EPTOn February 03 2012 04:39 Gamegene wrote:
http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=130447
http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=130447
Quote for truth. I thought we'd already had this discussion before?
The word metagame - Page 4
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heha
Australia425 Posts
Quote for truth. I thought we'd already had this discussion before? | ||
itsjustatank
Hong Kong9152 Posts
On February 03 2012 08:13 HardlyNever wrote: This discussion is pretty pointless, tbh. First, there are people trying to control language, particularly English, which is dumb. People have tried to do it for centuries, and it doesn't work. Only in places like France, where the government controls the language, and it isn't spoken all that widely outside of the country anymore (yes, I know they speak in in parts of Canada and other places) does something like "controlling language" even begin to work. Perhaps we should throw away all English rules and grammar then? fuzzy gumples blegh slowlyish towardsly da return. My performative act outweighs your counter-retorts. It is the only pure discourse in this thread, all posts that adhere to traditional English rules and grammar are null and void because they are hegemonic acts of intellectual silencing. Right? Defend a world where that nonsensical construction is okay, because it's yours and you advocated it and you should have to stick by it. | ||
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merz
Sweden2760 Posts
I would agree with both 1 & 2 while 3 is false just as you pointed out. | ||
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Logros
Netherlands9913 Posts
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Xenos23
Germany20 Posts
On February 03 2012 08:13 HardlyNever wrote: This discussion is pretty pointless, tbh. First, there are people trying to control language, particularly English, which is dumb. People have tried to do it for centuries, and it doesn't work. Only in places like France, where the government controls the language, and it isn't spoken all that widely outside of the country anymore (yes, I know they speak in in parts of Canada and other places) does something like "controlling language" even begin to work. Second, people generally understand what is meant when casters/players say "metagame" within the context of the game. While it might not be the "correct" usage of the term in the strictest sense, there is a relatively well understood meaning affixed to the word. Sure, there is confusion on some level, or this thread and others like it wouldn't exist, but most people have an idea of that the person is referring to. Saying something like "no that's not what metagame means, you need to say current strategies of the game every time in order to get that idea across, because metagame doesn't really mean what everyone is understanding it to mean" makes you sound like an idiot. It is a faster way of getting an idea across, so people will use it. Regardless of the outcome of this thread, you will still hear metagame used over and over again, and most people will understand what it means, and others won't. That is language. Deal with it. Finally, its all about context. My GF was listening to a SC2 cast last night, and she said it sounded like japanese to her. While the casters were speaking english, the cast was so jargon heavy and context sensitive, it didn't make sense to someone who didn't understand that context. The same thing applies here. Most people have a prescribed understanding of the term "metagame" when in the context of starcraft or starcraft 2. I think that's pretty much it. The gaming scene, be it LoL, GW, SC2 etc. has codified the term in their own ways, which led to confusion along those, who have a narrow understanding of the term (e.g. metagame only incorporating information outside the game) or a wider understanding of the term (I think many people mix up the term dominant strategy with metagame). But it's too late anyways to discuss about that, since everyone has his/her own definition by now... Edit: I think dominant strategy is too strong, too. It should be sth. like currently dominating strategy... | ||
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Angel_
United States1617 Posts
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Hoon
Brazil891 Posts
People say stuff like "X unit is not so viable in the current metagame, blablabla". In this instance, it means the current playstyle that people are copying from successful players. They see SlayerS using a lot of BFH in TvZ, then they decide to copy it and they call it "The new metagame", but it's just a trend. | ||
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RedFury
Italy85 Posts
I read it  And btw who said that this usage is wrong? "Meta" prefix pretty much means "something relate to" or "something that include other thing on a lower level" (e.g metascience). Maybe in English you use that prefix in another sense... Game's paradigms and metagame are related but different. Paradigms necessarily refers to something precise while metagame is more abstract and refers to the whole state of playing. | ||
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roymarthyup
1442 Posts
well guess what, lol, who gives a dayum. its so funny watching these people care about stuff like this. its the same feeling i get when i see two people argue on nascar forum and then one guy says "its you're not your" rofl..... wow i dunno why but i just laugh so hard at people who obsess over grammar or definition | ||
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FeyFey
Germany10114 Posts
In a few years those terms will hopefully have solidified again and you can use them safely again. Doubt it for metagame though, as its currently used instead of a collection of terms based around current strategies etc. | ||
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EatThePath
United States3943 Posts
On February 03 2012 08:17 itsjustatank wrote: Perhaps we should throw away all English rules and grammar then? fuzzy gumples blegh slowlyish towardsly da return. My performative act outweighs your counter-retorts. It is the only pure discourse in this thread, all posts that adhere to traditional English rules and grammar are null and void because they are hegemonic acts of intellectual silencing. Right? Defend a world where that nonsensical construction is okay, because it's yours and you advocated it and you should have to stick by it. Words don't have meaning except what any individual agent ascribes to them. This may be informed by popular usage or some kind of "authoritative" guidelines (not necessarily in popular usage), but the meaning is only ever personal. Most words have a large coincidence between what individuals take them to mean, because this is convenient and useful. You can't sanction the meaning of words, by definition (so to speak). This what HardlyNever means by pointless. I'm all for arguing about what a suitable meaning of a word should be, but you are misguided at best if you think it needs to be written down in a table somewhere, never to be revised, as though a mathematical theorom. No two people ascribe the same meaning to a given word, both from an epistemological standpoint and a neuroscience and/or information-as-physical-quantity standpoint. Dictionaries are a socially mediated approximation to help cope with the overly vast quantity of things somebody might mean by using symbols. If you would like to embark on a program to convince everyone to use your definition, please do. If so, it'd be best to include persuasive reasons why your meaning is better, instead of just telling people they're wrong because. Until then the rest of us will keep saying a useful word the way we always have (many of us from MtG), we'll know what we're referring to, and it'll make conversing simpler and more clear. There will always be illiterates who use words improperly (according to the prior usage). You can't tell them they're wrong, they just put together a different meaning than what was intended by the original speakers. You might convince them to revise their understanding and speech, but it's usually a losing battle if you're already that up-in-arms about it. Segments of communities will have their own colloquial usage and there will be a greater complexity of intended meaning based on context. If you have any kind of brain and a little experience with the different common meanings and contexts, you can usually sort out what the speaker is intending to communicate. Personally, I am used to the below-quoted and find it highly appropriate for talking about expected strategy choices in SC2 and any other game I happen to be playing. On February 03 2012 07:36 Salteador Neo wrote: It's been used in Magic: The Gathering for ages. It should be the % of chances of facing each build in a MU. If you can't make yourself comfortable with using the word this way, I would hazard to guess that you don't understand fully why it is used in other games (like MtG), and I would recommend trying to familiarize yourself with the process of deck choice and specifically sideboard card choices. This might help crystallize why it's important to have a word that specifically refers to (in the case of MtG) what decks will be showing up to how serious of a competitive tournament in what proportion, what caliber of players will be playing them, how the proportion will change throughout the deeper rounds of swiss play, what you'll need to beat to win, what you'll need to beat to top 8, and what your skill level and skill set will allow you to compete against given your own reactive/predictive choices. Theorizing about the metagame in MtG involves lots of strategy / game theory-esque considerations in itself beyond any given card interactions, which is why people naturally separate it from play by calling it with its own word. | ||
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FoxShine
United States156 Posts
As for its definition, there are many other better words that should be used. Words whos definitions are actually defined and wellknown such as 'paradigm' and 'trend' or even 'schools of thought.' When people use the word metagaming, it just sounds pretty stupid to me because it makes me think they are saying something like, "metatheorizing" or another random word involving meta- and -ing. The meaning of the prefix meta has been confused for a long time. Its just as cute for us to discuss its "proper" meaning, as it is for someone to use it incorrectly when trying to sound intelligent, or well read. | ||
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Dakure
United States513 Posts
On February 03 2012 05:47 itsjustatank wrote: Read your own proposed definition before you attempt to answer mine: Metagaming is a broad term usually used to define any strategy, action or method used in a game which transcends a prescribed ruleset, uses external factors to affect the game, or goes beyond the supposed limits or environment set by the game. Another definition refers to the game universe outside of the game itself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metagaming If competing interpretations should be the standard for this debate, I'll argue that you don't even present an alternative. My counter-interpretation of the linguistic phenomenon of using paradigm instead of metagame is uniquely better, here are a few reasons: 1. Grammar a. Paradigm is grammatically correct, and its use in this situation displays a command of the English language that is thus far lacking in current English ESPORTS broadcasts. 2. Education a. If an untrained viewer currently watches an ESPORTS broadcast and does not understand 'metagame' used incorrectly in our contexts and then looks it up in a dictionary, he or she will become only even more confused than they currently already are. Teaching something that is incorrect and acting as if it is correct necessarily destroys the integrity of ESPORTS as an effective educational tool. 3. Limits and Predictability a. Figuring out when to actually use 'metagame' will vastly benefit its use in appropriate contexts. As it is right now, the word metagame is greatly devalued. And even if you win that 'implicitly outside of a rule set' isn't required, I'll win that paradigm is still the best vocabulary word to use. It is prerequisite to all other considerations. After OPs post and yours, I think I can use your definition to explain OPs initial thought process. The first competitive gaming community I was active in was Magic: The Gathering. In this community, the standard, accepted use of the word "metagame" was, essentially, the probabilistic distribution of strategies you expect to face when sitting down across from a random opponent. This makes sense to me, as these are the factors that one has to consider when choosing a deck to play, or a decision to make in a game, that have nothing to do with the actual rules. I think here OP is incorrectly combining two ideas, the distribution of strategies and the choice one makes when taking this information into account. In Magic I assume one can list strategies/decks in order from most common to least. What you did, then, was take into account these strategies and consider the probability each of these will be used and came to a conclusion to which deck to use, and this process influences the game. In this example, actions that fall into the metagame (as defined to be strictly not part of the 'real game') are clearly ordering strategies and picking yours based on probabilities. The "probabilistic distribution of strategies" is nothing more than an ordered list of strategies, or common strategies. I don't think you really need a new word for that, do you? Now let's look at OPs examples under this lense. 1: You are playing on a map where Nexus First is a commonly used build for protoss, and so decide to proxy gate/rax or 6pool. You claim this is a "metagame choice". 2: You say "there is a lot of hellion use in the current KR metagame." 3: You remind your opponent that the last time you played, you mopped the floor with his noob self. As this statement is outside the rules of Starcraft 2 as a game, but is intended to give you an advantage, it is "metagaming". 1. Correct usage. Metagaming because the process was to look at common strategies and choose yours based on what fares best against those. 2. Incorrect, or perhaps incomplete. Hellion usage (in TvZ) perhaps came to light because Zergs were not preparing against Hellions (and why would they have to if they weren't common?). So what does a Terran player do? He makes Hellions because most Zergs do not prepare against Hellions, which is clearly a metagame choice. And now hellions are used a lot in Korean strategies. (Note: Perhaps before Hellions became rather standard in TvZ one could say that building Hellions was a metagaming move because the fact that Zerg didn't prepare for them was the reason one built Hellions, and in this way "building Hellions" was part of the Korean metagame) 3. Correct usage by definition. | ||
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Sumahi
Guam5609 Posts
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itsjustatank
Hong Kong9152 Posts
On February 03 2012 09:03 EatThePath wrote: Words don't have meaning except what any individual agent ascribes to them. This may be informed by popular usage or some kind of "authoritative" guidelines (not necessarily in popular usage), but the meaning is only ever personal. Most words have a large coincidence between what individuals take them to mean, because this is convenient and useful. You can't sanction the meaning of words, by definition (so to speak). This what HardlyNever means by pointless. I'm all for arguing about what a suitable meaning of a word should be, but you are misguided at best if you think it needs to be written down in a table somewhere, never to be revised, as though a mathematical theorom. No two people ascribe the same meaning to a given word, both from an epistemological standpoint and a neuroscience and/or information-as-physical-quantity standpoint. Dictionaries are a socially mediated approximation to help cope with the overly vast quantity of things somebody might mean by using symbols. If you would like to embark on a program to convince everyone to use your definition, please do. If so, it'd be best to include persuasive reasons why your meaning is better, instead of just telling people they're wrong because. Until then the rest of us will keep saying a useful word the way we always have (many of us from MtG), we'll know what we're referring to, and it'll make conversing simpler and more clear. There will always be illiterates who use words improperly (according to the prior usage). You can't tell them they're wrong, they just put together a different meaning than what was intended by the original speakers. You might convince them to revise their understanding and speech, but it's usually a losing battle if you're already that up-in-arms about it. Segments of communities will have their own colloquial usage and there will be a greater complexity of intended meaning based on context. If you have any kind of brain and a little experience with the different common meanings and contexts, you can usually sort out what the speaker is intending to communicate. Wrong. Words have meaning as assigned by society and the people around you. If you go around speaking nonsense claiming it has some sort of intellectual merit, you will be rightly laughed out of consideration. You might have issues with authority, but authority has a fundamental role in defining language and discourse. Otherwise, I can say that in my personal beliefs every sign and signifier you just used in your post doesn't mean anything, and I win by default. Conversely, you would be able to do the same to me. You are advocating the destruction of language and discourse, plain and simple. Additionally, read my previous posts talking about education and its role in ESPORTS and why using the proper words really matter before you start saying stuff like this: If so, it'd be best to include persuasive reasons why your meaning is better, instead of just telling people they're wrong because. Your arguments about me not understanding MtG necessarily traps you. That's the entire point of my argument. On February 03 2012 04:31 itsjustatank wrote: 2. Education a. If an untrained viewer currently watches an ESPORTS broadcast and does not understand 'metagame' used incorrectly in our contexts and then looks it up in a dictionary, he or she will become only even more confused than they currently already are. Teaching something that is incorrect and acting as if it is correct necessarily destroys the integrity of ESPORTS as an effective educational tool. Someone who doesn't understand the jargon of a niche group is immediately put off or excluded from the discourse. Abiding by established English rules avoids this problem entirely, and that is why it is best. If our relatively small community is to be taken seriously by outsiders, it should avoid jargon as much as possible. | ||
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whoseline
Canada29 Posts
On February 03 2012 08:13 HardlyNever wrote: This discussion is pretty pointless, tbh. people generally understand what is meant when casters/players say "metagame" within the context of the game. While it might not be the "correct" usage of the term in the strictest sense, there is a relatively well understood meaning affixed to the word. Sure, there is confusion on some level, or this thread and others like it wouldn't exist, but most people have an idea of that the person is referring to. Sums up the current state of the usage of this term. I think the majority of users (and even casters) uses it like how the OP uses it, despite it not being the correct usage according to TL. But basically, we can just understand whether they mean it as "standard, current strategies, and trends", or "using external factors not within the game's ruleset to influence the game". | ||
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bertu
Brazil871 Posts
On February 03 2012 08:36 Hoon wrote: "The current metagame" should be replaced with "the current trend". People say stuff like "X unit is not so viable in the current metagame, blablabla". In this instance, it means the current playstyle that people are copying from successful players. They see SlayerS using a lot of BFH in TvZ, then they decide to copy it and they call it "The new metagame", but it's just a trend. Not really, no uses the word this way. As said before, "metagame" can mean an stablished probalystic distribution of strategies (it IS useful to have a word for such expression). A "trend" describes a recent shift in the metagame, but not necessarily the metagame itself. Also coming from MTG, I always used the word in the exact same ways described by the author, since 1995 basically. But TL community has a tradition of using it to refer to "anything outside of the game that influences the result". I`ve seen poker players using it this way as well. It would be easier if people just used "mindgames" for the later meaning, but oh well, the point is to understand all usages and not mindless hate/correct the other common meanings | ||
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AKomrade
United States582 Posts
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Herculix
United States946 Posts
the 2nd example is a trend. the 3rd example is metagaming. people very often think a metagame is a trend in video games. it isn't. a trend is a common theme of playstyle, and abusing trends is called playing mindgames. none of them are metagames, or metagaming someone. | ||
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EatThePath
United States3943 Posts
On February 03 2012 09:36 itsjustatank wrote:Wrong. Words have meaning as assigned by society and the people around you. If you go around speaking nonsense claiming it has some sort of intellectual merit, you will be rightly laughed of consideration. You might have issues with authority, but authority has a fundamental role in defining language and discourse. Otherwise, I can say that in my personal beliefs every sign and signifier you just used in your post doesn't mean anything, and I win by default. Conversely, you would be able to do the same to me. You're telling me I'm wrong and that you win. Are we talking about something or having a contest..?? I'd hope to change your mind, not just defend myself on the internet, so here's for optimism... My view of words does not lead to: advocating the destruction of language and discourse, plain and simple. I'm merely pointing out that you can't control how people use language just by insisting one way or the other. We try to regulate our symbols because it help maintain continuity which is very important when you are communicating about scientific knowledge or the use of violent force or the state of an interpersonal relationship, but there's no such thing as the "wrong meaning" of a word. The best you could say is that someone took a different meaning than what the speaker intended. I brought this up because it relates to the style of your argument against the way most of us use "metagame"; I was trying to point out that waving your arms about the proper meaning doesn't really lead anywhere, regardless of whether it makes sense to use "metagame" one way or the other. Apart from the argumentation against the popular meaning of metagame, you have been talking about propriety of discourse. I don't know why you assumed I didn't read your earlier posts. That's its own interesting topic but it was not germane to my point. Believe it or not I also care about how words are used. (Why else would I post again in the latest metagame thread?) So I will give my thoughts on your bit about education and newbies. If an untrained viewer currently watches an ESPORTS broadcast and does not understand 'metagame' used incorrectly in our contexts and then looks it up in a dictionary, he or she will become only even more confused than they currently already are. Teaching something that is incorrect and acting as if it is correct necessarily destroys the integrity of ESPORTS as an effective educational tool. It's only incorrect according to you and a few other people, so this becomes the debate again about word choices and what they should mean. If the casters are saying it, and most people take their meaning, and chances are if a newbie asks what the word means, they'll hear approximately an accurate answer according to most people, then what's wrong? But in any case, I think the general idea quickly becomes clear if the viewer is at all genuinely interested in SC2. I'm not really worried about the upshot for ESPORTS. Back to words and their meaning, looking things up in the dictionary is, like I said before, a way to see what was put in a dictionary. A lot of the time this is helpful in trying to figure out what a speaker meant, but not always, especially in niche cultures. Someone who doesn't understand the jargon of a niche group is immediately put off or excluded from the discourse. Abiding by established English rules avoids this problem entirely, and that is why it is best. If our relatively small community is to be taken seriously by outsiders, it should avoid jargon as much as possible. I disagree. Words are invented to describe novelty succinctly, and strange words with narrow meanings abound. Words are also turned to mean something particular in a given context apart from their everyday usage in the mainstream. Overcoming a lack of vocabulary is a barrier to entering any unfamiliar niche. Personally, I am intrigued by something that clearly has import but which is opaque before I've learned more, not put off. For example, I discovered watching Quake Live as an esport during SC2 downtime at IEM. There were tons of things in the commentary I didn't understand at first, including plain English being used to mean something specific to the game. I got the impression there were lots of interesting goings-on because of all the jargon, and got drawn in hoping to learn something of the game. Again personally, I don't really care if we miss out on converts too dull to make it past a word they don't understand at first. If you're seeking mass induction to the church of esports then that's another thing entirely. But I'd still argue over what metagame means either way. On February 03 2012 09:36 itsjustatank wrote:Your arguments about me not understanding MtG necessarily traps you. That's the entire point of my argument. Yes, you're relying on a referral. Ultimately we all make up our own minds and as I've stated I don't think it really matters what one source or another says if a large group of people eschew that usage. My intent in bringing up the MtG usage was to illustrate the meaning in greater detail, and more precisely to point out that I don't think you really understand the meaning of metagame as you're arguing against. And since we're arguing over whether the meaning is agreeable or not, I don't see how you can properly disagree with something you don't fully understand. This isn't a cheap shot; I'm just bringing up the point that the naysayers might not be clear on what they're naysaying. On the other hand, insisting on an outside definition doesn't care about this I suppose, but the rest of us don't really care what it says on wikipedia because we our communicating effectively regardless. More broadly, there's no way to escape the degradation and dithering anyway, especially in our culture of memes. I think it's more effective to be a linguistic sheep dog than a linguistic fence builder, too. | ||
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