Why want "metagame"?

I've heard a lot of forumside asking for metagame. I wasn't even sure what is this "metagame" everyone keeps asking for, so I had to look it up.

Wikipedia said:
Metagaming is a broad term usually used to define any strategy, action or method used in a game which transcends a prescribed ruleset, uses external factors to affect the game, or goes beyond the supposed limits or environment set by the game. Another definition refers to the game universe outside of the game itself.
In simple terms, it is the use of out-of-game information or resources to affect one's in-game decisions.

Urban Dictionary said:
The highest level of strategy in many complex games, metagame refers to any aspect of strategy that involves thinking about what your opponent is thinking you are thinking.
Metagame comes into play in any game where no single strategy is dominant and opposing sides are aware of multiple strategies that can succeed dependent upon opponents' actions. In order to perform at the highest level, it then becomes necessary to think about what your opponent thinks you will do (which may depend on what he thinks you think he thinks he will do, etc.) and to make decisions based on clues regarding what level they are thinking on.
This term is most commonly used to refer to poker and other complex card games, but is increasingly being used in relation to video games with complicated player vs player elements and even traditional sports.


While the definitions given are quite different and fuzzy, what I can make out is it's basically using the knowledge about the opponent and his playstyle to predict what he will use and do, and using something that will counter it. Right?

Now why on Earth, and how on Earth would you expect that in PS2? It seems a thing for closed-play environments and knowing (or at least expecting) your opponents, like tournaments. Then you can actually study your opponents, or opponent teams. With thousands and thousands of players, ones replacing the others constantly, you can't be serious about expecting metagame???

And if by "metagame" you just mean predicting what the opposing faction will do and countering it then isn't it something outfits (or platoons, or just individual players) already do? Well at least my outfit does all the time. Think they'll roll with tanks, get AV turrets, think they'll roll with air, get AA MAXes...


I really don't understand the fuzz about metagame, would someone care to explain?

Metagame means end game

I dont know whatever the person who wrote this was smoking

Does that even make sense?


Meta means beyond in Greek i think. So "beyond game" aka "end game". To elaborate further, it means you are striving towards a certain goal. To apply this to planetside, taking this continent would actually mean something

Metagame would be example, continent locking. More reason to take over the continent. PS1 had it and pS1 was better other than gunplay. So hurry up and do it.

I thought of the Greek meaning as well, but "beyond game" I interpreted as "outside of game". As in taking into consideration factors outside the game such as opposing player's playstyles. Which fit quite well into those descriptions

What people on Forumside mean with metagame is a reason to do stuff.
Why should I cap this base? It's just a base, I'll be fighting at this base again tomorrow.
Facilities have their faire square of Meta. Why should i defend this Tech Plant? If we lose this then my faction can't pull MBT's and we'll be at a disadvantage!

But in the end nothing is permanent and a lost or captured base will be ghostcapped during the night and tomorrow you'll be fighting for exactly the same bases again, people lack that reward you get after winning a match.

What people want is more permanent and important changes, capping a continent will now become locking a continent and the enemy factions will have to fight to regain acces to that continent. Losing AMP stations will now also mean that you won't have domeshield protection anymore. Things like that make the fights way more dynamic and it feels like we're all fighting for a greater goal than just capping this base so the enemy can't Prowler Zerg us anymore.

The Metagame is the game that everybody's smaller games contribute to. A small example is the lattice system on esamir. You might be playing your game at a biolab and enjoying yourself, but collectively taking that biolab with your empire mates advances your empire forward on the lattice in the metagame.

The metagame referred to in forumside specifically relates to the intercontinental battles from Planetside 1. In PS1 you could cap a whole continent and lock it preventing another empire capping it for a period or your empire could battle to a warpgate and give you access to another continent to further advance the metagame.

The metagame was important to the avid observers and people attempting to lead the direction of the battle because certain facilities become more important than others when it comes to preventing other empires advancing to new territory. Basically it's not just about the zone you're in and where you're fighting now, but what zones can you take and what zones can you prevent your enemy from taking.

I edited my post just now to explain further. To be fair to you, these definitions are pretty messed up

Wikipedia's examples:

Examples of metagaming

• There is a special set of moves in chess which allows a player to win in four moves. Competitor A has been watching Competitor B play chess, and the past five games in a row Competitor B has attempted to use this four-move win. When Competitor A sits down to play against Competitor B, Competitor A will be metagaming if he/she plays in a way that will easily thwart the four-move checkmate before Competitor B makes it obvious that this is what he/she is doing.

• In role-playing games, a player is metagaming when they use knowledge that is not available to their character in order to change the way they play their character (usually to give them an advantage within the game), such as knowledge of the mathematical nature of character statistics, or the statistics of a creature that the player is familiar with but the character has never encountered. In general, it refers to any gaps between player knowledge and character knowledge which the player acts upon.

• Computer game development projects, in which the game company seeking to develop new and better games will set its developers to propose and test alternative designs and rules among themselves, until they arrive at a new design that they can expect will be popular. This development process is itself a kind of metagame.

• In popular trading card games, such as Magic: The Gathering or Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game players compete with decks they have created in advance and the "metagame" consists of the deck types that are currently popular and expected to show up in large numbers in a tournament. The knowledge of metagame trends can give the players an edge against other participants, while playing (quickly recognizing what kind of deck opponents have to guess their likely cards and moves) and more importantly in the deck building process, by selecting and adapting designs to do well against the popular deck types at the expense of performance against rarer ones. It's also possible to bluff opponents into expecting cards that aren't there, or to surprise the competition with novel decks that nobody is prepared for. The secondary market of cards is heavily influenced by metagame trends: cards become more valuable when they are popular, often to the point of scarcity.[3]

• In fighting games such as Super Smash Bros. Melee, metagaming may occur at the character select screen. The opposing character has various strengths that can be avoided and weaknesses that can be exploited more easily depending on the character you choose provided you are aware of those strengths and weaknesses (called a "match up"). For a basic example, a character with a projectile attack has the advantage over a grappler who must be close to the opponent to be effective. Match up metagaming is very important in tournament settings. In recent fighting games, blind select has been implemented for online modes. This makes it so that neither player can see what character the other player chose. In tournaments, players have the option to opt for a blind select where they tell a judge in confidence the character they intend to select in the match, making their character choice mandatory.

• Many logic puzzles allow an analogue of metagaming. By convention, logic puzzles are only considered well-constructed if they have a unique solution. When solving a puzzle, one might notice that if a certain candidate symbol were placed in one square, there would be multiple ways to complete another part of the puzzle, and no extra information could possibly decide between them. Ruling out that candidate on these grounds would be metagaming.

Urban Dictionary's examples:
Normally I would raise the flop with this hand as a semi-bluff, but I've been so aggressive lately that taking metagame into consideration I think he will go all-in with any pair, so instead I'm going to fold.

This guy thinks that I'm going to zergling rush which means he will waste resources defending early. Instead I am going to focus on resource development for mid game, and metagame will win me this match.



I don't find anything about endgame anywhere

In the context of PS2, people generally use the term to refer to systems that would make territory control relevant in the long term and make the game more interesting to play. Like continent locking and a better resource system.

So long story short, I don't think metagame means what PS2 players think it means. Or at least PS2 players invented a new meaning for it. Am I right?

The people who are crying about meta game do not have any idea what meta game means. What they are really after is an objective, a meaning, an end game like most other shooters have. In other games, you play the objecitve and then the match is over and you get a nice little scoreboard telling you how good you were, then everything resets. That is not true for planetside and there are no fixed objectives in the same way. This made a generation of gamers very confused because they are used to being lead by the nose through a fix set of corridors to do an objective that's been flashing on the screen. They cannot fully grasp the concept of making your own rules and defining your own objectives. People are complaining that there's no point to the game and they are obviosuly missing the point. We play for the fight, not for the scoreboard at the end. That's the biggest problem with Planetside 2. It's not like any other game out there which confuses people. Sadly, instead of embrasing this new format, they complain and cry to make it feel like every other MMS, or as Yathzee likes to call them, spunkgargle weewee.

Well if wikipedia is correct then yeah.

Meta gaming used to be the use of non-ingame resources or tactics to gain an edge within the game. A simple example in this game would be 4th faction'ing for alert rewards or to tk an enemy AMS Sunderer.

The definition of the term seems to have either evolved or have a different meaning in this game though.

I don't know this Yathzee fellow but "spunkgargle weewee" is officially going to my vocabulary now. Amen.

I just like how you transition seamlessly from completely r*tarded sentence structure and spelling to eloquent language and back again.

Yes you are right. Meta game is something completely different from what people here thinks it is. It's mostly discussed in other competitive games like Starcraft 2 where the meta game is trying to guess what build the other player is going for so you can make a build to counter it. That has nothing to do with the game itself, it's a game beyond the game and in the highly competitive league scene, it is the difference between winning or losing. In MOBA style games the same thing is valid. You need to adjust your own play style to counter the opponents play style. You need to chose your hero and you items to counter what the others are choosing.

Metagame is exactly what you said, in planetside 2 is the case of strategy, you can do millions of battles for archieve any kind of objective, to to have this "any" we need gameplay options and a more "open world", for example, continents, where you can use the strategy in a global level. "TR are attacking the NC on Esamir, let's use the battle islands to attack their home and force them retreat" a little exemple of what metagame can be.

Also MMORPG games are extremely metagame, world of warcraft was the most fun metagame I played, I remember when the Horde was preparing to attack the Alliance and a player saw our army gathering mans (we wait 5 10 minutes) and he told in the general chat of the Alliance about it, the result? The Horde Raids have suffered and ambush from hunters and mages in the road, our attack has been a defeat, this also is metagame.

Ok so I'm kind of getting it now. Basically people think "metagame" means an artificial sense of accomplishment from battles like final scoreboards or locking a continent. Or achievements. It's quite sad this is the path people want to go, but what can you do. I remember times when games were all about gameplay.

But if the majority wants it, who am I to complain? After all adding achievements or continent locks won't affect the gameplay in any way. Let people have their cheevos, I don't really mind

He's a game critique who writes and makes videos for The Escapist. His videos, called Zero Punctuation, are hilarious.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/vid...-Medal-of-Honor-Warfighter-Doom-3-BFG-Edition

There's the video where he first came up with the word.

Pretty much. I think metagame in context of Forumside means something that would make game feel less pointless

But I find it interesting how most posters here say they want metagame but are on the other hand vehemently against MLG and any effort to make the game more competitive.