is sufficiently certain parts of the map are visible at any moment (Figure2). fast for real-time strategy games, we show the results of an Areas of the map where the player has no units are hidden extensive study of 1000 replays of Starcraft II games between and the player cannot tell what is in those cells. The winner expert players. At the peak of a typical game, OpenConflict needs only 22 milliseconds on one CPU core each time state is is the player who is able to destroy his opponent’s base, or synchronized. -
Downloaded on 2017-02-12T14:37:34Z Cosgrave, Mike, Wargames Unplugged AISHE-C 2008, Maynooth, August 2008
Title Wargames unplugged Author(s) Cosgrave, Michael Publication date 2008-08 Original citation Cosgrave, M. (2008) 'Wargames unplugged', AISHE-C 2008 - Encouraging Student Engagement, International Conference of the All Ireland Society for Higher Education, NUI Maynooth, Ireland, 28-29 August. Type of publication Conference item Rights © 2008 the author Item downloaded http://hdl.handle.net/10468/2804 from Downloaded on 2017-02-12T14:37:34Z Cosgrave, Mike, Wargames Unplugged AISHE-C 2008, Maynooth, August 2008 Wargames Unplugged: “I suppose it'll be another book review just like all the other options?” Anonymous Student Mike Cosgrave History, University College Cork [email protected] The use of games in education is topical and occasionally controversial. One the one hand it seems like a ideal medium to reach to 'generation X-Box' but on the other it seems too much like fun and too little like serious learning, which leads some people to use terms like 'models' or 'simulations' as cover; or as one US army officer said “This is not Dungeons and Dragons we're doing here”1. However, even poker is now becoming academically respectable as a way to teach communication skills. A critical problem with using games in education at any level is that most educators are not gamers. Many of us have played played casual boardgames or the ubiquitous solitaire on our computers, or watched our children playing on the “moronstation”, but we do not know how games “work”. Since computers and games consoles became commonplace, the main focus of gaming seems to be on electronic games like World of Warcraft2 or Grand Theft Auto3 and even if we could understand how to adapt games like those for pedagogically valid use, we know that they are the product of so many hours of programming that most of us will never have the resources to try, nor the skills to mange such a project. -
Simulating Mechanics to Study Emergence in Games
AAAI Technical Report WS-11-19 Simulating Mechanics to Study Emergence in Games Joris Dormans Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences Duivendrechtsekade 36-38 1096 AH, Amsterdam, the Netherlands Abstract finite state diagrams or Petri nets, are complex and not really accessible for non-programmers. What is more, these are This paper presents the latest version of the Machi- ill-suited to represent games at a sufficient level of abstrac- nations framework. This framework uses diagrams to represent the flow of tangible and abstract resources tion, on which structural features, such as feedback loops, through a game. This flow represents the mechanics that become immediately apparent. To this end, the Machina- make up a game’s interbal economy and has a large tions framework includes a diagrammatic language: Machi- impact on the emergent gameplay of most simulation nations diagrams which are designed to represent game me- games, strategy games and board games. This paper chanics in a way that is accessible, yet retains the same struc- shows how Machinations diagrams can be used simu- tural features and dynamic behavior of the game it repre- late and balance games before they are built. sents. Earlier versions of the framework were presented else- where (Dormans 2008; 2009). The version presented here Games that display dynamic, emergent behavior are hard to uses the same core elements as the previous version, al- design. One of the biggest challenges is that the mechan- though there have been minor changes and improvements. ics of these games require a delicate balance. Developers The main difference is a change in the resource connections must rely on frequent game testing to test for this balance. -
A Review of Real-Time Strategy Game AI
Articles A Review of Real-Time Strategy Game AI Glen Robertson, Ian Watson n This literature review covers AI techniques ames are an ideal domain for exploring the capabili- used for real-time strategy video games, focus- ties of artificial intelligence (AI) within a constrained ing specifically on StarCraft. It finds that the environment and a fixed set of rules, where problem- main areas of current academic research are G solving techniques can be developed and evaluated before in tactical and strategic decision making, plan recognition, and learning, and it outlines the being applied to more complex real-world problems (Scha- research contributions in each of these areas. effer 2001). AI has notably been applied to board games, The paper then contrasts the use of game AI such as chess, Scrabble, and backgammon, creating compe- in academe and industry, finding the aca- tition that has sped the development of many heuristic- demic research heavily focused on creating based search techniques (Schaeffer 2001). Over the past game-winning agents, while the industry decade, there has been increasing interest in research based aims to maximize player enjoyment. It finds on video game AI, which was initiated by Laird and van Lent that industry adoption of academic research (2001) in their call for the use of video games as a test bed is low because it is either inapplicable or too time-consuming and risky to implement in a for AI research. They saw video games as a potential area for new game, which highlights an area for iterative advancement in increasingly sophisticated scenar- potential investigation: bridging the gap ios, eventually leading to the development of human-level between academe and industry. -
Growing Pains
Growing Pains Broadening a Genre While Retaining Its Soul Presented by Tom Cadwell Director of Design, Riot Games Overview To be successful, we sometimes try to take a fun “hardcore” game and broaden it – without losing the community. The Basic Challenges Unfortunately, this isn’t easy. • A mechanic that is a barrier to new players is often a tool of ‘pros.’ • Replacing a complex feature with a simple one eases learning curve for new players… But adds learning curve for old ones. How Do We Solve This? We found three principles to be critical: • When you simplify, be aware that even bad mechanics often have an important purpose. • Don’t change the UI without a great reason. • Explain to hardcore players the benefits of your actions. League of Legends – A Case Study • League of Legends is heavily based upon “Defense of the Ancients” (DOTA), a popular Wacraft 3 Mod. • Amongst popular, competitive multiplayer games, DOTA is among the most complex, adversarial and inaccessible. • Our Challenge: Excite DOTA players while attracting other hardcore gamers. But First… A Bit About DOTA • DOTA is a game of it’s own genre – We call it MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena), others call it RTS Arena or Action- Strategy. But First… A Bit About DOTA The concept: • Play one champion who has unique abilities • Progress RPG style (levels, items) w/ PVP & PVE • Team-oriented games of <1 hour • Stomp your opponents for fame and glory Team Hate – Problem 1 DOTA is plagued by ‘team hate’ due to it’s incentives and mechanics. New players aren’t keen on this.