4.3 Communicative Practices of League of Legends Gamers
4.3.3 Analyses of the Current Situations
Analyses of the current situations are statements of opinions about what is going on at a
particular moment of a game. They are usually made after the speakers give thoughts to the status and outlook for the team’s champion matchups, the players’ gaming skills and
teamwork. In linguistic terms, this communicative practice is carried out by representatives, not of emotional states but of rational beliefs. Similar to tactical reports, analyses of the
current situations are intended for information transmission. Nonetheless, tactical reports are transmission of facts while analyses of the current situations are transmission of one’s ideas,
mostly predictions. Table 9 lists some of the examples from my data; let’s first take a look at these subjective descriptives as they are single turns of talk, not followed by any responses from other participants.
Table 9
Examples of analyses of the current situations (single turns)
Analysis of the Current Situation Meaning
20
We will have to surrender very soonbecause of all the losing fights.
GG
The game will end pretty soon.hen nan da
(很難打)It is very unlikely for our champion matchups to fight against the enemies.
huizhan yinggai hui ying
(會戰應該會贏)Our champion matchups are good at team fights.
nong dao houmian hui shu
(農到後面會輸)We will lose the game if it lasts till the late phase when everyone almost
We will win the game after pushing the mid lane for the last time.
shanglu jiu bu liao a
(上路救不了啊)The structures at the top lane are no longer safe.
shang tai fei
(上太肥)The enemy top laner has become so powerful in his abilities that he/she may become a huge threat in the end.
zheyang xia qu bu yong da la
(這樣下去不用打啦)We will lose the game if we keep losing team fights.
As shown, representatives in this use are clearly displays of the speakers’ knowledge about
LoL, or to be more specifically, their understanding of the in-game objectives at each phase of
a game. As membership in the community of LoL players is mostly defined by what they know about LoL (see Section 4.1), analyses of the current situations could easily be taken as exertion of social power. That is, by such an act of the type of speech the speaker adopts a knower or analyst stance and enacts AUTHENTICATION of his/her identity in the community.
The social actor historicizes his/her own gamer identity through claims of continuity with past experience of playing the game; only experienced or professional LoL players have the ability to analyze the in-game situations. It is interesting to note that, unlike tactical reports
and expressions of feelings the two communicative practices that barely get responses if not
agreement markers, analyses of the current situations have more tendencies to spark off discussion, sometimes even arguments. Let’s now refer back to the act of speech huizhan
yinggai hui ying in Table 9, but this time present in the middle of exchanges of talk among
the participants.
(37) Game No. 26 (recorded on August 23, 2015)
1 維克特 (Mid)： 加油吧 會戰應該會贏
jiayou ba huizhan yinggai hui ying
‘Keep it up. We are supposed to be better than the enemies at team fights.’
2 亞歷斯塔 (Top)： 那你加油吧 na ni jiayou ba
‘Then you should keep it up.’
3 維克特 (Mid)： -.-
In this excerpt, at the team’s inferiority, 維克特 remains optimistic that his team will have the advantage in up-coming team fights (Line 1), given their champion matchups. Little does he know that the top laner 亞歷斯塔 does not believe in this conjecture and throws a cold response in his face – na ni jiayou ba. 亞歷斯塔’s reply shows his disagreement with 維克 特 in terms of their team’s situation at the moment. Instead of living in hope, 亞歷斯塔 anticipates that they are going to lose the game and thus asks 維克特 to hang in there by himself. In such an interaction of opinions, stancetaking in the social context of LoL gamer
relationships among more than one person. The original stance claim made by 維克特 is undermined by 亞歷斯塔’s uptake. That is, 亞歷斯塔 seems to take a completely different knower stance toward the result of the game; he knows that 維克特’s prediction will never come true. Using the terms of the tactics of intersubjectivity framework, one could say 亞歷 斯塔 disagrees with the identity relation of AUTHENTICATION that 維克特 established before, not believing that 維克特’s analysis of the current situation could help him convince others of his gamer identity.
Since analyses of the current situations implicate not just the speakers’ subjectivity but also their intentions, of persuading others to believe in something, etc., the notion of face may be relevant and useful here. Based on my observation, the face effects of such representatives can be subcategorized into two. Both of them involve damage to some recipients’ face wants, but while one is about how to sound polite, the other is intended for impoliteness. The former is when an analysis of an in-game situation is interpreted as an indirect suggestion.54 The example in Excerpt 37 above belongs to this category. A possible overtone of 維克特’s assertion in Line 1 is a suggestion that the team keep the hope up and fight to the end because
their champions could perform better in team fights. This implication of the utterance causes damage to his allies’ face by creating pressure on them not to surrender the game and get
ready for late-game team fights. Other examples of the type of representatives include nong
54 The reason why analyses of the current situations can be indirect suggestions but not just hints like tactical
dao houmian hui shu and zhonglu yibo jiu jieshu le ba in Table 9. Table 10 displays their
implied suggestions.
Table 10
The implied suggestions of the analyses of the current situations in Games No. 29 and 58
Analysis of the Current Situation Implied Suggestionnong dao houmian hui shu
I suggest that we all gather in the mid lane to push enemy structures together because this is the most efficient way to win the game.
Both nong dao houmian hui shu and zhonglu yibo jiu jieshu le ba intrude on the face of each of the rest teammates, their face wants of not being forced to do anything. A different face effect that can be achieved by analyses of in-game situations is generated by off-record impoliteness. An exemplary act of speech is given below.
(38) Game No. 62 (recorded on October 4, 2015)
‘We should not blame anyone for this.’
3 好好打吧
haohao da ba
‘Just try your best to play well.’
4 加油
jiayou
‘Keep it up.’
5 蓋倫 (Top)： SOR
‘Sorry.’
6 我得問題
wo de wenti
‘The problem is on me.’
7 好運姐 (AD)： 沒關 C mei guan C
‘Don’t worry.’
8 還是打得過
haishi da de guo
‘We can still manage to win the game.’
In this conversation, 好運姐 makes an assertion that the enemy 安妮 is well fed by all the kills she picked up, in response to which 卡力斯 redirects 好運姐’s negativity to a
“mature” point of view that no individual player should be blamed for an enemy’s being built
up because LoL is a game of teamwork. From this exchange of talk we can infer that the representative anni hao fei is originally meant to perform impoliteness, or 卡力斯 would not have smoothed things over between his teammates. That is, it could be seen as an act of complaint that aims to damage the face of whoever responsible for laning against the enemy 安妮. This intended face effect is clearer when we further consider 蓋倫’s follow-up apology about 安妮. Only when 好運姐’s statement is treated as an act of impoliteness or attack can 蓋倫’s self-effacement be explained. Other instances of the category include 20, zhong shang
Table 11 presents their possible meanings of attacking certain allies.
Table 11
The possible meanings of the analyses of the current situations in Games No. 14, 32, 63, 69, and 92 as acts of impoliteness
Analysis of the Current Situation Act of Impoliteness
20
The allies have played so bad that theteam can surrender the game as early as possible.
zhong shang bengpan
(中上崩盤)The mid and top laners of our team have played so bad that their lanes are losing.
shang lu jiu bu liao a
(上路救不了啊)The top laner has played so bad that the top turrets are no longer safe
anymore.
shang tai fei
(上太肥)The top laner of our team has played so bad that the enemy top laner has gained a lot of power.
zheyang xia qu bu yong da la
(這樣下去不用打啦)The allies have played so bad that there is no way we can win the game.
Taken as language of offense, these representatives are performed to insult particular allies to their faces. However, because the speakers’ intention is opaque, this type of analyses of the
current situations can be said to use off-record impoliteness strategies, instead of bald-on-record ones. Plus, the tactic of DE-AUTHENTICATION is potentially involved here as the speakers’ analyses of the current situations DE-AUTHENTICATE some allies’ formerly
authentic gamer identities. The allies have been playing like pros until they make people think that their bad gameplay skills result in the teams’ inferiority.