UPDATE:
Usually my posts get a dozen or so comments. Lo and behold when I logged in today to see over 30 angry comments on this post.
Project Lore represents a variety of players and backgrounds. Sometimes the difference between preaching to guildmates and writing posts vanishes in my mind and I realize I'm not talking to players who are exactly like me. The comments brought up many good points; some players are casual and haven't had time or care to learn all the jargon, while others are non-native English speakers or have speech disorders like dyslexia.
While I stand by the thesis of my post that communicating clearly with proper spelling and grammar will make you stand out in busy channels like Trade or LFG, the counter-response is well taken. Some players PUG people often and would rather get a group going as fast as possible than nitpick. Some players play on less populated servers and don't have the same type of Trade or LFG channels that are flooded with spam.
This is all true and I should have taken these things into account before publishing that post. I'll leave this post up for posterity, but I want everyone to understand that this is a rant stemming from personally dealing with novice players and wasting hours in instances from PUGing inexperienced players and this does not reflect on all of the writers or staff of Project Lore. I myself make spelling and grammar mistakes, and this post and many of my others are full of them. I leave the ones I found as is and highlight them to show that everyone makes mistakes, even when their message is carefully thought out.
Nothing makes you look more like a novice when
desperately trying to PUG a heroic group than misspelling some simple words. Many players opt to leave the spam-ridden trade channel because there is little value in seeing statements like "LF Haels and tnak h occulus pst". If one cannot type simple four letter words, then many players will have doubts about that individual's ability to play effectively.
One of the most commonly misspelled words as of late is "dual". Many players talking about "dual wielding" or "
dual specs" as "duel wielding" or "duel specs". A duel in WoW is a simple fight to the death between two players. Dual implies that there are two of something, namely weapons in your hands or specs that you switch
between (ending a sentence with a preposition).
Another one that died out pretty early in WoW's lifespan but creeps up occasionally is
rogue. If anyone is in trade looking for a "rouge" to open their lockbox, I would sooner ignore them than waste a hearthstone cooldown and
my time going from Dalaran to Orgrimmar and back to help someone who doesn't take
their time to proofread their sentences.
And while we are on the subject of Orgrimmar, note that there are
two R's (three R's n00b!). The city is not "Ogrimmar" nor "Orgimmar". If someone is looking for an enchant in "ogrimmar" I do not know where to meet them, and I don't waste my time trying to speak with such an illiterate individual.
Everyone's least favorite dungeon, Oculus, is one that is difficult to PUG and misspelled more often than not. Note that there is one C. It is not "occulus".
Occulus guards the Caverns of Time. Oculus is a dungeon located in Coldarra.
Now I know that everyone makes mistakes and there are some younger players who haven't yet developed their typing skills. However, the road to level 80 is long your first time through and you learn many things while leveling. You should learn common terminology well. People who correct their spelling with an asterisk gain a little bit of respect in my book, even though they further spam up my chatlog so I have to scroll around when looking back at other, more relevant messages. If I am about to spend 1-3 hours in a dungeon with 5 people I don't know, I'm not taking risks on someone who cannot spell simple words correctly. Stay alert!
What are your opinions? Have you found a good guild and left trade/general chat, or do you still revel in that cross-city chat?
Click to read more ...
Heartbourne on