THE UNIVERSITY OF GDAŃSK

THE FACULTY OF LANGUAGES

The Language of MOBA Games Based on the Example of League of Legends

Gdańsk 2013 UNIWERSYTET GDAŃSKI

WYDZIAŁ FILOLOGICZNY

Język gier typu MOBA na podstawie League of Legends

Gdańsk 2013

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Table of Content

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………….1

1. Factors Affecting the Language……………………………………………………………..3

1.1. Dialect…………………………………………………………………………………...3

1.2. Style and Register……………………………………………………………………….4

1.3. Slang……………………………………………………………………………………..5

1.4 Jargon……………………………………………………………………….....................6

1.5. The Language of the Internet…………………………………………………………....8

1.5.1. Computer Mediated Communication………………………………………………….9

1.5.2. Characteristics of CMC……………………………………………………………....10

2. The History of MOBA Genre and Its Characteristics……………………………………...13

2.1. Characteristics of the Genre……………………………………………….…………...13

2.2. The History of the Genre……………………………………………………………....14

2.2.1. Aeon of Strife…………………………………………………………………..14

2.2.2. WarCraft III Era………………………………………………………………..15

2.2.3. DotA Allstars……………………………………………………...……………15

2.2.4. The ―Stand-Alones‖ Era…………………………………………………….….16

2.2.4.1. League of Legends………………………………………………………....17

2.2.4.2. Dota 2…………………………………………………………………..…..17

2.2.4.3. Heroes of Newerth……………………………………………………...…..18

3. Examples of Language Used in Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas………………………..19

3.1. Communication Within the Game…………………………………………………......19

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3.1.1. New Players and Slang Acquisition……………………………………………21

3.2. Types of Linguistic Processes Affecting the Language in LoL………………………..22

3.2.1. Abbreviations in MOBA Games……………………………………………….22

3.2.2. Clipping in MOBA Games………………………………………………..……25

3.3. The Influence of the Notable Members of the Gaming Community on the Language .....26

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………29

Sources………………………………………………...………...……………………………30

1

Introduction

The English language is considered the world‘s language with nearly 2 billion

speakers world-wide (Crystal, 2003: 109). However, with most of the speakers being non-

natives (Crystal, 2003: 109), it is in a state of constant flux which is accelerated even further

thanks to the quick growth of the Internet and the virtual media that allow information and

thoughts exchange between people across globe with speed never witnessed before.

Among these new media is online gaming – a type of entertainment that has been

growing in popularity since the beginning of this millennia, mainly as the titles such as

Counter-Strike, Diablo II, StarCraft, World of WarCraft and Battlefield managed to attract

thousands of players and the quality of the connection has greatly improved. But in the recent

years a new type of online games, different from the traditionally popular multiplayer genres

such as Real-Time Strategies, First Person Shooters and Massive Multiplayer Online Role

Playing Games, has begun attracting a wider audience. This genre is ―Dotalikes‖ or MOBAs –

the Multiplayer Player Battle Arenas.

Their rise began with DotA, a modification for WarCraft III, a map that started as a

combined effort of few modders and grew in size to the level of recognition so great that it

was granted t a place in the biggest and most important cyber gaming tournament for a

number of years and inspired the creation of a number of popular games, including the most

popular game in the world at the moment – League of Legends.

The playerbase of the game exceeds 32 million (Gallegos, 2012: n.pgd). The entirety

of the players is a mix of different countries and cultures yet the default communication

channel for most of the players remains the lingua franca of the Internet – English. But as the

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language ability differ from one player to another and the conversational needs in online

games differ from those in everyday English, certain changes and linguistic processes occur.

The aim of this thesis is to present how those changes are implemented to the language

by the ever-growing online community and discuss its importance as it serves as one of most

basic means of communications for millions of people daily. Furthermore, this topic is

important for the author as he himself has devoted hundreds of hours into the game and its

language has become a part of his everyday world.

In the first chapter of this thesis I will present the varieties of the English language that

have effect on shaping the language of MOBA games, including dialect, register, style, slang,

jargon and ―the language of the Internet‖. The goal of the second chapter is to present to the

reader the main principle of MOBA games as well as introduce the brief history of the genre

as the author believes it is necessary to fully understand the creation of language processes

within this group of language users. Finally, the third chapter, which is purely practical, is the

author‘s attempt to present the language processes in the League of Legends, explains the

most frequent form changes and explain their necessity based on in-game conversations as

well as the author‘s experience.

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1. Factors Affecting the Language

Language is not a defined and unchangeable entity – it undergoes constant changes

and varies depending on the place and the people currently using it and it has been well

presented by Jean Aitchison that an average person today would hardly understand every-day

English used few hundred years ago (Aitchison, 2001:3). As the purpose of is thesis is to

analyze a language variety used by an online game community the author believes it is

necessary to describe the processes affecting the standard variety of the language in order to

fully understand the transformation that the in-game used by the players has experienced.

1.1 Dialect

One of the most basic varieties of a language is dialect. The Oxford English

Dictionary defines dialect as ―a particular form of a language which is peculiar to a specific

region or social group‖. The branch of linguistics that aims to research this type of language

variation is known as dialectology and it deals with ―spatially and geographically determined

differences in various aspects of language‖ (Spolsky, 1998: 28). The dialectal differences are

most commonly seen within vocabulary and heard in the pronunciation. The scientific method

used in dialectology requires field work in order to gather data which then is compared to

different variations of a language.

Also, what is known under the name of the ―Standard English‖ is, in fact, a dialect

itself. According to Finegan the standard variety is:

―[…]the variety used by a group of people in their public discourse—newspapers,

radio broadcasts, political speeches, college and university lectures, and so on. In other

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words, we could identify as standard the variety used for certain activities or in certain

situations. Alternatively, we could identify as standard the variety that has undergone a

process of standardization, during which it is organized for description in grammars

and dictionaries and encoded in such reference works.‖ (Finegan, 2008: 14)

It should be noted, however, that despite the presence of the standard dialect not a single other

variety is logically or grammatically inferior. Nevertheless, the standardization is undoubtedly

useful in certain cases as it allows a piece of language to reach a wider audience as the general

understanding of the standard dialect is greater than of regional ones. (Finegan, 2008: 14)

A notion often misinterpreted as dialect is the sociolect. Dialect‘s main creational

factor, as explained earlier in the paragraph, is the geographical setting which is not crucial in

case of the sociolect. As shown by William Labov in his text on African American Vernacular

English (AAVE) (Labov, 2012: 49) the distribution of this variety‘s characteristic elements,

such as the omission of the possessive –s (Labov, 2012: 39) was present among the members

of the African American community throughout the country. Due to its spread it defines the

definition of a dialect. However, another factor occurs – ethnicity. A sociolect is a variety of a

language that might be shared by the people of the same sociological profile: be it ethnicity,

age, gender or being a part of the same socioeconomic group.

1.2 Style and Register

A different variation that has got an impact on the language is style. The notion

governs the expected and socially correct level of formality in any given situation. According

to Barbara Johnstone ―repeated sets of stancetaking moves can emerge as relatively stabilized

repertoires, sometimes called ―styles,‖ associated with or situations or social identities‖, while

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stance is ―[…] generally understood to have to do with the methods, linguistic and other, by

which interactants create and signal relationships with the propositions they utter and with the

people they interact with‖ (Johnstone, 2009: 30-31). To visualise the concept, two situations

can be discussed: a lunch with peers and a company meeting. The vocabulary and grammar

used during the meal would be less formal compared to those used during the official sitting,

thus the choice of two different styles for either of social situations.

Yet another variety is register. According to Ronald Wardhaugh, register is ―set of

language items associated with discrete occupational or social groups.‖ (Wardhaugh, 2006:

52). Furthermore, ―people participating in recurrent communication situations tend to develop

similar vocabularies, similar features of intonation, and characteristic bits of syntax and

phonology that they use in these situations.‖ (Ferguson, 1994: 20). Groups that share similar

communicative settings tend to create overlapping language patterns for its members and,

according to Wardhaugh, one can freely choose from any register they are acquainted with:

―you can be a stockbroker and an archeologist, or a mountain climber and an economist. Each

register helps you to express your identity at a specific time or place, i.e., how you seek to

present yourself to others.‖ (Wardhaugh, 2009: 52). However, the notions of register and

dialect, while different, might not be entirely independent from each other: ―one man‘s dialect

is another man‘s register.‖ (Hudson, 1993: 51). Still, most linguists share the viewpoint that a

speaker usually controls few social varieties of a language (be it the standard language or a

dialect), whilst being able to use a ―wide range of registers‖ (Wardhaugh, 2009: 52; Halliday,

1990: 43; Bieber, 2000, 135). A clear distinction between the two was made by M.A.K

Halliday who defined dialect as ―variety of language according to the user‖ while register

focuses on ―variety according to use.‖ (Halliday, 1990: 41)

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1.3 Slang

Slang, as described by the definition in Oxford Dictionary is ―a type of language

consisting of words and phrases that are regarded as very informal, are more common in

speech than writing, and are typically restricted to a particular context or group of people‖.

Yet, despite the definition‘s simplicity, the topic of how to define slang has been an ongoing

issue in linguistic discussion (Amari, 2010: 1). The problem with researching it originates, as

stated by James B. McMillan, from the fact that ―until slang can be objectively identified and

segregated (so that dictionaries will not vary widely in labeling particular lexemes and

idioms) or until more precise subcategories replace the catchall label SLANG, little can be

done to analyze linguistically this kind of lexis, or to study its historical change, or to account

for it in sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic contexts‖ (McMillan, 1978: 146). Not only is the

identification of the slang items an obstacle but also the fact of how elusive it is: slang words

may change their meanings or become a part of ―standard‖ language, a phenomenon that

influenced words such as ―booze‖ or ―funk‖ (Amari, 2010, 2). However, Connie Eble

concluded that slang does have consistent characteristics allowing their better identification,

which are: being more lexically focused rather than phonologically or syntactically, not being

grammatically ―incorrect‖, as slang items rarely violate semantic correctness of a sentence

and undergoing the same morphological processes as the rest of the language, such as

meaning change, shortening, etc. (Eble, 1996: 12-24). A different method of determining

whether a lexical item could be considered slang was introduced by Bethany K. Dumas and

Jonathan Lighter. They presented four criteria for slang:

Its presence will markedly lower, at least for the moment, the dignity of serious speech

or writing,

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Its use implies the user‘s special familiarity either with the referent or with the less

statusful or less responsible class of people who have such special familiarity and use

the term,

It is a tabooed term in ordinary discourse with persons of higher social status or

greater responsibility,

It is used in place of the well-known conventional synonym, especially in order (a) to

protect the user from the discomfort caused by the conventional item or (b) to protect

the user from the discomfort or annoyance of further elaboration. (Dumas, Lighter,

1978, 14-16)

According to them, if at least two of the presented criteria can be successfully applied to any

lexical item it can be considered slang.

1.4 Jargon

The term ―jargon‖ originates from an Old French word ―jargon‖, which meant

―twittering or warbling of birds‖, as for a listener unfamiliar with the jargon what they might

hear may convey as much meaning as the chirping of the birds. It can be defined as ―an

outlandish, technical language of a particular profession, group, or trade.‖ Despite sharing

some of slang‘s traits, such as being outside the ―main‖ language, it ―serves not just to label

new and needed concepts, but to establish bonds between members of the ingroup and enforce

boundaries for outsiders‖, as Spolsky concluded (Spolsky, 1998: 33). Jargon can be formed

by any group of interest based on its occupation (medical jargon, corporate jargon) or shared

interest (cricket jargon, football jargon).

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According to Yule a characteristic feature of jargon is it technical nature associated to

a specific group of interest (Yule, 2004: 259). Furthermore, he agrees with Spolsky‘s

sociological aspect of jargon, as he wrote: ―In social terms, jargon helps to create and

maintain connections among those who see themselves as ―insiders‖ in some way and to

exclude ―outsiders.‖ However, he noted that extensive use of highly technical vocabulary

(which is characteristic of jargon) may lead to perceiving its use as ―elitism‖ of some sort:

―This exclusive effect of specialized jargon, as in the medical register (e.g. Zanoxyn is a

nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug for arthritis, bursitis and tendonitis), often leads to

complaints about what may seem like ―jargonitis.‖ (Yule, 2004: 259)

Also, as Peter Ives noticed ―After all, jargon is only jargon for those who don‘t use

it.‖ (Ives, 1997 n.pag). Jargon is an integral part of everyday language for many people as it

allows conveying complex, new ideas in short form and appears unintelligible only to those

unfamiliar with it.

1.5 The Language of the Internet

The ―language of the Internet‖, also known as netspeak, consists of various types of

natural language conveyed through electronic means of communication (Baron, 2003: 3),

unlike ―Web language‖, which includes a number of coding languages. The language of the

Internet is a curious issue from a linguistic point of view as vast majority of the language used

online is written, while linguistics concentrates on the spoken language mostly. Writing,

according to Bloomfield, is ―merely a way of recording language by means of visible marks‖

(Bloomfield 1933:21). Moreover, Chomsky‘s transformational school claims written text to

be irrelevant for linguistic research. However, the Internet‘s impact on the language is so

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great that it may no longer be considered non important.

At the moment the use of natural languages on the Internet is heading into two

different directions. Despite being created as an English-speaking network more and more

content online is being posted in languages different than English, which is not a surprise, as

estimation exists that predicts the Chinese will become the most common language worldwide

and that by the year 2050 there will be over 1.4 billion native speakers of Chinese compared

to 500 million of native speakers of English. (Graddol 1997:27). Should this happen it will

prove to be a major challenge for both translators and programmers as an ever increasing need

for translating software and methods will arise. The other direction predicts adaptation of

English as lingua franca of the Internet. The issue presented by this solution is the fact that at

the moment most of English speakers are non-natives (Crystal, 1997b: 69), which may result

in majority of content recipients unable to understand complex grammatical structures or

vocabulary.

1.5.1 Computer Mediated Communication

As all the communication happening within any MOBA or any other multiplayer game

can be classified as Computer Mediated Communication it is deemed necessary to fully

understand the nature of this particular phenomenon in order to apply other linguistic factors

into the boundaries of this type of communication.

Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) is ―loosely defined as any natural

language messaging that is transmitted and/or received via a computer connection. Generally

speaking, the term CMC refers to a written natural language message sent via the Internet.‖

(Barons, 2003: 10). Two main categories of CMC can be distinguished: one-to-one

communication and one-to-many dialogue. One-to-one communication includes such means

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of communication as e-mails and instant messages while one-to-many dialogue includes web

pages, chats and newsgroups.

1.5.2 Characteristics of CMC

As CMC is affected by the devices on which input and output takes place, certain

factors regarding the text itself apply. As the number of small Internet devices in use increases

(the Monetate Q1 2013 Ecommerce Quarterly shows that in the first quarter of 2013 nearly

25% of all Internet sites visit were from mobile devices) a certain format of the text emerges.

Due to limited size of both keyboard and the screen on the said devices both creation and

reception of long text is considerably more difficult and thus emergence of shorter text is

much more frequent.

Furthermore, the nature of the medium used for communication is a factor. Byron

distinguishes between asynchronous and synchronous CMC. Asynchronous communication

(which includes e-mail) reassembles more standard means of communication, such as the

postal system. The assumption or requirement for both parties to be online is not present and

allows creation of a text of any length. Synchronous CMC (such as instant messages or chat

services) requires both poster and sender to actively control the flow of discourse. Messages

tend to be short, because as in the face to face conversation, interruptions might happen and

responses take place very quickly.

As CMC‘s form is most cases written the reader cannot rely on non-verbal parts of

language to identify the writer‘s intentions or emotions. It was the problem faced by the

recipients of classic letters or short stories. However, thanks to CMC‘s greater immediacy

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methods of marking certain emotions (such as happiness, sadness or sarcasm) have been

implemented.

One of those methods are emoticons, also known as smileys. Emoticons first appeared

in 1982 as the creation of Scott Fahlman who was at Carnegie Mellon University. Fahlman

wrote at the time:

―I propose ... the following character sequence for joke markers: :-). Read it

sideways. Actually, it is probably more economical to mark things that are NOT jokes,

given current trends. For this use :-(.‖ (Barid, 2002: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~sef/Orig-

Smiley.htm)

Typically emoticons consist of punctuation marks and/or numbers. It is hard to

estimate the number of smileys in use as new one may appear among any group, e.g. students

of a class messaging on a class forums board or viewers of a game streamer. An example of

the latter might be ヽ༼ຈل ຈ༽ﾉ(rise your dongers) used by the fan base of League of

Legends player Michael ―imaqtpie‖ Santana on his streaming site profile‘s chat in form of an

internet meme.

Different methods of conveying non-verbal information include flaming and

ALLCAPS. Flaming is purposeful use of vulgarism and profane language which intends to

present writer‘s attitude towards the topic. ALLCAPS serves as an indication of scream

and/or anger and is created by typing the entire message in upper case. It is often used

simultaneously with flaming.

Finally, CMC operates with the use of acronyms and abbreviations. While their use in

written text is nothing new (they were common in medieval manuscripts) their purpose

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reaches beyond mere reduction of input time and space of the text. An additional, a social

factor exists – the use of both indicates being a part of ―the Internet culture‖. This factor

reassembles slang‘s and David Crystal vocalised the though very accurately: ―The chief use of

slang is to show that you‘re part of the gang!‖ (Crystal 1997a:53)

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2. The History of the MOBA Genre and Its Characteristics

2.1 Characteristics of the Genre

MOBA (abbreviated from Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) is a subgenre of real time

strategy games that has emerged at the end of the final decade of the 20th

century. The genre‘s

gameplay typically revolves around the conflict of two teams whose main goal is the

destruction of the enemy‘s main structure located within their base. Each team consists of 5

players, each of whom is given control of a single, powerful unit often referred to as a

―champion‖ or ―hero‖. The map on which the game is played can be divided into two main

zones: three lanes, where one can find minions spawned by each base as well as three rows of

defensive structures known as ―turrets‖ and the jungle, the contested area where neutral

monsters are present. The champions become more powerful over time as they gain

experience and items, both of which are needed to successfully force themselves through the

enemies‘ defenses and eventually claim victory. The gameplay is fast paced and requires

player‘s concentration and micro management of actions. Typical skirmish last between 20 to

70 minutes. The genre itself is becoming increasingly popular amongst video gaming

audience, with representatives of the genre topping the charts of most games played among all

gaming titles and major MOBA tournaments being watched by hundreds of thousands

individual viewers at any given time.

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2.2 The History of the Genre

2.2.1 Aeon of Strife

The first know representative of the genre was a custom map made for a Blizzard

Entertainment‘s 1998‘s real time strategy game StarCraft, called Aeon of Strife. In Aeon of

Strife, a map created by an author known as Aeon64, the player controlled a single unit of

their choice and together with 3 other players and with the aid of the constant stream of

friendly, base-spawned monsters, were faced against the endless number of enemy monsters

which were stronger than the allied minions and given the task of destroying the enemy base

structures. The game was played within four lanes and would last until either all four main

structures were destroyed or all of the players‘ units were killed. A later version included

player versus player gameplay with the introduction of two versus two mode, where teams

consisting of two players would battle each other.

The map was highly innovative as it removed the standard features of a real-time

strategy gameplay, such as the development of the main base, creation of an army and

resources gathering while strongly focusing on a single unit, which was typical for role-

playing games and rewarding the player for successfully executed last hits on the enemy

monsters. (History of DotA, n.d.: wiki.gosugamer.net).

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2.2.2 WarCraft III Era

With the release of Blizzard Entertainment‘s next real-time strategy, WarCraft III, in

2002 many of the StarCraft‘s custom maps were recreated with the use of WarCraft‘s map

editor. This was also true for Aeon of Strife and thanks to WarCraft‘s game engine a number

of new mechanics, including learning new abilities through experience or buying items could

be implemented. This led to creation of WarCraft‘s own MOBA-like maps, some of which

included The Valley of Darkness by a mapper known under the name Karukefand as well as

Defense of the Ancients, a piece by Eul, which would eventually become one of the most

popular custom maps in WarCraft III. With the release of The Frozen Throne expansion pack

Eul created a new version of DotA called DotA 2: Thirst for Gamma. The map, however, did

not recreate its predecessor‘s success. This led to Eul‘s disappearance from modding scene

and leaving the map‘s code in open-source status. This led to appearance of number of spin

offs, some of which were DotA DX Series, DotA Unforgiven and DotA Outland. (History of

DotA, n.d.:wiki.gosugamer.net).

2.2.3 DotA Allstars

As the number of the available versions of the map was increasing, two people, known

under the names of Meian and Ragn0r, decided to compile all fun-to-play champions from

different releases into a single map. This map was released under the name of DotA Allstars.

The first version of the map was DotA Allstars Beta v0.95 released on February 3, 2004. This

release is considered one of the milestones in the history of DotA and thus, MOBA games.

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The game continued to develop under the lead of Steve ‗Guinsoo‘ Freak, IceFrog and

Neichus. The map was becoming more optimized; gameplay changes were added (e.g. the

introduction of Roschan), new heroes were introduced (such as Witch Doctor, Ursa Warrior

and more). Furthermore, the map‘s popularity was becoming more significant: in 2009 the

official DotA forums, dota-allstars.com, had 1,500,000 active accounts and over 1 million

unique visitors every month and was hailed ―the most popular and most-discussed free, non-

supported game mod in the world‖ (Walbridge, 2008: n.pgd). The recognition of the maps‘

popularity was its introduction into World Cyber Games Singapore in 2005. During the

following years DotA events were hosted during BlizzCons and the game was a part of

Cyberathlete Amateur League and CyberEvolution leagues game lineup.

2.2.4 The „Stand-Alones‟ Era

Prior to 2009 MOBA games were merely modifications of already existing games –

just as Aeon of Strife was a modification of StarCraft and DotA was a modification of

WarCraft III. However, few companies decided to create games that would themselves

provide game environment that would no longer need support of third party clients. The first

company to successfully accomplish that was Riot Games, who released League of Legends in

2009. Since then the game has become the most popular online game worldwide (Gaudiosi,

2012: n.pgd). Several other MOBA games have been released, most influential of which have

been: Valve Corporation‘s Dota 2 and S2 Games‘ Heroes of Newerth.

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2.2.4.1 League of Legends

In 2006 Brandon "Ryze" Beck and Marc "Tryndamere" Merrill started Riot Games

studio. Later they would start cooperation with Steve ―Guinsoo‖ Freak, a former DotA

Allstars modder and a figure of great renown in MOBA scene, and Steve ―Pendragon‖

Mescon, founder of the official DotA Allstars forum dota-allstars.com. The result of the

studio‘s work is League of Legends (LoL) from 2009. Even though the game itself was

inspired by WarCraft III‘s DotA Allstars it introduced a number of changes, such as vision

reducing bushes, implementation of Attack Damage and Ability Power statistics in favour of

traditional Strength, Agility and Intelligence attributes, gold for players assisting with a kill

and more. The development of the game is constant: the current champion rooster has grown

from the original 40 to 115 individual champions to choose from, a number of those

champions have undergone redesign and the game‘s and champions‘ visuals have been

upgraded. The game has been a great success – at present it is the most played game in the

world with over 35 million active subscribers, 12 million daily players and over 1 billion

hours of game monthly (Evangelho, forbes.com).

2.2.4.2 Dota 2

Dota 2‘s development begins with Valve Corporation‘s acquisition of IceFrog, the

main modder of the original Defense of the Ancients map, in 2009, who was appointed the

leader of the game‘s design team (Onyett, n.pgd.). The game itself is a faithful

implementation of the original‘s gameplay and mechanics into a stand-alone environment. It

18

was released on 9th

of July, 2013 on Windows and 18th

of July. 2013 for Linux and OS X. It

represents free-to play business model and is available through Valve‘s Steam gaming

platform.

2.2.4.3 Heroes of Newerth

Heroes of Newerth (HoN) is a MOBA game developed and released by an American

game company, S2 Games. Based on DotA, it strongly reassembles the original – the

attributes system is present and champions‘ maximum level is 25. The champions themselves

are mostly based on DotA’s heroes. The game was released on the 12th

of May, 2010 and

unlike other stand-alone MOBA titles did not follow the free-to-play business model as it did

cost 30 dollars on release. Game was receiving high amount of attention from MOBA

community as the beta version had over 3 million unique subscriptions for the beta version.

(Burnes, 2010 n.pgd).

On 29th

of July, 2011 HoN was transferred into a free-to-play model: each week

players were given access to a batch of free-to-play champions, while the rest could be

purchased via in-game store with ―coins‖ which were given for each matchmaking game or

bought with real money.

As of 19th

of July, 2012 all of HoN’s champion‘s access restrictions were revoked,

grating all the players the ability to play any champion of preference.

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3. Examples of Language Used in Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas

The goal of this chapter is to present and describe the language used in MOBA games.

The chapter is highly practical, all the described phenomenon are supported by cited in-game

examples to present the nature of their nature as precisely as possible.

3.1. Communication Within the Game

Communication during any game of MOBA is Computer Mediated Communication, a

phenomenon described in the first chapter of this thesis, and follows its characteristics: it

tends to be heavily shortened, thus use of acronyms and abbreviations is very popular as the

fast pace of gameplay requires players to concentrate on the in-game action rather than on

writing or reading messages. Furthermore, as emotions are inseparable part of any game,

presence of flaming and ALLCAPS is common. Also, due to written language‘s poor ability

to convey author‘s intents emoticons are in frequent use. Additionally, as it shares some of

slang‘s features, it tends to be more casual than ―proper‖ English. Furthermore, a team in any

MOBA match usually consists of 5 randomly assigned players who are unlikely to ever play

again with each other as the number of players online – thus, possible team mates, counts in

tens of thousands, reducing chances of being assigned to the same team mates into a fraction

of per cent, leading to ever further ―casualization‖ of language.

In the game environment written communication serves purely utilitarian purpose, as

communication is necessary in any interhuman confrontation. However, in this case the

available form proves itself to be an obstacle: written language requires more effort from both

20

sender and receiver. And should player‘s attention be distracted from the gameplay,

consequences might be grave: from experiencing a setback in lane-specific matchup, failing to

prepare one‘s character to the match to even dying to the opponent. This led to creation of

MOBA specific slang; a kind of slang that not only consists of technical in-game terms which

carry very little information to people not familiar with them but the terms are changed even

further: clippings and abbreviations are among most used language forms in any MOBA

match, as presented in an example below (all the examples come from the author‘s game

experience – he started playing the League of Legends in 2011, participated in over 1000

matches and devoted hundreds of hours into the game)

Halfoat: shaco starts red, top expect gank around 0300

Halfoat: tr ~0702

Summarum: tri warded

Robisek: mid ss

In this shot exchange, Halfoat, the team‘s jungler informs the team about his

counterpart, Shaco, the Demon Jester‘s, jungle route (the order of neutral monster camps

killed in the jungle) began at red, that is the Elder Lizard camp (red refers both to the monster

as well as the blessing (buff) granted upon slaying it) and the player at the top solo lane (top)

should be prepared for Shaco‘s unexpected appearance on his lane that is meant to put

pressure upon their lane around the third minute of the match. Furthermore, Halfoat uses so

called timer – as respawn times of jungle creeps are set it is possible to tell the exact time of

their reappearance on the map. Their prediction is that their red (tr) will be available around 7

minutes and 2 seconds from the match‘s start. Player Summarum informs that the so called

tribrush (tri) – an area on the map that makes champions invisible upon entering, in this case

shaped like a triangle, is warded: a ward, vision grating stationary item has been put there,

grating the enemy team vision over the area, thus revealing all the movement in the area.

21

Robisek, the solo player from the middle lane (mid) calls out a ―miss‖, informing the team

that his opponent is not present on the lane, warning the team mates to be careful as they

might find themselves outnumbered.

3.1.1 New Players and the Slang Acquisition

As most of game-related information is passed with the use of in-game slang it is of

utmost importance that new players quickly become accustomed with the terminology.

Despite it being a seemingly challenging task most players become familiar with it fairly

quickly, as emotional conditioning affects learning speed – exposure to positive emotions

increases learning speed and main reason behind playing video games is entertainment. This

process has been described by Soumaya Chaffar and Claude Frasson (Chaffar, Frasson, 2005:

1).

Another factor affecting the acquisition is social pressure. As mentioned in the chapter

one of this thesis, slang and jargon serve a purpose beyond mere communication: they are an

indicator of being a part of the group. This stands true for MOBA games: players not familiar

with the slang carry the stigma of being a ―noob‖ or a ―newbie‖ – having inferior knowledge

and motor skill in the game. Desire to avoid it is yet another powerful factor that boosts the

learning process.

22

3.2 Types of Linguistic Processes Affecting the Language in LoL

As mentioned and presented in this chapter, the language of League of Legends

experiences a serious transformation if compared to the Standard English. Most common

changes include clipping and abbreviating and use of game slang. This part of the thesis is

devoted to describing these particular changes in detail.

3.2.1 Abbreviations in MOBA Games

Abbreviations or shortened forms of words or phrases have been a part of the written

language for hundreds of years. They were used as early as in the Roman Empire.

Surprisingly, the purpose driving the writers nearly two thousand years ago was not very

different from what conditions the form of the language in MOBAs today. Implementation of

abbreviation into the manuscripts was caused by the nature of writing material: writing in

stone or metal was time consuming while parchment was a luxury item, as each sheet had to

be created from an animal pelt. The purpose today shares the goal of saving: in this case time

and attention span. As the nature of conversations in League is highly informal due to the

randomness of the assigned team mates as well as it being a non-personal experience

combined with aforementioned need of time and attention saving the reoccurring use of

abbreviations within the game terminology was the only natural thing to happen.

The said abbreviations affect whole spectrum of the in-game vocabulary, from names

of the items, champion to entire phrases.

23

Some of the abbreviated names of items include:

botrk – Blade of the Ruined King;

lw – Last Whisper;

bt – The Bloodthrister;

ie – Inifinity‘s Edge;

dfg – Deathfire‘s Grasp;

roa – Rod of Ages;

pd – Phantom Dancer;

fm – Frozen Mallet;

ga – Guardian‘s Angel;

wota – Will of the Ancients;

Use of such abbreviated form allows teammates to coordinate team efforts with greater speed

(not the use of lower case; reducing the amount of time and attention applied to the text goes

as far as omitting holding of shift, an action that would take a fraction of second otherwise).

An example of use of the said abbreviations in presented below:

need 100 for dfg

no lw at 35 mins….

we got his ga, thats k

Another group of abbreviated items are the names of the champions. Due to some of the

champions‘ names being lengthy, measures have been taken to reduce the time needed to

indicate the target ones. This was especially important in the Champion Select screen as the

time available for managing to create a line-up of champions that will benefit the team most

as well as customize the champions to fit the current game best is no longer than 2 minutes.

The following names are shortened:

24

gp – Gankplank, the Saltwater Scourge

ww – Warwick, the Blood Hunter

j4 – Jarvan IV, the Exemplar of Demacia

mf – Miss Fortune, the Bounty Hunter

lb – LeBlanc, the Deceiver

tf – Twisted Fate, the Card Master

Finally, certain phrases that reoccur are abbreviated. The purpose is the same –

maximal reduction of the time necessary to convey messages. Among the most popular

phrases are the following:

gg/bg – good game/bad game; phrase used at the end of the match in order to show

sportsmanship and appreciation to the game or express dismay that certain factors (for

example one of the players leaving) affected the course of the game

fotm – Flavour of the Month; used to describe a certain strategy or champion pick that

has become popular throughout the community

o ―Genja picked lee, now every1 plays him. I just love fotms‖

omw – On my way; information that a player is en route to a certain destination

o ―omw mid‖

oom – Out of mana; informing that our champion is unable to use their abilities are the

required resource, mana, has been spent.

o ―don‘t bother ganking, im oom‖

afk – Away From Keyboard;

o ―j4 is afk. gg‖

brb – Be right back; informing that the player typing this will not be playing for a

certain amount of time, yet will return shortly

25

o ―doorbell, brb 1 min‖

aoe – Area of Effect; abilities that affect a wider amount of space.

o ―zyra, sona, nasus, leona… holy, they have so much aoe‖

cc – Crowd Control; all the abilities that reduces the amount of control over a

champion. Those include slows, stuns, blinds and snares.

o ―their team has no cc. nice‖

cd - Cooldown; time any ability needs to become available again

o ―dont come top, cd on ult‖

3.2.2 Clipping in MOBA Games

Another phenomenon affecting the language of MOBAs is clipping. Clipping, or

shortening is ―the reduction of a word of one of its parts‖ (Marchard, 1969: 441). The

occurrence of this phenomenon is as popular as of abbreviations and it serves the same

purpose, however affects the items that, for some reason, were deemed unfit for abbreviating.

Those terms include:

ult – Ultimate Ability. The strongest skill any champion can learn. It can be chosen

after reaching the 6th

level of experience.

o ―once I get my ult I go all in‖

mid – The middle lane or the person assigned to this specific lane.

focus – clipped form of phrase ―focus fire‖; using all available abilities and attacks to

bring one specific enemy

o ―everyone focus vayne or she‘ll kill us all‖

26

aggro – in other words – aggression. Can either refer to player‘s ―aggro‖ gamestyle or

gaining neutral monster‘s aggression (act of aggroing)

o “dont be so aggro, their jungler is somewhere near‖

care – clipping of ―be careful‖. It urges other players to remain aware of possible

incoming danger

o ―mid is gone, care bot‖

def – defend. Action of defending a certain area of the map or a map objective

o ―sona, mf, def the turret‖

drag – Dragon. A large creature that grants 190 gold for every player in the team that

slayed it.

baron/nash – Baron Nashor; the most powerful neutral creature in the League of

Legends. It grants a powerful bonus to the members of the teams who successfully

killed it.

3.3 The Influence of the Notable Members of the Gaming Community on the Language

As the League of Legends‘ scene has grown to formidable size the professional

players of the top teams are recognizable by the rest of the fan base. The pro players‘ game

streams are watched by thousands of people daily on sites such as twitch.tv or azubu.tv. It is

only natural that the most impressive or embarrassing plays attract certain amount of

attention. Some of the actions have become so famous that the nicknames of the players

performing them have given rise to new game terms, phenomenon similar to the creation of

the namesakes showing how dynamically the scene reacts to the events in the game.

27

I will present the most often used namesakes of League of Legends.

xPeke‟d

Enrique “xPeke” Cedeño Martínez is the captain and the mid player for the European

gaming team Fnatic RC. One of the most recognizable members of League‘s pro scene (he

together with his team was the triumphant of the Season 1‘s World Championship in 2011).

During Intel Extreme Masters event in Katowice in match versus another European team,

SK Gaming, he teleported with his Kassadin, the Voidwalker into SK‘s base. While being at

~10% of health he managed to successfully destroy the enemy nexus which resulted in

Fnatic’s win. What was so impressive about the entire action was the fact that he managed to

dodge enemy attack and with the amount of health he had he would have died should he be hit

twice. (JirayaEtSkyyart, 2013)

To commemorate that players who successfully bring down the nexus midst fight offer

exclamate in all-chat ―xpeke!‖ (RazoX14X, 2013)

Froggen DDoS

Henrik "Froggen" Hansen is the mid player for the League of Legends division of the

multi-gaming organization, Evil Geniuses. Regarded as the best Anivia, the Cryophoenix‘s

player in the world he was chosen ―The Player of the Year 2012‖ by ggchronicle.com portal.

(Mykles, 2013: n.pgd).

The term originates from Carlos ―ocelote‖ Rodriguez Santiago, the mid laner for SK

Gaming. While streaming (broadcasting himself play the game to wider audience) he

experienced a DDoS attack – abbreviation for Distributed Denial of Service, Internet attack

that aims to flood target with overwhelming amount of data, slowing the connection speed

greatly and, in most cases, rendering the target workstation or server unable to work properly.

28

Ocelote accused Froggen of performing the attack (Santiago, 2012). It was proven that

Froggen was innocent, however, the conflict between the two players reached the general

audience and in case of someone‘s constant disconnections from the game phrases such

―froggen pls‖ or ―lol froggen ddos‖ can be seen in game.

Scarra ward

William ―scarra‖ Li is an American mid player for team Dignitas. Considered one of the

top mid players in the North American scene and his streams, however rare, praised as one of

the most informative and helpful for the new players.

The event that immortalized his nickname in the Leagues terminology occurred during a

solo ranked game. As he was approaching the bottom lane he wanted to put a ward, a vision

granting item, over a wall. After few unsuccessful attempts (his champion rather than use the

item started moving) he placed two wards in a very short span of time in two completely

undesired spots (roflcopter414, 2012). Since then missed wards are hailed as ―scarra wards‖

(Polar1ty; 2013)

inSec

Choi "inSec" In-seok is jungler for the Korean team KT Rolster Bullets and considered

to be the best jungler in the world by many, even fellow junglers (aceresportteam, 2013).

Famous for him impeccable technical mastery over the champion Lee Sin, the Blind Monk

after displaying his skill in the OGN Series in Korea (엥가이 김, 2013), people began

referring to performing one particular combo on Lee Sin (specifically, Sonic Wave into

Resonating strike, midair wardplacing, using Safeguard ability to it in order to position

oneself behind an enemy to Dragon Kick them into the allies) as doing an―inSec‖

(OPLeagueofLegends, 2013)

29

Conclusion

The purpose behind this thesis was to present and analyse the most important language

processes affecting the written language of MOBA players community, using League of

Legends game as the example. The theoretical knowledge of the processes affecting Internet

language groups has been applied to in-game dialogue, confirming the author‘s assumptions.

The main feature of the MOBA language is its dynamics and informality. It serves a

simple purpose of conveying as much game-related data in the most compressed form

possible, thus the excessive use of abbreviation and clipping, as shown by the examples.

Furthermore, it involves a certain number of terms that are not to be found beyond the game‘s

environment, and invokes slang‘s and jargon‘s social aspect of belonging to a group allowing

differentiation between the new and the experienced. Yet another noteworthy aspect is the

community‘s consciousness and ability to create namesake for what they deem most

remarkable displays of skill and ability.

The chosen characteristics of the game‘s slang that were described in the thesis are

followed by examples of in-game speech based on the author‘s nearly 3-years long game

experience as well language used by other players proving it to be the actual game language.

30

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34

Streszczenie pracy w języku polskim

Powyższa praca licencjacka została napisana z zamysłem przedstawienie oraz analizy

procesów zachodzących w języku używanym przez społeczność gier on-line typu MOBA

bazując na przykładzie gry League of Legends. Praca składa się z rozdziału teoretycznego w

którym opisane zostały czynniki wpływające na język społeczności internetowej, rozdziału

przybliżającego zasady rozgrywki w grach MOBA oraz z rozdziału poświęconemu analizie

języka używanego przez graczy, które miały na celu potwierdzenie tezy postawionej przez

autora pracy.

Rozdział pierwszy który jest w pełni teoretyczny ma na celu analizę ogólnych

czynników wpływających na język społeczności wyżej wymienionych gier oraz przedstawia

wpływ medium w jakim użytkowanie tegoż języka zachodzi na jego finalną formę oraz

charakter. Opisane są w nim także cechy języka przekazywanego drogą komputerową.

Rozdział drugi skupia się na przybliżeniu historii tegoż gatunku gier oraz na ukazaniu

podstaw rozgrywki, co ma pozwolić osobom które nie miały nigdy styczności z tymże

gatunkiem gier na lepsze zrozumienie przykładów podanych w rozdziale trzecim. W rozdziale

tym ukazane są przykłady zmian językowych. Głównym obiektem badań są rozmowy

zachodzące między zawodnikami w czasie każdej rozgrywki, lub inaczej meczu. Moją one

służyć za przykład pozwalający na ukazanie jak dynamiczne są zmiany językowe zachodzące

w żargonie tej prężnie rozwijającej się społeczności internetowej, a przez to także jej języka.