Do you use sarcasm in RuneScape?

[Capone_Sabre]

I wouldn't call myself a sarcastic person but I do use it regularly. Mostly for humour but also if someone starts an argument with me or snipes at me, I'll usually give a sarcastic put down back. Naturally I do this in runescape also but lately I am wondering what the point is, as it appears 99% of people don't understand sarcasm.

 

 

 

Of course, in real life sarcasm can be detected by tone of voice and facial expressions and this is lost over the internet. But some of the comments I make are just so sarcastic that I cannot believe they are taken seriously.

 

 

 

I'll give you an example. Yesterday a user who is now banned made an extremely sarcastic thread here on the general p2p forum. It was written dead-pan, with no smilies. Unfortunately it has been deleted now but basically it said because Jagex were releasing "nice" updates lately and fairies liked nice things, that meant that the third part of the fairytale quest trilogy was going to be released on Monday.

 

 

 

As soon as I read this post I knew he was being sarcastic but everyone else who posted on it thought he was being serious. I was totally gob smacked. We both posted more and more sarcastic comments which got even more ludicrous and stlll every poster was oblivious. In the end I finally said something along the lines of:

 

 

 

Andrew Gower has probably watched the film The Godfather, quite possibly at some point he has watched it on a Monday. There is a Godfather in the fairytale quests, therefore part 3 will be released on Monday. Definitely.

 

 

 

To my utter astonishment someone actually took this seriously. The thread was locked and deleted before anyone had realised it was sarcastic. However it had got onto the second page and I am not even sure the moderator who deleted it had twigged. I private messaged this person to ask how he could have missed the sarcasm and he said it wasn't obvious enough?!

 

 

 

Now we all know that the users on these forums have an IQ about 20 points higher than most RuneScape players, so as you can imagine I have 1001 examples of this happening in game which I won't bore you with.

 

 

 

I have always used sarcasm and wit but now I am starting to wonder whether there is any point at all. My question is this:

 

 

 

Since the average age and IQ of players has fallen so dramatically in the past few years, is there any point using sarcasm and/or wit in the game?

 

 

 

God help them when they get into the real world. I get sarcastic e-mails at work everyday and they are far more subtle than what I posted on that thread or say in game! They are going to get eaten alive.

 

 

 

P.s. Apologies for poorly constructed sentences. I've been writing this on and off between 7am and 8am after a couple of hours sleep.

[DRUMINATOR17]

O Boy Do I Ever!

 

 

 

(no seriously i really do)

 

 

 

:lol: Anyways.

 

 

 

Yes i actually use it a bit to much, sarcasim and pointless answers that are actually more long winded that involve thinking on the other players behalf to actually figure out what the hell im saying.

 

 

 

And in this game where its hard to tell if people mean what they type or if they are being sarcastic, well it just works out best not to do either.

 

 

 

(darn those easily confused nubbers, some of which arent even old enough to actually play this game :XD: )

 

 

 

Lol interesting 500th post

[Freesia]

Yes I used to like being sarcastic and have recently stopped such practices. Anyway about that thread you mentioned, everyone was being dead serious and you were like the odd one out guy acting sarcastic there, obviously you expect to get bashed. Sometimes it is real obvious what is sarcastic and what are the not-so-sarcastic comments. I also noticed sarcastic posts in this forum, mostly used in ridiculous topics and such.

 

 

 

You may want to check out the rant on animal abuse in rants forum, lots of sarcastic posts inside, but pretty obvious sarcasm used and exaggerated. You may want to add in sarcasm tags to express sarcasm in posts as well to minimise misunderstandings. Generally excess flaming results when people use sarcasm to "prove" the serious person wrong and in retaliation that easily results in flaming.

 

 

 

EDIT: Sarcasm is not adviced to be used in game though. Jokes thrown towards your friend in public chat and sarcastic is easily misunderstood and wannabe mods may report any such offensive jokes and get you banned when Jagex also failed to detect sarcasm. Not worth it still.

[Gin_and_Tonic]

The probelm with using sarcasm over the internet is that it is hard to detect by writing... Then again, i dont tend to get my self in situations where sarcasm is needed in-game.

[Sumpta]

It's a known "problem". There's even an irony mark (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony_mark) that can be used in text, because irony and sarcasm are hard to detect in the written word. However, it's against the very principle of sarcasm to combine it with such a give away.

 

 

 

Irony and sarcasm only work well with people you know or people who know you. The e-mails at your work may be more subtle, but it's between people who also see each other ÃÆÃâÃâànd who are on the look-out for the hidden subtext - it's become a standard way of communicating amongst this group of people, so you can be very subtle. It's a question of expectancy patterns.

 

 

 

People in RS and people on these boards don't know each other at all. They only have the text to go by. So I don't think it's so much a problem of IQ and intelligence, as it is a problem of environment. Irony and sarcasm are a kind of humour that belongs in a group of people who know each other well and who can read each other, often to the exclusion of the people who don't. It's just the nature of sarcasm.

[WookieeMania12]

What do you expect? I'm a sarcastic guy anyway and its my best thing since reading "Treasure Island".

[highlanders]

Sarcasm doesn't work when it's written, unless it's obvious.

 

OR sarcasm can work, but when very well written : something our one-line Runescape chat doesn't allow.

[MasterSamus]

well its near impossible for me to actually show sarcasm on MMORPGs

 

 

 

but when i play MMOFPSs people usually understand my sarcasm perfectly

 

 

 

hmm akward :-k

[unkn0wnwarrior]

I very rarely use it in the Chatbox, but I use it with my friends over Private Chat all the time. In, fact, I've had entire conversations with neither one of us using anything but sarcasm. It was, er... Interesting, to say the least.

[Solidus_77]

when someone asks a stupid question or something like that it's pretty much an invitation for sarcasm.

 

 

 

The IQ of scapers also plays against us here too, if any of you remember the time on the RSOF when sarcasm was some popular trend on rants forum, a bunch of people tried making sarcastic rants and failed miserably (what they wrote was just completely inconsistent and made no sense, wasn't sarcasm). It got to the point where you were pretty much not allowed to make sarcastic rants.

[trunksrs]

Who me? Never!

 

 

 

Yes, it can be hard to show sarcasm in writing. However, I have seen some VERY obvious sarcastic remarks, and I seem to be one of the maybe 3 people that pick up on it.

 

 

 

Maybe I just catch sarcasm because I use it so much.

[Father_Time89]

Sarcasm? I've nver heard of sarcasm before please enlighten me on sarcasm, it's such a strange and unheard of concept to me.

 

 

 

Anyway, I have a missed sarcasm story that tops yours easily. It's not exactly G rated though.

 

 

 

On a popular politics forum this guy made a post entitled illegalise self pleasure *wink*. In it he talked about how it should be outlawed, he talked about penalties and such for dealing with it (like for posessing paraphilia (sp) realted to it) and he had some links to sites hosted by religious nut jobs. Of course most people were angry and he got some flames. The fifth or so poster called him out on it. He said that this whole post was actually a parody of marijuana laws. The original poster replied with (and I'm paraphrasing), "darn it why did you have to ruin this, I could've kept this up for at least a week". Now for the funny part, in 10 or so months later it was STILL getting flames and rants from people who never realised it was a joke.

 

 

 

Anyway I usually only use sarcasm when talking to friends or when I get into an argument with someone who seems intelligence.

[ianer101]

I don't use sarcasm in-game because it's hard to tell if you're being serious or not.

[Lunar_Drifter]

Sarcasm from me is a special gift. I only use it with friends that I know can decipher the difference between sarcasm and a serious comment. I've used sarcasm with other 'Scapers, which was often taken as rude; thus resulting in a slew of insults and/or asterisks.

 

 

 

So yes, I use sarcasm. But I use it very liberally; so as to prevent chafing.

 

 

 

~Lunar

[Ice_and_Spec]

yeah all the time

[Lunar_Drifter]

How to Reply to a thread on this forum:

 

• [*:19d34n4y] Your reply is not a poll response, it is a discussion point.
   
   
   
  [*:19d34n4y] Simple "I agree" or "I disagree" posts don't leave room for constructive discussion.
   
   
   
  [*:19d34n4y] If you agree, expand on it. If you disagree, think of something CONSTRUCTIVE to say that gives the author and other readers something to think about.
   
   
   
  [*:19d34n4y] Respond to the topic, not the author. Attacking other users is considered flaming and will not be tolerated.

 

 

 

yeah all the time

 

 

 

Do you care to elaborate just a tad more? It's a debate club, not a "Yay or Nay Club".

 

 

 

~Lunar

[Toxicologist]

I like sarcasm. It really, really gets the point across.

 

 

 

Anyways. The thing is, you cannot transmit voice tones over the Internet unless you do so in captions or something, which would be too obvious. Though sometimes, it could actually work better...

 

 

 

[sarcasm]Yes, of course. I'm sure you will.[/sarcasm]

 

 

 

But generally, sarcasm is transmitted at least 50% through the tone of the user's voice. There is also the problem that a lot of kids in Runescape have no understanding of such complicated forms of speech, and will take everything with utmost seriousness, making the use of sarcasm extremely limited on the net.

[br34d]

i like to tag my sarcasm, so "under-educated" people will understand that i am being sarcastic.

 

 

 

*example* [sarcasm] hey PikeingxYou ( a made up name ), nice name..?[/sarcasm]*/sarcasm*

 

 

 

and i am now seeing that at least one other person does this, and i thought it was somewhat original #-o ..

 

 

 

but yes, i use sarcasm very regularly, especially whilst training, and fishing.

 

i like to point out people with either extremely unoriginal, or misspelled names. i like to tell them nice name, or nice spelling or whatever. and than i will say something witty like "your name makes me want to add you to my ignore list, which i already have" which most of the time doesnt make sense, but i dont mind because i wont be able to hear them.

 

 

 

but yes, in my runescape ( and real life world ), sarcasm goes on ( especially with me )

[myeman60]

no..i don't use sarcasm..instead i just act nice like every lumby dweller in r/s (pure sarcasm right there..rofl)

[Gazzy]

I like to annoy people in runescape barely, when im tired of mining and stuuf, but im a mid level player saying things like, "Hey, could you direct me to the West Varrock Insanity Asylum?"

[WiivilYoshi]

I am usually quite a competent person on Runescape, but I now find Sarcasm is the only way out instead of saying something I'll regret. Sometimes people have me banging my head against a brick wall :wall: as they reply with (, wot , ur crazy, omg you noob ect ) sometimes I just take my anger out on the NPC's of Runescape. I wish there was a sarcasm emote on runescape though, and you have to do a sarcastic related request, but that's another one for another day me thinks......

 

 

 

- -.- - see even this little guy/gal wants a sarcastic emote.....

[WiivilYoshi]

Sometimes I use this method. i.e;

 

 

 

"Wow you are so clever" *cough* *cough*

 

 

 

Though if they don't pick up the sarcasm in the first place it isn't going help them much .....

[Moonshadow]

God, I keep my sarcasm locked up in a box next to my gold & black trimmed blessed christmas cracker P++ dipped in chocolate covered in strawberries and dipped in whipped cream and hot fudge. That, by the way, was sarcasm.

 

 

 

If I am ever sarcastic, I always add, that was sarcasm by the way.

[sieg678]

i only use it when talking to friends, we have our own irc so i talk alot on there and hardlt talk on public unless my friends are in the same area

[tkachuck7]

I remember a thread on the official rs forums where some guy posted he was buying all dragon-fire for 2 mil each. He was also using clearly phony quotes from other runescape players. Here's an example:

 

 

 

"Here's several high level players saying what a GREAT DEAL this is!

 

 

 

 

 

Zezima:Stop following me you noob!

 

N0valyfe:No, I will not be your friend, stop talking to me!"

 

 

 

and a bunch of stuff like that. He was clearly being sarcastic. But everyone who read the thread flamed him for trying to scam. The post ended up getting 330 posts before a mod disvovered it and closed it. It's perhaps the funniest flame war I've ever seen :thumbsup: