How to get Mega Meta AoE!

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I am a fully paid up life-long member of AAAA

No, Not it’s not AA and I am not Dysrexic.

When I need a break from tedious soul/traits farming I pop into the forums and enjoy reading the lively and helpful discussions.

There are many people here for whom English is not their first language.
There are others for whom English is their first language but they are not English
There are others for whom English is their first language but they can’t understand English

The point here is that there are many people in these forums with different skills in reading and understanding English.

What they do NOT need are terms that block their understanding.

Now;

How many people reading this ‘really’ know the meaning of these abbreviations or acronyms and when and how to use them?

aoe, AoE, AOE – I believe this means Area of Effect – whatever that means
meta, META, Meta – I have seriously no idea what this word means

Please add your own to the list - if you have found any others in these forums that cause problems

If a person creates a message in these forums then the message must be important - someone has taken time out to create that message.

Our time is important so, it is important that the message be understood.

Unfortunately, some messages just cannot be understood except by the author/creator of that message, because the use of certain terms acts as a barrier – blocking understanding of the message.

Using abbreviiations and acronyms:

does not make the creator important - because he/she is using pseudo- specialist terms.
Actually prevents understanding of the message – barrier/blockage.
Causes frustration to the reader.
It could be called lazy writing.

Oh, before I forget, you are probably pondering over the meaning of AAAAAA – I have included this term to let the reader know how it feels to have their understanding blocked. How’s it feel?

Now stop reading this and go get them souls and traits ready for tomorrows changeover to 1.0.9

Rant over and many thanks to all contributors in these forums!

Answer: AAAAA stands for the;
American Association Against Acronym Abuse!

Homework: Who can create the longest AAAAA…?
How about: AAAAAA : American Amateur Association Against Acronym Abuse

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Hear, hear! I actually looked up AoE sometime ago, and discovered its meaning in other games, and could apply the definition well enough to understand what they were trying to say (do damage against all enemy troops).

Meta, however, is not even a word in itself, but only a prefix. So my guess is that there once was a concept pertaining to gaming that had this prefix attached, but is somehow so obvious that the original concept to which it is a ‘meta’ has become completely redundant. I have no idea what the meta is a meta for (pun intended).
(English is my second language btw, so perhaps I’m handicapped to start with) :slight_smile:

EDIT: and we’re not the only ones with this problem. http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/forum/topic/11424092907

EDIT #2: and this guy’s answer is hilarious. http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/forum/topic/11424092907#6
Yeah, that helps, thank you very much.

And I’m going for this description:
http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/forum/topic/11424092907#11

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The term “meta” is short for “metagame”, or “the game about the game”. The actual game is match-3, with a layer of creatures on top. The metagame is how players build teams out of available troops for attack or defense.

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Heh. Lots of people here come from / continue to play games like Diablo III, World of Warcraft, and League of Legends - where the term ‘Area of Effect’ was ancient decades ago. That partly explains its frequent and unexplained use in here. I know the devs play at least two or three of the three I just said.

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The devs shouldn’t play! They should dev! :stuck_out_tongue:

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I completely understand that not everyone comes to Gems of War from the same gaming background or even the same native language. However, any gaming term that is sufficiently widespread that it occurs in most gaming glossaries (e.g. Glossary of video game terms - Wikipedia) is probably okay to use in a forum like this without too many misunderstandings. I grabbed the first glossary I found with Google and it had basic explanations of both AoE and meta.

By the same token, it’s perfectly fine to ask what the meaning is, or even better, create a glossary thread for the forums (this one’s a bit heavy on the rant and light on the glossary so far).

But to discount useful and widespread shorthand/jargon just because you don’t understand it yet is shortsighted.

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My guess is the OP was a bit tongue-in-cheek. I know my respons was. :slight_smile:

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Yes, I wasn’t responding to the melodramatic tone, but more the included points about communication and lazy writing.

Regardless of the tone, the OP appears (to me at least) to be genuinely arguing for less jargon, rather than more help to those not understanding yet, which I strongly disagree with.

When used in the appropriate context, jargon is not lazy, it’s efficient and is common to all language use. /languagenerd

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My post was very much tongue-in-cheek. How many rants contain humour?

One persons humour, apparently, is another persons melodrama.

Jargon, when used appropriately clarifies. When used lazily it hinders understanding. I could give examples from these forums but that would create finger pointing and wreck the constructive purposes of my post.

Nowhere in my post have I suggested that jargon not be used. I actually requested readers to add to the ‘jargon’ list. Why? Because I was trying to be constructive and my (undocumented) plan was to have a glossary created for the wiki - depending on responses. I felt there was a problem but I just didn’t know how big.

There would be little point making a glossary for three items – so far: OP, Meta, AoE. But, hey, it’s a start.

If another person wants to figure out what these terms mean then they will be pointed here when they search within these forums. It would have helped me a lot. I am clearly not a ‘gamer’ whatever that is. No, that comment is not a put-down. Gamer means nothing to me. I couldn’t care less. So never even thought to look for gaming jargon on Google. Yes, I tried Google too.

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TLA = Three Letter Acronym

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LOL :video_game: :trophy:

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OMG ROFL! (random bla for ten chars)

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Meta is a term used in more context than just gaming. It essentially means insider. An example is meta humor, where shows/movies make references to itself or is self-depreciating.

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It’s funny to think about, whenever I’m texting on a forum I try to speak clear plain English on Global websites, but it feels very unnatural to word my sentences that way. Makes me feel like I am faking that I am from England where they speak better proper English than I naturally do where I live in America.

I am an American and English is my first language. But in my real life, I use a lot of slang words and idioms out of pure laziness I’m sure, but I will try to be aware of my use of acronyms.

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Cheers mate. This is spot on. Coupled with the fact that typing on the internet can not contain emotion, body language, or any of those slight human things that let our brains gather meaning from inference.

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“I have evolved beyond jokes. I am now a robot. Beep. Boop.”

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now was that OP for orginial poster or OP for over powered?
rng = random number generator.

personally if there are too many acronyms in a message… i skip it.

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