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I am inclined to make this thread due to the widespread usage of the word MOBA and to reveal the ignorance behind the people who perpetuate this term.
I am not a grammar nazi, and I will address the most popular arguments against not using the MOBA term to describe the popular games including DotA1/2, League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth, Bloodline Champions, Demigod, SotiS, etc...
Everything in this thread will be as factual as possible with many references.
The term MOBA was originated by Steve Feak, former beta test and help developer for DotA1. He next moved onto Riot Games to develop League of Legends:
http://www.enotes.com/topic/Multiplayer_online_battle_arena#cite_note-0
One of the reasons MOBA is such a popular term to use is because people need a genre to describe these type of games. Starcraft is a RTS, Warcraft is a RTS, Counter-Strike is a FPS, Quake is FPS, Heroes of Might and Magic is a turn based strategy game. This is a basic need of language function and I am not saying we don't need a term, we certainly do, especially with the advent of DotA 2 by Valve [ an enormous e-sports and video game company ]
The term MOBA was created and then popularized by a man named Jeff ' Hunter_ ' Hunter. He created a website shortly after the beta release of Heroes of Newerth called Mobagamers.com. This website served as a conglomerate for articles from HoN, DotA, LoL, and other games. Some of the first articles were general tips on how to succeed in all 3 games. However, just like everything else Hunter has ever touched, it has been a scam and a failure. http://www.playdota.com/forums/3944/heroes-newerth/#post46546
Hunter was involved in DXD and other small scale US leagues and tournaments. One of the only events my team ever entered in that was led by hunter was the DXD-TGL Battle for the Throne. It had many top american teams like eMg, Pandemic, Feeding Frenzy, etc... The website is actually still up somehow: league.totalgamingnetwork.com/battleforthethrone
Here's the gotfrag interview for the tournament:
http://www.gotfrag.com/dota/story/39920/
'This is just the first in a series of bi-monthly tournaments. We are going to be kicking this one off and our partners at MyIS are using this tournament as a guide for the future tournaments in DotA for DXD. '
There was never another tournament run, let alone a bi-monthly basis.
The tournament never finished, bogus Asian teams were cited as winners by Hunter and he would not give a official response because it was not ' in the interest of DXD '.
If you only click one link: http://tinyurl.com/6y22zcm
[plaintext: mymym.com/en/news/18570.html ]
Report from a guy who had FULL ADMIN rights for Hunter's websites. It turns out not only is Hunter a scammer, bm'er, and shady guy. He's also very possibly a pedophile, or at the very least has child porn on his computer. He has never paid any team on schedule or in full amount.
Even more frightening:
http://www.playdota.com/forums/blogs/spedmunki/948/jeff-hunter_-hunter/
' On a more frightening note: before locking down all of his profiles (which he recklessly shared all over the internet), I took a peek at his Facebook page. He listed his profession as a public school IT admin....he must have felt like a kid in a candy shop! Wonder if he drove his molest-o-van to school?'
So by using the term MOBA, you are using a term proliferated by an event scammer, tournament-destroyer, and pedophile. And in technical definitions you are not even using a term that differentiates itself from other games:
On August 16 2011 11:35 paper wrote:
MOBA -- Multiplayer Online Battle Arena
What competitive game isn't multiplayer, online, and takes on some sort of battle? The first three words apply to nearly every single online game that pits players against each other (obviously). The fourth word, arena, doesn't even describe the DotA-genre. Using that word implies an all-hostile area that dismisses DotA's territorial control and lane-pushing among its many facets of gameplay. Even RTSRPG would be a better (yet still lacking) acronym. If anything, use DotA as a genre of its own, or use its original form, AoS (Aeon of Strife). Please help stop the widespread use of MOBA!
The point of this post is not to find a replacement for MOBA, it is more important that MOBA stops being used. My humble suggestion is to refer to the genre as DotA-games or alternatives that TeamLiquid users have come up with: ARTS, TARPS. Please refer to the hon/dota thread.
Finally, to further show Hunter_'s zeal to exploit new and underdeveloped endeavors:
Hunter actually has an account on TL here and has started a topic after the huge explosion of SC2.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=119237
Not only did he delete the OP [ because he's a shady fucker ] but he never tried interacting with the TL community again after he quickly realized people who knew his bullshit before were calling him on it.
+ Show Spoiler [About me] +I picked up dota sometime in 2005-6 and eventually played competitively with a group of friends I taught how to play from scratch. We were able to take a few games off top NA teams among others, and as such we played in a lot of leagues. I personally made it a goal of mine to make it into all the top individual leagues and it was when I was applying for DXD-I on east that I found about hunter and his scams. Later when playing in IHCS and IDEC lots of teams that played in US tournaments shared sentiments about not wanting to play in tournaments created by Hunter or DXD.
If you still want to use the term MOBA, then ok nobody can really force you to stop. But at least now you will know why there is a legitimate claim for people asking you not to use it. Please try to imagine this scenario for any other game or genre of music you enjoy. DotA-like games are in their infancy and its still not too late to stop the use of MOBA and use something else without negative or elementary connotations.
If I can make a dumb analogy, compare this to something like MMA fighting which is relatively new. If it somehow came out that a pedophile scammer coined the term Mixed Martial Arts, made websites with thousands of hits, and organized tournaments, it would probably be named something else.
I'm looking at you, Complexity's MOBA weekly podcast.
Edit:
There is an opportunity to use a word other than MOBA while the genre is still being developed. A poll on TL itself show that MOBA is not even the most popular term. There are a lot of reasons to not use it. You are essentially identifying yourself with someone who is trash because you are too lazy to use another term which has no negative connotations and is more technically correct in every way. Unless you honestly believe the best name people can come up with is MOBA.
My argument is not that Hunter = Trash therefore Moba = Trash.
Ask yourself why you use the term MOBA. Is there some huge barrier stopping you from using another term, that's more than likely to be more correct in every regard? Your answer is probably that you are too lazy or uninformed to think of anything else.
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It blows my mind that people use MOBA to describe a genre when it could describe any game. It's like renouncing every noun in the dictionary and using the word "thing" to describe anything and everything.
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This has been discussed to death, you bring nothing new. This is an ad hominem argument - if a serial killer claims A, it doesn't disprove A.
RIOT is using the term MOBA differently from the way it was first defined and there's a regular Dota/HoN/LoL show called MOBA Weekly with representatives and guests from all the games.
You should have posted here: MOBA/ARTS/Dota, does it really matter?
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What I got from this thread
reasons not to use a term:
A pedophile made it up and now it's gross. Also he's a really bad person, possibly a communist and you know you don't want the diseases he has.
That is all. Seems pretty silly and unnecessary tbh.
Also it's more like using dumb to talk about someone stupid, mentally retarded and things you don't like. Seriously this happens all the time, things that aren't true or accurate are publicized faster than those that are true and accurate, get over it. Does it ruin your game with someone says "Man this MOBA stuff sure is fun?"
I'm sure you guys won't listen to reasoning so I don't plan on coming back to this thread, just posting my 2 cents.
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I don't really understand why we shouldn't use the words made by people who are not respecting the law or have a different morality. There are many people in the history who did "bad" things and created new words, new concepts still used nowadays. Polanski banged a 14 years old girl omg ! Does it mean i shouldn't watch his movies ?
I get it, you hate the guy but at the same time you are advertising for him. I mean i'm pretty sure that 95% of the people who use this word didn't even know about that guy and still don't care. It is just a dumb word like pretty much all the video game genres.
Like if strategy in RTS means anything. I have seen some quake games with more "strategy" than your average 8 mins Sc2 game lol.
Same shit with the "RPG" games with 0 roleplaying in 95% of them, they are just a grind/stats fest.
I could understand if you really tried to make a new classification for all the genres but this outrage about one word is hmmm weird ?
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ARTS is equally if not more retarded of a term
Action RTS? How the fuck is THAT not a description of SC2 or WC3 or even Arena games like WoW arena and BLC?
In the end people are just whiny about a term that they think doesn't describe the game well but no term can describe the game well since in the end it was a mod off of the SC/WC3 engine.
In the end, it is a real time strategy game, and you know what, that term can be used on Quake too, Quake is happening in real time and has strategy involved.
Just like CS was a mod off of HL, Dota will be a mod off of WC3 and will either have to share the same genre title or come up with one that is just a general term to describe it. MOBA is just fine for that because when you say the word MOBA, at least people understand what games they are referring to...dota style and arena games.
Come up with something else and go ahead, but there is a reason people use MOBA is because 1) its already known to describe the genre 2) they can't think of anything better.
i completely fucking agree with boblion, this argument is the dumbest shit on earth, its just a classification and i don't care if the guy who made up the term raped and pillaged a 10000 person village, a term is a term
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If you want to nitpick, let's start with this:
It's AN RTS, it's AN FPS.
'But R and F are consonants!', your might argue. But if you pronounce them, the first sound your hear is a vowel. It's like 'a unicorn' but 'an ultimate challenge'.
AarrrPG!
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On October 28 2011 05:17 meowmeow- wrote:
If you want to nitpick, let's start with this:
It's AN RTS, it's AN FPS.
'But R and F are consonants!', your might argue. But if you pronounce them, the first sound your hear is a vowel. It's like 'a unicorn' but 'an ultimate challenge'.
AarrrPG!
I take english isn't your native language?
On-topic: I don't think they'll change an already familiarised title for something less popular.
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On October 28 2011 05:26 Corridor wrote:Show nested quote +On October 28 2011 05:17 meowmeow- wrote:
If you want to nitpick, let's start with this:
It's AN RTS, it's AN FPS.
'But R and F are consonants!', your might argue. But if you pronounce them, the first sound your hear is a vowel. It's like 'a unicorn' but 'an ultimate challenge'.
AarrrPG! I take english isn't your native language? On-topic: I don't think they'll change an already familiarised title for something less popular.
It's not, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm right.
The choice of the definite article depends on the 'phonetic spelling', i. e. the pronounciation of the respective substantive / adjective / adverb.
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On October 28 2011 05:26 Corridor wrote:Show nested quote +On October 28 2011 05:17 meowmeow- wrote:
If you want to nitpick, let's start with this:
It's AN RTS, it's AN FPS.
'But R and F are consonants!', your might argue. But if you pronounce them, the first sound your hear is a vowel. It's like 'a unicorn' but 'an ultimate challenge'.
AarrrPG! I take english isn't your native language? On-topic: I don't think they'll change an already familiarised title for something less popular.
He's right? It always bugs me when people say 'a RTS'.
Also, I'd say ARTS describes it pretty well... it's like an RTS, but with more action and less passive macro. I dunno... yeah SC2 has action, but the action is the focus of an ARTS. Whatever, not like it hugely matters anyways, and I'm probably still gonna call it a MOBA just for the sake of familiarity and simplicity.
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United States37500 Posts
So much unbelievable hearsay in the OP. The best argument you have is "Let's not use a term popularized, not even coined, by an alleged pedophile"?
Really?
Only substantial point I got from this is that Hunter_ is a bad apple in the eyes of some people.
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Grammar nazi? Maybe you should pay attention to your own grammar before you make that claim.
To play the part of "devil's advocate", I will agree with OP. We should all cease to use all language that has been invented by people who are fundamentally bad - for the sake of purity, and to abolish all evil.
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Lol, just because a term was popularized by a person you don't like doesn't mean that the term is now politically incorrect?
Anyways MOBA and ARTS are both stupid names for genres, but so are many of the genres., but they stuck because people used them.
Dota is a TPEEIMTSAG(Third Person Eagles Eye Intensive Micro Team Strategy Action Game)
I am a pretty nice person 
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On October 28 2011 05:41 NeoIllusions wrote:
So much unbelievable hearsay in the OP. The best argument you have is "Let's not use a term popularized, not even coined, by an alleged pedophile"?
Really?
Only substantial point I got from this is that Hunter_ is a bad apple in the eyes of some people.
It's not unbelievable, and it's not hearsay.
The point is:
There is an opportunity to use a word other than MOBA while the genre is still being developed. Polls on TL itself show that MOBA is not even the most popular term. There are a lot of reasons to not use it. You are essentially identifying yourself with someone who is trash because you are too lazy to use another term which has no negative connotations and is more technically correct in every way.
A lot of people can't read....like for example:
On October 28 2011 05:48 Fkyx wrote:
Grammar nazi? Maybe you should pay attention to your own grammar before you make that claim.
I said I was not a grammar nazi so your whole post is useless.
Edit: Do you call black people niggers, [ politically incorrect and scummy in nature just like moba ] cuz that's what you wanna use? Even if you despise the racist white people who popularized it?
My point is not cause<>effect. You are co-relating yourself with a word like nigger just because you [ some dota/hon/lol follower ] wants to use the word MOBA.
Funny how the people defending moba can't comprehend rational information and think far enough ahead to see that its not just an ad-hominem based plea for avoidance.
User was warned for this post
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Way to derail an already nonsensical thread by comparing 'MOBA' to 'nigger'...
It has to be so obvious how this is retarded...
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So... you have 2 premises here.
One is that MOBA is a term coined by a despicable person that should be reviled and despised. TBH. I don't care if this man single-handedly introduced AIDS to all the children of Africa, it does not make the term suddenly invalid. It is an acronym, not a person. In order to use the word, I do not need to love everyone who was ever involved with the word. Using the word Nazi does not make me respect and admire Hitler. I reject this premise.
Your second premise is that MOBA does not describe Dota, HoN, LoL, etc.
This premise is slightly more solid, but I am afraid I must reject it as well. These are categorical terms, and in many cases they are extremely loose. Many FPS games are in real time and have strategy, for example. Doesn't make them an RTS. These categorical terms exist because of the connotations that exist in relation to the terms.
If I say this game is an RTS, you assume I am not talking about a game where you run around and shoot people, right? If I say this is a simulation game, you don't assume I am talking about a game where you move your army around the map and attempt to take over your opponents base. If I say this is a MOBA game, you assume that we aren't talking about a game like Starcraft.
Why? Well because the term MOBA has been attached to this genre, and it now has a representative meaning. RTS is attached to Starcraft. FPS is attached to Quake.
Nitpicking is stupid at this point. If the term is catching on, just let it catch on.
Oh and I doubt "Defense of the Ancients" is a more accurate way to describe the genre. And people on a Dota2 forum are going to prefer calling the genre Dota. People on LoL or HoN are probably less likely. It is essentially free advertising that anyone who thinks of the genre is instantly jumping on the Dota Bandwagon.
Its like calling RTS's "Starcraft style games". A bit on the ridiculous side...
I reject your premises, I reject your conclusion. I will continue to call it MOBA, because it categorizes the style of the game distinctive of, FPS, RTS, etc.
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So, we shouldn't use the term because its creator was a pedophile?
Anything else, maybe a reason that's significant.
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United States37500 Posts
I can also say you're making a mountain out of a molehill. My choosing to use the "MOBA" term has nothing to do with laziness but more to do with how I don't agree with your point of view. Not sure why you're jumping to the conclusion of my word usage and choice means I support Hunter_. What if I'm support Guinsoo instead, for example?
My biggest problem is how you try to demonize players who use the term "MOBA" (for any reason) and they are suddenly guilty by association. I personally think the term is somewhat apt. It may not be as technically correct as you would want our genre acronym to be but it works for me. RTS, FPS, even MMORPG, they are all general describers of a genre of game.
If this thread was simply about how "MOBA" is a bad acronym for our genre because it's not accurately descriptive, I could nod and agree with you. But you spent way too much time talking about Hunter_ and what he's done. He's a terrible support for your argument.
P.S. The poll you were referring to was held in the old DotA/HoN megathread. Hardly representative of "TL itself". I'm pretty sure most LoL players are ok or don't even care about the term "MOBA".
Edit: Wow, did you honestly just try to draw and analogy between what you're talking about (gaming terms) and Black people vs "Niggers"? Unfuckingbelivable...
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Oh, the OP compared MOBA to nigger. I am sorry, we have all been trolled... but for the sake of the children...
These are nothing similar, and by comparing the two, you have simultaneously devalued the war against that word, and thrust your ignorance front and center. There is no negative connotation with MOBA. Do you get demeaned and insulted when someone called a game a MOBA? Are the successes of these games harmed by the term being attached to them?
Just because when you hear the word MOBA, you think of mincing paedophiles, does not make the word have a negative association for anyone except you.
When I taste cheese whiz, I taste garbage bags. When I smell woodchips, I think of melons. When I drink root beer, I think of toothpaste. These are personal associations of mine and are by no means universal.
MOBA is not derogatory. MOBA is not insulting. MOBA is not inherently negative.
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EPT
