Buy a Thesaurus for Anet

Necromancers summon minions, the general term for all of their undead thralls. They can also summon Bone Minions, a particular type of said thralls.

A region can have The Favor of the Gods. A monk can have Divine Favor. I guess that one never really confuses anybody, probably not even newbs, but it's still annoying.

Elementalists have Glyph of Sacrifice, which has nothing to do with sacrificing health. Yeah, I guess I'm probably the only person bothered by this. Isn't it more like maybe a Glyph of Urgency or something anyway? (For god's sake, don't tell me why they called it that, I'm not illiterate.)

Mesmers have Channeling. Ritualists have Channeling Magic.

None of these hold a candle to the worst offenders, though: assassins. They have a bunch of skills which cause you to Shadow Step to a target, meaning that you teleport next to them. They also have a skill called Shadow Step, which makes you run faster. Poor newbies.

Then, of course, there's Factions*, the new expansion which is all about two warring factions on some other continent. This is completely distinct from Faction*, which is a stat you grind to unlock more skills for your character, and never you mind that the organization you are nominally gaining a reputation with could not in any reasonable sense of the word be called a faction, given that they are not, to my knowledge, pitted against any other organization in particular.

I know that there are other unfortunate confusions like this, but I can't remember them at the moment. Anyway, the main point is that we should all gung-ho and buy those guys a bigger working vocabulary. kthxbai


*Not Fraction(s). Just as Anet needs to get acquainted with Roget, some of you all need to meet my main man Webster.

you forgot about the most blatant of them all: the fact that some skills are skills and some are not...

They're all called minions, and that particular skill says Bone Minions because it is more than 1 minion, and more than 1 horror. There would've been confusion if there was a Bone Horror skill and a Bone Horrors skill. The way it stands, it's pretty obvious what everything means.

Out of all the ones you've outlined, the only annoying one is the Factions and Faction one, because a LOT of people have thought the sequel was Guild Wars: Faction, and they all think this means it's only just orientated around PvP because that's where you get Faction.

None of the confusion should be Anet's fault, as I never seem to get confused in this game, same with a bunch of my friends. The fault here is just that there are so many idiots in online communities.

/not signed

Why leave any possibility for confusion? Precision is a good thing, unless you just have no respect for the written word.Well, excuse me, but I think I am the Grand High Supreme Judge of That, not you. So there.1. Think of the newbies. For the love of god, why can't anybody think of the children, I mean newbies?

2. See previous point about the value of precision. One of us did not take and/or pass English 101, I suppose.

Actually...more people are calling it Fractions and think its a math game than Faction and thinking its a PvP game. LOL, I think humanity suffers everytime someone calls this game Fractions, and asks what the two fractions are, and then ask what to buy with faction. Like...they can get one right, but not the other two...

English is not my main language , so for me most of those names are meaningless. The icon and the explanation is what counts , anyway you have a point. My mother would agree with you 100%.Language History , Culture Background is a must for the new places where kids aquire knolage. Is what makes it good or bad IMMO ( in my mother opinion ).

IMO Guildwars is by far a good place for kids comparing to other games.

Egads!!! Is this really necessary...

ANet's lack of an expanded vocabulary is in someways attributed the fact that this game is multi-lingual. Not sure here, just a theory. I do agree that I try not to write any for of official documentation or even unofficial jotted down notes that way, but oh well. Everyone does have their own styles and Guild Wars is a bit more published than my works.

As for attack other posters on their spelling, sentence structure, limited vocabulary, or any other grammar related errors seems like a good way to accomplish nothing. I read and write a couple of foreign languages, but English (American), is my primary language. Lately, as a spend a bit more time in German class, I find myself making mistakes when communicating in English, sometimes using the wrong tenses or sentence structure.

If the only defense you have for your idea is that the other guy made a spelling error... I don't know what to tell you.

Argen, as ArenaNet's head office is in America, I think I can safely say that its primary language is American English. Therefore, I expect some effort to be put into naming aspects of the game so that they are appropriate and do not clash with other aspects of the game. It is the job of the translator to translate the names into other languages. Surely if two things are named similarly in English, and are translated accurately, they will be named similarly in the language into which they have been translated. Surely if something is named inappropriately in English, and is translated accurately, it will be named inappropriately in the language into which it has been translated.

I think you're overestimating the average GW player. I doubt most players, including myself, pay enough attention to the in-game text to notice or even care about what you've pointed out.

Long as the skill descriptions aren't confusing, the game is fun, and I can turn off local chat, I'm happy

You are forgetting another one. There's guild rank, and then there's personal rank. Thats the one that makes people the most confused.

Whenever I say "what rank is your guild" they say " oh we're r3+", when really I meant what was their place on the ladder.

Oh yeah. Ha. That one bit me once. Here follows a conversation involving me, my girlfriend, and another of my guildies.

(As the scene opens, GUILDMATE, hereafter referred to as GU, is playing in the tombs.)

GU: Uh oh. These guys are rank 80.
Me: WTF?!?!?
GF: Uhh, you mean guild rank 80, right [GU]?
GU: Yeah, guild rank.
GF: Yeah, we were picturing some guy emoting like a three-headed dragon tiger wearing cool sunglasses...
Me: ...ON A BATTLESHIP!

Actually, they're all skills. Those labeled "skill" are simply those for which no more specific label applies. A square is still a rectangle even though we call it a square, and a spell is still a skill even though we call it a spell.

I agree that Shadow Step is an odd name for that skill given the use of the phrase in other skill descriptions, but I think the rest are pretty trivial if not outright silly.

Suggestion: Change your language... if you can't stand the one your looking at then change it to something you can not read, then maybe you will not notice such a small and insignificant matter such as this.

Perhaps it is you who needs a thesaurus, I you said "Have" and awful lot in that post, try changing it up every now and again. Try to use words like "obtain" or "possess."

Thank you, have a nice day.

But doesn't it make things less understandable when they use the same word for two different things?

If you don't like it, go and learn Latin.

Actually, if you have ever played a Ranger, you would know how hard it is to find out at first whether a given "skill" is affected by Expertise or not. I have played a good number of hours on my ranger (~500) and I only found out last month that the Monk "attack skill" Smite IS affected by expertise.

Ok, sure, this isn't such a big deal as a number of people have felt the need to point out. No doubt about that. However, the possibility of causing confusion, particularly among new players, does exist. I wouldn't mind if ANet fixed this eventually, though I'd say it's far from being a priority.

Well, maybe apart from some key game concepts which I do agree should be renamed ASAP - like "Faction - Balthazar" vs "Factions" and "Rank" vs (guild) "Rank."

I mean, what were they thinking in those two cases? Rank? You just don't give the exact same name to two different game concepts. And on "Factions" - if there's one thing you don't want to confuse people about, that's your next product, the original game's sequel. Under no circumstances should you risk confusing your customers before they give you money.

Here's the question of the day. In the online world where a heavily butchered English language exists, why the RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO does it matter?

Simple - because the game's language is not heavily butchered, we expect it to have a broad vocabulary.

Furthermore, making the language in the game more precise in the first place will result in this forum being less burdened with posts such as...Obviously, this is a good thing.

Stay on-topic, please. Personal attacks/correcting others' grammatical errors/being a general stickler on perfect syntactical accuracy within forum posts isn't relevant to the main topic.

Thanks.

Faction can be used as a synonym for "brownie points" or someones "good graces". (note the period outside the quotes. eat it!) so if one uses common sense GW:Factions and "You gained 25 faction for your Flawless Victory!", its not hard to differentiate between the two.

Final Fantasy has used Fire, Blizzard, and Thunder in pretty much all of their recent games. The stronger versions of these spells are Fira/Firaga, Blizzara/Blizzaga, Thundara/Thundaga.

Diablo II, Barbarians have Sword Mastery, Axe Mastery, Polearm Mastery, Hammer Mastery, Throwing Mastery, and Spear Mastery.

Just as a few examples... basically, doesn't every single game fall victim to this pattern? Palette swaps were always popular on NES and SNES games as well and to me that defines an RPG to some degree.

I agree with the OP. Although I don't mind much of what you mentioned, rank, faction, and most especially skill are so blatently ambiguous that it does bother me.

Skill is my biggest peeve. There are many skills that, in their descriptions, affect other "skills." Well what exactly does that mean?! Call them techniques or something. Don't use the same bloody word twice, and to refer to a sub-catagory of itself, no less!

Two wrongs don't make a right. It's a bad habit of the game industry and a good suggestion is a good suggestion, even if it can apply to a lot of games.

Though in your examples, at least it is possible to tell the difference between those words.

Its not too hard to understand the diffrence between two things that use the same word once you read what the diffrence between the two are, I mean the person had enough brain power to find the store they sell this game in so im sure they can figure out such a small word problem such as this.

Lets not forget that names of spells are not the only way to figure out that a skill is, the description and picture are there for a reason.

Hehe, yeah, you can rely on the picture and on the description: as the previous poster said, the amazingly well written and crystal clear descriptions that sometimes say stuff like "Elite Skill. For 3 seconds, every time you use a skill..." and leave you wondering wheter it's any skill or a skill pertaining to the skill sub-category (that's right, a "skill" category with a "skill" sub-category in it - how can anyone claim that this is not confusing?). I guess in that case, I'll just have to go by the picture, right?

Like I said on my previous post... I don't expect this to be at the top of ANet's priority list, but saying that all the game's concepts are fine and easy to understand is also incorrect.

No, it can't be. That's not what the word means at all. Several dictionaries will readily agree with me, and even a staunch descriptivist such as myself won't allow them to do that, because there is absolutely no other source I have ever seen which attempted to use the word in this fashion....No. Those are completely different things, and I fail to understand how you could compare them. The FF example is a logical grouping of progressively more powerful versions of the same skill. The DII example is a logical grouping of several skill sets which are similar in purpose. The GW example is using a word to mean two completely different and unrelated things for no reason other than a lack of planning.I completely disagree with this, but I'm not going to argue it, because it's immaterial. Even if I agreed with you 100%, that is not a good arguement against fixing this, because there is no reason not to make things better when it is possible, especially since this would involve no great feat of programming which would suck up time from other issues. All that needs to be done is to change a simple character string. I think the devs can spare those ten minutes from bugfixing.

Glyph of Scarifice... Well, seems logic to me. You use it to cast the next spell instantly, but sacrifice an amount of time for you to use it again.
Shadow Step... You walk in the shadows and move faster or unnoticed by doing that? Maybe's it's called Shadow Step because it's a Shadow Arts skill?
Channeling... Obvious. Channeling has got more definitions.
Favor/Divine Favor... Same as with channeling.
Faction(s)... Again same story. You can be aligned with a Faction or gain Faction.
Minions... Just because people call it "Minion Master" doesn't mean these things are still animated creatures, like the game describes them.
Rank... What other word would you want to use. Rank is a certain level compared to others. Rank is.... well, rank.
"Elite Skill, Whenever target foe uses a skill..." A skill is a skill. That's the way they're called from Gwen's birth.
Next thing you know you are going to tell me people actually think Silver Armor gives you free armor.

And then to think I am dutch. I never had any problems with understanding these "errors" as you guys might call them. I don't find it hard to understand what the difference is between Channeling and Channeling Magic is in Guild Wars. I read the whole context. Not words that look alike.

Edit: I just saw that this topic was created a year ago -_o