Now I'm no expert in the subject matter this trope deals with, but I'm curious to see, judging from the name alone, what other people might think Dot Combat actually is.

Despite having a relatively modest number of examples, this one isn't getting many wicks or outside referrals and given how obscure the name sounds with its subject matter, it sounds like it can use a better name.

edited 15th Sep '10 5:59:36 AM by SeanMurrayI

My guess: some sort of duel over the internet.

Hmm, technically correct, but not quite specific enough for the trope.

I must admit, I love the name, vague as it is.

The very first sentence provides an excellent naming alternative: Dueling Hackers.

I was thinking something like Hacker Combat myself, but yeah, that definitely works, too.

Hmm. That wasn't what I was expecting. I was expecting something more like "using a website as a means of delivering a Take That (like the Lemon-Lymon episode of West Wing did) or to attack in some other way"

Without looking:

• Two dot-com startups choose the same market.
• A battle between Dorothy Lamour and Dorothy Parker.
• A corporate Flame War.

No, no and no. It's a neat name but a bit misleading. Dueling Hackers gets right to the point.

edited 15th Sep '10 8:15:30 AM by Camacan

Hacker Duel, or something along those lines.

The only thing I can think of that resembles this in Real Life is just called "Capture the Flag". So that doesn't work as a name... but it does as an example, I'll add it.

Dueling Hackers works. So would Hacker Faceoff, or for silly, Hack Counterhack

I was thinking some sort of cyber combat.

*looks*

I also wasn't really thinking hackers.

The name seems to be a bit more general than the trope really is. The other names sound good.

Yeah, I was thinking cyberspace combat, like the battle towards the end of Snow Crash, not this.

I don't think that cyberspace combat really makes a trope. It's just combat In Cyberspace.

Which is not to denigrate infinite-speed motorcycle sword battles.

edited 15th Sep '10 12:45:07 PM by Tzetze

Oh, I'm not saying we should repurpose the name, just that that's what I thought the name meant while playing Guess That Trope.

While I love the pun in Dot Com Bat, I'll agree that the name isn't the most intuitive.

(Starts playing Dueling Banjos with his modem.)

edited 15th Sep '10 1:44:55 PM by DRCEQ

^^I'll be honest, when I first made this topic, I didn't even realize it was a pun.

I just couldn't understand what Dueling Hackers had to do with fuckin' dots!

Ohhhhhh. It's, you know, like a website. Or a COM file.

Yeah, I got that figured out now.

It's probably just because couldn't figure out the correlation between the title and anything described about hackers and hacking within. Commercial websites don't have anything to do with the description so making puns about them when they have nothing to do with anything... that doesn't help.

edited 15th Sep '10 2:00:55 PM by SeanMurrayI

Considering the Guess That Trope responses, it seems that most people got the pun.

Considering the Guess That Trope responses, it seems that this needs a rename anyways.

^It's easier to get the pun when all you have is the title. When you see the description first, like I did, it's a different story.

Still, a bad trope title is a bad trope title, and the Guess That Trope responses show it, anyway.

edited 15th Sep '10 2:06:32 PM by SeanMurrayI

When I read the title I guessed "Strategy game with really simple graphics". I did not expect what it was really about.

For a new name, either Duelling Hackers or Hacker Faceoff works much better.

As for the current name, I guessed infospace warfare, but expected it to be at the corporate level, rather than individuals.

I'm not opposed to a rename.

Since this is a Narrative Device trope, I would suggest that Hacking Duel would be more appropriate than Dueling Hackers, which sounds more like a Characters as Device trope or something. Makes me think of two people hacking each other Hatfield and McCoy style.

edited 16th Sep '10 11:05:48 PM by Daremo

I did get the idea of cyberspace combat. I think it's a very good trope title, is there maybe a better trope we can use it for?

I like High Level Cyber Warfare as it is called in the Deep Immersion Gaming chapters of Negima! [1] ( massive Shown Their Work example example of this trope [2] [3])

Or maybe The Art Of Killing Connections if its just hacking.

edited 17th Sep '10 12:27:36 AM by Raso

Strangely, I'm pro rename on this one. Dot Combat suggests something that is different in several ways (to me it suggest "dot com" bubble advertising/cyberokupa competition). Dueling Hackers is a very good approach. Hacking Duel works as well, but it is too generic (makes me thing of hacksaws or something) — it'd have to be something like Sudo Hacking Duel for extra context that makes it ultragood name for Narrative Devices. The Art Of Killing Connections might work as well, but the word "connections" throws me off.