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[hector13]

Strategy isn't the best genre to choose though, given that it also refers to how to play a game as well, official guides being referred to as strategy guides etc.

[RedWarrior0]

Strategy games proved long ago that genres don't have to literally describe their genre specifically. "Strategy" could conceivably describe Pong.

I'm pretty sure what people mean when they say "MOBA is vague" is "I dislike that a company created this term to market their game." But instead of actually saying that legitimate criticism, everyone needs to create contrived standards for proper genre names so they can dismiss it. I can't figure out why.

I guess my description of a strategy game wasn't a great one, since pretty much every game has strategy, or at the very least tactics, and I don't think that simply having the ability to form strategy is sufficient to be a strategy game. And the definition of a strategy game is heavily based off connotations that most of us have built up about the term. But I guess genres in general tend to be nebulously defined and people will argue about anything and everything on the Internet until the heat death of the universe.

Really, I guess part of what I dislike about the term "MOBA" is the "Arena" bit, since to me, the map size is excessively large for anything claiming to be an "Arena". But that's partly personal preference.

And on a side note, I wasn't even really aware that MOBA was invented by Riot until after I hated the term, and I'm more of a fan of Blizzard's "Hero Brawler". Or, in the spirit of roguelikes, DotA-likes, but good luck getting Riot to acknowledge the existence of that game.

[Frumple]

The spirit of roguelikes would just be calling them AoS games. Or arena, or tug of war or whatev', depending on the style. AoS was the Rogue of the primary genre being discussed. Worked just fine getting the point across for years, dagnabbit.

[KingofstarrySkies]

Nah I hate the term moba because it's the least informative way to describe a game, ever

[Tack]

AoS worked just fine getting the point across for years, dagnabbit.

Except no self-respecting casual-games article is going to go "AoS games (or 'age of strife', as the first game of the genre was named). That doesn't enlighten the nongamer at all.

Also "strategy" as "real time strategy", "turn based strategy" and "4x strategy" (which more and more I'm starting to think just means "hex-tile strategy" all seem to be based on resources, macro and micro.
Which I'd like to believe tactical shooters don't.
Much.
I miss you GRAW...

[Rolepgeek]

Nah I hate the term moba because it's the least informative way to describe a game, ever

It really isn't.

RPG is.

[RedWarrior0]

Right, at least with MOBA, even though it's a horrible nondescriptive term that I hate, people will usually be aware of what I'm talking about.

If I say I play RPGs, you have no idea if I'm even talking about video games. D&D and Pokemon are both RPGs and have very little in common. So are most roguelikes. And Dark Souls. And Fiasco. The only things Fiasco and Dark Souls have in common are the title of RPG, and the fact that there's a story, and players each have a character.

As a random aside, watch people with improv/acting skills play Fiasco some time. It's amazing.

[BorkBorkGoesTheCode]

It's harder to create a user interface for a real-time 4x game than a tilesgame

[EnigmaticHat]

Nah I hate the term moba because it's the least informative way to describe a game, ever

It really isn't.

RPG is.

If you're playing a game, you're playing the role of someone else.  Even like, Supreme Commander put you in the shoes of a nebulous "commander" that other characters would talk to in the campaign segments.

So yeah, most games are RPGs if you want to use the dictionary definitions of those words.

[Egan_BW]

CoD is an RPG.

[EnigmaticHat]

Hey, I was in high school when Modern Warfare 2 came out and a lot of what people I knew (who were surely the prime demographic for CoD) talked about was how cool the story scenes where you died in first person were.  That and stroking their epeen to their K/D ratio of course.

[Akura]

Strange, when people were talking about MW2 around me, they were stroking their epeens about their K/D ratio... and how much they think hacking = skill.

[Rolepgeek]

Right, at least with MOBA, even though it's a horrible nondescriptive term that I hate, people will usually be aware of what I'm talking about.

If I say I play RPGs, you have no idea if I'm even talking about video games. D&D and Pokemon are both RPGs and have very little in common. So are most roguelikes. And Dark Souls. And Fiasco. The only things Fiasco and Dark Souls have in common are the title of RPG, and the fact that there's a story, and players each have a character.

As a random aside, watch people with improv/acting skills play Fiasco some time. It's amazing.

There's a podcast about it, dunno if you've heard it. Gosh Darn Fiasco. Family's friends with one of the hosts, actually.

[Arcvasti]

My WTF today was clicking on the League Thread and then this thread and seeing Putnam having the same argument in both of them.

[Yoink]

I just, like, play video games, maaaan.

Why do we need all these labels? Just respect the game's genre identity.