Guild Wars 2

When teaching people to present their work professionally, I need to teach people to not make certain assumptions. One of the most common erroneous assumptions people make is that your audience knows an abbreviation.

On another thread a few minutes ago, I read someone talking about the game MoP. What game is that?

In a dungeon the other night, someone who was defeated typed this in the party window:
occ
[later] ooc

After the fight died down, I typed I had no idea what occ meant. The player typed “out of combat” “sry thought that was common”

These are but two of dozens if not hundreds of examples I have seen in game or on the forums.

While sometimes you do not have time, typing does not take long. In both cases, the people had plenty of time to be clear about what they were talking about.

My advice to all the player base is: the first time you use an abbreviation, type it out. For example, type:
ooc (out of combat), please get out of combat

This will help others understand you. Both you and your audience will be happier.

The reason why abbreviations are used is for speed. I like your advise to type it out. However I would argue that it should be done on the second time not the first.

I recommend also looking at the manual in this game it is the wiki. Wish it was more wiki and less Dulfy but that is the way things are at the moment.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Abbreviations

Funny thing is though ooc is not as common as he thinks as it is not on the wiki.

I usually figure out abbreviations quickly from the context of situations. You mentioned MoP being a game, so I guess it could be mists of pandaria. I have very rarely seen ooc, but my head just filled it in as out of combat. Maybe it’s from my WoW days when players typed oom(out of mana).

Nope, this is your responsibility to know. Plenty of sources out there, look it up.

MoP = Mists of Pandaria. WoW expansion. (you know, world of warcraft)

If I am in a conversation with someone in chat window and they use an abbreviation/term I’m not familiar with, then I ask them to explain the abbreviation. No biggie.

However, I don’t feel they should be used on forums as there is no character limitation.

Ethics.4519:

Nope, this is your responsibility to know. Plenty of sources out there, look it up.

MoP = Mists of Pandaria. WoW expansion. (you know, world of warcraft)

It’s no ones responsibility to know. You can make up any abbreviation you want. The OP didn’t say that they were insulted by others in the party for not knowing. I think it’s perfectly fine to type out abbreviations first and only type it out in full if someone asks what it means.

Gee, the first thing that came to mind for me was Out of Character, and I don’t even RP (Role Play) much, if ever. Lol. (Laugh out loud.)

This is due to the growing prevalence of “textese”. It’s gotten to the point entire conversations can be conducted without ever actually typing/speaking a single word and instead it is a string of abbreviations. The first time I encountered “tl;dr”, I had to google it because I had no clue what it stood for.

I can see abbreviating in the midst of combat to convey a thought with minimal typing, but in other situations? Not so much … and whether the abbreviation is common or not, I do not see how it is anyone’s “responsibility” to know what it means, nor, even, where one might go to keep up with the constant additions to this new language.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Gee, the first thing that came to mind for me was Out of Character, and I don’t even RP (Role Play) much, if ever. Lol. (Laugh out loud.)

OOC – out of character was my first thought as well, wayyyy back from the text-only RPG chat rooms on AOL.

anzenketh.3759:

Funny thing is though ooc is not as common as he thinks as it is not on the wiki.

I guess it became more common in the past 2 hours because ooc is there now.

9/10 times you can type in the acronym and the context (ie. FOTM, GW) into google and get your answer.

FOTM is a funny example, because in other MMOs it means “flavor of the month” aka most OP (overpowered, heh) class.

The whole point of acronyms is to expedite typing. It sucks you may not understand them all, but i don’t think it is the responsibility of the person using the acronym to spell out what it means the first time….it kind of defeats the point of using an acronym to save time in the first place.

Heck, I went ahead and googled a glossary of commonly used MMO acronyms for ya. Have fun!

http://mmoterms.com/

mojowalker.3798:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Gee, the first thing that came to mind for me was Out of Character, and I don’t even RP (Role Play) much, if ever. Lol. (Laugh out loud.)

OOC – out of character was my first thought as well, wayyyy back from the text-only RPG chat rooms on AOL.

Indeed, OOC has been the standard way to distinguish between player and character for as long as people have been Roleplaying online. Back in the 80s I was in a play-by-post D&D<1> game on a local BBS<2> hosted by an IBM<3> employee so his kids and their friends could play around and become familiar with the technology. That’s pretty much the earliest timeframe for public and recreational online gaming, rather than universities using games to test the capabilities of the technology. I have no illusions that we influenced the spread of the term, rather than it just being intuitive enough that each new Online Roleplaying community invents it independently.

Anyway, yeah, I very much agree with the OP. Especially when people are discussing builds and mechanics, as much specificity as possible is needed. When trying to convey information on a tactical timeframe, brevity joins clarity as a cardinal virtue, but doesn’t eclipse it. It doesn’t matter how much data you’re packing into your abbreviations if the intended audience can’t decompress them accurately.

(1) Dungeons and Dragons
(2) Bulletin Board System
(3) Intelligent Business Machines

Hmmm I agree and disagree..

In a dungeon you type ooc, because it is quick and you need to use convey the message quickly. You may be saying ooc as let’s get ooc, in which case you are still in combat and cannot afford to take the time to fully type out the message or you’ll die. Otherwise you are already ooc, in which case you could type it out, but it may result in your party member’s death due to time taken.

However, on a forum or in a report, I believe it is common practice to define an acronym. This is especially the case if you plan to re-use it over and over through-out.

In-game I do not see a problem with what you did, “I’m not sure what OOC means” after combat. Then they tell you, now you know. The worst that happened is you didn’t get OOC and died.

Therefore the risk of typing out Out of Combat is you or a party member could die, and the risk of not typing it out is the same. However, if people continue to use the acronyms then more and more people will learn them and less and less people will die for this reason.

JohnLShannonhouse.1820:

When teaching people to present their work professionally….

This is a game, not a thesis paper.

When you’re trying to

1.) survive/kite a group of silver mobs
2.) damage them as well
3.) relay a message/strategy

ALL AT THE SAME TIME, you need fast fingers to type and fast info relay. That’s why these shorthands are “made”.

Sometimes I even type in broken english just for speed. Such as “boss raise hand dodge” for kholer. It simply means “when the boss raises his hand, dodge roll out”. But if I had to type that whole sentence, i would’ve died.

MMOs seem to be particularly bad for abbreviations, especially since it’s surprisingly easy to slip into using them. I try to avoid them but I once caught myself in GW1 typing out “FS R/E LFG ZB HM”. (Translation at the end if you don’t know it and you’re curious.)

And in that one short paragraph I used 2 other abbreviations without even thinking about it.

The problem is as much as there’s the obvious downside that people might not understand you there are a lot of benefits too. For one thing most games have a character limit on chat. GW2 is pretty generous but I think I’m still used to GW1. Every time I go to type anything more than a short sentence I expect to be cut off part-way and without even thinking about it I’m looking for ways to make it shorter.

For another thing as many people have said they save a lot of time and when every second you’re typing is a second you’re not fighting (or at least not doing anything except auto-attacking while standing still) and a second can be the difference between life and death in many battles you don’t want to spend any longer typing than you have to.

Honestly I think the best solution is patience from both sides. Abbreviations aren’t going to go away, but you equally can’t expect everyone to know all of them right off the bat, especially when people bring in slightly inaccurate or unintuitive terms from other games (I still see some people referring to the dodge bar as mana for example). So if you don’t know ask or make an effort to find out, and if someone asks you tell them so they’ll know for next time.

This translates to “Frozen Soil build Ranger/Elementalist looking for a group to do the Zaishen Bounty in Hard Mode”. Which would have exceeded the character limit in that game’s chat.

Ethics.4519:

JohnLShannonhouse.1820:

When teaching people to present their work professionally….

This is a game, not a thesis paper.

True, but why bother to type anything if your audience doesn’t understand what you are trying to communicate. Unfortunately there those of us that don’t already know many of the ‘common’ abbreviations and, if they are like me, would rather not spend the time trying to dig them up (esp when in a combat situation).

If you use shorthand to save time, you risk not being understood. You need to decide what is more important in the situation; getting the message out quickly, or getting the message out to as many people as possible.

Know your audience. It is NOT everyone else’s responsibility to figure out what you are trying to say. It is YOUR responsibility to make yourself clear. Once you feel that everyone understands what you mean, go ahead and abbreviate. But we aren’t going to waste our time Googling your secret code. We’re just going to ignore you. So I hope you didn’t have anything too important to say.

The rest of the sentence around what you say makes it easy for people to know what you’re saying. Abbreviate but say enough to get the point across. People aren’t (generally) stupid and can figure it out if you give them enough to work with.

“ooc” – what does that mean?

“get ooc so i can res” – I would think most people would figure this out.

Very rarely are thing so hectic that you cant type a bit more than 3 letters, especially in this case where you are lying dead :P

anzenketh.3759:

The reason why abbreviations are used is for speed. I like your advise to type it out. However I would argue that it should be done on the second time not the first.

I recommend also looking at the manual in this game it is the wiki. Wish it was more wiki and less Dulfy but that is the way things are at the moment.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Abbreviations

Funny thing is though ooc is not as common as he thinks as it is not on the wiki.

ooc is an abbreviation used in FPS games, hence, why it’s not on the wiki.

It’s really tough, since chatting is hard enough to do when trying to avoid whatever is killing you right now.

In normal conversations, it may help to not use too many.

This is why I prefer doing dungeons with guildies on voice software. Someone will usually say be right back instead of brb. lol

Just google the abbreviations. You will probably get an answer. I have the same problem.

You should know what “OOC” means, frankly. You say know your audience but knowing his audience is probably why the guy used “ooc” in the first place. It’s a prominent abbreviation relating to the res mechanic in the game.

The fact that you didn’t and someone explained it to you kind of defeats the point of this thread. People will use abbreviations, and you’ll learn to use them, or at the very least understand them… You’re not going to get anyone to stop.

I have a abbreviation script (purely abbreviations and volume control, nothing else)

And it automatically types out a abbreviation when i type it, like when i type “brb”, the script removes that and instead writes down “be right back”

Exactly for this reason, i find it so annoying when someone writes down a abbreviation and i don’t know what it means, and it just looks stupid.

two things in communication are:

1) know your audience
2) don’t just hear, listen

If you as the communicator can not convey the message across to your listeners, then you need to adapt and change how you speak.

If you as the listener, are hearing words but they do not make sense, you need to do what you can to listen and understand the message to the best of your ability, with what resources you have available.

Never assume everyone speaks the same, and if you are in combat and need the other person to get “ooc” and they don’t understand what “ooc” is, then you are failing as a communicator and try to state your request more plainly.

But it is under the listener’s responsibility to become accustomed to the normal terms utilized in this environment to function more cohesively and quickly.

In short, if communication fails, it’s everyone’s fault. Communication goes two ways.

One growing abbreviation that I cannot stand and is just pure laziness is when people type, “ofc”. Short for, “of course”. That drives me absolutely banana sandwich.