Larian Studios Forums General Chat RPG Chat *****ALL TIME BEST RPG`S EVER*****

Ohh Revenant <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
I was looking for it for a long time, couldn't get it. Seen it once - looked to be impressive game.

Another interesting title was - Wheel of time.

Hi Egin,
I play Starwars pen and paper RPG so believe me that i know a lot about what RPG means. I am waiting for the knights of the old republic.

System Shock was quite nice as well but FPS-RPG. I know that it is not only the fantasy world.

As for the gamespot it is in my favorites for the last two years. Thank you

Konstantinos
I didn't intend to offend you, if I did, I am sorry.

We have a discussion, so, pls. feel free to share your thoughts.

There are so many different games, so many different genres are mixed by developers, so it is sometimes difficult for me to say what game am I looking at. And often, developers have their own meaning and definition of RPG. Should they write their definition on the game box ? maybe yes.

Anyway, if you have your own idea on what is RPG, lets discuss.
This maybe even deserves it's own thread.

All games are slightly differant than eachother. I dont like catagoriseing things becaus they are to rigid.

basicly this is what you do. Draw a line. At one end, put games like the old adventure games that are basicly you navigateing through a series of fixed screens and able to pick things up and talk, no combat at all, purley based around dialouge and puzzles. Then at the other end put something like space invaders or some other suitiable game thats basicly about killing the little things that you see as best you can, with maby 2 or 3 lines of text thrown in so you atleast know what your killing and why your killing it "They are trying to take over the world!" and what you are..

Now there i see the 2 extreems of games, mindless kill, and no killing at all with all the puzzles and trapps and basicly just story.

Now you have the measure. What i say is that if you chart diablo and divinity on this, they are both going to be within the middle third of that line, hence i see them as generaly the same type of thing. BG and IWD would be in the upper third, that dosnt mean they are the same, BG would probibly be a bit higher than IWN, but generaly, they are the same.

Dont really mention diablo 2, as i said that game is only of value if you where a big fan of diablo 1... or if you are the simple sort who just like killing things=P The only reason i played d2 was i had played d1 so much and we where all wateing for d2 to come out for all those years and... well... when it came out i just started playing it with out really thikning about it=P

Also remember how im discribeing diablo. Diablo 1 was more of 1 quest, with a few side quests along the way. Divinity is full and full of quests. Diablo 1 would basicly be the catacombs, if they went down for 16 levels.. with a few more slasher like quests thrown in. Thats exacly how i see it, and i break divinity up into many many micro-diablos in my head. I see going through the catacombs as a little diablo, i see killing all the orcs before the first bridge as a mini diablo. I see the whole quest that gets set into motion by that one knight guy when you try to leave, up untill you get your castle invite, as a mini diablo.

basicly what im trying to say is, diablo is a quest with side quests, divinity is a game with a whole lot of quests with side quests. And really, if you could just play one of the quests in divinity, i would see it as nothing more than what diablo was.

So im basicly trying to say that the 2 games are basicly built with the same formula, divinitys just a whole lot bigger, and diablos 1 quest was a little more flashy sence that was really the only quest they had. You need a hoard of monsters in a game somewhere.. Look at the wastelands.. if it wasnt so easy to kill everything *im assumeing it was supposed to be a bit of a challenge there* it would acualy have worked out niceley.. Before the big bad evil guy, you need hundreds and hundreds of evil minions in order to express your charicters greatness and to make the climax even better by showing you, who must be some sort of demi-god by now being able to slaughter whole armys, and the main evil guy of doom, in a massave final confrontation, evenly matched. See its the set up=P if it wasnt for infinite stacking curses, scorpions, and general weakness of things.. i think it would have worked out nicley..

But anyway everyone understands what im saying, so ill just close with.. Xenogears is still the best rpg ever=P

Uh, actually, I for one can't make out what you're trying to convey. Anyone cares to decipher?

Spellcheck/punctuation/proofread please?

You know, i havnt got that in quite some time. Now i can understand the spelling part, as i recite to myself as im wrighting and hence tend to do everything purley phonetically, as the way something sounds is much more important than what is being said, and i must make sure that i dont simply wright down ideas, but also the charicter and energy behind the statement. And that also in turn modifies the grammar. However becaus of this, in order to not understand me the reader would be required to know how to read english, but not be able to speak it. Wich makes me beleave that you instead just ignored everything.

So i did a bit of research, and found you to be quite hostile to diablo, even tho you admit to only haveing played diablo 2. So i must assume this is some sort of attempt to strenghten your argument, intentionaly or subconciously.

But be at ease, as i stated several times before, diablo 2 in my oppinion is only something worth playing if you played diablo 1 todeath and just wanted to mess around with the sequel, and sence this is largley all about compareing divinity to diablo 1, wich you have not played, you can rest assure that you need not bother trying to decipher my posts on the subject.

Basically, (I think) he/she's saying there's three kinds of games we're looking at: Linear, Mixed, and Free-form.

Linear: You have little control over the character, you just have to work out how to procede to the next part of the story. Not really an RPG, more of an interactive story. King's Quest and Doom are good examples.

Free-form: Do what you want, when you want. There may be greater missions, but you are not rigidly compelled to stick to them. GTA and The Sims are good examples.

Mixed: The side-quest formula. Free-form on a level by level basis. You still need to finish each level to progress through the stoy. Also, you can change you character to play in a different way each time. Diablo and Deus Ex are good examples.

Quezi said that Diablo and Divine Divinity are in the Mixed catagory. I agree with Diablo but personally, I'd put Divine Divinity about half-way between Mixed and Free-form.

Heh, thanks, HandEFood. In much fewer, more succinct words.

To Quezi:



What. The. Hey?

Are you saying that the tone is more important than the content? Or are you saying that the representation is irrelevant in regard to contents? No, let me try that again. Are you comparing speech to typing? Or what?



I find that sentence alone hard to parse, and you expect me to understand several paragraphs of your typing? It's not only punctuation/grammar/spelling abuse; it's also sentence structure and odd modifiers. Oh, and I speak, read, and write English fluently (although not the same can be said of NetSpeak, LeetTalk, and DumbSpeak).



If my head begins to spin during the first few sentences, I'm not going to waste time reading the rest, thanks.



Wow, that's a big assumption, including an analysis of my psyche. Tell me, dear, are you a psychologist or something? Sorry; I know where to express my dislike of Diablo 2 and where not to. Moreover, I didn't see your post as focused on Diablo. At all. Oh, and your post borders on personal attacks.

By the way, in my experience, people get all defensive when someone points out that their posts/typing/what-have-you are riddled with grammatical/spelling mistakes and/or are nigh unreadable. Why? It's factual. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> (And literacy is good, kiddies! It might actually make people take your seriously.)

First of all, typeing is speach. They are the same thing. Words are words, and i type down exacly what i would speak out loud. When ever there is a pause, i use a comma. If there is a longer one i use a period. Longer i use a series of dots, and then finaly i will make a new paragraph.

The way you say something is just as important as what is being said. If it dosnt sound right then you may aswell not say anything at all. I am a musician, and from my reading and thinking i have started to realise how close speach is to music. There is a line of insights i made wich related notes and interaction of notes and interaction of lyrics(if there are lyrics) and notes and dubble meanings of lyrics with differant notes and many sorts of things that help to paint the entire collor/sound/emotion landscape of any good piece of music. It is from this that i started realiseing how just talking could, if done properly, have the same effect as even the most captivateing music.

In other words, like a poem, its not whats being said that gives it meaning, it is the combined effect of whats being said, the immages that whats being said brings up, the way that the poem is constructed, and the way that all those elements interact with eachother wich bring the ending effect, and the meaning, of the poem.

Its like reading a good book, or even playing a good game. When you have finaly finished it, there is a single instant where you are filled with an emotion. THAT is the point of the book, when you look back in retrospect and suddenly realise the entire thing through the lense of that single feeling, wich is the sudden release of the combined effect of every single word event and immage in the entire book.

And yes. You could take random words and speak them in such a way that you can make a meaning for what your saying, however it would take far to long to construct properly.

In your post you quoted a sentence that you said was hard to understand. So let me take a moment to exacly discribe what it says.

"However becaus of this, in order to not understand me the reader would be required to know how to read english, but not be able to speak it."

This means that, in essence, you need to know how to both read and speak english to understand me. However sence i was talking about what sort of sercumstances would make someone NOT understand me, i said the above, allowing for the fact that it would be impossable to understand at all if you could ONLY speak english and not read (sence this is wrighten)

So basicly that sentance above says exacly these three following statements.

To understand me you need to know how to both read and speak english.
If you can read english but not speak it, you will not understand me. (due to the way its wrighten)
If you can speak english, but not read it, you will not understand me. (due to the fact you are not reading this in the first place)

You see its verry important to include these types of redundancies, becaus you should never ever assume that every single person who will ever read what you have wrighten, will have the common sence to know things such as 'not being able to read will hinder your efforts to... read this!'

Secondly, i am offended. I have seen many things in my years on the net. Such as people who dont know there are commas or periods at all, who dont know about hitting return, and who are clueless to the existance of the shift key. Those are the people you should be after. I have spent 5 years trying to develop a way to communicate speach through typeing. The fact that i dont talk like most people probibly dosnt help me. And that someone would just come with their little english books and say that im obvioulsy just an idiot who dosnt have the faintest idea at all what im doing... it upsets me. And the fact that you would waste your time doing something that has no real point also offends me. If you where attempting to join the discusion then you would have reason. But there really was no point in what you did. So i am offended twice.

Now i strive to be an objective person. I realise that someone who dosnt know what im up to will probibly be confused when confronted by my posts for the first time. But to compare to me an illiterat 10 year old whos post may contain a total of three words longer than 7 letters is just wrong.

Proper english is fine if your wrighting a history report, but it does no good when you attempt to talk. Real speach is probibly more like a series of two lined paragraphcs with no periods at all but lots and lots of commas.

But anyway, yes that one persons interpretation was correct. I did type a bit to much of my last post, but i was trying to clerify several things at once. And my long standing policy is no editing unless it dosnt sound good. So i will leave 3 pages of crap aslong as it flows.

But remember im saying its a line, that is divided in three catagories. A verry long line. Two things can be soemwhat differant and still be in the same catagory. What im saying is, there are more simularities between the 'essence' of diablo and divinity, than their are differances.

I shal conclude this with the information that i quite enjoy arguments and hostilities, but i hold no grudges, as even tho i beleave people are true to their selves in their online actions with out the mask that reality forces upon them, and hence cloaks their true selves, i find it hard to dislike anyone i could ever come in contact with, as i think that the only bad person, is the passive person, as i can find the virtue in all action.

Quezi

All games are slightly differant than eachother. I dont like catagoriseing things becaus they are to rigid.>>
How can you say then, that this game is RPG and this is not ? If you wanna continue debating on this, you just have to have a definition of different genres in mind.

Dont really mention diablo 2, as i said that game is only of value if you where a big fan of diablo 1... or if you are the simple sort who just like killing things=P >>>>
Simple sort of ? huh, ok If you are trying to say that there as some intellectual difference between D1/D2 and DD? Tell what is it intellectual in DD that is absent in D1/D2? All those quests you say? Yes, lots of quests in DD, but if you start looking at them - go there, bring here, find that little cave and that little book, talk to him and then to her and then go there.... What you had to do is just carefully study your map and journal, not to miss things.
But actually you haven't had any difficult intellectual/ psychological / ethical dilemmas as there were in PST for example.
Everything was more or less easy and predefined and scripted. So basically I don't see much difference in quests between D1/D2 and DD.
Diablo combat system was much more difficult then in DD. So, you had to make decisions, how to ballance well, how to choose skills, what weapons and armor to keep. Can't compare this to DD. I had difficulties in the beginning only, after entering Iona dungeon, thats all. I was a God in wastelands killing ordinary mobs in 1-2 hits (without +to frost modifier, I didn't take it intentionally)


basicly what im trying to say is, diablo is a quest with side quests, divinity is a game with a whole lot of quests with side quests. And really, if you could just play one of the quests in divinity, i would see it as nothing more than what diablo was.>>>

Again, Diablo is great game, which is more focused on combat, on making your char better and stronger warrior.
DD is more focused on solving quests.

Quality of both games is high. So, it is up to you and you taste, to play one, or another, or both. So, stop blaming here.

Oh, no. That is so wrong that I can't even begin to roll eyes. With speech, you have the advantage of tones of voice; you don't get that with typing, or writing. It is almost impossible to tell if someone is being sarcastic, joking, or serious through text alone, unless very exact, specific words are being used.



I'm an aspiring writer, and words are very important to me. That sentence could have been put: "If you don't understand what I said [typed], then you are probably an English reader, but not a speaker." See? So much more precise and easier to understand. The original sentence contained at least one double negative.



Muuuh?

I'm not "after" you; I merely stated that I couldn't understand your post. Does it look like I'm slamming a grammar textbook against your head? Does it look like I was even correcting you in my initial post? No, I'm not playing GrammarBot here. (Although I do that elsewhere, in a writing community, but that's irrelevant.)



That you tried to analyze my psyche, making assumptions about my intentions, offends me. Well, no, but it irritated me.



Bwahaha. Thanks for the laugh. Now, please, go forth and wage war upon everyone in the board who so much as dares to post something off-topic in your sensitive presence!



Muh? Since when did I compare you to that?



Try a lot of run-ons and fragments. Oh, by the way, on the Internet, you have nothing to go by in term of judging a person's intellectual except - you guessed it - the way he/she types. It's like personal hygiene. Someone may have a wonderful personality or be a genius, but if his hair is greasy, his body stinks, and so on, I don't think most people will want to spend a long time in his company. Good spelling/grammar also lends you so much more credibility, as far as I'm concerned.



Neither do I. If anything, I enjoy a good, heated debate, although I scorn personal attacks and assumptions concerning my personality, intentions, or social life.

All games are all genres in differant amounts. And as much as i would like to go into how its subjective and impossable to say. I will attempt to come up with something solid *even tho im against it=P*

An RPG, is a game in wich you play a charicter, who interacts with objects, and the way in wich these interactions unfold, mold both your charicter, and the objects around it, wich progresses the game.

An object is anything at all in the game that is not eather you, or non interactive things like scenery. Monsters and people are objects, so are items and chests and keys and potions and everything.



I mean that d2s quests never really seemed beleaveable, hence you would have to be simple to be able to be entertained by the simplicity of them. D1 and DD atleast has quests wich you acualy pay attention to. I hope that noone has spent houres straining over the golden bird quest from d2.. Intelectual and ethical dilemmas? Hah! These are just more quests. I doubt a game is going to suddenly make me 'think' any more than i already do about such things. I judge a quest by its story alone. Hence, if a quest has a good story, its a good quest. If a quest has a bad story or no story at all.. in order to 'enjoy' doing them(PLEASE NOTE THE ENJOY PART), you must be a little.. slow.. or somehting



You have to realise that diablo is short, and dd is longer. Diablo is a short game that you can replay with your same charicter. DD is a longer game wich you cant. Becaus of this, if you play both games an equal amount of time, it will seem like diablo is insanley charicter based, becaus you are basicly just doing the same thing over and over to build up your charicter. However what you fail to realise is. After beating the game the first time.. Thats it! You beat it! Theres really no reason to keep trying to build your charicter unless you enjoy doing so.

So compare diablo, beating it ONE TIME, with the same amount of time playing DD, basicly a day or so. And they will look the same. Now if you play diablo alongside DD, beating it over and over while in dd the charicters always doing something new.. Then yeah, diablo will seem charicter based. But thats just becaus its shorter.

Take DD, remove the entire world outside the little wooden fence in aleroth, then allow for a charicter save/load feature, and add 3 difficulty levels so you dont have to kill the low level things forever. And i bet you that it will start to feel charicter based pretty quickly if you keep replaying it.

As i said, DD is longer.. thats really about it. It 'seems' more quest based becaus it has more quests to do, and not the same old quests over and over that you would get if you CHOSE to continue playing diablo after you beat it.

Now there you go quoteing things out of context.

As i specificly indirectly said, you can get no more meaning out of a single statement in my post than you can looking at a single pixle on your screen.

Becaus the statements are not only statements, but also modify every single other statement in the whole post~ createing an overall idea of the meaning at the verry end.

And also, what you posted was just not as impressive as the complicated masterpice i made=P

But ill just say here basicly whats happening. I am typeing the words that i am speaking. This is what i do. Now i can just totaly ignore everything else and simply list the words as they come out of my mouth. But id like to include something to break them up.

And yes "In order to not understand me you would have to be able to read english, but not speak it" Is acualy what i said. And sitting here saying it outloud to myself.. im quite pleased at the way it sounds.. so feh=p

I dont know, when i read i hear a voice in my head telling me what im reading, and i ignore the words, and listen to the voice as if i was listening to someone reading me a book, i dont know what that is, iv always had a verry high reading comprehencion, but a verry low overall english *due to spelling, grammar acualy devolved more recently=P* Maby this is some sort of strange thing and most people acualy read words and dont immidiatly translate them into speach(i gues, reading sounds?). And yes, i realise that that alone basicly means failure of my project here, as the fact that even tho i try extreemly hard to read what iv made straighforwardly, i still already have a general direction of what its suposed to sound like, as i afterall, am the person who spoke it. But uh.. instead of includeing a big mess of some sort of mumbo jumbo haveing to do with science, philosophy, reality, extra-dementions, preseption, time, truth, and existance in an effort to confuse you.. ill just say i dont have anything left to say so.. blah=P Other than calling me a kiddie acualy does say that you are compareing me to an illiterat 10 year old=P And also that in the past, people have found short questions the best way to communicate with me <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

All games are all genres in differant amounts.>>>
Nope, not at all. Now, it becomes popular to mix genres, but majority is still more or less pure.

An RPG, is a game in wich you play a charicter, who interacts with objects, and the way in wich these interactions unfold, mold both your charicter, and the objects around it, wich progresses the game.

An object is anything at all in the game that is not eather you, or non interactive things like scenery. Monsters and people are objects, so are items and chests and keys and potions and everything. >>>>>

What are you saying here ? Have you read this yourself? Looking at what you have written, any adventure game or shooter can be rated as RPG, as there is character, who interacts with objects, and there are objects that interact other objects and character. This definition is just poor manipulating of words without essence, goal and meaning.

D1 and DD atleast has quests wich you acualy pay attention to. I hope that noone has spent houres straining over the golden bird quest from d2.. Intelectual and ethical dilemmas? Hah! These are just more quests. I doubt a game is going to suddenly make me 'think' any more than i already do about such things. I judge a quest by its story alone. Hence, if a quest has a good story, its a good quest. If a quest has a bad story or no story at all.. in order to 'enjoy' doing them(PLEASE NOTE THE ENJOY PART), you must be a little.. slow.. or somehting >>>>>>>>>>>>

How can you pay attention to a quest if it has nothing to pay attention to ?
Story alone? tell me the difference in stories in D2 or in DD. Which one is deeper? You will never tell, because these stories are different, just different. DD story is deeper? I doubt that. And about quests. You say that there are just more quests in DD. So, in your opinion, if we put x2 or x3 more quests in D1 or D2 it will be Divinity ? Second failure my friend.


1 You have to realise that diablo is short, and dd is longer. 2 Diablo is a short game that you can replay with your same charicter. 3 DD is a longer game wich you cant. 4 Becaus of this, if you play both games an equal amount of time, it will seem like diablo is insanley charicter based, becaus you are basicly just doing the same thing over and over to build up your charicter. However what you fail to realise is. After beating the game the first time.. Thats it! You beat it! 5 Theres really no reason to keep trying to build your charicter unless you enjoy doing so.>>>>>>>>>>>>.

1. how is diablo shorter than divinity ? D2 is longer I think.
2. It is not short, but yes you can replay it again, I did it around 7 times (I am talking about D2)
3. DD is not longer, and you still have replay value to try other two classes.
4. Diablo is character based and I have written this to you several times before. You are doing the same thing only solving the same quests thats all, but you choose other classes, tactics, weapons, spells, equipment - you are playing another game with another character. I think, you never played Diablo second time so you have no idea on this.
5. Exactly, it is great to create another mighty char., not fighter, or bowman, but necromancer for example <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />


So compare diablo, beating it ONE TIME, with the same amount of time playing DD, basicly a day or so. And they will look the same. Now if you play diablo alongside DD, beating it over and over while in dd the charicters always doing something new.. Then yeah, diablo will seem charicter based. But thats just becaus its shorter.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Day or so? You are cheater or you have never played both games!


Take DD, remove the entire world outside the little wooden fence in aleroth, then allow for a charicter save/load feature, and add 3 difficulty levels so you dont have to kill the low level things forever. And i bet you that it will start to feel charicter based pretty quickly if you keep replaying it..>>>>>>>>

You never experienced Diablo, it is deeper than you think. If you went through it in a rush once than you haven't played it. I doubt you even played once though.

As i said, DD is longer.. thats really about it. It 'seems' more quest based becaus it has more quests to do, and not the same old quests over and over that you would get if you CHOSE to continue playing diablo after you beat it.>>>>>>>>>>

Wow, the quests change? really?
You find -new- quests only if you missed them in you previous game. So you Loosed the opportunity to enjoy them in your previous game.

Thats it <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/offtopic.gif" alt="" />


Winterfox, please edit the word "GrammarNazi" - it offends me as a German. It offends me if this historical crime is vulgarized and banalized - used in everyday terms.
If you take my wish as moralizing - yes, it is meant in this way. Just see it as my personal hygiene.



Addendum to intellect/good spelling/grammar/credibility IMO:
The way, personal respect is expressed even if in a disagreement, the way emotional intelligence (if existing) is expressed, adds to credibility, too.

And if you take offense in my choice of words, my spelling, usage of the English language - feel free to criticize: In German, if you can.
Kiya

It's sooo easy ! : Treat them like you wanna be treated.

I have nothing against bad grammar, look, or whatever, as long as they treat me with respect.

I'm writing Poems in my spare time, and with that, I'm saying:

The Language is for the people, and not vice versa.

I don't want to make myself a Slave of Language. Instead I use it as a Tool. A Tool to shape my thoughts into something expressible.

Unless ... Feelings are not expressible with words - at least most of them, the deeper feelings.

Be careful !

There are people out there who have actual difficulties with Language in general ! And I mean not intellectual, but because they aren't capable of it.

Have you ever heard from what we in germany call Legastheniker ? It might be a similar word in English, because it looks like it is based on a greek or latin term.

I just found that the right english term is "dyslexic".

These people aren't capable of language, maybe grammatics, because their brain isn't able to handle this. These are handicapped people.

I have seen it: In the german Forum-Part we recently had such a person. First, I was thinking: What is this ? Doesn't he know how to use the german language ? He later told use that he was one of these handicapped people.

You are now accusing people of inproper use of Language without knowing the reasons. This is highly dangerous ! Someone who is such a handicapped person like I tried to describe above might take this as an offense !

<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/up.gif" alt="" /> - yep, same here <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> and language should bring people together not grammar/spelling.
Kiya

Specially not after our last German grammar reform leading to absolute chaos, hm, Alrik? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />

FYI Winterfox: There was a lyric era in Germany in the 1920s, where German language/spelling was altered totally, a rhetorical effort to play with language, it was called Dada.

Yeah, true. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />

My 2 cents (which, because we have no 1 or 2 cent pieces, rounds down to nothing):

I have great respect for the English language too and hate it when people cannot write properly because they don't put any effort into their writing. I do tire of lazy sods who don't use any puctuation or check their spelling. But I'm not about to go and rip into them over it, they're just human.

I have great espect for anyone who is willing to learn the language of the country they're in. I'm sick of walking down to the main shopping strip and not being able to buy anything because I can't speak Chineese, let alone their particualr dialect. This also goes for this forum. A lot of forums only have an English section, they forget the other languages. The Larian forum is unique in that it caters for a number of languages. Even so, a number of users come into the English foums seeking help, simply due to the fact there are greater numbers here (I'm assuming). A lot of them put great effort into their typing because they don't know the language and have to get their ideas across. And most of it is phonetic because they haven't had the 15-40 years experience the rest of us have. I wouldn't have a hope in hell of talking on the German foums, and I wouldn't go there an type English because it's plain rude.

If you read Quezi's posts phonetically, you can understand them. Sure I had to stop on a couple of words, but you could work them out from the rest of the writing. The overall meaning was there. If it needed to be perfect, he/she would have hired an editor.

And by writing things phonetically, you can portray tone of voice. That is one thing I've always tried to use. It doesn't always work, but when it does, it's effective.

Also, I like Quezi's idea that speech is like music. I've often found that I understand music, particularly electronic music, more than I understand spoken tones. I such with detecting sarcasm or anger, but I'll get the point the song's trying to make.

Now I'm gald that 2 cent coins aren't really this big. Mind you, that would explain why they were discontinued. Have fun!