Ormbane
Posts: 80
Joined: 5/17/2013 Status: offline
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Just to be clear, I personally don't see the regulars on this forum as "trolls". Sometimes humor seems to derail or dilute threads, but I don't think that qualifies as "trolling", although some might find it annoying or even feel that they are being left out of "the cool kids club". I don't have a problem with it. Trolling seems to have derived its name from a fishing analogy - throwing your line or your net into the water to see what you can catch. In forums the phenomenon often takes an almost scripted form - the troll uses incendiary language and makes an argument of the general form, "this game sucks and everyone that plays it sucks". The tone of the argument is condescending and superior because the intent is to insult and draw people into an argument that has no purpose other than to offend. The troll needs to include just enough to make the argument somewhat plausible otherwise nobody would bite. As long as people are offended and defensive the troll is happy. When the forum has enough of the troll the parting shot will be of the form, "see, I was right, you people are pathetic", and the unspoken but implied statement is that the troll is superior and smarter than everyone. Just like the AI in this game is scripted, the comments you read from trolls seem pretty scripted as well, almost as if some of the text is cut and pasted from one forum to another. So, to reiterate, some of us enjoy the tangents and humor, some of us don't. But if someone starts off with a pretty blatantly offensive post that looks offensive, smells offensive, and tastes offensive, try not to step in it.
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