Open Thread April 11 - April 17, 2016

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If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

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1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.

2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)

3. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.

4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.

I was thinking about chat between players.

Well, most players don't care. However in games with enough population you are likely to have role-playing guilds which will go to some trouble to role-play and yes, that involves the language used in chat (on the third tentacle there is always an OOC (out of character) chat channel where you can speak normally).

Gender-wise, everyone is assumed to be a guy -- unless (a) you explicitly declare yourself a girl; (b) you are on voice comms and your voice is clearly that of a girl; (c) you're in guild chat where people know that you're a girl.

0Nornagest10y

It's hard to get players to use specific speech patterns, and harder to teach them to get it right. I've worked on a game which tried to get players to use pseudo-Elizabethan prose (in a particularly ham-handed way, granted), but in practice what happened was the people who didn't care just used natural speech, and the people that did used whatever butchered old-timey dialect they thought would be appropriate for their character. Most people didn't care.