Project
Erik Khou
Humanities
10/17/11
Play Project
The space that I observed was in a virtual word of League of Legends. The game places users against other users or bots (computer controlled characters) in order to see who would prevail in a strategy flight stimulation type of game. They would have to cross the map by killing minions, destroying towers, slaying other champions, and finally, destroying the enemy’s base to win. The focus of the game is teamwork, which help advances the team to winning. With the teamwork, they would be able to destroy enemy towers faster and gain more gold for items and experience for levels which benefits with more skills and higher stats.
The map that I chose to observe was called Summoner’s Rift, where each team gets eleven towers to defend and three lanes to push. The map is big which allows five players to participate on each team with a total of 10 players. The rules of the game are set on what you could do, such as those enforced by the game company Riot. There aren’t a lot of formal rules that are enforced but rather informal ones that are created by the users of the game itself. Informal rules could go from stealing someone else’s kill to leaving your lane and allowing the enemy to take your tower. The rules aren’t enforced but your teammates would usually argue on why you did anything that could affect the team as a whole. Another informal rule would be never feed (which is to let the other team kill you easily, as if purposely not trying) the other team, which would result in the other team gaining more gold and levels. In that case, they would be overpowered by midgame and practically unstoppable. In this case, there were bots which were rather easier than playing against actual live players.
The general patterns of the area would be having two champions (players) take the bottom and top lanes while one secures the middle lane. There they would constantly harass the other team by taking out their minions and towers. The whole thing is organized in a way allow each team to advance depending on their skills. There is one lane on top, middle, and bottom which is separated by a forest like terrain. The forest like terrain allows players to move from lane to lane to help with assistants while being able to take out champions that aren’t paying attention. This is normal, informal pattern that most players abide by. They would naturally move to a lane depending on the movements of other characters in the game.
There are different types of interaction that occurs during one game of LoL (League of Legends). There is a chat bar to allow users to communicate to other players. Most of the time, the players are in a state of deep play, evident from how they fail to respond or how quiet they are. There are different actions characters could do such as taunt and dance to add to the liveliness of the game. Players start off at each corner of the map, where in my pictures, my team started at the bottom. They would then start moving to the lanes, either by saying where they’re going or just move towards that direction. This gave all the other teammates an idea of where to go. Another informal rule would to allow the range champion to take the middle since they would be soloing it. Interactions between the players could also be evident through the pings (little markers the send throughout the map) to other players indicating an enemy player or asking for help.
The people involved in the game would people from different places. Sometimes there would be groups of people participating together on the same team; sometimes they would sit in the same room to be able to communicate better. I would sit with my friends as they bring their laptops to play the same game so we could help each other distinguish where to go and where the enemies are. There would also be dedicated players that would talk to other teammates through a voice service through a mic. This would allow everyone to get a smooth movement to a different part of the map without the other enemy players knowing. Furthermore, the interesting part about this game is the players themselves. Many of the players do not know anything about who they are playing with, as in on their team and the opposing one. For example, in my game, there were some Korean players with some minimal English. Even without a common language, we were able to communicate through their characters movements and the occasional pings. So in conclusion, they could be from all over the world in different places. We never really ask where the person is from or where their playing (kind of an informal rule just to not seem like a creeper) so we never get a sense of their actual environment.
In the game itself, not all players have the same ability or look the same. The people playing on the same team are not allowed to play as the same character but an opposing enemy player could. The roles they take on would reflect the character or champion they choose for the game. They could take on warriors to archers, with so many different roles to choose from. Most players would try to focus or adapt to on champion (since there are many to choose from) and try to master its abilities and movements. My champion that I have been trying to master would be the character Caitlyn. In the game space, this wouldn’t seem too awkward as the other players can’t really identify you as a female or a male since we have no connection in the background. So, most of the time instead of call the character by gender as using he or she, they would refer to the champion’s name. In my case, they would use the name Cait if they wanted my attention.
All the players experience the game differently, as to say I don’t really know how or where they’re playing the game from. Other than the friends that play with me in the same room, their whereabouts could be unknown. But they would also experience through where they’re playing too, at school or a café or such. However, they all could experience the frustration of losing or the joy or winning the other teammates are experiencing. For us, we won and got to bathe in glorious victory. Throughout the game, I could feel the words of those who typed out what we should do to what we’re doing wrong. In their wording, I could sense a bit of frustration. I would also hear the taunts to the dying minions or those champions that are using their skills. Not much sensory information could be obtained from this because of how it is a virtual world. At times I would sense a bit of anger or frustration from losing or other teammates failing to keep up with the rest of the team which was expressed in the chat screen with the champion writing something in all caps lock. There were times of excitement also, like for example, when you have low health and there is an enemy champion chasing after you about to kill you but at the last second you escape. This excitement goes for most players, as they would exclaim to the enemy team on how low their health is and taunt them with words of discouragement for missing the kill.
Some metacommunication that is used are like how players would suddenly start running to one different lane. They would sometimes say “OMW” (on my way) or nothing at all to indicate that they’re on their way to help that lane. Most of the time, they don’t say anything because the players would already have sense of what’s going on. But other players would also get the feeling of if they should help or not by looking at allied champions. Sometime they wouldn’t need help so they don’t really go to their aide. This could sometimes be misinterpreted and cause argument throughout the team on why someone didn’t help. The participants being engulfed in a state of play would be evident on how they don’t talk during gameplay. They would usually (in my case) concentrate on their lane. Throughout the play process, there are different signals they use for other players. They would sometimes use short codes like “MIA” or “b” to indicate different actions their going to do or if an enemy is missing from their lane. This would sometimes lead the enemy to a lane that is weak. The b would be a signal for an allied champion to return to base.
The purpose of this play would be for relaxation or connection with other people. For some people, it’s just a way to escape the daily life and become a role for fun. Playing LoL or any RPG style game would help ease stress at times allowing the players to escape reality and to immerse themselves in another world. By doing so, they could take on roles that wouldn’t be possible to do in the actual world, which would at times give them a sense of having more power. The game isn’t always about escaping reality too. At times, some people would play to meet other people from all over the world. This allows them to make connection and interact with more people. For example, I’ve meet and became friends with tons of people in the world. Some people are local and some are half way across the world. They play to the end to see who is victor and who losses, this sometimes give the player a boast of enthusiasm or pride when they win. This was evident on how they would exclaim “gg” (good game) to other exclamations of excitement. The play until one team either surrenders or destroys the enemy’s main base. They would try to destroy all the towers in between to reach the center of enemy player’s base. At times, if the players on the losing side feel as there isn’t a possibility of winning anymore, they would or could just surrender the game. This would affect the players overall score on wins and losses too. Which is possibly another reason why players play, to get a good score ratio to make themselves look good. Some other players play for large cash prizes, such as in tournaments. These players are seen as a better group of players through how well their teamwork is. Through my games, teamwork was the most important. I had to work with a character name Katrina in order to score an enemy kill. Kat helped chase after the champion where I hid in the bush and ambushed him at the last second.
The larger social meaning of this type of play would be teamwork throughout. Without the teamwork, you would have a larger chance of losing compared to your enemy team if they worked together. Another social meaning would be to interact with strangers to become friends. There would always be some people that would add other people and try to become friends with them even though they don’t know anything about the other person. There aren’t many or any political or economic implications. The game itself offers players to use real world cash to purchase items such as clothing or other stuff to customize their characters but other than that, there aren’t any relations to a political or economic stand. However, there could also be the stand on the gender switches. For example, some would think it would be wrong for a guy to play a female character and vice versa. But in the game, it doesn’t matter as the people can’t really determine your preferences through your champion most of the time. There might have been a suggestion depending on the name you place upon your character.
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