As Im sure many of you have noticed, shouts these days are getting
ridiculous. I feel almost obligated to step in and say a word or two
about it. Bear with me
In the old days, it was just newbies going on and on uselessly. These
days, it has spread until it is almost exclusively older players. I dont
mean to humiliate anyone, but people whose names start with M and end in
iriyan are the root of the problem, generally. These people are not
alone, however. Just today the whole continent was treated to these
beauties that _absolutely_ had to be shared:
"*cackle* shouty shout shout shout"
"Babbles inanely"
"I have a ton of endurance, so I can keep shouting like this and still
kill things!"
All of those were delivered by people who were at least level seventy
five. The list goes on and on, surely. When I was reading over those few
examples, it occurred to me that perhaps the people shouting them were
staging a contest. They were trying to see who could be the dumbest (the
stupidest if you will). I am here to announce the results of said
contest: All of them are equally stupid! Hooray! Now they can all stop
competing!
Unfortunately, that wont end our problems. Still others are under the
impression that they are funny. They try moonlighting as a comedian over
shouts. For instance, they find it hilarious when a newbie shouts Who
killed the Imp Lord?! and they shout back I did! Me!. As people achieve
higher and higher levels, they perceive the joke to get funnier and
funnier. People were using that one when I was a newbie, and nearly a
century later it still isnt witty. Perhaps gave you the idea that the
aforementioned shout was funny. That person was sadly mistaken. They
lied. Dont listen to them any more.
A lot of people might take issue with that last point. Theyll send me a
tell trying to bust my chops; it might go something like this: LOL!!1
THEIR JUST HAVING FUN DUDE! LIGHTEN UP!. Little do those people know
that my chops are unbustable. That brings me to my next point. Try to
have a basic grasp of the language you are trying to speak. For example:
their is a possessive pronoun while theyre is a contraction of the words
they and are. The same goes for your and youre, respectively. I might
slip up every once in awhile and over look a mistake, but I at least I
have mastered the fundamentals.
Why dont I lighten up? Why dont I go deaf or turn shouts off? To me,
that seems almost morally wrong. If you turn shouts of, you are
condoning the stupidity. Furthermore, only 10% of people are
contributing to the problem in a regular basis. Do the other 90% of us
have to make up for what they do? Were in the majority, and we arent the
ones doing something wrong. Read Help Shouts, it is pretty clear about
what should and should not be broadcasted to everyone.
It also occurred to me that it would be pretty lame to make a big post
complaining about everyone without offering some sort of solution to the
problem. I have come up with such a solution! It is a very simple
shouting test that one can administer to ones self in order to see if
their shouts are acceptable. Follow these simple steps:
1) Set your returnmessage thus Nothing you say is funny or witty.
Chances are that nobody wants to hear what you have to say. Nobody cares
that youre a piggy, or that you have enough endurance to sound like an
idiot for half an hour at a time. Just keep quiet, ok?
That was easy right? Now whenever you come up with something to shout,
message it to yourself! If youve followed Step 1, youll be sure to never
shout anything dumb again! Hooray!
(If you happen to be I dunno...ranked 4th in the game at the time of
this posting. it might be wise to follow that second step three or four
times, just to be safe. Wouldn't want one to slip through eh?)
Well...I guess that concludes this one. For everyone who made it to the
end, I can only hope that you feel more enriched because of it.
Thanks for your time- The Ninja Pickle

Penned by my hand on the 21st of Miraman, in the year 330 AF.