I see what you mean. I guess MOBA does work in that sense, I am just sick of the way it's used is all ;_;.
Okay you got me about Diablo lol, and I totally forgot about Smite. We just need a new term.
i mean, i can sympathize with that but i just don't think it's as bad as you think. it's kind of like roguelikes, the term roguelike has evolved over time to a point where it's left behind the turn based part and now it usually means procedurally generated dungeons+permadeath+rpg elements
and tbh i don't really think that's bad, it's a starting point for games like binding of isaac and dungeon of the endless to be explained to ppl without having to actually go through all that stuff, so i dunno, i don't mind, i think as a whole gaming should be a bit more aware of what they mean with the words they say (so like, the history of roguelikes and also not calling something like splatoon a moba lol) but also use those words so that game makers can be like "ok i like mobas, im gonna make a moba but think of a cool twist for it!" and do it
maybe if there wasn't a name for it that'd be harder to think, or whatever. videogames as a field of study is desperately in need of words, even if they're not perfect, so i dunno, i just feel like cherishing every one we have
that being said, moba is a dumb dumb name for sure
I propose we call all games, regardless of genre, just games and then just describe what it does, mechanically or thematically, as naturally as it appears to you. Then we wont get any Rouge-like mishaps again.
i mean, that's how game explaining works, genres are just an opener
you start by saying that, go into similar games and then mention a cool moment or two and like that feature that blew your mind or whatever
like no one stops at genre, you're never like "oh dark souls is a jrpg" and that's it lol
but if u start with that the person that's listening to you immediatelly understands that "there are stats and leveling and loot and it's probably a fantasy games so there are gonna be knights and monsters and stuff"
and the other person can assume some stuff like "well there's gonna be a lot of story" or "it's gonna be turn based" and that's where the buts come in
so you're like "well it's a jrpg but it's more action oriented, you see there's this stamina bar you have to keep track of and it's all real time and you use stamina to dodge and block attacks and also to swing your sword and run and it's also very difficult and there's story but it's minimalistic and you figure it out reading item descriptions etc etc"
i dunno, i find that way of explaining things to be pretty natural when i talk to my friends. like we meet with one of my group of friends every monday and discuss interesting games and stuff and we're always like here's the steam page and we usually just explain it to each other in that way and it's just a style that makes sense to me, you lay down expectations with a genre and then add all the flavor and uniqueness with all the buts
The whole video game genre of "RPGs" basically descends from Dungeons & Dragons, which, as a pen & paper game, was about roleplaying but also it had exp and levels and goblins and shit. When video games like Final Fantasy came along and basically copied Dungeons & Dragons, they couldn't manage the roleplaying part but they kept in exp and levels and goblins and shit and still called it an RPG. Nowadays RPG just means exp and levels and goblins and shit.
that's what i mean, it's just a name, the words don't really matter
like, i have a few friends that know the "word" rpg but don't know english, so they don't know what it means. to them rpg = something like final fantasy
Likewise, the adventure genre is probably called that because a lot of early adventure games were about like knights and archaeologists and stuff going on adventures, but then other games come along and even though they aren't really about adventures they use the same mechanics so people just call them adventure games. (Could you imagine if the early adventure games were all horror stories? We'd be talking about how Monkey Island is one of our favorite point & click horror games.)
i think they're called adventure games cos the first one was a game named "adventure"? so like monkey island and such are like adventure-likes
but it could be a dream i had or something
Maybe they should have been more pedantic back in the early days of video games and called games RPGlike, and adventure-like-like, and other asinine descriptors? I dunno. But I'd like to think someday we'll finally decide to excise these vestigial genre names and replace them with a system that works.
what's that system tho?
genres is just a broad thing, they're shitty in music, movies, books, videogames, they're always too broad and there's always exceptions to all of them
what would a "working system" do anyways? would it be better genres? who decides what defines each genre? or just not use genres at all?
