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Mia Moui · **09-21-2015, 02:19 PM**

I'm a blisteringly fast typer so I usually keep /em for emotes & actions and /say for talking. Â I try not to add too much to emotes and actions, leaving them simple for the other player to try to interpret. Â I don't reveal my character's internal thoughts. Â For instance, if she's looking over at someone, she's going to be looking over at someone. Â I don't feel the need to point it out.

I'm finding that FFXIV's emotes, especially in quick combination can be very expressive without describing it. Â But when it's complicated or something that's not very emotive, /em is needed, of course. Â Such as,

/em her face draws an annoyed look that morphs into a scowl as her left hand slowly crosses over onto the hilt of her blade and says in a low growl...

/say What did you just say to me?

Or whatever. Â It's hard to think outside the moment. Â But I'll often mimic the style of whoever i'm talking to just to be considerate.

***Maril*** · **09-21-2015, 02:21 PM**

(09-21-2015, 01:34 PM)Calliope Cloverbloom Wrote: IMO, not putting quotations around your dialogue is the same as not caring where you've written there, their, or they're, regardless of the context. What might be a microscopic time-saver or simple laziness on the part of a writer does a disservice to those who would read what was written. If they can't bother at least appearing to be making an effort in the technical side of their writing, can the reader simply assume out of nowhere that for some reason the writer will put a greater effort into their actual storytelling and character development? I don't think so.

I would never judge the quality of a roleplayer on how they write, for me /what/ they write is far more important. I don't tend to notice the little things when it comes to grammar, I flat out never understood how to use the comma properly (We were taught both the old and the new way, at the same time. It was super confusing.) in school - I stick to "whenever I'd take a breath" and because of this I read things aloud when I post longer things like journal entries. I think a part of it is due to English being my second language, there's also some words I always misspell where I've only managed to unlearn the habit from a few words (I used to write stomach as "stomache", Sweden as Sweeden, I have a tendency to add e's where they don't belong) and I'm at a point now where it's really as good as it's going to get.Â
It doesn't mean I do not care about character development, storytelling and generally trying to make others participation in the RP as pleasant as mine - I don't rightfully know many people where you can draw a line between how much they care, and how they express themselves with signs. I'd encourage you to give people a second chance before you write them off, truly. But we all have our things and thoughts at the end of the day ^^Â

----

It's very interesting to see peoples responses about it. I'm probably going to end up sticking with the quotation marks unless I am in a very small roleplay where the other parts do not do it, cause I do like to match the people around me as much as I can. But I also like the idea of consistency. It's also lead me to realize more and more things about my writing style that has changed versus when I got here, and when I started RPing five years ago - and this is, genuinely, the first time I've stopped up to think about what is happening.

Kage · **09-21-2015, 02:22 PM**

(09-21-2015, 02:08 PM)Unnamed Mercenary Wrote: So as an example:

/em briefly skimmed the menu, "well do I want the pork of the beef? Or maybe I'd rather get a soup and salad instead. What if I actually just want a sandwhich?" as he continued to go through all the options.

To be honest I'd just not have written it that way.

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/em briefly skimmed the menu, looking through all of the options as he muttered, "Well do I want the pork or the beef? Maybe the soup and salad instead. Or perhaps I really just want a sandwhich?"

or

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/em briefly skimmed the menu. "Well do I want the pork or the beef? Maybe the soup and salad instead. Or perhaps I really just want a sandwhich?" he asked himself as he continued to go through all of the options.

Ignacius · **09-21-2015, 02:24 PM**

(09-21-2015, 01:30 PM)Shoshopu Wrote:
(09-21-2015, 09:18 AM)Ignacius Wrote: Not in /s, it's been implied by the format that you're saying something.

Then again, I almost always emote, so that people have some flavor to the dialogue.

Aww, that's a bit limiting! Just because you're doing it in /say doesn't mean you can't put an emote stuff in there too!

Basically I always write my in-character posts like I'm writing something. I'll use /em if the way I would like to write my post happens to begin with Shopu's name, for whatever reason- like, if for the flow of the sentence, it would be better for the subject to go before the dialogue, or if she is actually performing an action before she says something...

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/em bent down and picked up the small box. "Oh, what, you mean this?" /s "It's my collection of shiny rocks!" she said, opening it. They were shiny and beautiful and whatnot.

as opposed to, say,

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/em bent down and picked up the small box. "Oh, what, you mean this?" /em opened it. "It's my collection of shiny rocks!" They were shiny and beautiful and whatnot.

For this particular instance I want to convey that she's opening it as she's speaking, so it's just more elegant to do it the emote-in-say way. How would you even do that in /em... "/em opened it and as she opened it she said,"

It's just the way that's most fun for me. I'm very particular about things like the order things get expressed in, word flow, word choice... so sometimes it takes me a little bit to formulate my response. Length depends on setting, too. And putting *'s around actions just reminds me of my embarrassing forum RP days when I was a tween. I love using emotes (as in, the animations; is that what you meant, Ignacius? oops) and facial expressions a lot too, which on Shopu is unfortunate because she's so small people rarely notice. And I leave the chat messages for those turned off because they, well, mess up my flow.

Sorry, I came from a multiple-paragraph background in RP. Â So most of what I say is definitely in emote... and whether fortunately or unfortunately, it's hard to miss. Â Literally, it turns out to be:

/em Ignacius picks up his axe, running an eye carefully along the edge. Â "I suppose you think having an axe in my line of work is a hindrance." Â He shakes his head, settling on his knees before his whetstone. Â Sprinkling some water on its surface before rasping the blade across the rock with a hungry hiss, he says, "But I've learned that the best tool for killing isn't the best tool for killing. Â It's the best tool for all situations." Â Running an eye over the edge again, his eyes gleam over its surface at her. Â "You never know who or what needs to die, so you bring the tool that does it all."

My people have some longer and more philosophical conversations. Â -c- is our friend.

Aysun · **09-21-2015, 02:25 PM**

I believe I started doing this awhile back because I was around people who did, and because it helped me indicate that I was IC. I don't care what other people do, of course, I just use them myself!

Lydia Lightfoot · **09-21-2015, 02:25 PM**

Let me present another thought to those who seem inclined to believe that my judgments of someone's overall writing effort based on glaring technical issues aren't fair:

If someone consistently used "text speak" in their writing, but their imaginative stories were great, would you totally overlook it every time they wrote "r u ok?" in IC dialogue?

**Unnamed Mercenary** · **09-21-2015, 02:29 PM**

(09-21-2015, 02:25 PM)Calliope Cloverbloom Wrote: Let me present another thought to those who seem inclined to believe that my judgments of someone's overall writing effort based on glaring technical issues aren't fair:

If someone consistently used "text speak" in their writing, but their imaginative stories were great, would you totally overlook it every time they wrote "r u ok?" in IC dialogue?

[[mod]] That's veering off-topic from this thread. I'd encourage opening a new thread for discussion on how writing style might influence the impact of a scene.

But in the context of this thread, "r u ok?" would show that the person considered quote marks for IC dialog important.

Kage · **09-21-2015, 02:32 PM**

(09-21-2015, 02:25 PM)Calliope Cloverbloom Wrote: Let me present another thought to those who seem inclined to believe that my judgments of someone's overall writing effort based on glaring technical issues aren't fair:

If someone consistently used "text speak" in their writing, but their imaginative stories were great, would you totally overlook it every time they wrote "r u ok?" in IC dialogue?

To be honest, it's [your] preference on whether you decide to roleplay with them.

Not using " " in /say does strike me as a small pet peeve. Edit: I haven't directly avoided roleplay with those who do not use it but if it's coupled with constant misspelling and random capitalization... then yes I more than eye-twitch at it.

Dependent on the player, I would choose if it was worth ignoring to initiate and/or continuing to roleplay. I personally dislike seeing this in roleplay and would actively make sure I did not roleplay with them but I would... just avoid and not interact with:

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Player Character: he was My Mentor To the mink

FreelanceWizard · **09-21-2015, 02:33 PM**

(09-21-2015, 02:25 PM)Calliope Cloverbloom Wrote: Let me present another thought to those who seem inclined to believe that my judgments of someone's overall writing effort based on glaring technical issues aren't fair:

If someone consistently used "text speak" in their writing, but their imaginative stories were great, would you totally overlook it every time they wrote "r u ok?" in IC dialogue?

The problem is assuming that omitting quotation marks in /say is an error. It's not. It's purely a stylistic difference based on how one reads the medium. We can look at a typo or misuse of a contraction and say, "Yes. That's an error." Quotation marks or the lack thereof in /say don't fall into that category, because you're not writing a sentence in a novel. You're actually doing text generation that's rather more like a script, and they don't use quotation marks in scripts.

So, these are entirely different things.

Lydia Lightfoot · **09-21-2015, 02:33 PM**

(09-21-2015, 02:29 PM)Unnamed Mercenary Wrote:
(09-21-2015, 02:25 PM)Calliope Cloverbloom Wrote: Let me present another thought to those who seem inclined to believe that my judgments of someone's overall writing effort based on glaring technical issues aren't fair:

If someone consistently used "text speak" in their writing, but their imaginative stories were great, would you totally overlook it every time they wrote "r u ok?" in IC dialogue?

[[mod]] That's veering off-topic from this thread. I'd encourage opening a new thread for discussion on how writing style might influence the impact of a scene.

But in the context of this thread, "r u ok?" would show that the person considered quote marks for IC dialog important.

I think it's topically relevant to the extent that those who feel the quotes aren't needed might benefit from considering whether or not that's a logical position to take if they aren't similarly accepting of other possible writing faux pas.Â

But! I bow to the power of Mod. :D

Shoshopu · **09-21-2015, 02:34 PM**

(09-21-2015, 02:24 PM)Ignacius Wrote: Sorry, I came from a multiple-paragraph background in RP. Â So most of what I say is definitely in emote... and whether fortunately or unfortunately, it's hard to miss. Â Literally, it turns out to be:

/em Ignacius picks up his axe, running an eye carefully along the edge. Â "I suppose you think having an axe in my line of work is a hindrance." Â He shakes his head, settling on his knees before his whetstone. Â Sprinkling some water on its surface before rasping the blade across the rock with a hungry hiss, he says, "But I've learned that the best tool for killing isn't the best tool for killing. Â It's the best tool for all situations." Â Running an eye over the edge again, his eyes gleam over its surface at her. Â "You never know who or what needs to die, so you bring the tool that does it all."

My people have some longer and more philosophical conversations. Â -c- is our friend.

/applause

If the chat box is moving slowly enough for me to write something that long, I love to. Like, if there's just two or three people or so. I'm not the fastest writer so if I set out to do that my post often gets lost in bigger groups. (I don't even RP in the Quicksand, my FC's events can just be that large) My post's example looks like a lumpy crayon doodle next to this! xD My ingame posts are often much more descriptive, if there's much more to describe, I just couldn't come up with anything off the top of my head without context. Whether I use /say or /em strictly depends on whether or not my emote would start with Shopu's name, or with dialogue, because that's something that matters to me-- word flow and the order in which things are read. /em so they don't have to read "Shoshopu" twice in a row. Other than that I write my posts the same way regardless of whether /em or /say is in the front.

Dis · **09-21-2015, 02:37 PM**

I tend to actually flip back and forth between emoting in /say and emoting in /em.Â I'm also a multi-paragraph type, and usually denote a continuation at the end of my post with -, just like you would dividing a word.Â This is mostly due to habit, and has followed me across at least four MMO's that I've RP'd in.Â

To me, it's very easy to transition from say into an emote in an instance where my character would reply to someone, and then some action would be denoted.

/em shook her head as she regarded the man sitting across from her, frowning at him.Â "Well, of course you would think that.Â Everyone knows chocolate is the better flavor."

/s "Well, of course you would think that."Â She shook her head as she regarded the man sitting across from her, frowning at him.Â "Everyone knows chocolate is the better flavor."

Rosamund · **09-21-2015, 02:38 PM**

I don't use quotes in /say and I never have. I've never even seen them used that way until coming to FFXIV. I believe it's personal preference and honestly don't mind if other people use them, or don't.

Lydia Lightfoot · **09-21-2015, 02:39 PM**

(09-21-2015, 02:33 PM)FreelanceWizard Wrote: The problem is assuming that omitting quotation marks in /say is an error. It's not. It's purely a stylistic difference based on how one reads the medium. We can look at a typo or misuse of a contraction and say, "Yes. That's an error." Quotation marks or the lack thereof in /say don't fall into that category, because you're not writing a sentence in a novel. You're actually doing text generation that's rather more like a script, and they don't use quotation marks in scripts.

So, these are entirely different things.

YouÂ might be doing text generation, but I'm pretty sureÂ I'mÂ writing as if it's a novel (e.g. properly, or as much so as possible).Â One of us is writing a story. The other is apparently doing some computer programming or something, I don't know. :p

From your perspective, then, yes, they're very different things and I can understand, thinking in terms of your roleplay being computer programming and not writing, that you would want to avoid a lot of punctuation. One stray apostrophe and your entire post does nothing but return "Abort, Retry, Fail?" over and over.Â

From my perspective, since I'm writing and not doing computer programming, they're pretty much the same thing.

Nirri · **09-21-2015, 02:39 PM**

I've always used " " before & after my words in /say, mostly because at one point or another I don't use /em as my character starts with talking and then follows up with a physical motion.

Ex. /say "Well you do know how quotation marks are always used. Right?" Character questions, his hands making a slight wave gesture as he leaned back against whatever.

If anything it just provides an easier way of reading in that regard.

Poll: Do you use " " around your spoken text in /say? You do not have permission to vote in this poll.
Yes	66.90%	97	66.90%
No	16.55%	24	16.55%
A mix of both	15.86%	23	15.86%
Other	0.69%	1	0.69%
Total		145 vote(s)	100%

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Quotation marks in /Say

RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes