Diet Time?: Meta Game

Meta Game examples should be slimmed I think.

I think it should be limited to games where people play can be ignored. Football's meta game isn't separate from anything, you cannot disregard other people and play the game in form. Similarly, you can't play most card games without competition, so there is no separate meta game there. However a video game based on Cards or Football with a individual campaign and multiplayer modes would fit the trope's description. The used example for Street Fighter, seems to be cases where playing single player mode is a very different experience from playing with another player.

I think it means that the actual performances and actions the players are doing can be ignored in favor of the tricks and strategies themselves. But don't quote me on that.

Yes that's what I mean. In Star Craft, doing the regular campaign or Pokemon, just playing through the one player, there are plenty of tricks and strategies that you'll never need to use, or can actually be detrimental to you, that you'll need to pick up for multiplayer.

Chess, doesn't have a meta game as we define it because chess only has one game mode to worry about. One set of rules and strategies that remain viable. Mixed Martial Arts doesn't have a meta game as we define it because all you do is fight other people. Now computerized versions of them with a computer that plays radically different from any human or a mode that utilizes different moves, those could have meta games, but the real world variants do not, as we define the trope.

edited 6th Apr '11 8:13:06 PM by Cider

Games that are only multiplayer can have metagames. The metagame is defined by the community of players, and not all players are in contact with each other at all times. While certainly the professional chess players are all aware of the standard openings and classic situations to avoid and whatnot, if I was just playing with my friend neither of us would be aware of that. The gameplay is derived from the rules of the game, the metagame is derived from the community.

edited 6th Apr '11 8:27:33 PM by Clarste

Yeah, you don't need multiple play modes to have a metagame.

I think you are completely missing the point... "Put simply, the Metagame is the collection of strategies in common use; how everyone else is playing."

It has nothing whatsoever to do with multiple play modes.

There is quite literally nothing on that page that supports your assertion.

Right I'd make a topic if I had nothing.

But if everyone thinks I got it wrong I won't change anything.

That still has nothing to do with game modes. It just means that the way the game ends up being played is outside the control of the developers.

Yeah, the defining feature of a metagame is that what you do in the game is based on how the players (as a collective) competitively play the game. In games where you have control what game pieces you come into a match with (such as most collectable card games), this involves picking collections of pieces that work well against the collections of pieces most likely to be chosen by other players. In any game where you have a meaningful choice once the game begins, you prepare to work against the tactics most likely to be used by the other players. While you could theoretically prepare ideally for any possible tactic, this is never practical (and often impossible) in a sufficiently complex game.

In Chess, this can be as simple as whether KP or QP openings are in style at a give point—if one is more often used than the other, your time is better-spent preparing for the one you're more likely to see than the one you are not (and you're probably preparing even less for bishop pawn openings, since those are much less popular). The fact that it's not equally advantageous to prepare for KP or QP, despite both moves being viable openings, means that there is a Metagame.

Edit: Also, the metagame can extend to choices beyond those that are normally considered part of the game. For a tabletop game, trying to sit such that the sun is in that other players' eyes could be enough of a benefit to sacrifice in-game advantage for it.

edited 7th Apr '11 2:51:17 AM by Ironeye

"One set of rules and strategies that remain viable. "

Yeah, I know more than a few chess players (none master level, even) that would dispute that heavily. Beyond the fact that there are several variants of chess (although the one most heavily played is the standard), the sets of strategies that are viable vary greatly based on what the opponent does and, as pertinent to the trope in question, what one player expects the other to do.

And pretty much every game that gets played competitively at all becomes like this. I've spent time working on the Scrabble metagame - and I don't even play that competitively (unless you count time spent playing against my wife, a professional writer).

In short, you'd be surprised at just how extensive the concept of a Metagame is.

Bump.

I think we established that the current definition is working fine. Anything else we need to do or can we lock this up?

This definitely needs to be closed.