City of Heros/Villians Avatar Body Language

Hello, I am a graduate student studying literature and rhetoric at a University in Virginia. I am currently working on a paper about Avatar Body Language in Online MMORPGs.

I played this game frequently about a year or so ago, and I remember that in this game, the "emotes" were often used humorously and ironically. I hoping that a few people might be interested in giving me a brief example of a funny way they or one of their friends used an emote for use in my paper. Think of this as something like a survey. Those who participate will get a couple minutes of fame because I'll cite you in my paper.

Thank you!

My husband likes to use the animal pack's sniff emote on new people when he's being "extra creepy NoPants".

I singularly lack a sense of humour, so I can't quote any... How do you say? "Funn-naay" uses for emotes, but I do have a few standard, pragmatic ones I use.

I've grown entirely too fond of the stancevillain2 emote, the one that makes you look like a standard Korean MMO male, with arms crossed at chest level and heels together. I don't know what it is about this emote, but it looks at the same time regal and arrogant, as well as athletic and unusual. It's especially impressive when used while flying.

It's very likely that this is because stancevillain2 is practically the ONLY emote we have that has your legs together, as every other power animation and character emote occurs with a very wide stride. Even flying and floating have that awkward "one knee cokced" look that I HAAATE so much.

I hope that helps at least a little bit.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

You can use the cheer and kneel emotes to simulate [REDACTED].

Spamming /e tantrum and /e frustrated near people is always hilarious, just because of how ridiculous it looks. Doing /e pushup, and /e jackhammer on a player's dead body always manages to get a laugh out of the team when on a mission.

For more srs use of emotes, I always make sure to use a costume change emote appropriate to the character. Fire characters have evil laugh, more heroic ones salute, etc. I also ensure to bind emotes that I could see my character doing often, such as saluting his allies or reading a book when I'm afk. They also manage to provide more depth when one RPs, since your character is actually doing what you're emoting as oppose to just standing there.

I use the slap emote when someone is being silly, it usually gets a laugh. Same for getsome (or whatever patting the hip is called) when I'm being teased for something by the rest of the group.

We have a guy who likes to use the bat emote on the various TF contacts and especially unruly controller pets during picture time at the end of TF's.

I'm sure there are many more but that's off the top of my head.

On my main, True Gentleman, I use the /teabag emote as my standard AFK. It fits the character concept well enough in addition to being an amusing gaming in-joke (this is not your Halo's teabag). People generally get the gag, and since it doesn't have an interactive component, unlike others mentioned above, nobody can misinterpret it.

On my supernatural Guy Fawkes-inspired character, Bonfire Knight, I sometimes use the /pandhandle emote to mime "Penny for the guy?" (occasionally sitting in a fire if one is available). That joke works less frequently.

Sometimes when I come across one of those gold-spammers standing at a market and spamming his "Come join us at stupidgold4U.com!", I'll go up and smack him repeatedly after I've /ignorespammer'ed him.

Thanks guys, this is great! If anyone has more info on humorous emotes I'd greatly appreciate it! I also have another question about more serious avatar body language: When I played this game I remember people spontaneously buffing other characters as an act of generosity or as an invitation to invite them to a group. Are there any similar types of "body language" you can think of that don't involve emotes?

I use the clipboard emote for my humorous demon character Hell Toupe. It's not humorous in and of itself, but goes with the toon.



I sometimes use the Observe Dice emote in the Steel Canyon university to ask the sleeping guy if he's okay.



I once had a whole sequence of comments and emotes linked as my character faced a vending machine and tried to get some Cheetos out of it. It was a whole series of emotes. I have screenshots somewhere.

i use the batsmash emote sometimes on fallen teammates, especially in the lower levels.
i have a couple macros that work with it...
/macro CPR "say Hang on, i know Brooklyn CPR!"
*run over to fallen teammate*
/macro Bat "say Get. The. $#%. Up!$$e batsmash"

Tall toon with /e assumethepositionwall (I think thats it) and a shorter toon using /e slap /e smack. Very juvinile but does seem to get attention as well.

I used to use ;drink and ;stunned on this MA/SR scrapper I once had, Tipsy Tempest.

I use the emote Military Salute for my character Hero Statue, which is mostly funny for fooling (some) people into thinking he's an actual statue. It works because the emote renders the character absolutely still.