THE UNIVERSITY OF GDASK THE FACULTY OF LANGUAGES

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

Gdask 2013 UNIWERSYTET GDASKI WYDZIA FILOLOGICZNY

Jzyk gier typu MOBA na podstawie League of Legends

Gdask 2013

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

3.1.1. New Players and Slang Acquisition21 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 Conclusion29 Sources......30

Introduction

The English language is considered the worlds language with nearly 2 billion speakers world-wide (Crystal, 2003: 109). However, with most of the speakers being nonnatives (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

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 authors 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 authors experience.

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

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. Dialects 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 varietys 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 mans dialect is another mans 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)

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 definitions 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,

Its use implies the users 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 slangs 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).

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 Spolskys 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 dont 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, Chomskys transformational school claims written text to be irrelevant for linguistic research. However, the Internets 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 CMCs form is most cases written the reader cannot rely on non-verbal parts of language to identify the writers intentions or emotions. It was the problem faced by the recipients of classic letters or short stories. However, thanks to CMCs 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/OrigSmiley.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 (rise your dongers) used by the fan base of League of Legends player Michael imaqtpie Santana on his streaming site profiles 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 writers 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 slangs and David Crystal vocalised the though very accurately: The chief use of slang is to show that youre 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 genres gameplay typically revolves around the conflict of two teams whose main goal is the destruction of the enemys 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 players 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 Entertainments 1998s 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 roleplaying 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 Entertainments next real-time strategy, WarCraft III, in 2002 many of the StarCrafts custom maps were recreated with the use of WarCrafts map editor. This was also true for Aeon of Strife and thanks to WarCrafts game engine a number of new mechanics, including learning new abilities through experience or buying items could be implemented. This led to creation of WarCrafts 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 predecessors success. This led to Euls disappearance from modding scene and leaving the maps 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 maps 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, nonsupported 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 Corporations 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 studios work is League of Legends (LoL) from 2009. Even though the game itself was inspired by WarCraft IIIs 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 games 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 2s development begins with Valve Corporations acquisition of IceFrog, the main modder of the original Defense of the Ancients map, in 2009, who was appointed the leader of the games design team (Onyett, n.pgd.). The game itself is a faithful implementation of the originals gameplay and mechanics into a stand-alone environment. It
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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 Valves 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 DotAs 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 HoNs champions 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 languages poor ability to convey authors intents emoticons are in frequent use. Additionally, as it shares some of slangs 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
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sender and receiver. And should players attention be distracted from the gameplay, consequences might be grave: from experiencing a setback in lane-specific matchup, failing to prepare ones 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 authors 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 teams jungler informs the team about his counterpart, Shaco, the Demon Jesters, 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 Shacos 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 matchs 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.
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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.

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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.

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Some of the abbreviated names of items include: botrk Blade of the Ruined King; lw Last Whisper; bt The Bloodthrister; ie Inifinitys Edge; dfg Deathfires Grasp; roa Rod of Ages; pd Phantom Dancer; fm Frozen Mallet; ga Guardians 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:
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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 dont 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

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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 shell kill us all

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aggro in other words aggression. Can either refer to players aggro gamestyle or gaining neutral monsters 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.

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

Enrique xPeke Cedeo Martnez is the captain and the mid player for the European gaming team Fnatic RC. One of the most recognizable members of Leagues pro scene (he together with his team was the triumphant of the Season 1s 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 SKs base. While being at ~10% of health he managed to successfully destroy the enemy nexus which resulted in Fnatics 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 Cryophoenixs 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.
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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 someones 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 ( , 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 aninSec (OPLeagueofLegends, 2013)

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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 authors 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 games environment, and invokes slangs and jargons social aspect of belonging to a group allowing differentiation between the new and the experienced. Yet another noteworthy aspect is the communitys consciousness and ability to create namesake for what they deem most remarkable displays of skill and ability. The chosen characteristics of the games slang that were described in the thesis are followed by examples of in-game speech based on the authors nearly 3-years long game experience as well language used by other players proving it to be the actual game language.

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Polar1ty, scarra Wards still works [VIDEO]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UvXUAqlCcc. 4 June, 2013. Web

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Streszczenie pracy w jzyku polskim

Powysza praca licencjacka zostaa napisana z zamysem przedstawienie oraz analizy procesw zachodzcych w jzyku uywanym przez spoeczno gier on-line typu MOBA bazujc na przykadzie gry League of Legends. Praca skada si z rozdziau teoretycznego w ktrym opisane zostay czynniki wpywajce na jzyk spoecznoci internetowej, rozdziau przybliajcego zasady rozgrywki w grach MOBA oraz z rozdziau powiconemu analizie jzyka uywanego przez graczy, ktre miay na celu potwierdzenie tezy postawionej przez autora pracy. Rozdzia pierwszy ktry jest w peni teoretyczny ma na celu analiz oglnych czynnikw wpywajcych na jzyk spoecznoci wyej wymienionych gier oraz przedstawia wpyw medium w jakim uytkowanie tego jzyka zachodzi na jego finaln form oraz charakter. Opisane s w nim take cechy jzyka przekazywanego drog komputerow. Rozdzia drugi skupia si na przyblieniu historii tego gatunku gier oraz na ukazaniu podstaw rozgrywki, co ma pozwoli osobom ktre nie miay nigdy stycznoci z tyme gatunkiem gier na lepsze zrozumienie przykadw podanych w rozdziale trzecim. W rozdziale tym ukazane s przykady zmian jzykowych. Gwnym obiektem bada s rozmowy zachodzce midzy zawodnikami w czasie kadej rozgrywki, lub inaczej meczu. Moj one suy za przykad pozwalajcy na ukazanie jak dynamiczne s zmiany jzykowe zachodzce w argonie tej prnie rozwijajcej si spoecznoci internetowej, a przez to take jej jzyka.

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