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On February 03 2012 18:06 Roblin wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2012 17:52 nastyyy wrote:http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=levelThe term originates from the question of whether you take the comment seriously depending on the "level" you are thinking. In a game of poker, the levels of thinking are:
level 0 = thinking about the cards you're holding
level 1 = thinking about the cards your opponent is holding
level 2 = thinking about what your opponent thinks you are holding
level 3 = thinking about what your opponent thinks you think he his holding I really think the term "level" better fits the situations in which "metagame" is used. in that case, see the following timeline: day 1, SC2 was released today, noone have any idea what anyone is doing, everyone is thinking in level 0 day 2, people start to figure out what others are doing, and they are trying to counter it, they are thinking in level 1 day 3, people are starting to anticipate what the others are doing... day n, people are thinking in level n-1
Actually....
SC2 "levels" would be
Level 0 = Composition
--You are aware that having units that good at fighting your opponent's units is a good thing.
Level 1 = Micro
--You are aware that with good control, you can outmaneuver your opponent's army
Level 2 = Macro
--You are aware that an RTS is not simply a game about moving your army around the map.
Level 4 = Timings
--You are aware that at certain times your army is can be stronger or weaker than you're opponents and that you can take advantage of that knowledge.
example.
"Man, he had roaches I should have made maruaders"
"Man, I had marauders but he had a concave"
"Man, I finally got into good position--but he just had so many roaches"
"His roaches got to my base when my Barracks were still making tech labs!"
TLDR
As you get better at SC2 you stare less at the damage modifiers of your units and stare more at the Minimap/Resource/Supply Counts
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On February 03 2012 18:35 Dariusz wrote:
This is incorrect, and most SC2 comentators use it this way ;(. Those are just trends, and similarities in gameplay. But they happen in game, and have nothing to do with the metagame.
Using this knowledge about current trends in your games is metagaming, but the trends themselves are not.
Disagreed. These are trends, sure. But those trends are there for a reason: They work against what others are using, they are viable because of the metagame. When you pick a tactic to use, unless you made it yourself from scratch knowing nothing about the game, you are already metagaming, you know that tons of toss do X, so your tactic relies on doing Y. As new tactics come up, people realize new viable ways to play, which forces others to change their builds in kind. This is all metagaming, you're not just playing the game, you're looking at what is common trends and adapt to it, further creating trends.
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A friend who frequents this website directed me to this thread, since it's active and we recently argued about the term metagame when he used the word in a text message, and I screamed at him for uttering nonsense. The subject, and the game in question, are both interesting to me, and I thought I might take this opportunity to set the record straight once and for all.
I will preface this by saying that I am more educated on this subject than every single person on this forum. I will treat the subject from every angle I can think of. Bear with me, because these concepts will by the end of this post become quite relevant to StarCraft -- far more than anything that's been said so far.
Yes, "meta" does mean outside/beyond/above/etc., even though in Greek it means adjacent. This is because when Aristotle wrote Metaphysics, it was so named because it came right after Physics, and was therefore adjacent. But the subject matter was (mis)understood to be "above" or "beyond" physics, so the prefix evolved to mean beyond/outside. And now it DOES mean that, as far as anyone needs to be concerned, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. This is English now, not Greek anymore, and we have our own relationships between words unique to our language.
It was brought up in this thread that the sounds that make up words do not have intrinsic meaning but are merely signifiers. This is technically correct, but in practice you are employing this principle to reach a false conclusion. Words in practice DO have intrinsic meaning because they do in our minds. The word red in our minds will always be tied to the image, and when enough of these images are related to sounds, we are able to write dictionaries where words actually do mean something. So our experiences CREATE intrinsic meaning in words (not in the strict logical sense, but psychologically)... and then, those words in turn create new experiences in our minds. I'll get to that later.
And now I will have to completely change direction and attack the nature of a game. The word "game" is undefined (philosophically), but what's known is that games have rules, and rules by definition cannot be broken. Laws, in contrast, can. You might be thinking, "What about the laws of the universe?!" The word "laws" belongs in the context of humanity. You can break the law -- by stealing, etc. The universe is a Game (the only game), and physics is an approximation and an abstraction of the rules of that game. Those rules cannot be broken because they follow as absolute necessities from cause and effect -- that is a deep philosophical subject, however, and one that you will just have to trust me on. Rules cannot be broken.
Further, it is impossible to draw a line and saw that this is where the rules of one game end and where the rules of another game begin. The reason, for example, that you can't travel faster than light in a videogame is because you can't travel faster than light in the universe (according to Einstein's theory, that is). BUT WHAT?! WHAT ABOUT GAMES WHERE YOU GO INTO HYPERSPACE? -- Those are just randomly colored pixels on a screen, moron. Images and words creating the illusion of hyperspace travel is not identical to hyperspace travel. Even if a computer simulation were developed with the intention of simulating faster-than-light travel, it would be impossible for that simulation to actually be able to simulate faster-than-light travel, because that would require... metaprogramming! It would only ever be able to simulate an illusion of faster-than-light travel. (Again, assuming Einstein was right.)
Now before we can reach the final point, we have to make a distinction between electronic games/board games/card games/etc. and games in real life. It is truly impossible to break a game's rules, no matter what kind of game it is. When you do "break" a game's rules, what's MEANT by this expression is that you started playing your own game. So if you break a "rule" in a tournament (a tournament is a real life game), in my language that would mean you broke a (human) law, which actually means that you stopped playing the game (the tournament) everyone else was playing and started playing your own version of the game (your own tournament with its own rules).
So a tournament, as such, being a game, consists of rules that can never, therefore, be laws, but in practice they are laws because people break them. If you remind someone before a match that you beat them last time (in order to mess with their head), is there some code that executes in the electronic game (or some rule that magically appears in the rulebook) to delete that comment and erase it from their memory? If not, then it is within the rules of the game because you were ABLE TO DO IT. Now you might have broken a tournament's rules (laws, because they're breakable), at which point you aren't playing their game anymore, since a game is defined as something with rules. Or you may have stopped playing some weird board game that forbids you from talking or whatever, and started playing your own version of the game that does permit you.
So now we come to StarCraft and its use of the word "metagame". This word essentially refers to a game's morality. Morality is a set of conventions, mores, TRENDS, etc. A game like Go is very simple in its ruleset (it's like 3-5 rules, depending on how you count them I guess), so it's assumed and expected that you're going to play mindgames in some way shape or form. It's assumed that you're going to know how people are playing the game today. It's assumed you're going to know contemporary joseki, and it would be surprising to a modern Go player if they saw you using some really old joseki. But it's all part of the game.
StarCraft, on the other hand, is a videogame and therefore is the product of thousands of years of art/game development. It has a shitload of rules. So psychological warfare and the like aren't immediately considered even as primary tactics, morally speaking. People who use the word "metagame" a lot are basically saying that there is a MINIGAME within StarCraft with its own rules (which, in practice are laws because this minigame is a social contract as it is in tournaments) and anyone who incorporates knowledge from outside that minigame is "metagaming". The problem with this is that it would be physically impossible for StarCraft to exist without bringing in externalities, because if you couldn't bring you and your experiences to the game you wouldn't be able to play it, and if you wouldn't be able to play it, it wouldn't exist. It would just be 1s and 0s on a disc.
In other words, by telling people that they are bringing their selves and their experiences into the "game", the "metagaming" people have turned the act of playing a game, such as StarCraft, Magic, etc., into a metagame by introducing their own games that exist within the electronic, board, or card games. There is simply no way a person can divorce their StarCraft life from everything else. The breakfast you ate on a particular morning will influence how well you play to some small degree, and knowledge of the trends will ALWAYS influence how you play whether you want it to or not. Even if you were to deliberately try avoiding acting on that knowledge, you would simply be acting on it anyway -- by avoiding it, because you might have done something else if you had remained completely ignorant.
By using this word "metagame" you (as well as MTG players, etc.), have allowed it TO INVADE YOUR PSYCHOLOGY (which is what words do), creating a fictional layer of morality (a minigame) within the unbreakable ruleset of StarCraft. The correct way to say "the metagame has changed a lot" is "the game has changed a lot" (if we're talking about patches) or otherwise "the strategies have shifted". It's fucking clear and simple, lol, no more dumb threads about it. And then, "she wanted to cheese him, so he metagamed her" is certainly not "she wanted to cheese him, so he 'PARADIGMED' her" or whatever lolol. You say "he gamed her", meaning he fully exploited the game's possibility-space to win using all the means at his disposal, including his brain without which he wouldn't be playing at all. Duh. Problem solved, everyone can be happy now except losers who fear change.
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Holy shit so many long and complicated posts I will never read Oo' Can someone post the exact, short and clear cut definition of the word so we can call it a day?
I was pretty sure the "meta" defines the % of chances of playing against a race, deck, build order... Depending on the game it's used on.
If it's not, well tell me then, but make it easy please because I already woke up with a headache 
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People use metagame incorrectly to mean 'strategy'. If people are using hellions a lot, that is the current popular strategy. Metagame is the "game of the game." Mindgames ARE metagame: they are not directly the game, or strategies and reactions to strategies used, but beyond and outside of the game, a game about the game.
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On February 03 2012 19:42 derfuhrer wrote:+ Show Spoiler [whoa] +
A friend who frequents this website directed me to this thread, since it's active and we recently argued about the term metagame when he used the word in a text message, and I screamed at him for uttering nonsense. The subject, and the game in question, are both interesting to me, and I thought I might take this opportunity to set the record straight once and for all.
I will preface this by saying that I am more educated on this subject than every single person on this forum. I will treat the subject from every angle I can think of. Bear with me, because these concepts will by the end of this post become quite relevant to StarCraft -- far more than anything that's been said so far.
Yes, "meta" does mean outside/beyond/above/etc., even though in Greek it means adjacent. This is because when Aristotle wrote Metaphysics, it was so named because it came right after Physics, and was therefore adjacent. But the subject matter was (mis)understood to be "above" or "beyond" physics, so the prefix evolved to mean beyond/outside. And now it DOES mean that, as far as anyone needs to be concerned, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. This is English now, not Greek anymore, and we have our own relationships between words unique to our language.
It was brought up in this thread that the sounds that make up words do not have intrinsic meaning but are merely signifiers. This is technically correct, but in practice you are employing this principle to reach a false conclusion. Words in practice DO have intrinsic meaning because they do in our minds. The word red in our minds will always be tied to the image, and when enough of these images are related to sounds, we are able to write dictionaries where words actually do mean something. So our experiences CREATE intrinsic meaning in words (not in the strict logical sense, but psychologically)... and then, those words in turn create new experiences in our minds. I'll get to that later.
And now I will have to completely change direction and attack the nature of a game. The word "game" is undefined (philosophically), but what's known is that games have rules, and rules by definition cannot be broken. Laws, in contrast, can. You might be thinking, "What about the laws of the universe?!" The word "laws" belongs in the context of humanity. You can break the law -- by stealing, etc. The universe is a Game (the only game), and physics is an approximation and an abstraction of the rules of that game. Those rules cannot be broken because they follow as absolute necessities from cause and effect -- that is a deep philosophical subject, however, and one that you will just have to trust me on. Rules cannot be broken.
Further, it is impossible to draw a line and saw that this is where the rules of one game end and where the rules of another game begin. The reason, for example, that you can't travel faster than light in a videogame is because you can't travel faster than light in the universe (according to Einstein's theory, that is). BUT WHAT?! WHAT ABOUT GAMES WHERE YOU GO INTO HYPERSPACE? -- Those are just randomly colored pixels on a screen, moron. Images and words creating the illusion of hyperspace travel is not identical to hyperspace travel. Even if a computer simulation were developed with the intention of simulating faster-than-light travel, it would be impossible for that simulation to actually be able to simulate faster-than-light travel, because that would require... metaprogramming! It would only ever be able to simulate an illusion of faster-than-light travel. (Again, assuming Einstein was right.)
Now before we can reach the final point, we have to make a distinction between electronic games/board games/card games/etc. and games in real life. It is truly impossible to break a game's rules, no matter what kind of game it is. When you do "break" a game's rules, what's MEANT by this expression is that you started playing your own game. So if you break a "rule" in a tournament (a tournament is a real life game), in my language that would mean you broke a (human) law, which actually means that you stopped playing the game (the tournament) everyone else was playing and started playing your own version of the game (your own tournament with its own rules).
So a tournament, as such, being a game, consists of rules that can never, therefore, be laws, but in practice they are laws because people break them. If you remind someone before a match that you beat them last time (in order to mess with their head), is there some code that executes in the electronic game (or some rule that magically appears in the rulebook) to delete that comment and erase it from their memory? If not, then it is within the rules of the game because you were ABLE TO DO IT. Now you might have broken a tournament's rules (laws, because they're breakable), at which point you aren't playing their game anymore, since a game is defined as something with rules. Or you may have stopped playing some weird board game that forbids you from talking or whatever, and started playing your own version of the game that does permit you.
So now we come to StarCraft and its use of the word "metagame". This word essentially refers to a game's morality. Morality is a set of conventions, mores, TRENDS, etc. A game like Go is very simple in its ruleset (it's like 3-5 rules, depending on how you count them I guess), so it's assumed and expected that you're going to play mindgames in some way shape or form. It's assumed that you're going to know how people are playing the game today. It's assumed you're going to know contemporary joseki, and it would be surprising to a modern Go player if they saw you using some really old joseki. But it's all part of the game.
StarCraft, on the other hand, is a videogame and therefore is the product of thousands of years of art/game development. It has a shitload of rules. So psychological warfare and the like aren't immediately considered even as primary tactics, morally speaking. People who use the word "metagame" a lot are basically saying that there is a MINIGAME within StarCraft with its own rules (which, in practice are laws because this minigame is a social contract as it is in tournaments) and anyone who incorporates knowledge from outside that minigame is "metagaming". The problem with this is that it would be physically impossible for StarCraft to exist without bringing in externalities, because if you couldn't bring you and your experiences to the game you wouldn't be able to play it, and if you wouldn't be able to play it, it wouldn't exist. It would just be 1s and 0s on a disc.
In other words, by telling people that they are bringing their selves and their experiences into the "game", the "metagaming" people have turned the act of playing a game, such as StarCraft, Magic, etc., into a metagame by introducing their own games that exist within the electronic, board, or card games. There is simply no way a person can divorce their StarCraft life from everything else. The breakfast you ate on a particular morning will influence how well you play to some small degree, and knowledge of the trends will ALWAYS influence how you play whether you want it to or not. Even if you were to deliberately try avoiding acting on that knowledge, you would simply be acting on it anyway -- by avoiding it, because you might have done something else if you had remained completely ignorant.
By using this word "metagame" you (as well as MTG players, etc.), have allowed it TO INVADE YOUR PSYCHOLOGY (which is what words do), creating a fictional layer of morality (a minigame) within the unbreakable ruleset of StarCraft. The correct way to say "the metagame has changed a lot" is "the game has changed a lot" (if we're talking about patches) or otherwise "the strategies have shifted". It's fucking clear and simple, lol, no more dumb threads about it. And then, "she wanted to cheese him, so he metagamed her" is certainly not "she wanted to cheese him, so he 'PARADIGMED' her" or whatever lolol. You say "he gamed her", meaning he fully exploited the game's possibility-space to win using all the means at his disposal, including his brain without which he wouldn't be playing at all. Duh. Problem solved, everyone can be happy now except losers who fear change.
Look, I'm totally with you. Your post sums up why I think it's silly to insist on an arcane and technical meaning having something to do with "outside the rules" for exactly the line of reasoning you delineated. I don't think most people here can handle it so, that was fun I hope it doesn't go completely by the wayside.
Now, lol why are you qualified beyond compare? I don't mind such an outlandish claim but it is ridiculous to say so and then offer no clarification. o.O
Needless to say I take issue with the linkages you use to get from words don't have meaning to words have meaning, but that argument's for a different thread. In any case the line of your post doesn't revolve around this so functionally granted in order to carry on.
Your subtextual culmination is that games don't have boundaries so the word metagame can't possibly mean anything exactly. I'm glad someone else signed up for that too. Then your actual conclusion is that no one should ever use the word metagame. But... that doesn't follow. Why can't you just use metagame as a useful word all the same??? Moreover, for example, "the strategies have shifted" is not the same as "the metagame has shifted". If you disagree, it's out of willful orneriness or a lack of understanding. Those two statements deal with similar content but convey different meanings. Perhaps it is subtle. I'm perfectly willing to argue this point of minutia to death because it illuminates the whole argument.
Anyway, all words suffer from necessary inexactness and ambiguity. That doesn't stop them from letting people communicate, I don't see why this is a special case.
Very nice post though, thanks for stopping by TL.
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On February 03 2012 21:00 forelmashi wrote:
People use metagame incorrectly to mean 'strategy'. If people are using hellions a lot, that is the current popular strategy. Metagame is the "game of the game." Mindgames ARE metagame: they are not directly the game, or strategies and reactions to strategies used, but beyond and outside of the game, a game about the game.
There's no such thing as "current strategy". There's strategy, and there's a trend in what strategies are used, the metagame. Why do terrans open hellions? Because it's good. Would they still do it if zerg 90% of the time opened with early roaches? No, because it would suck. It's the "current strategy" because of the metagame.
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On February 03 2012 21:31 Tobberoth wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2012 21:00 forelmashi wrote:
People use metagame incorrectly to mean 'strategy'. If people are using hellions a lot, that is the current popular strategy. Metagame is the "game of the game." Mindgames ARE metagame: they are not directly the game, or strategies and reactions to strategies used, but beyond and outside of the game, a game about the game. There's no such thing as "current strategy". There's strategy, and there's a trend in what strategies are used, the metagame. Why do terrans open hellions? Because it's good. Would they still do it if zerg 90% of the time opened with early roaches? No, because it would suck. It's the "current strategy" because of the metagame.
Nailed it. I would say though, more precisely, you should clarify that you're saying "if it were a viable strategy to open early roaches blind, opening hellions would suck" (dealing with available strategies) versus "if zergs start opening early roaches blind, hellions are a bad choice" (metagame tit for tat).
...I hope that's what you mean. =|
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The meta game means "meta" which is basically beyond or above, and game which is the game you are playing.
To say it another way, the meta game refer to the society of gamers and its history.
It's as simple as that.
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On February 03 2012 12:02 kochujang wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2012 11:02 Liquid`Tyler wrote:On February 03 2012 03:54 pandaburn wrote:
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. What you've described is just trends, or one step beyond trends. Trends are useful for one part of the metagame but they aren't the metagame. For example, if the trend is for Protoss to fast expand PvT on Terminus, then a Terran would be playing the metagame by doing a blind proxy 2rax, or would be "metagaming him" by doing a blind proxy 2rax. Protoss going fast expand PvT on Terminus is not the metagame. Incas reputation of going sneaky builds (especially DTs) to catch the opponent unaware in the early game is well known. In a Bomber vs Inca game, Bomber prepared blindly for such attacks by placing early towers and very safe play and just prepared to enter the mid game without dying (probably thinking his mid-game and late-game will crush Inca without much effort). Inca did something unheard of and build double Nexus. Is this metagame or just mindgames from Inca because double Nexus is just another sneaky/cheesy strategy? I thought it was brilliant metagaming on Incas part, but perhaps this is another incorrect use of the word?
Anyone care to answer this guy? I have the same questions about it.
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Meta- (from Greek: μετά = "after", "beyond", "adjacent", "self"), is a prefix used in English (and other Greek-owing languages) to indicate a concept which is an abstraction from another concept, used to complete or add to the latter.
Yeah... So basicly it's what lays "above", "around" or "outside" the game itself.
Metagaming as a verb could easilly be cheesing someone you expect to do an eco-cheese (15nex/15CC).
Metagame as a noun can easilly be how things are commonly played in the current state of the game.
Metagame can imho not be insulting your opponent.
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On February 03 2012 21:31 Tobberoth wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2012 21:00 forelmashi wrote:
People use metagame incorrectly to mean 'strategy'. If people are using hellions a lot, that is the current popular strategy. Metagame is the "game of the game." Mindgames ARE metagame: they are not directly the game, or strategies and reactions to strategies used, but beyond and outside of the game, a game about the game. There's no such thing as "current strategy". There's strategy, and there's a trend in what strategies are used, the metagame. Why do terrans open hellions? Because it's good. Would they still do it if zerg 90% of the time opened with early roaches? No, because it would suck. It's the "current strategy" because of the metagame.
For one, if you say strategies trend, then there are current and past strategies...
Strategies are the game directly, it is the strategies/game that change. Metagame is the way you think about the game. If one day zergs open 90% of the time with roaches, it is their strategy that changed, and terrans will use a different strategy. If however, a player thinks, "this zerg probably gonna go roaches 80% of the time," and thus chooses his strategy, then this is the metagame.
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metagame is a good word to use when you talk to dumb people and wanna sound smart.
and its a good word when you talk to smart people and wanna sound dumb
just insert it here and there when your talking about maps, balance or general strategy and youll feel pretty smart among the lesser
example:
in the current medigame we see alot of metagaming lately in the metagame, but after players start catch onto the metagame we will probably see the metagame metagame to medigame and people will start medigaming the metagame
if you still dont understand just read in this thread and youll see alot of more examples like this
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Bear in mind, I haven't looked at the last 6 pages. And that my viewpoint is going to be coming from waaaay outside the videogame scene. But, way back when, I played actual role playing games. Y'know, the kind with pens, paper, and dice. (And in a few instances, cards or rock-paper-scissors.) So, my understanding of the word "metagame" comes from that background.
Metagame, like "metadata" (I have a library sciences friend), is "the game about the game" or a game outside the game. This means using information that is not developed from within the game, and applied as a verb, would mean using information you could not have from within the game (in RP parlance, "out of character knowledge") to have an influence in the actual gameplay itself. (Which, in RP games, is a big no-no - but still happens with depressing regularity. The most interesting logical curliques I have heard are involved with people explaining how their character could somehow know and use information that the player knows but the character has at best a tenous acquaintance.)
So, in the OP, in that regard, is absolutely correct. The first two instances are using knowledge about outside events to direct play in the current match, while the third is psychological warfare that edges close to but is not itself metagaming. The general trends for builds and strategies are more environmental - I can't see using that as "the metagame" in any sense. They are exactly trends... aggregating them all together as a way of saying generalized things about PvZ, TvZ, PvP, etc, is not "meta" - it's generalization.
But then English is a mutating language, so who knows what it could really mean or wind up meaning? To me, the metagame aspects of an MLG or GSL might be more along the lines of... "Hmm. Last night at the hotel I saw (insert player name) stumbling drunk back to his/her room. And this morning they are looking hung over. I bet I can do multiprong drops to capitalize on his/her inability to react quickly to them all while driving a thrust straight through his natural at his main." Whether or not I use reactored hellions or 1-1-1 would only be "metagame" is if I know that the player I'm playing has a specific weakness against that kind of play.
Edited to add: Derfuhrer has a mountain of words about words, which contain an excellent bit of logical dancing, but I think misses the point in the first sentence of the previous paragraph. English is an agglomerative language and one which does not have a strict nor "rule" (in his sense) based definition. It is like any other human institution or construct malleable, and one which changes frequently in both subjective and objective ways. I am interested in the use of game theory however in the analysis he makes.
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On February 03 2012 03:54 pandaburn wrote:
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. Mind game
2. Trend, state, paradigm, strategy
3. ?
Metagame I would refer to as the thinking done in-between games such as in a Bo5, or adjusting your play so that its different to what stats players are likely to have on you or your observations on another player which has an in-direct correlation to the game.
"I am a low apm player, but my opponent seems to be wearing a mask on, he must have a cold. I will utilize heavy harass play to make use off his inability to react effectively". But lets say he was wearing a mask, just to make his opponent play a style that wasn't suitable for him, thus creating a mind-game counter to his mind-game counter, resulting in metagaming.
Usually metagaming occurs when you get high-level intellectual battles, when you are trying to think -> what they are thinking -> you are thinking.
On February 03 2012 21:54 deadmau wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2012 12:02 kochujang wrote:On February 03 2012 11:02 Liquid`Tyler wrote:On February 03 2012 03:54 pandaburn wrote:
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. What you've described is just trends, or one step beyond trends. Trends are useful for one part of the metagame but they aren't the metagame. For example, if the trend is for Protoss to fast expand PvT on Terminus, then a Terran would be playing the metagame by doing a blind proxy 2rax, or would be "metagaming him" by doing a blind proxy 2rax. Protoss going fast expand PvT on Terminus is not the metagame. Incas reputation of going sneaky builds (especially DTs) to catch the opponent unaware in the early game is well known. In a Bomber vs Inca game, Bomber prepared blindly for such attacks by placing early towers and very safe play and just prepared to enter the mid game without dying (probably thinking his mid-game and late-game will crush Inca without much effort). Inca did something unheard of and build double Nexus. Is this metagame or just mindgames from Inca because double Nexus is just another sneaky/cheesy strategy? I thought it was brilliant metagaming on Incas part, but perhaps this is another incorrect use of the word? Anyone care to answer this guy? I have the same questions about it.
I would say that's mind-gaming, being unpredictable or long-term strategy. It would be borderline metagame, if lets say P opened double gas, T does a counter to DT rush, then P blindly does a counter to the counter of the DT rush.
Basically T think that if P goes double gas he is going to DT rush, P knows that T will do a certain build thinking P will DT rush, so P has a specially designed build to counter the reaction to the DT rush.
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What Inca did is metagame. If you double gas, fake shrine and cancel it, or something, that is merely a mind game, but what Inca did is something _outside_ the game, a game of the game.
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On February 03 2012 22:05 forelmashi wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2012 21:31 Tobberoth wrote:On February 03 2012 21:00 forelmashi wrote:
People use metagame incorrectly to mean 'strategy'. If people are using hellions a lot, that is the current popular strategy. Metagame is the "game of the game." Mindgames ARE metagame: they are not directly the game, or strategies and reactions to strategies used, but beyond and outside of the game, a game about the game. There's no such thing as "current strategy". There's strategy, and there's a trend in what strategies are used, the metagame. Why do terrans open hellions? Because it's good. Would they still do it if zerg 90% of the time opened with early roaches? No, because it would suck. It's the "current strategy" because of the metagame. For one, if you say strategies trend, then there are current and past strategies... Strategies are the game directly, it is the strategies/game that change. Metagame is the way you think about the game. If one day zergs open 90% of the time with roaches, it is their strategy that changed, and terrans will use a different strategy. If however, a player thinks, "this zerg probably gonna go roaches 80% of the time," and thus chooses his strategy, then this is the metagame.
You're talking about the exact same concept, just on an individual basis. "This zerg probably gonna go roaches 80% of the time" = "Zergs will probably go roaches 80% of the time". There are tons of strategies used, when you decide to use one dependant on what the trend is, you're obviously metagaming. If you go gate->core->twilight council immediately to rush blink just because you like blink, you're just gaming. It works to do in the game. If you think about how your opponents will likely play and pick a strategy viable against it, BOOM. Metagame.
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On February 03 2012 22:21 Tobberoth wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2012 22:05 forelmashi wrote:On February 03 2012 21:31 Tobberoth wrote:On February 03 2012 21:00 forelmashi wrote:
People use metagame incorrectly to mean 'strategy'. If people are using hellions a lot, that is the current popular strategy. Metagame is the "game of the game." Mindgames ARE metagame: they are not directly the game, or strategies and reactions to strategies used, but beyond and outside of the game, a game about the game. There's no such thing as "current strategy". There's strategy, and there's a trend in what strategies are used, the metagame. Why do terrans open hellions? Because it's good. Would they still do it if zerg 90% of the time opened with early roaches? No, because it would suck. It's the "current strategy" because of the metagame. For one, if you say strategies trend, then there are current and past strategies... Strategies are the game directly, it is the strategies/game that change. Metagame is the way you think about the game. If one day zergs open 90% of the time with roaches, it is their strategy that changed, and terrans will use a different strategy. If however, a player thinks, "this zerg probably gonna go roaches 80% of the time," and thus chooses his strategy, then this is the metagame. You're talking about the exact same concept, just on an individual basis. "This zerg probably gonna go roaches 80% of the time" = "Zergs will probably go roaches 80% of the time". There are tons of strategies used, when you decide to use one dependant on what the trend is, you're obviously metagaming. If you go gate->core->twilight council immediately to rush blink just because you like blink, you're just gaming. It works to do in the game. If you think about how your opponents will likely play and pick a strategy viable against it, BOOM. Metagame.
Okay, but semantically, it is the strategy/game which changes, NOT the "metagame" which changes, the latter being a frequently used incorrect usage.
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On February 03 2012 22:22 forelmashi wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2012 22:21 Tobberoth wrote:On February 03 2012 22:05 forelmashi wrote:On February 03 2012 21:31 Tobberoth wrote:On February 03 2012 21:00 forelmashi wrote:
People use metagame incorrectly to mean 'strategy'. If people are using hellions a lot, that is the current popular strategy. Metagame is the "game of the game." Mindgames ARE metagame: they are not directly the game, or strategies and reactions to strategies used, but beyond and outside of the game, a game about the game. There's no such thing as "current strategy". There's strategy, and there's a trend in what strategies are used, the metagame. Why do terrans open hellions? Because it's good. Would they still do it if zerg 90% of the time opened with early roaches? No, because it would suck. It's the "current strategy" because of the metagame. For one, if you say strategies trend, then there are current and past strategies... Strategies are the game directly, it is the strategies/game that change. Metagame is the way you think about the game. If one day zergs open 90% of the time with roaches, it is their strategy that changed, and terrans will use a different strategy. If however, a player thinks, "this zerg probably gonna go roaches 80% of the time," and thus chooses his strategy, then this is the metagame. You're talking about the exact same concept, just on an individual basis. "This zerg probably gonna go roaches 80% of the time" = "Zergs will probably go roaches 80% of the time". There are tons of strategies used, when you decide to use one dependant on what the trend is, you're obviously metagaming. If you go gate->core->twilight council immediately to rush blink just because you like blink, you're just gaming. It works to do in the game. If you think about how your opponents will likely play and pick a strategy viable against it, BOOM. Metagame. Okay, but semantically, it is the strategy/game which changes, NOT the "metagame" which changes, the latter being a frequently used incorrect usage.
The game nor the strategy changes, just your decision on what to use. The game only changes when the game is patched, the strategy only changes because you devise a new one.
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EPT
