"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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the fact is that "Toon" is a very specific term outside of games that, while derived from "cartoon", carries the connotations of the "Looney Tunes" set of characters and the later "Tiny Toons".
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Sorry, it doesn't have those limited connotations to me. To me it means animated character.
I use the term rarely, preferring character, alt, etc. But I do use it from time to time. I also occasionally use the term "avatar", but that usually connotates a representation of the user, and I don't at all think of my characters here as "me".
In reference to someone else's post, I was exclusively an FPS player before I found CoH. I don't think I had a name for my representation in those games. That was "me".
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But I wrote more words about this! Go back and read!
Also: Your connotations are different and therefore wrong!
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What - you should charge for stealing ideas from ELO?
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Nah. But he should charge for stealing from REO.
C'mon, Bruce. Don't bring me down.
As to actually being on-topic, I forced myself to use proper spelling, grammar, and punctuation when chatting via programs like ICQ, IRC, AOL IM, and etc. so typing speed isn't much of an issue for me. Hence, I tend to use longer words in conversation (and say a whole lot more than most of my teammates) simply because I've got scary-fast fingers. Plus, it's easier to make snarky comments mid-battle.
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Wait a sec -
*looks at CD cover*
You mean I thought this was Electric Light Orchestra for the last 35 years, and NEVER noticed? The hell!
Those drugs I did in 5th grade must have been stronger than I thought.
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In the end, everyone seems to understand instantly when I use "toon" so I just used it out of courtesy and clarity of understanding. Same reason I chat (and to some extent type in forums like thes) using "chatspeak" but write formal correspondence in proper English.
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Damn it, forums are proper English! Chatspeak is for telephone texting and people who put their time above others' understanding!
Go to your room and type out one thousand Hail Marys.
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PS: You're despicable.
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*makes a funny face and begins to sing...*
"Oooh, I am loony-toony, titched in the head!"
"Please pass the catsup, I think I'll go to bed!"
I've never used "toon", nor have I used any acronyms other than "QFT" and the occasional "TP"... I always think not typing stuff out is lazy, but that's just me. 
(I mean, really, we're already just using our fingers and not even talking, must we be even lazier? 
)
Yanno, this argument feels so much like it has been done before that I'm almost convinced that the forum software is glitching and bringing up old topics as new.
I'm not being flippant; it really feels like deja vu. Down to Castle's mention of The Realm (which was what brought this thread to my attention when it popped up in the Dev Digest RSS ticker).
It's a bit creepy.
Current main:
Schrodinger's Gun, Dual Pistols/Mental Blaster, Virtue
Avatar: Becky Miyamoto from Pani Poni Dash. Roulette roulette~
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But then, everyone's welcome to call their walking, fighting collection of polygon bits whatever they want to call him or her
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I prefer "Debt-bait", myself.
Luerim
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I've never used "toon", nor have I used any acronyms other than "QFT" and the occasional "TP"... I always think not typing stuff out is lazy, but that's just me.
(I mean, really, we're already just using our fingers and not even talking, must we be even lazier? )
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Well, yea. Typing is more work then talking. I'm not following your logic here.
Wow, can't believe this is such a big deal. All I mean when I say "toon", because I do, is that this is my animated game character = toon. You know, animated like a car"toon"?
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I never got the "toon" thing either. To me it's a bit too frivolous a term to be applying to any of MY characters, but what the heck, if other people think of it that way, I can't stop 'em.
Buttered Cat
Nerf-Herder - Spines/Regen
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'Cause "Buttered Cat" and "Nerf-Herder" are such serious names?
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There is a rather huge difference between "frivolous" and "humorous". Even if you don't like the joke.
Realm!
Me and my friend are the 2 short elves in black and green. I love the silly faces you could get by just inching forward on the screen sometimes. 
We ended up hanging in a room with 3 strangers who looked like they were Mom Dad and big sis, and we were the little brother/sister, so we took a picture, thus the "say cheese" comments.
Ahh memories. I love CoH/CoV, but occasionally it's fun to think back to Realm. (And our "toons"! Had to keep this on topic)
Whenever I hear "toons" I think of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Who's want to run a hero like that, really? (Other than almost every one of mine...)
I think more people like "toon" a'cause its short and fast to type. Character (my prefered term) is tough and long. Alt and Main should be given strong consideration.
Five is right out.
American Dawg, Starblaze, Neanderthal Joe, Shining Dawn, Tokamak Dragon, Stinger Incarnate, Burning Tyger, Dover Tornado, Big Roach, Dark Paladin, Archmage Wylde, Kings Row Hornet, Prancing Deer
Avogadro, Science Lord
Edgar Nightcraft, Doc Cicada, Chupa Macabre, Dr Forchtenstein, Blood Shrew
To people complaining about being too lazy to type and then say "Alt" is perfectly acceptable, u r dum
You can always tell the guitar players... they type tune.
Just Lucky that way...
I seem to type "char" very slightly faster since I can hit all four keys at once with seperate fingers, but have to double-tap the "o" for "toon." Ah well.
I admit to cringing at the use of toon, but only because people tend to sound otherwise very serious and suddenly they spill out that absurd "oon" noise. Worse, it's weirdly isolated because it's idiomatic and you have to parse it.
Tune, tuna, (tooba), boon, loon, croon, (plume), soon, moon... do any of these words have any hope of sounding serious? It's just not a very respectable vowel arangement.
As much as I hate to imply something as tired as "this horse is dead"... (which, the saying itself is a dead horse ironically enough)....
This has been discussed on several occasions before, and from what I can gather, there seem to be two camps. One says "usage of such lame internet slang ruins the environment of the internet"... and the other camp says "I use the word, I don't have a reason to use it, although I can come up with a rationalle if you wish".
AAAANNND.. that seems to be the whole debate. Some people hate it, and there really isn't a diametrically opposed side. No one seems to LOVE the phrase... but some people seem to use it on a whim or something. I suppose that makes sense however... For example... I tend to use the word "since" instead of "because".... but I don't really have a reason to do it. We often don't know, or even care why we use the words we do as long as we find them acceptable.
The only rational way to solve this disagreement is to pick an independant third party. Someone intelligent. Important. Someone named after a god. Someone with a son named Khan. You know.. that kind of person is always good to settle debates like this. Then just ask that person how the world should proceed and then everyone can just do as that person (whoever that person happens to be) says.
I think that would make everything all better.
Zeus - god of suggestive remarks
I use both Character, or Char if i´m in a real hurry, and Toon. The difference is what i mean with them.
Character is for the heroes or villains i have made to activly play, both to level and keep in character if possible. It´s for the ones that actualy mean anything.
Toon is for those jokes i make from time to time, or those that will just be tried out and deleted, or those that just gather dust untill i get bored with my characters and need to just run a few quick missions to blow of some steam.
At least, that´s the way i work it. To each their own.
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Personally, I prefer character over toon. Then again, I am an elitist SOB.
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Is the S.O.B. or sob with cap locks? 
I use toons cause I am hiding from the grammar nazi's. They may catch me if spell charicter or villain. The way my brain pronounces them.
But I am all confused now. I pulled out my Toon RPG book and they have Character sheets.
I do have something new to say on this subject!
I've always hated "toon". It always just felt so ... insipid ... next to the stately and true "character". That's the old news.
The new news:
... I've caught myself using "toon" a couple times, just from osmosis I guess. I've been inundated with the term so much on this board, I think it has finally soaked through into my subconscious.
I hate it. I hate it. I really, really hate it.
But! I am hopeful that over the next year or two, it will become so ingrained that my previous associations with those four letters will completely dissolve, and I will accept it for what it is: a value-free set of symbols denoting a particular, agreed-upon concept.
Wish me luck.
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I use toons cause I am hiding from the grammar nazi's.
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That's nazis, thank you very much. No apostrophe.
It is just another in a long line of colloquial phrases that have cropped up in the online gaming industry. It is akin to phrases like "mob" or "agro" or any other number of catchy little terms used to express something in a game.
I have seen a couple people get into a fit over the use of the word "toon" and what I want to know is why it seems nearly exclusive to this term. I rarely see people making hate filled posts about the use of the term "mob" in games. It all seems to be directed at the word "toon".
I wonder why that is...
In any event it is just a term that people use to simplify life. If you must draw a comparison... why do you call a twenty-sided die, a "d20?" Why all the subterfuge? Why not just call it a twenty-sided die?
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Perhaps "token," "piece," or "man" (not to be sexist) would work . . .
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Actually I love this. I would be so happy if we could institute the gender-neutral "guy".
Like, in Space Invaders, you have your little guy, shooting at the aliens, and when it gets blown up, you have two guys left.
Tomato, tomahto ....
ps. ICF_Zombra ... "The Dark Darkness" excellent
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I have seen a couple people get into a fit over the use of the word "toon" and what I want to know is why it seems nearly exclusive to this term. I rarely see people making hate filled posts about the use of the term "mob" in games. It all seems to be directed at the word "toon".
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Besides the fact that "toon" isn't really at all descriptive of anything that we play in this game? It really shouldn't matter what you call the little man on your screen as long as everyone knows what you're talking about, but Everquest slang carries some baggage with it.
I don't think I'm alone in feeling that the less EQ speak we use, the better. Regardless of where the term originated, "toon" hearkens back to the early days of MMOs, which by no stretch of the imagination were a golden age. EQ wound up rubbing a lot of people the wrong way, and thus EQ terms rub people the wrong way.
CoX has a lot of trouble with old Everquest-style thinking, and even to this day you still have fiery debates about the viability of "healers". If you can control language, you can control people's thinking. Discouraging the use of EQ slang reinforces the idea that this is not EQ, and should not be played as such. We should be doing everything we can to get away from that game and improve on its mistakes, not embrace them.
The way CoX works, "mob" gets an out since we do tend to fight actual mobs of enemies - people miss the EQ reference entirely. I prefer the term "critter" myself, since mob makes no sense either, but I don't see the term often enough to care anyway. When people say "mob", they usually can very well be referring to the whole crowd of enemies as well as the single foe, so it's a moot point.
Arc #41077 - The Men of State
Arc #48845 - Operation: Dirty Snowball
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I think "toon" is some european thing. I don't like the term.
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It's defenately not a european thing.
As for me, I use character. But then I don't use u instead of you, or r instead of are. I try to not judge people who do, but it's damn hard.