Forums » Off-Topic

inability to communicate in this game

Nov 29, 2004 ananzi link
I am wondering is there something about this game that harms people's ability to communicate?

Several times on channel I have asked someone a question in the "x or y?" format... for example "do you have a Maurauder or a Centaur"... to which they have responded with "yes".

On this message board people will frequently completely fail to understand, or completely misinterpret, basic facts about the original posts. I myself have done this a few times. They will even misquote people as having said something that another person said, in the same thread, on the same page, that the original person said it.

Then there is the horrible spelling. One player, who is an english major, spelled 'klansman' as 'clansman'. I find myself mispelling words like 'through'. I also find myself, when posting on this board or typing on channel, using extremely bad grammar, such as massive comma spliced sentences.

Does anyone have an explanation, or notice this too? Is this game like some kind of reverse 'flowers for algernon'? It doesn't seem that it is a 'non-english speaker' problem.. and it doesn't even seem like an 'internet chat problem', it seems that it goes beyond that?

The only thing I can think of is that so often in the game you are trying to type quickly, because you never know when a pirate will pop out or whatnot, that your brain just works too fast for your fingers to get the words out. And true communication requires patience and time above most other things. That explains in-game chat. But the message board? Does the speed of the game carry over to conversations about the game itself?

Or is it just me?
Nov 29, 2004 yodaofborg link
Well if you asked someone, "do you have a Maurauder or a Centaur?", a "yes" would mean I have both would it not?

Yeah, i have got to say, i say, yes, in real life and when typing emails/letters, but for some reason in vendetta - its yeah, yah, yarrrr, ya and ys, even yeh...

This would indicate that OCF* actually does have side effects! Guild Software!!! You lied to me!

*Optical Coke Feed aka SpaceCrack™
Nov 29, 2004 Forum Moderator link
"One player, who is an english major, spelled 'klansman' as 'clansman'."

"Clansman" is correct unless the writer is discussing a member of the KKK.
Nov 29, 2004 silentsuicide link
Chances are that (for ingame at least) bad gramer and incorrect spelling/usage is the result of the person being in space. And with the fast paced nature of the game it is easy to forget the correct way to type, and short, simple, and sometimes silly (yarr) anwsers are the result. Especialy if you have turbo lock on and that roid is getting realllly close but you dont want to lose the last 5 words of type you have.
Also is the fact that (im assuming that this was on 100) the spam piles up quite a bit. So in order to reply to the question at hand but not seem off topic when around 10 lines of chat scroll by people often forget all laws of correct language usage.
Nov 30, 2004 Viper2560 link
yeah im pretty sure he ment the KKK ;P