Massively^™

Talk about something that becomes more and more of an eyesore for me. I see no need to add a "z" to everything or to speak "1337" speak. I do avoid people who only talk in it (they can't type a whole sentence without using some sort 1337ness). I don't mind the occasional one here and there, but all the time...no thank you. Barrens chat seems to be littered with it, not only the content of Barrens chat is awful. but the way in out the content is delivered just adds to it. I little part of me dies each time I fly through there.

I think the thing that makes me the most disappointed is the people who can't spell "your" or "you're" right, among other words. It's one thing to speak 133t speak and know that you are, and another to actually try and type real English yet because of lack of education, doesn't know which to use "your" or "you're".

/ignore world becomes so tempting at times.

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People who can't spell (or choose not to spend the extra half second per line) really get on my nerves. As you say, the occasional typo is just that, a mistake. Lack of correct spelling or grammar can often stand in the way of proper communication. In my guild, there are a few leaders who, whenever they post, look like they just vomited words onto the forum. You have to read their post 2-3 times to get their drift. One leader was actually removed from her post because she had some sort of issue, but no one could understand what it was thanks to her poor spelling and grammar.

Remember, kids... stay in school!

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The worst to me has to be 'ne1'. What makes this bad is you got some really realy really dumb people who actually type 'ne one'. I asked someone once why they typed 'ne one' instead of 'anyone'. His response was it was less typing.

So I slammed my face in the wall after reading that.

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I have no complaints with an LFG here or a LOL there, but I simply cannot converse with anyone who willingly ploughs into 1337 territory.

Similarly I have no problem with the odd spelling mistake, especially if you are in a group instance or similar and are communicating rapidly (really folks, typing quickly isn't that difficult).

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I definitely avoid playing with idiots whenever possible and I view that sort of chat as a big sign saying I'M AN IDIOT.

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I try to promote spelling out words by refusing to sink to their level.

Whenever someone says "o ic". I usually counter with a wordy response filled with capitalization and punctuation. Hopefully they will see I am a adult and should be spoken to in the same language.

Sadly my spelling and grammar is horrible, and it bugs me when i am jumped on by grammar Nazi's so i try not to get on anyones case about l33t speak.

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"Who'd have figured that" should end with a question mark, not an exclamation mark.

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Ah, I remember the good old days. The days of capitalization and punctuation, of spelling out abbreviations and typing "through" all the way and correcting every error and refusing to use emoticons. The days of "Heh, I'm a writer."

Long gone. Now I lol and XD, I teh and pwnt. Months of pressure-typing have taken their toll. I stand before you a broken man.

...

i r teh leetsauce!!1

/cry

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I avoid people who use "l33t speak" at all costs. This problem is most prevalent in the Trade channel of the city chat in World of Warcraft. From people talking about their horrible taste in music, to GMs spamming guild recruitment messages, Trade chat is almost as bad as, if not worse than Barrens chat. The "Report Spam" feature introduced several patches ago does little to remedy the problem. I paged a GM about this problem and apparently "Report Spam" will silence the user/spammer after a certain amount of complaints are received. But, if not enough people bother to report off-topic and "l33t" speak in Trade, then what good does "Report Spam" do?

I'm sure most players can attest to this: Trade channel on Sunday and Monday nights is absolutely horrendous during football season. If I wanted play-by-play commentary, I'd alt-tab out of WoW and go to the NFL site, or better yet, I'd watch the game on television. I am getting aggravated by these d-bags that refuse to post this sort of thing in General chat or open a private conversation with other users. Is it really that difficult to input "/w (PLAYERNAME)" in the text box?

Speaking of private conversations and MMO idiocy in general, why is that users feel the need to flood the various chat channels with "IS (PLAYERNAME) HERE?! ZOMG LOL"? Is it that time-consuming to run a search for whomever it is you wish to speak? /who (PLAYERNAME) works wonders and you have the satisfaction of not flooding General and Trade with your mindless banter about anime or whatever it is the children are into.

Personally when I encounter these idiots in a party or raid, I will either ignore them or leave the group (depending on how well the group progresses, it's a good group I stay, if it's a relatively poor group I'm out). I've also had the misfortune to join so-called “mature” guilds only to have my screen flooded with “LOL”, “ZOMG”, “O RLY”, etc, etc. Needless to say I /gquit almost immediately.

But I digress, immaturity and “l33t speak” is a problem with not only MMOs, but on-line games in general. If that layer of anonymity that these services provide were fundamentally altered or removed altogether, perhaps this problem wouldn't be so widespread. What I do now is to disable all chat channels unless I am looking for a group or if I wish to buy or sell goods or services. I also use an invaluable add-on called “BugMeNot”. I have it set up to block and then ignore all users who send out unsolicited party/guild invites as well as people who spam guild charters and duels. This helps cutout a good 90% of the b.s. I've encountered in WoW over the past year, but it still doesn't help against poor grammar, bad spelling, and immaturity.

And yes, I've tried playing on a role-playing realm. The idiots have assimilated (dare I say “infected”?) there, too.

In summation (yes I know this is a “wall of text” but if you can tolerate “LOL” and “ZOMG” on any level, you can handle this), when the immaturity and mindbogglingly awful spelling and grammar are overwhelming, I log on to a more mature MMO, Guild Wars. Then, if I want to raid or if a guildie absolutely need assistance with a quest, I log on to World of Warcraft.

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hey, i just had a question, it's sort of related to grouping in mmos...


are mmos ever going to put characters on a dedicated character server, so they're not tied to servers like in Coh/V and warcraft (and I presume other mmos)?


You should be able to pick your character for a session, then pick a server JUST for that playsession, so if your usual server is down, you can just pick a different one, and confirm with some out of game chatmail or something with your friends which server to play on for that day. then if that server crashes or whatever, you log out, then just log in to a different server with the same character

is that so hard? for fucks sake, all mmos should do that

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No, I never discriminate because of spelling or excessive use of leetspeak.

Some people are gifted with near-perfect spelling. I'm one of those people. I actually do make spelling errors sometimes, but usually less than 1 in 100 words.

Some people are not gifted in that direction or may be way below average. I would no more discriminate against them than I would refuse to group with someone because of missing fingers or toes.

Pretty much the same with people who leetspeak. These people are usually two-fingered typists whose every sentence is a trial, especially in the heat of battle. Some people find it difficult to wrap their brains around touchtyping. Do YOU remember learning to type? I do. The endless frustration, waiting for my mind to figure it out, waiting for the moment when it would be as easy as thinking.

Twenty years later it might seem so easy... But that's just because you've forgotten what it felt like to learn.

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I can't say I've gone out of my way to avoid them; I've actually had more people who spoke normally be a terrible asset to the group than those who use 1337speak. Either way, I try to do my best to see if they actually know how to play their class or not. There is a difference though between someone who types poorly and someone who is just plain annoying.

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#13, thanks for the reply. that's sad that no game does that.

I did play CoV for about 6 months from its release, it was pretty good, but the grind got real boring by level 30. thats why i made about 2 dozen alts :)

I remember the most fun i had with it was during the issue 7 (iirc) beta, when we could test the level 50 pvp zone one weekend and make level 50 characters right then and there, i got to see how my energy/stone brute would be 30 levels higher (sadly the grind prevented me from getting him to lvl 50 after that beta ended) and it was the most fun 2 days I ever had in my entire 6 months of playing CoV. the ice/kin corrupter i made for that was awesome fun too, it was like playing a pixie on crack

also I had another question:

do any mmos have a unique ID thing like in the half life games? in HL1, you had your cd key, then could pick a username that was completely unrelated and you could change your handle on the fly, even mid-round in counterstrike or something. Do mmos not do this because there would be a ton of "sephiroth"s running around, or do they just refuse to incorporate technology that's been around for 10 years?

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There's a flip side for us personal grammarians. Here's a very accurate (wait, that's not the word...) transcript of a not unfamiliar conversation I had when grouped with a random stranger:
Me: Hi. Ready?
Them: lol spelin is rly imprtnt to u
Me: Um, yes, I guess.
[Assorted combat and combat-related chitchat, involving much l33t sp33k]
Them: Thank you for the group.
Me: No worries--thank you!
Them: Ha HA! See! I can write like you, bourgeois pig! Now die!
[My guillotined head bounces across the ground before being claimed by orcs for a rousing game of kickin'-da-pointy-ear's-head-'round-'til-it-bursts]

The last bit may or may not have been (partially) fabricated. And, yes, spelling IS very important to me, but I don't understand why that would offend anyone. I'm not actively doing anything at all--it takes me absolutely zero effort to employ relatively proper grammar.

I've found I can't avoid people who can't, don't or won't write any approximation of proper English in MMOs (and in my workplace). So I don't. Honestly, this has probably been a contributing factor to my slow decline in online time--it does really eat away at me.

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