4.3 Communicative Practices of League of Legends Gamers
4.3.5 Plans of Actions
Plans of actions are clear suggestions for future actions. Based on the conversations among my informers, plans of actions are obligatives that can indeed be subdivided into two ways:
commissives and directives. As proposed by Searle (1976), commissives are the suggestions that certain actions will be taken by the speakers in the future, or in this case, later in the game; on the other hand, directives provoke some actions from the addressees. These two, in the context of LoL game chat, are usually performed during coordination of missions or plans for the next engagements. To start with, Table 12 lists some exemplary uses of commissives
found in my data.
Table 12
Examples of commissives as plans of actions in League of Legends game chat
Commissives as Plans of Actions Meaning
wo xian hui mashang xia qu
(我先回 馬上下去)I will go help you at the bottom lane after recalling back to the home base.
wo zhuo ad
(我捉 ad)I will catch the enemy AD Carry in the team fight.
xialu duo cha yan wo keneng hui bang
(下路多插眼我可能會幫)I may assist the bottom lane if the laners put more wards down.
xian gui deng qu
(先龜 等去)I will help you later, so don’t play too aggressively for now.
I will start to play aggressively and kill them all.
wo kai hong
(我開紅)I will start off the game by taking the red buff.
da yibo wo kongchang
(打一波 我控場)Let’s initiate a team fight. I will use my crowd control ability to control the enemies’ movements.
wo qu daishian
(我去帶線)I will go lead the lane and eliminate waves of enemy minions.
nimen xian da wo daye
(你們先打 我打野)I will join the team fight later. I will kill some jungle monsters first.
wo bu rang tou lou
(我不讓頭嘍)I will not purposefully give away kills to our carries anymore.
These commissives have the face effect of threatening the face of the speakers themselves as such utterances put pressure on them to do as promised. If they don’t, chances are that their
allies keep on waiting until the actions are taken or even lose track of what to do next to play as a team. These players seem to take a knower stance, acting as if they knew all they need to address the situations they are responsible for. With regard to identity work, acts of commissives is a way of AUTHENTICATING one’s own LoL gamer identity because his/her suggesting future actions shows that he/she is clear about what to do at particular points of time, which is knowledge that has passed down from old timers and professional players in the community. Interestingly, as Table 12 shows, some of the commissives go hand in hand with directives, including xialu duo chayan, xian guai, da yi bo, and nimen xian da. Actually, the collaborative performances of the two obligative acts have become a major frame of plans of actions in the communications among LoL players. Excerpt 45 below consists of the example of plans of actions xian gui deng qu.
(45) Game No. 21 (recorded on August 23, 2015) 1 蓋倫要求隊友盡速支援
gailun yaoqiu duiyou jinsu zhiyuan
‘Garen is asking for assistance.’
2 艾克發出訊號告知隊友正在路上
aike fa chu xunhao gaozhi duiyou zheng zailushang
‘Ekko is on the way.’
3 艾克 (Jungle)： 先規 xian gui
‘Don’t play too aggressively for now.’
4 等趣
deng qu
‘I will go help you later.’
This excerpt is an exchange of messages between the team’s top laner 蓋倫 and jungler 艾 克. During early game, 蓋倫 has trouble laning against his opponent and therefore asks 艾 克 for help (Line 1). 蓋倫’s use of the Assist Me ping could be counted as a directive because it is a request (yaoqiu). Responding to the request, 艾克 sends off another signal, this time the On My Way alert, a commissive that states the desire that the speaker go to a location where he/she pings. He then posts two more lines of messages to explain his plan of action (Lines 3 and 4). While xian gui (先龜, mistyped as 先規) is a directive that tells 蓋倫 to play passive instead, deng qu (等去, mistyped as 等趣) is a commissive that gives 蓋倫 the promise that he will go assist him later. With the use of both cues to future action, 艾克 alludes to AUTHENTICATION to construct his identity as a member of the gamer community.
We will be clearer about this formation of identity after looking into details of the speech act of directives in practice. Table 13 gives us a general picture of how directives are performed to make plans for LoL gameplay.
Table 13
Examples of directives as plans of actions in League of Legends game chat
Directives as Plans of Actions Meaning
zhua niming
Help me lower the health of the jungle monster to a greater extent.
ni bie name chong
(你別那麼衝) Don’t be too aggressive with your play.
SUP chu jinren
The enemy has just achieved Level 6 and become much more powerful. Don’t try to risk your life for his/hers.
tui
(退)Back off. The enemies are back to the battle field.
xian Q tamen buran huan bu ying
(先 Q 他們 不然換不贏)Try to poke the enemies with the Q ability, or we will not win the trades.
hong gei wo haoma
(紅給我好嗎 JG) Could you give me the red buff, Jungler?
zhong tuan
(中團) Initiate a team fight at the mid lane.
AD huizhan duo hao bie zai qianpai
(AD 會戰躲好 別在前排)Hide behind others during team fights, AD Carry.
zhi chong
(直衝) Just go and take down their structures.
shi xiao long
Could I switch lanes with you, Volibear?
Is it okay for you to play Top?
gei wo baituo
(給我 拜託) Give me the buff, please.
lai huizhan
(來會戰) Come to the team fight.
(打野 4 鳥給我) could not join a team fight against us.
tui
(推) Push the lane.
shou jia
(守+) Defend our home base.
ni yao fangai ta nong..
(你要妨礙他農) You should stop him from farming.
wen zhe da
(穩者打) Play safe.
AD R Use your ultimate ability, AD.
TOP han yi xia hao ma
(TOP 喊一下好ㄇ？) Could you warn us of a gank, Top?
Different from commissives, directives bear the face effect of threatening the face of the
addressees because they exert pressure on them to accomplish particular missions. The addressees’ needs of not being impeded are thus unfulfilled. Despite the difference, directives resemble commissives in that they both allude to the speakers’ knower stance toward what to
do at a particular phase of a game. In terms of the implication for identity relations, directives
highlight the ideological perception of realness people have about the speakers’ gamer identity because only those confident of their own knowledge about the game would grab the microphone to tell others what to do. In this respect, they call for the deployment of the tactic of AUTHENTICATION. One more thing about directives is that, as Table 13 shows, most of them are in the linguistic form of imperatives or negative imperatives, which have the most literal pragmatic force and are thereby considered most direct and impolite. This may have something to do with, again, the intense nature of the game. Other conventionalized forms in use that are rather indirect include interrogations (e.g. hong gei wo hao ma, ni zou ge wei hao
ma, na TOP hao ma, TOP han yi xia hao ma) and statements of obligations (e.g. bu yao da
tan, ni yao die wo de beidong, ni yao fangai ta nong). It is important to note that such indirect
performances of directives may have totally different implications for intersubjectivity, as shown through the participants’ relative stancetaking moves. That is, some requests of the
LoL players should be interpreted as acts of pleading or begging that are based on their
placating and subordinate stances toward others. The identity relation of AUTHENTICATION
of the speakers’ gamer identities cannot be easily told or is simply not used at all in these
cases. Now, because directives are directed to other co-players as appraisals do, it is crucial to examine how they are evaluated in actual exchanges of talk. Below are two conversations I found in my data involving the uptakes of directives in LoL game chat, each of which makes a point about a different social consequence of intersubjectivity. Let’s look at Excerpt 46 first.
(46) Game No. 26 (recorded on August 23, 2015)
1 維克特 (Mid)： AD 會戰朵好 AD huizhan duo hao
‘Hide at the back during team fights, AD Carry.’
2 別在前排
bie zai qianpai
‘Don’t expose yourself in the front line.’
3 葵恩 (AD Carry)： ok
‘Okay.’
4 維克特 (Mid)： 你死了沒輸出 ni si le mei shuchu
‘There will be no damage output if you die.’
The interaction occurs at the game’s roaming phase when team battles start to take place. The
mid laner, 維克特, notices a problem that may have caused his team’s defeat in previous team fights – the positioning of their team’s AD Carry. 維克特 is aware that the role of AD Carries in a team battle is to do the most damage to enemies as efficiently as possible, so they have to keep themselves from enemy assassins or champions with effective CC spells. As a result, for the good of his team, 維克特 decides to give the AD Carry, 葵恩, an order to hide around corners when a team fight breaks out, not at the vanguard (Lines 1 and 2). Upon receiving the order, 葵恩 responds with a simple ok, an agreement marker that alludes to the commonality and thus the relations of power between 維克特 and 葵恩, a knower and a learner. Note here that 維克特 in Line 4 adds an external modification device57 to his directive act that provides the reason why he asks 葵恩 to stay back – that there will be no
57 According to Sifianou (1999), internal and external modification devices are linguistic elements used to
damage output from the team if 葵恩 dies. This additional explanation further reaffirms the authenticity of 維克特’s gamer identity, which is yet not so much a domineering figure as one who can reason for his/her stance.
Next, consider Excerpt 47.
(47) Game No. 31 (recorded on September 4, 2015)
1 逆命 (Mid)： 食小卜 4 shi xiaobu 4
‘Kill,’
2 龍
long
‘The Dragon.’
3 易大師 (Jungle)： 拆塔啦ˇˇ chaita la
‘Why not tear down their turrets?’
4 逆命 (Mid)： 唔通有龍唔食
wu tong you long wu shi
‘Why not get the Dragon buff when it is available?’
5 易大師 (Jungle)： 有八龍還不拆塔 you balong hai bu chaita
‘Why not tear down the enemy turrets when we have the Baron buff?’
Different from the above instance, Excerpt 47 is retrieved from a game where the interlocutors’ side has an advantage over the enemy side at late game. The interaction takes
place after the team slays Baron, which gives a buff lasting around three minutes when each team member is empowered with increased attack damage, ability power, as well as an aura
direct the rest of the teammates to also slay Dragon (xiaolong), the second most powerful neutral monster on Summoner’s Rift that grants extra gold and the Dragon Slayer buff. In his
view, it is better that the team take down Dragon once it respawns, in order to minimize the risk of the opposing team preempting the Five Dragons power spike. By giving the command, 逆命 is AUTHENTICATING his own gamer identity through overt display of knowledge about what is the next step to victory. In the following lines, the jungler, 易大師, grabs the spotlight and instead orders the other team members, including 逆命, to tear down the enemy turrets but not slaying Dragon. From 易大師’s point of view, keeping pushing enemy turrets is a higher priority than other objectives when a team gets a Baron buff, because the buff
gives ally minions great movement speed, resistance to slow effects, and extra attack range, which is conducive to the team’s plan to intrude on the enemy team’s territory. 易大師’s
directive shows this understanding toward the game, therefore AUTHENTICATING his identity as a core member of the community. Moreover, as 易大師 disobeys 逆命’s command and disagrees with his stance, the relation of DISTINCTION arises as to their relative social positions in the community. Lines 4 and 5 are follow-up retorts, each of which is a stancetaking act directed against the one right above, rearranging the intersubjective relations of DISTINCTION suggested by the previous interlocutors.
As the two excerpts demonstrate, directives as plans for future plays could possibly trigger responses from the addressees, who may express their obedience or agreement
sometimes, but other times reject to be obedient by suggesting alternative operational plans.