"Toons"... are we playing Loony Toons?
By
8Seconds,
Posted on: 2006-09-22 10:36 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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How about we refer to them as "Non gender/sexual orientation/age specific multi-ethnic computer generated pixelated images of superpowered dolls"
No offense intended to any -real- superpowered dolls who may be browsing these forums, of course.
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/em scratches head
I think sticking with the Toon vs Char debate would be less painful. 
lol... Oh crap.. lol's not a taboo is it? 
Yet?
"What in tarnation's a Rofflemow!!!?" -Priesteater on ROFLMAO
Real Objections Of Genius
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lol... Oh crap.. lol's not a taboo is it?
Yet?
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Well, I did an LOL and a ROFLMAO earlier and was told I was immature 
But, then again at my age, that might be a compliment!
The first time I saw someone type lmao I figured it was a reference to an Asian dictator. The earliest stages of my time in-game, I thought "Man... these people sure do adjust or rewrite their biographies alot." every time someone announced their afk's for restroom type reasons. Heh... afk... that had me wondering. Which Kennedy is that?
Oh jeez!!! ROFL really messed me up... I thought someone with dyslexia was making mention of one of my favorite muppets!!!
"What in tarnation's a Rofflemow!!!?" -Priesteater on ROFLMAO
Real Objections Of Genius
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Online, I usually gauge someone's maturity/game skills by their typing skills; its the easiest readily available way. Sure, someone could be very mature and 'skilled' and just a poor typist, but I find it unusual. And and in my experience, toon tends to be used more by worse typists and character more by better typists.
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I find that to be as useful as a pre-job interview standarized test...as in virtually worthless.
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Online, I usually gauge someone's maturity/game skills by their typing skills; its the easiest readily available way. Sure, someone could be very mature and 'skilled' and just a poor typist, but I find it unusual. And and in my experience, toon tends to be used more by worse typists and character more by better typists.
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I find that to be as useful as a pre-job interview standarized test...as in virtually worthless.
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Well, YMMV. There are certainly a lot of exceptions, but I think better typists tend to be better players. Given that both are computer skills (gaming ability and typing ability), I don't think its a stretch.
I just find them less tiresome to team with, myself. A good typist may not be the best player, but great teams whose (very limited) conversation consists of variations of "lol" and "gj" or "heal plz" will drive me up walls - it's like nails on a chalkboard to me, plus they're usually not very interesting teammates to be with. I'm more likely to stick around for the better typer if I find them interesting to be with, while I tend to jump ship on the AIMspeak groups as soon as the mission is over.
I've yet to be similarly annoyed by someone using "toon", but most of the people I've encountered that use it tend to fall into the prior category, so it's usually just icing on the cake.
- Laurentide
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How about we refer to them as "Non gender/sexual orientation/age specific multi-ethnic computer generated pixelated images of superpowered dolls"
No offense intended to any -real- superpowered dolls who may be browsing these forums, of course.
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/em scratches head
I think sticking with the Toon vs Char debate would be less painful.
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Too PC? *L*
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People who make assumptions about another's use of legitimate verbiage in a conversation are more suspect of a lack of maturity than those who use an established term. I agree with the whole "neener-neener" description there. Trying to assault another's maturity for lack of a good argument is also suspect. What a foolhardy assumption to make... "People who use the word "toon" are probably immature." People who don't and label people who do "immature" are premature. You rush to judge. You know nothing about people because you have a silly tick that causes you a deep lack of respect for others. Unfortunate.
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Wow... almost thirty pages before someone said it, but it was finally said.
"I judge those who say they judge others for what they say to be bad".
It usually gets said... faster than this.
It's almost as if some people think that either speech is not a behavior, or that you can't adequately judge someone based on their behavior. Damn, what else do we have to judge people on? Superstion? The color of their tights? No.. I far prefer to judge someone based on their actions.
Speaking by the way... is an action.
Zeus - god of nomenclature
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I just think it's hilarious that some people keep refering to 'right' or 'correct', when there is no right or wrong in using the terms char and toon. I think it's a tad silly to try and infer that your way is the right way. They are just terms used to refer to pixelated in-game persona. It really comes off as snobby that someone thinks their way is the 'right' way.
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Well, "right" and "wrong" can be seen as "accurate" or "innacurate". My character "Ensign Redshirt" is a character... that is an accurate description of him. To call him a cartoon is NOT an accurate description of him as his features are not exaggerated.
So while I agree that perhaps "right" and "wrong" are... misleading, in speaking linguistics you can often interchangable put in "accurate" and "not accurate" and such is appropriate in this case.
Zeus - god of realism
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i use toon, nothing wrong with it at all, after all, all my 'toons' are personal to me.
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I first heard the useage of toon on CoX. I always knew what was meant by it but I always used Character or Alt before.
Sometimes people get confused when I use alt so I started typing toon myself just to simplify things.
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lol... Oh crap.. lol's not a taboo is it?
Yet?
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Well, I did an LOL and a ROFLMAO earlier and was told I was immature But, then again at my age, that might be a compliment!
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This leads me to an... interesting thought.
LOL is immature... there isn't much doubt in my mind about that. But I think often on the internet the word "maturity" is mistaken for "age" or "acting like a youth". On these webernets, maturity does not always mean that.
As an example, my father did some internet dating recently, and one of the women he chatted with used a whole hell of a lot of leet speak like "lol", "ur", and I'm sure if she were to play a game she'd call it a toon whether it looked like a charicature or not. My first impression was that she just wasn't very mature. But we're also talking about a 60 year old woman. I wasn't leaping to the impression that she acted like a child in real life... just a child on the internet. She wasn't very mature of a computer user. She wasn't seasoned. She was a novice.
Leet speak makes you look immature, yes, but not in physical age - it makes you look immature in regards to computer saavy. As if you don't know your way around these things we call the webernets tubes. And with the value that most people on an online community put on the computer and the internet, calling something by little kiddie names, or using computer kiddie talk just isn't very highly valued typically by those in the know.
Anyway, it had just occured to me that perhaps... in relation to the internet, "mature" doesn't always mean "aged" or "acts old".
Zeus - god of intentional misuse of words
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Well, "right" and "wrong" can be seen as "accurate" or "innacurate". My character "Ensign Redshirt" is a character... that is an accurate description of him. To call him a cartoon is NOT an accurate description of him as his features are not exaggerated.
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Mary Worth (who's cartoonist is Karen Moy) could be said to be both a cartoon and a character.
A weave pattern for a rug is definitly a cartoon and not a character.
A letter, digit or other symbol that is used as the representation of data is called a character. A connected sequence of characters is called a character string.
It all boils down to how a person uses a word by how they defines or feels about something. The eviroment they use it in . The converational company they are in.
Theres even one guy here that dislikes the american hand symbol for peace. At least thats what I am assuming cause the local under his avatar says Australian.
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LOL is immature... there isn't much doubt in my mind about that. ..... a lot of leet speak like "lol", "ur"...
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LOL is leet speak and immature? Hardly; LOL is the accepted internet form to show amusement in type, that's not immaturity or leet speak. There's even a defined word for it, it's called an ACRONYM, maybe you've heard of it.
See, leet speak is using numbers for letters, or single character letters for entire words. IE U = you and R = are, if UR were to be equated to LOL then it would need to be YA, which obviously doesn't serve the same purpose.
Is FBI, CIA, radar, and laser leet speak as well? That doesn't seem correct to me at all. Therefore, LOL cannot be leet speak either.
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See, to make "laughing out loud" leet speak, we'd need to do something like "3l0h3l".
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Yeah - I've never understood why there is so much debate call them whatever ya want...........I think I'll just start call chartoonters, or toonacters, or maybe just feags. Does it really matter.
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I've never understood why someone would post, "I don't know what the big deal is" when an entire thread exists preceding their post that explains why.
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Because this is an old topic that like many other old and pointless topics never dies. I've read several threads concearning this topic. For the most part I've stopped reading threads on this topic. The only reason I read anything in this one is because Castle commented on it.
Everybody feels free (as they should) to post why they are for or against the word toon. So, I feel free to say I don't get it because to me it is a trivial topic that changes nothing except to reveal some silly intolerances in some.
But as I say - if it makes you happy call you character a toon, if it doesn't then don't. I would say don't look down on people if they do but hey its your life and if you want to be silly go right ahead. And if you want to spend your time debating the subject go right ahead............I'll feel free to throw in my 2 cents as well.
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Because this is an old topic that like many other old and pointless topics never dies. I've read several threads concearning this topic. For the most part I've stopped reading threads on this topic. The only reason I read anything in this one is because Castle commented on it.
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Just to point out, it may not be an old topic for everyone. I only started getting into posting in these forums just this week, despite having had an account for over a year. It may be rehashing old points or "beating a dead horse" as some put it, but to many like me, it's a fresh topic. It's all relative
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All kidding aside, it baffles me every time I see someone refer to their character as their "toon"... Maybe it's because I'm a P&P RPGer and not a video gamer, but where in the heck did that originate? I think it sounds pretty silly.
Thanks
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The first place I heard 'Toon' used was on The Realm many years back, where it was common. Apparently, the 'toon' vs. 'character' thing largely depends on what your introduction to online gaming culture was. There isn't really much of a difference.
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I find most people I've encountered use the word 'toon' because it's simply shorter to type than 'character'. Those lazy people. :P
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All kidding aside, it baffles me every time I see someone refer to their character as their "toon"... Maybe it's because I'm a P&P RPGer and not a video gamer, but where in the heck did that originate? I think it sounds pretty silly.
Thanks
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The first place I heard 'Toon' used was on The Realm many years back, where it was common. Apparently, the 'toon' vs. 'character' thing largely depends on what your introduction to online gaming culture was. There isn't really much of a difference.
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I find most people I've encountered use the word 'toon' because it's simply shorter to type than 'character'. Those lazy people. :P
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Go figure. I'm lazy as all get out in real life, but when it comes to typing I tend to be anal (at least about my own posts) about grammar and spelling.
Where were all you serious people when I needed you?
I use the terms toon and alt because they are short, tidy, and accurate descriptions. Character is too long and char is sloppy and sounds strange in my head. I like toon, I mean, that is what it is, and I don't think the fact that I refer to them that way should imply that I'm some sort of buffoon.
Somewhere amongst 4-5 RPGs I've played (I'd wager EQ1 and EQ2 though) people started using "toon" and I started using it just as naturally. It really shouldn't be viewed as rude, annoying, etc. just people coming from different subsets of the MMO genre carrying over their lingo that they've used for years... habits aren't easy to break :P Especially when it's very trivial.
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LOL is immature... there isn't much doubt in my mind about that. ..... a lot of leet speak like "lol", "ur"...
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LOL is leet speak and immature? Hardly; LOL is the accepted internet form to show amusement in type, that's not immaturity or leet speak. There's even a defined word for it, it's called an ACRONYM, maybe you've heard of it.
See, leet speak is using numbers for letters, or single character letters for entire words. IE U = you and R = are, if UR were to be equated to LOL then it would need to be YA, which obviously doesn't serve the same purpose.
Is FBI, CIA, radar, and laser leet speak as well? That doesn't seem correct to me at all. Therefore, LOL cannot be leet speak either.
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See, to make "laughing out loud" leet speak, we'd need to do something like "3l0h3l".
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You may want to keep reading past that first line, because you seem to have found offense in something that clearly wasnt' meant to be anything but explanatory, not offensive.
Zeus - god of weirdisms
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I always felt "toon" was the dumbest thing ever.
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My feelings exactly.
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Strangely enough, 'LOL' was originally a 'l33t' speak term that was used constantly. It used to drive alot of people nuts, as phonetically it just sounded like something my head does when I'm drunk and tired. There is even still a small part of me inside that cringes whenever someone uses it. I guess part of that is because people overuse it so much (ie every sentence, or eg 'lololololololololololololol' - I mean - what DOES that mean?) or because it has never seemed to me to be a true statement. I rarely 'laugh out loud' during my gaming conversations, although I do chuckle or giggle sometimes.
However, I recognise that it has become a mainstream phrase, and to berate someone over it would be pretty daft by today's standards. I had someone berate me for my use of 'heheh' and was told I should say 'LOL' just a couple of weeks ago, and after emote pointing and laughing at them I explained politely that I, and hundreds (if not thousands) of other people were using 'heheh' on online games before the internet was a known thing and back when I was shunned for being the 'girl who liked computers'.
Of course, nowadays I laugh at all these 'adult' tw*ts in their 20s and 30s who used to laugh at me, all drooling over the latest platform game - the sort that I was completing when I was 7 or 8 (Monty Mole or Manic Miner, anyone?).
But I digress. The fact is that 'toon', although inaccurate from many viewpoints, and even irritating to some people, has become a mainstream term, possibly because of the lighthearted connotations the term has. I personally don't like it, I may even roll my eyes when someone uses it, but I won't berate someone for using it.
The use of the word "Toon" to refer to a character in a role-playing game may infringe on copyrights held by Steve Jackson games in conjunction with the PnP role-playing game "TOON". I respectfully request that in order to avoid any legal issues we refrain from using this term in reference to CoH/CoV characters and reserver it for WoW and EverQuest characters.
TOON
How about we refer to them as "Non gender/sexual orientation/age specific multi-ethnic computer generated pixelated images of superpowered dolls"
No offense intended to any -real- superpowered dolls who may be browsing these forums, of course.