No More Acronyms/Abbreviations

@ Swinging Fists - This staff says Energy +10, then the requirement, then the HCT/HSR bonus, then Energy +5, then HP +30. At some point this was explained to me as meaning that if you don't have 9 in earth, you won't get the Energy +10 or anything that is above the requirement line. I'll have to check that. Thank you for the input.

I think you point at 2 different things here. Concerning the "internet-wide" abbreviations (such as ROFL, IMO, IRL, etc...), most of the players in other languages (at least in the other european languages I know) use the same acronyms, despite the fact that they don't mean anything in their own language.

Now concering the abbreviations specific to this game (skill names, mainly), the diffuculty of communicating between players with a different language would remain even without them. I'm a native french speaker, however my interface is in english and I play in english districts. Still I'm clueless when I talk about skills with another french speaker. There are generally several translations possible for the same expression, and it's impossible to know which translation ANET chose (and actually sometimes the name of a skill in other languages is completely different).

Well we could all try not using them for one day. Man LA would look funny.

"I would like to facilitate a virtual monetary transaction in the amount of twenty thousand gold for this zealous scythe snathe. Only serious offers please and no new players"

LoL It would deinfately keep trade spam down.

What it comes down to is whether you are conversing with someone or just watching the chat.

In a conversation if you use an acronym or abbreviation that the other person doesn't know, they will just say ? and you can explain. The same thing you do if someone uses a foreign word you don't know.

If you are watching chat, that means you have time on your hands. Go to the wiki and look it up or just ask someone.

Your annoyance with this type of chat talk is caused by your lack of knowledge.

Off Topic - thank you Swinging Fists. The wiki says I get all 10 points except on a focus http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Staff#Inherent_stats

Not even doom music would be able to save this thread now.

What does IIRC mean?

welcome to the 21 century.



sums it up pretty well i think.

If I Recall Correctly

Istani Intarweb Relay Chat..... hay this is easy keep em comin....

That one used to confuse me a lot, because I would think of Internet Relay Chat with an extra I added in there.

Me too!
Thanks Bustro. You've satisfied my quota of learning one new thing every day.

I'll admit the first time I saw "LFG CR SI" I thought my monitor was malfunctioning. But really it only took a few seconds to work it out, and I'm sure that's true for most people. Once you've got it, you can then use it yourself to save time and space. Only so many characters allowed in one chat segment anyway. Reducing everything to numbers and consonants is annoying, but some useful abbreviations help the vast majority of players.

Yeah. I'll admit the "SI" part of that statement had me for a while. Like I said, chalk it up to laziness. But seriously, if you're so damn lazy to not wanna type out "self invite" or "invite self" and then hit enter>up>enter every 10 seconds, you really need to get off your arse and get out of the house for a bit really.

What a hypocrite...

And besides, you should be able to get them depending on the sentence structure. If not, then just take 5 extra seconds to clarify.

BY THE WAY, What does ""QFT" stand for?
Clarity FOR THE WIN

afaik, qft = quoted for truth

imba pissed me off, but it looks like it's a crossover from WoW and means "Imbalanced".
I try to avoid extensive use of acronyms and abbreviations wherever possible, but it's easy to get lazy and fall back on them as a crutch.

took me forever to figure out what QFT ment...

Now that I know, I thinks it's teh meh.

People use them to save time.

If you don't like them, just act as if you don't see them, that works for me:

Other - u wont cum 2 fow?
Me - What?
O - u wont cum 2 fow?
M - I don't understand.
O - do u want to come 2 fow?
M - What do you mean?
O - Do you want to come to Fow?
M - What does Fow is?
M - Is it edible?
M - Is it tasty?
O - $%&$%& you, we are going to the fissure, do you want to come or not?
M - Ah...! Fissure of Woe! You now speak my tongue, XD
O - bitch
M- *giggle*

Sometimes it is even longer. They just give up and use proper speech with me now, XD.

Haha, that was great. I think I'll take the same approach from now on.

HAh! That gave me a good laugh. I think instead of just ignoring these people I'll use this same act as well.

The use of abreviations comes from an extremly limited knowledge domain. Guild Wars isn't a big domain. As it turns out, it's an extremly small, unchanging one.

In real world everything changes. "I was out with the cat" would mean something very different 40 years ago. So would "My friend is having a realy gay time".

But in GW terms don't change, and contextual relations are implied. This is inevitable, and is present in every human language. Commonly used terms get abreviated, phrases simplified, written form adapts.

All these examples also imply knowledge of surroundings. SV in Gate of madness means Spoil Victor. SS means Spiteful spirit - it never meant Spinal Shivers, since those were always writen as SS/shivers. UW was never used for Urgoz Warren, if it was, it wasn't the norm. SF means Searing Flames, and since Sorrow's Furnace is a place, those two cannot be confused.

The confuction, where context cannot be resolved, is the same as sarcasm. That too cannot be transferred reliable in written form (this one even has scientifically study behind it). Sarcasm relies on many subliminal hints, and even when expressed face-to-face can be confused.

Some forms go to extreme: CR SI is one such example. It arose simply because there's no other information needed. It implies classes, intent, and constraints. It's an extreme, but completely viable.

The trading is nothing special. "navy-blue V8 T-bird ABS dual air-bag unleaded 22,000mi, 88mpg, $11,000+VAT, COD". Is that any different? It conveys every single bit of information needed to make the sale. And nothing more.

But as always, asking what something means is not a sin. And if someone yells at you for being an idiot, you have a 95% change they not only not know it themselves, but only heard it somewhere, and now repeat it like a parrot. Those that know what it means, just don't care.

i wonder how long he/she would have continued asking you "do u want to come to fow" if you kept answering "what do u mean" and not elaborating.

pretty funny though