Heh heh, argh... okay, now I feel constrained to paste some of the messages I sent (with of course only stuff pertaining to me alone left in) so you guys know what happened. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />
To Person 1Well, I am sorry if you felt there was any insult implied. I use the word "wench" (and a few other choice idiocies) as friendly insults among my friends. "You bloody savage!" is another personal favorite, heh. A friend of mine even sent me this link: http://wench.little-gamers.com/store/store.php
She told me, "You WILL buy me that shirt for Christmas! A large if you please! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />" I'm actually buying several for people this year, mwhahha.
So I wasn't trying to insult you, it's that the thread post intriqued me. I know the mirror is the only way to duplicate the Aleroth healing gem, but the way he phrased his post made me pause and think, "Hmmm... well, I wonder if he means he actually bought/found a gem someplace else in Rivellon and then came back? I should ask just to be sure."
Definitely a serious bummer that the thread poster missed out on the free Restoration spell, talk about a God send in the beginning of the game. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" /> To Person 2
Heh heh, no worries <we> resolved the issue with no problems. Really more of a language barrier than anything else, that and the everpresent problem of tone transfering over the web.
However, I would make the argument that forcing people to put "just kidding" after each joking post really isn't a realistic expectation. Certainly in a face-to-face situation, it would ruin a joke to do that. That's really the job of things like the tone of one's voice. Now, I fully appreciate the fact that tone NEVER transfers well over a forum, especially between strangers. But as a general point, I'd say that the addition of a smiley at the end of the sentence should certainly mitigate the problem when it occurs. I would say I could have put the ":D" immediately after "wench" for the sake of clarity, but give a guy a little credit, I did try! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />
I know this is a moot point of course since <we> are now in full agreement, I just wanted to bring up the issue with you in more of a general sense. If we can't have tone, we should learn to rely on smileys and similar methods when meaning is unclear.