NationStates Jolt Archive

First off, sorry if there is one of these already. If so I'll have someone shut this.

RULES

1) First and foremost: ABSOLUTELY NO FINGERPOINTING. No going "He and she does this" or "They always do this," etc.

2) Don't be rude. Don't attack someone else if they post something that offends you.

3) Don't post something that's already been posted. It means you didn't bother reading the thread.

4) This is for RPing only, not OOC or NSG.

5) Don't be offended if you do some of this, it's just to help out, if you do, it's here to help you improve. Newbs can only be expected to make mistakes.

List:

1) Capitalization. CAPITALIZING EVERY WORD, Or The First Letter Of Every Word Is Annoying. Some Consider It Shouting. not capitalizing at all is also quite aggrivating to some players. nOT BOTHERING TO CHECK YOUR SENTENCES IS EVIL.

2) Grammar. Everyone hates those who consider a 30 line paragraph a post. It's not very hard to swing your pinky over and hit "Enter" a couple times.

3) Mini-Modding. Of course, the occasional mistake is fine, the people that go through and pick out mistaesk are the annoying ones. Don't try to go thhrough and be a mini-mod because someone made one rule breaking, though repeated actions should be reported. A whole 'nother level a @$$holiness is pointing out little rulebreaks. Don't report people unless it's totally necessary, the mods aren't blind, and don't play stalker and pick out faults in rule-breaking. If you DO report something (especially if the offense has nothing to do with you), don't ever, ever say you reported someone or the offence they made. It only makes you look like a pr*ck and they get angrier.

4) Word Choice. You may find it very annoying to read those annoying RPers annoying posts because they know about 3 adjectives in their vocabulary, it tends to annoy some more than others. Don't use the same words every post. The thesaurus is always there for you.

5) Logistics. Most RPers don't particularly like logistics (weapons stats, etc.) but saying "Okay, the 300 ships and 500,000 men left port angrily, they were heading for Randomnationia". What type of ships? How much training have the men had? Things like this are annoying at first, but pay off soon enough.

6) Those freakin' puncuation marks. No one likes reading "General Joe looked up,, and shouted. 'THAT'S IT! THE CITIZENS MUST STOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!'" 1 punctuation mark (especially the exclamat!ion points) are to be used sparingly.

7) Smilies. No one likes the new guy that posts "Aww now I declares wras on j00. Wutr n0w?
>:P >:P", etc.

List:

1) Capitalization. CAPITALIZING EVERY WORD, Or The First Letter Of Every Word Is Annoying. Some Consider It Shouting. not capitalizing at all is also quite aggrivating to some players. nOT BOTHERING TO CHECK YOUR SENTENCES IS EVIL.


lol

Yeah, and lack of paragraphs is also annoying.

3) people who insist correcting people's grammar rather than dealing with what is said in the actual post

lol

Yeah, and lack of paragraphs is also annoying.

I hear that.... I read a ten-page paper today (teacher makes us grade our own). It had not one paragraph. Way they earned themselves an f on it...

A> The debate of 'right to ignore/realism' when a massive war RP starts unintentionally, much like how many real massive wars start.

B> Not Reading the first and last page of a thread (applies to 100 page war threads, smaller threads may require more careful reading) and then getting involved for no apparent reason.

C> Editing a post immediately after it has been replied to in such a way it makes the reply look bad.

Mistakes from my personal stock:
A> Over-use of themed characters, particiluarily from old movies that everybody remembers (Catch-22, Matrix, Titantic, Rambo). Or implying that someone is practicaly re-enacting some hardly known movie (F/X, North By Northwest).

B> Getting involved in almost any thread provided they contain certain keywords, some may be 'Mobolise', 'Oil', 'Embassy', 'Looking for ...', 'Action', 'Peace talks', 'Genocide', 'Diplomacy' 'Open' or 'Military', along with a description depicting the strength/weakness of said host nation.

A> The debate of 'right to ignore/realism' when a massive war RP starts unintentionally, much like how many real massive wars start.

B> Not Reading the first and last page of a thread (applies to 100 page war threads, smaller threads may require more careful reading) and then getting involved for no apparent reason.

C> Editing a post immediately after it has ben replied to in such a way it makes the reply look bad.

Mistakes from my personal stock:
A> Over-use of themed characters, particiluarily from old movies that everybody remembers (Catch-22, Matrix, Rambo). Or implying that someone is practicaly re-enacting some hardly know movie (F/X, North By Northwest).

B> Getting involved in almost any thread provided they contain certain keywords, some may be 'Mobolise', 'Oil', 'Embassy', 'Looking for ...', 'Action', 'Peace talks', 'Genocide', 'Diplomacy' 'Open' or 'Military', along with a description depicting the strength/weakness of said host nation.

Also (won't post my addition on list, not truly enforcible), don't overdo acting. No one short of a supersoldier can be 7 foot and bend a rifle in a knot. Most peoples wouldn't elect a drunk nut for president. Spies are cool, but not superhuman...

Spies are cool, but not superhuman...

On the other hand, it isn't so easy to discover spies (as it is in NS).

Abysmally short posts. Quite frankly, there's very few times that a post should be shorter than a page, or at least a couple paragraphs. Detail is the heart of any story. I mean, who'd read Moby Dick if it was written as "Ahab got his leg bitten off by a whale. He didn't like whales after that, so he went to go kill it. Instead of killing it, it ate him." The only exception I can really think of is that of dialogue. After all, it's rather difficult to come up with a nice long reply to "How's the weather?" without looking like an idiot.
Bad spelling and grammar. Okay, I can live with the occasional mistake. But how hard is it to write something and run it through Word? I don't care if you're dyslexic, I don't care if you have Parkinsons, I don't care if you're a monkey that's had its brain surgically altered, it's not that hard. Frankly, if you can't figure out how to use MS Word, I'm not sure if you should be allowed on the internet in the first place.
Ripping off characters. Whether it's from a movie, anime, or a webcomic, it gets rather annoying. Very few people can make someone elses character act like they're supposed to, either because of a difference in writing styles or a lack of ability. I wouldn't want to see Roland written by Robert Jordan, nor would I want to see Rand al'Thor written by Stephen King.

On the other hand, it isn't so easy to discover spies (as it is in NS).

Yes, but no spy is invisible (yet).

1. Use of OOC knowledge or anger to do IC actions.
2. Godmodding time/government and other things to immediately and without prior notice have forces within range to attack you.

When replying to someone's attack, only posting mere losses as numbers and not writing about the death and destruction in detail. Even more annoying is when they don't mention how this affects morale, whether it be among the soldiers, or an important actor in the fight.

-Trend of the week bandwagoneering: you know where someone comes up with an idea, it gets soem decent attention and the next day the forum is filled with copy cat threads and single issue alliances/organisations relevant to the current issue of the day.


-the minigun syndrome: generally brought on by watching predator, terminator 2, some random war movie or a new computer game where a particularly flashy bit of equipment (often a mini gun) get pride of place and suddenly everyone is using it without actually taking time to think things through, the minigun syndrome can also involve the gatling guns with everything disease.

1. Use of OOC knowledge or anger to do IC actions.
2. Godmodding time/government and other things to immediately and without prior notice have forces within range to attack you.

You could at least have had some guts and given me credit, you know. Alternatively, you could have taken note of what I said in response to the first ten times you whined about it. I'm not fussed which.

A> Over-use of themed characters, particiluarily from old movies that everybody remembers (Catch-22, Matrix, Titantic, Rambo).

The latter three maybe, but Catch-22? People would recognise references to it?

Abysmally short posts. Quite frankly, there's very few times that a post should be shorter than a page, or at least a couple paragraphs. Detail is the heart of any story. I mean, who'd read Moby Dick if it was written as "Ahab got his leg bitten off by a whale. He didn't like whales after that, so he went to go kill it. Instead of killing it, it ate him." The only exception I can really think of is that of dialogue. After all, it's rather difficult to come up with a nice long reply to "How's the weather?" without looking like an idiot.

I would applaud a freak accident in the manner of the Twilight Zone in which you lose your eyes and hands and are thus unable to finish your reading. I haven't read Moby Dick yet, but irony of ironies, I have less than a chapter left of War and Peace and Moby Dick was. Please help control the animal population and check your spoilers at the door.

Now, my own gripes.

1) Excessive OOC posting without any semblance of roleplaying. The first time a page goes by without a single roleplay, that's not as bad because it's a sign the thread needs it's own discussion thread, but after that it's a cardinal sin to not at least couple it with a roleplay. Yes, Eralineta, you fall into this category.
2) Bad spelling and grammar. If we can't read something without having a seizure, the chances are that you're doing something wrong and a round from the I.G.N.O.R.E. cannon is soon to be forthcoming. Someone else mentioned dyslexic people, and I really couldn't agree more - dyslexia is not an excuse for crap spelling on computers and/or the Internet, you are not under any time constraints and spellcheckers exist.
3) Excessive amounts of snipers. Not everyone is a marksman capable of shooting out a bird's eye blindfolded, don't pretend it's true.
4) OOC complaining about an IC action. If someone's told you enough times that their ridiculously tough fleet is sailing into combat, whining when they attack you OOC is the worst move ever.

One helpful tip from past online experiences:

For the love of god, please read what you are about to post.

Examples:
Fro the love of bgod please reasd what your about to post.

Oh, and not every "O" should be replaced with an "0". And maybe it is just me, but "lol" makes me mad.

Yes, but no spy is invisible (yet).

And most spies aren't quite as... blatant? as most NS spies. Which adds another thing to my list of things that get on my nerves...


Characters acting like idiots. Okay, this one is harder to judge, but to quote Justice Stewart, "I know it when I see it." Sometimes, it's okay. Civilians are allowed to act like idiots, and often do. So do military officers occasionally. But to see a character that the author has described as a military genius throw a temper tantrum in the middle of the bridge is just plain aggravating. Same goes for black ops groups: Crashing a truck in an attempt to breach a wall without checking to see if said truck could blow through the 50 feet of steel-reinforced concrete is worthy of the Darwin awards, as is assaulting a heavily fortified arcology in the middle of an enemy city with a squad or two (which inevitably leads to gripes about the Superman spies that Nuevo Italia mentioned.


I would applaud a freak accident in the manner of the Twilight Zone in which you lose your eyes and hands and are thus unable to finish your reading. I haven't read Moby Dick yet, but irony of ironies, I have less than a chapter left of War and Peace and Moby Dick was. Please help control the animal population and check your spoilers at the door.
Hey, it's classic literature, and is pretty much filed under "common knowledge." I mean, you can't even watch Saturday morning cartoons without getting bad white whale jokes thrown at you (See Pinky and the Brain, see Futurama). Not my fault you're a bit behind on what most people know since they were old enough to read. I do, however, applaud you for sitting through War and Peace. A good book, but the first four/five hundred pages are slow.

Threads like this are my pet peeve. http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=522150

Hey, it's classic literature, and is pretty much filed under "common knowledge." I mean, you can't even watch Saturday morning cartoons without getting bad white whale jokes thrown at you (See Pinky and the Brain, see Futurama). Not my fault you're a bit behind on what most people know since they were old enough to read.

Classic literature, maybe. Common knowledge? I knew what the use of "white whale" was, but not what it was in reference to, and you can't expect people to know that. But if you're interested in a little subtle insulting, shall I spoil a few other classic books to gauge the reactions? 1984, maybe, or Animal Farm? Hey, they've been around for years, there should be no harm in telling everyone that Winston-

...oh, wait. I don't make that assumption; assumptions make an ass out of u and mptions, that's for sure.

In fact, a case I ran into occurs to me. 300 details the story of the Battle of Thermopylae, and someone was complained about getting it spoiled by being told STOP READING HERE...



that the 300 Spartans die. Someone else said it was a stupid thing to get worked up over as it was "common knowledge", but if that original person didn't know, why SHOULDN'T he be angry?

onlne
heh.... broke my own rule
then edited
and missed it. Wow

That forum you linked to by the way....Dear god.

By the way, I need ten missles

That forum you linked to by the way....Dear god.

By the way, I need ten missles

Very funny.

Mistakes from my personal stock:
A> Over-use of themed characters, particiluarily from old movies that everybody remembers (Catch-22, Matrix, Titantic, Rambo). Or implying that someone is practicaly re-enacting some hardly known movie (F/X, North By Northwest).

You're kidding. North By Northwest, hardly known? The one that Hitchcock made? The famous one? The film that was nominated for three academy awards? The North by Northwest that's been referenced to in The Simpsons, Family Guy, Scrubs, dozens of other books, shows, and movies?

How does that qualify as hardly known?

You're kidding. North By Northwest, hardly known? The one that Hitchcock made? The famous one? The film that was nominated for three academy awards? The North by Northwest that's been referenced to in The Simpsons, Family Guy, Scrubs, dozens of other books, shows, and movies?

How does that qualify as hardly known?

What is this movie about?

Speaking of which, that reminds me about how The Simpsons had made fun of Clockwork Orange. Very classic.

What is this movie about?

Speaking of which, that reminds me about how The Simpsons had made fun of Clockwork Orange. Very classic.

Basically, Cary Grant is mistaken for someone he's not and a couple of secret agents chase him across the States to keep him from interfering with their plans.

1) Equipment wank. I don't care how big your country is, how deep your harbours are, and how enthusiastic your workforce is. You still can't build sixty 1500 metre supercapitals. Well, you can, but you can't expect them to work properly 100% of the time and be equipped with top-notch equipment. Also, there's the ridiculous upsurge in "penetration" anything, which makes me think II's been watching too much porn lately, and all the various overwanked equipment fads that pop up from time to time -- Active Radar Cancellation, switchblade wings, gatling guns, supercapitals, ETC guns, SABRE, minisubs, and a plethora of others.

2) Terrain wank. Yes, no-one says you can't have a continent the size of Asia for your nation, all desert or surrounded by impassable high mountains full of defence systems, and so big that you can't hit the capital city with even an SLBM; no-one says you can't have rivers that run liquid sulphur or mountains eighty thousand feet high; no-one says that some roleplayers don't RP the disadvantages of this as well. Nonetheless, it's not only highly improbable and makes roleplaying with you less fun, but some people just HAPPEN to mention additional geographic or climate features to destroy another of your plans only after you're outlined what that plan is, and then claim they just forgot to say that earlier. E.g. "My nation is located on a huge continent of ice, <insert 30 pages of explanation here>." "Ok, so we have our ice tunnelling subs tunnel under the ice." "But you can't do that, I have anti-tunnelling defences that I just forgot to mention in my explanation." This borders on metagaming.

3) Numberwanking. Especially coming from old and established players who say things like "I spend 70 Trillion on defence and with the 5% rule I get a 500 million man army, so I pwn you because you have only $2 billion on defence and can only have 200,000 soldiers maximum!" Seriously, it gets old fast. (That's what I keep Steel and Fire (http://nstracker.retrogade.com/index.php?nation=Steel+and+Fire) alive for.)

4) Forgetting about population support, logistics, strategy, tactics, and morale when waging war. Pretty self-evident, war isn't just numbers and blowing shit up.

5) Roleplayers who think they're a lot better than they really are. I'm not going to name any names, but again, this should be self-evident.

Plus what everyone else mentioned.

5) Roleplayers who think they're a lot better than they really are. I'm not going to name any names, but again, this should be self-evident.

Yeah, well, screw you, too. :mad:

The latter three maybe, but Catch-22? People would recognise references to it?
This goes with why I consider North by Northwest an unknown movie.
Some have heard of it, some haven't.

Still, I try using composites, driving names and such from some sources, and then developing a bio and personality from liturature and movies I've digested in the past to best suit the name and condition of the thread.

Such is a rather time consuming process (I lack creativity) so I try re-using characters (provided they outlive their first thread), after awhile, these characters develop a life of their own with extensive histories and backgrounds. ASs IC time progreeses, so do their job placements.

But then the number of old 'veteran' characters start to pile up to an unmanageble level. And I just can't seem to retire them....
(Characters Wimptastic and General Major Major Major are exceptions, as they were extremely corny)

And most spies aren't quite as... blatant? as most NS spies. Which adds another thing to my list of things that get on my nerves...


Characters acting like idiots.
Same goes for black ops groups: Crashing a truck in an attempt to breach a wall without checking to see if said truck could blow through the 50 feet of steel-reinforced concrete is worthy of the Darwin awards, as is assaulting a heavily fortified arcology in the middle of an enemy city with a squad or two (which inevitably leads to gripes about the Superman spies that Nuevo Italia mentioned.)

Yeah, I sort of rushed Griffencrest headquarters with about 5 spies...
Th plan was aborted when they saw Griffencrest fleeing the scene...

I try my best to keep my spies from being obvious, the first time I tried a covert action on NS was a plane crash caused by one of the men on board (me) and only myself and the thread moderator/starter.

Even after informing everyone OOCly that my character was a spy, and one that specialised in assasinations at that, and neither the IC nor OOC guesses came close, mostly because there was the whole NS war IV erupting in the crash site and such...

I then went on to attempt copying the same success (but to a goal I planned, rather than some arbritrary action I was to cover up) on Blackhelm Confederacy, which brings us back to the 5 I sent to kill Griffencrest...
(If one could do X, 5 could do X 5 times faster and 5 times more reliably)
In comparrision, the 5 spies were a slight disapointment until recent events brought one within 100 meters of Griffencrest...

With the effort I have put into killing Griffencrest, I could have killed Senator Pureheart, 'Johnie' of the Leafansi Mafia, and roughly a platoon of Blackhelm soldiers...
(Mostly because he sat down at a table with both of them wth a loaded pistol and could have very easily used the C-4 he baught to blow up a Blackhelm border patrol)

Thus, I consider Griffencrest one of the hardest VIPs to kill on NS without the defender resorting to any form of godmodding.

On the other hand, I sent those 5 because I made a challange for any nation to try taking over the Blackhelm confederacy with no more than 5 blindfolded soldiers armed only with shovels...

> RPing a running joke

Here's my addition, for your approval:

OOC arguments cluttering up a ic thread.

Seriosly, one should try to sort out these things before hand. We are here, well, most of us, at least, to have fun, not neccessarily to "win". And arguing for a whole page tends to ruin said fun.

Thank you all for your time.

One, lately the II forum has had a n00b tsunami- and I mean a TSUNAMI.

Two, dogpiling. Some (especially with newfound power, as in they just hit a billion) RPs which would have been good turn sour quickly when you're a nation of six billion invading a ten million nation with 2 similar sized nations in behind you. Consider these things:

1) How would your nation react if you used FULL FORCE on a nation you could take on with your pinky? It makes you look immature and makes the opponent angry. Don't send 30,000,000 troops to a dictatorship to liberate it or whatever. Use similar numbers, or slightly above/below (most invasion forces have less than 10% of your army).

2) It makes it hard to RP if you totally slaughter the new guy. No one- newbie, vet, anyone- likes to be dogpiled, they have sour feelings and that really ruins RPs.

Three, not bothering contacting a nation before you declare war on them.

This is ten times worse when you have no reason at all. Contact them, if you don't get a call back, they obviously didn't see it. Wait till they do, and get the go-ahead (nations should accept a war unless RL is taking up gobs of time). It's not hard and makes a world of difference.

Making OOC threads helps too, I for one don't like any/hardly any OOC in a thread.

In defense of that:
1- The general strategy is to use shock and awe or overpowering numbers, so you really can't blame them. However, if he sends his whole force against you, including resserves... Who is defending his homeland from retaliation if you happen to have forces already overseas?

(IE a destroyer and heavy cruiser Pwning a nation 100 times its size after landing a rifle platoon and marching them up to the capitol)

2- It happens, it generally is a sign that you did something that really got their negative attention. That or just really bad luck and a recent influx of new players trying to wet their teeth on small 'experianced' players.

3- OK, I'll admit, that would be annoying... I guess I've been lucky enough that it has yet to happen to me. Generally they should at the very least give an IC ultamatum before sending their invasion force, rather than cramming both steps in one post...

Additional:
OOC threads that are created, but never used, while the IC thread gets spammed with OOC comments interupted every other page with a link to the OOC thread.

The only one I truly despise:

Spartans! Prepare for morale wanking! - Yes, a lot of people, despite the fact that they claim their nation is ultra-crappy, going threw civil war, is ruled by an unpopular ruthless dictator -- always, and I mean always, have soldiers willing to die EN MASSE in huge offensives that have no objective for the 'Cause' or the 'People'. When in real life these soldiers would probably tuck tail and run. Despite how many times you kick their tails and send them in retreat, your oppenent always claims they're like Spartans, confident, capable, and super intelligant. Morale is rarely taken into account. As Jagada, I have a huge military to compensate for a lack of morale, due that I've NEVER won a single war against anybody ... at any time ... and I've tried at least nine times now. Maybe I suck? Probably, but thats beside the point I've just noticed that a lot of people say their soldiers are unbeatable because ... well just because they are.