Zerg Rush Google Easter Egg • Hacker News Board

Re: Zerg Rush Google Easter Egg

#121

Post by leif » Sat, Apr 28, 2012, 4:30 AM UTC

bitops wrote: post #104

doktrin wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the 'zerg' meme originates from Starcraft. It's been commonly used (often pejoratively) in gaming circles to describe situations in which superior numbers dictated the outcome of an encounter. On an unrelated note, it's rather depressing to think of the original StarCraft game as being something 'old people' remember. I'm 29. Edit : I was kind of surprised to see this meme explicitly explained. I've always thou…

Consider that there are kids out there who are 10 years old, but weren't alive to experience 9/11.

just blew my mind

Re: Zerg Rush Google Easter Egg

#122

Post by intended » Sat, Apr 28, 2012, 5:45 AM UTC

FrankBooth wrote: post #108

intended wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That I remembered - the major upgrade and concept it was over the previous dune 1. Then the warcraft series, followed by Command and conquer and then Starcraft, which set the gold standard. AoE came next - after that it just becomes a blur of different RTS types which were competing for top billing.

Cryo's Dune was a completely different type of game (adventure), and was more or less developed and released in parallel to Westwood's Dune. Westwood's Dune is not a sequel at all, it was intended to replace Cryo's about-to-be-canceled game that never ended up being canceled, forcing them to name it Dune II: Battle for Arrakis to distinguish itself from Cryo's game.

You learn something new every day! Thanks - when I played them I was too far out of range for me to get info on game development at the time, iirc I even played them out of order.

Dune really was a brilliant game, and really its balance was pretty good, especially considering it was a time when the word balance itself hadn't been coined.

Re: Zerg Rush Google Easter Egg

#123

Post by petrosalema » Sat, Apr 28, 2012, 5:48 AM UTC

hornd wrote: post #115

martindale wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, you had the fortunate ability to view the non-minified version. ;) My first approach was the mouseclick (using $('.zr_zergling_container').click()) but for whatever reason that wouldn't work. I got fed up and just decided to try moving the zerglings to a clickable location. Ha!

Ha, I spent a bit trying the same method, and it didn't work for me either. Didn't have the insight to move them though.

I was able to rack up a score of 1032 actual zerg kills (https://plus.google.com/u/0/105804947146425070365/posts/LKju...) using simulated mouse clicks on the zerglings. It's not that hard: https://gist.github.com/2514407 . There are relatively simple guards one could engineer into the zerg rush program to prevent simple hacks like this though, if one cared to. Fun stuff!

Re: Zerg Rush Google Easter Egg

#124

Post by janardanyri » Sat, Apr 28, 2012, 6:20 AM UTC

j_col wrote: post #119

daave wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's rather cynical. The project was actually just implemented by a couple of employees who are Starcraft fans, not a mandate from management. The reality is Google actually really is a "fun" place to be.

Hence my original point that it was probably done on 20% time (not mandated by management). I disagree that I am being cynical for pointing out the self-evident facts that: 1. Google spends a lot of quality dev hours programming "fun" easter eggs/doodles/April fools sections into their products. 2. These efforts gain a lot of positive spin in the media. 3. This positive spin helps to improve the image of the corporat…

Humans are not robots. Squishy human elements like motivation, attitude, camaraderie, and "fun" have material productivity consequences, especially in cognition-driven fields like software.

"Quality dev hours" are not a fungible resource. In fact, they're so un-fungible that we commonly accept that beyond a certain point the value of a dev hour is negative. Maybe time spent on these projects invigorates engineers to do better work in the rest of their work hours? Maybe not. But the issue is more subtle than you're giving it credit for.

Plus... well... THIS particular simple throwaway Easter egg is what bothers you? You know there are several multi-billion-dollar industries that employ smart people in creating "fun" ways for people to unproductively spend their time, right?

Re: Zerg Rush Google Easter Egg

#125

Post by martindale » Sat, Apr 28, 2012, 6:27 AM UTC

petrosalema wrote: post #123

hornd wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha, I spent a bit trying the same method, and it didn't work for me either. Didn't have the insight to move them though.

I was able to rack up a score of 1032 actual zerg kills ( https://plus.google.com/u/0/105804947146425070365/posts/LKju... ) using simulated mouse clicks on the zerglings. It's not that hard: https://gist.github.com/2514407 . There are relatively simple guards one could engineer into the zerg rush program to prevent simple hacks like this though, if one cared to. Fun stuff!

I showed my good friend my approach, he came up with this: https://gist.github.com/2513841

Re: Zerg Rush Google Easter Egg

#126

Post by j_col » Sat, Apr 28, 2012, 7:14 AM UTC

janardanyri wrote: post #124

j_col wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hence my original point that it was probably done on 20% time (not mandated by management). I disagree that I am being cynical for pointing out the self-evident facts that: 1. Google spends a lot of quality dev hours programming "fun" easter eggs/doodles/April fools sections into their products. 2. These efforts gain a lot of positive spin in the media. 3. This positive spin helps to improve the image of the corporat…

Humans are not robots. Squishy human elements like motivation, attitude, camaraderie, and "fun" have material productivity consequences, especially in cognition-driven fields like software. "Quality dev hours" are not a fungible resource. In fact, they're so un-fungible that we commonly accept that beyond a certain point the value of a dev hour is negative. Maybe time spent on these projects invigorates engineers to…

> Plus... well... THIS particular simple throwaway Easter egg is what bothers you? You know there are several multi-billion-dollar industries that employ smart people in creating "fun" ways for people to unproductively spend their time, right?

Yes, and they are called games companies, and I love their products and they really are fun. Is Google a games/entertainment company, or a company that sells advertising?

And no, it is not this particular Google Easter egg that bothers me, all of them do. I made that clear in my last comment. The fact that almost every one of them ends up on a thread on HN like this one is distracting (for the record this is the first one I have commented negatively on, but they're all as bad).

Re: Zerg Rush Google Easter Egg

#127

Post by nsns » Sat, Apr 28, 2012, 9:06 AM UTC

It almost seems like some Freudian reaction to the recent accusations that Goggle search is broken.

Re: Zerg Rush Google Easter Egg

#128

Post by wamatt » Sat, Apr 28, 2012, 10:12 AM UTC

zipdog wrote: post #102

intended wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That I remembered - the major upgrade and concept it was over the previous dune 1. Then the warcraft series, followed by Command and conquer and then Starcraft, which set the gold standard. AoE came next - after that it just becomes a blur of different RTS types which were competing for top billing.

If I recall Dune 2 has no connection to the slightly earlier Dune other than both were produced by studios owned by the same parent, and neither realized that the other team was working on the license. The Dune team finished first, and to 'simplify' things, they just named the RTS version of the game Dune 2.

learned something new!

I loved both the games.

Re: Zerg Rush Google Easter Egg

#129

Post by wamatt » Sat, Apr 28, 2012, 10:13 AM UTC

bitops wrote: post #104

doktrin wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the 'zerg' meme originates from Starcraft. It's been commonly used (often pejoratively) in gaming circles to describe situations in which superior numbers dictated the outcome of an encounter. On an unrelated note, it's rather depressing to think of the original StarCraft game as being something 'old people' remember. I'm 29. Edit : I was kind of surprised to see this meme explicitly explained. I've always thou…

Consider that there are kids out there who are 10 years old, but weren't alive to experience 9/11.

scary!

Re: Zerg Rush Google Easter Egg

#130

Post by moe » Sat, Apr 28, 2012, 1:27 PM UTC

intended wrote: post #34

iconfinder wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I'm so old that I remember the first Starcraft game" I remember when Dune 2 came out - the father of all RTS games.

That I remembered - the major upgrade and concept it was over the previous dune 1. Then the warcraft series, followed by Command and conquer and then Starcraft, which set the gold standard. AoE came next - after that it just becomes a blur of different RTS types which were competing for top billing.

For some reason the one that I enjoyed the most is always forgotten: Total Annihilation!

It had significantly more depth than StarCraft/WarCraft (and better graphics to boot), but the higher complexity apparently made it less accessible and hence less popular.

For anyone curious: The latest refresh is called "Supreme Commander", and last time I checked there was still an active community/player-base around the OpenSource port "TA Spring".