Not to mention multi-paragraph emotes with something like EmoteSplitter in play can, in a weird way, be a bit disruptive to RP. Makes tavern banter or general talking a bit bizarre when someone emotes a 3-paragraph combo of speaking, inner turmoil, and the taste of his ale.
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Itâs easy! to Practise, pick something. Like a carrot.
- Before you, lays a carrot, is in natural orange color every so pointy in itâs wake, Itâs not just a carrot! No⊠Itâs a magnificent carrot!. Probebly the best carrot in the whole of Azeroth!. This tremendous carrot is this good! that other carrots fear this carrot while plantage hangs from the top. How would this carrot taste, one might wonder. Yet, youâd only find out, if you take a bite from this delicious and great display of itâs carrotness*
but you have to consider everyone likes and accepts different stuff. Some are going into Shakespear-esque type of emotes that annoy the hell out of me.
A good way on how to get better at emotes is simply roleplaying. See what flowerish language others use and then you will get a hang of it eventually.
Personally I practiced it in the following way:
think of yourself IRL. Do something simple like move your arm. Now think of a few ways on how to describe that. Do that with everything and boom, you will get practiced with it in time to use different words. Ground can be pavement, grass can be soft plant growings (Idk, I made that one up right now) and so forth. Another detail to add is where you do that. Take a look around your character. The ground in Stormwind for example isnât just âa groundâ, itâs stone. On this way you can add minor details that help to keep the flow going.
Anyways, some people prefer short emotes for simple stuff, so donât throw your 999999999 paragraph emote at a beginner.
With emotes - I think a lot of it depends where you are.
Are you in a crowded bar or an event with dozens of players? Keep it short and sweet - what youâre doing and maybe an adverb. When the textâs scrolling like a waterfall and everyoneâs trying to do stuff your novella about your elf swinging his sword in a prideful flourish while arrogantly smirking isnât going to be terribly appreciated by anyone.
If youâre with only one or two other players go hog wild, but keep in mind that clarity of action is more important than flowery prose - weâre pretending to be elves on the internet not writing the next great american novel - but a little indulgence wonât hurt anyone in more private settings.
As to actual constructive tips - try to think of ways you can use the emote to say something about your character - their state of mind or their personality. For example Jenit usually âscurriesâ rather than ârunsâ sheâs bouncy and fidgety and nervous. Describing how a character does things gives people a little insight on what theyâre like which cool and good.
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Donât feel bad. Context matters. A verbose wall of text has no place mid combat with 40 others emoting and oftentimes less is more in regular interaction.
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Short emotes are fine in and of themselves. As others have said it is a matter of balance. Short emotes can pack a punch with a well placed descriptive word or two.
There is nothing worse than free emoting a fight that has nice flow going back and forth and then it is suddenly stalled for five to ten minutes only to be ambushed with a three or four paragraph emote. Completely takes me out of it.
Short or long emotes - either can be fine, but they need to have some substance. A long emote can be necessary if a lot of information needs to be conveyed, but if all you do is pad it with descriptive words, consider if itâs worth keeping everyone else around you waiting - because often, that is what you do. In a combat situation, for example, people often have to wait for your emote before they can do anything else, so itâs not fair to keep them waiting because you know several synonyms of âswordâ. Reading fantasy novels can be useful, as authors typically know the balance between rich descriptions and keeping it to the point.
One particular pet peeve of mine is when people do exceedingly long speeches in /say, in mid-conversation. Because thereâs an implication that everyone else in the room would just go quiet and allow your character to deliver a long Tarantino-esque monologue without interrupting or reacting. If your character has a lot to say, consider simply dividing it up into parts, so that people have a chance to react to you as you go, and not be forced to sit still for several minutes so they can respond to a drawn-out speech. I usually tend to hit enter after a sentence (or maybe two), then keep typing if I had more to add.
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Brevity is the sister of talent , as Anton Chekhov once said, and I full-heartedly agree.
Many assume (maybe not here on the forums, but definitely in-game) that the more you write in your emote - better it will benefit your RP from storytelling perspective, that more you will be able to pass over to the person/people you roleplay with; or just people like to show-off their language skills for whatever reason.
I disagree. I think that not only it takes absurd amount of time to come up and write such an emote down, but it also makes roleplay less lively as it should be, and more of a forum-based storytelling, where you write stories, instead of emotes.
If you are worried about your vocabulary - then only practice and lots of reading will help in that regard. I wholeheartedly suggest reading Blizzardâs WoW based novels and short stories, as not only you get to âpracticeâ in the said setting, but they are also fairly interesting.
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Practice makes perfect!
Look at the emotes from rpers you admire- what is it you admire about them? If its their ability to get across their character, think about how to do the same. Emote more, emote to yourself when youâre walking around your main rp hub and really try to immerse yourself in the character. Give them physical quirks, nervous tics, maybe even just something they do casually like stroking their beard or tilting their head to show theyâre listening. These kind of things really get character across and I love it when people emote like this.
If you like the level of detail or impressive language in emotes, I can only echo upthread where someone suggested to read more! Allow yourself to be inspired by or even copy from people better at writing than you, its a great way to learn and become a better writer.
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I wouldnât worry about it.
I would say reading the wow books is good, otherwise, read other peopleâs emotes, take a screenshot of ones you really like and then then just read over them in your spare time.
Thereâs no need to copy them verbatim in your own emotes, but taking your time reading other peopleâs may help with inspiration and jog your memory when something comes up in an event.
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Less is more, my friend. Less is more.
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One of the worst mistakes people make is thinking that writing in roleplay involves a set of rules that are completely separate to writing generally. And then they end up starting from scratch and inventing weird habits and attitudes about what is and isnât okay.
You should make the point you want to make in as few words as possible. Defaulting to concise writing is good. If you need the extra words to say something meaningful about your character, use them. If you donât have anything to say, donât say anything.
Nothing wrong with short emotes.
Half the time really long emotes are just a pain in the butt to read. Especially if youâre trying to focus on one persons emote whilst the entire group is emoting.
Also, short emotes are always, ALWAYS superior to having to write two or sometimes even three emotes just to say one thing.
Iâd rather be told you took a sip of your drink than a two emote paragraph about how the drink glistened in the sun and how your finger twitched against the chill of the glass and how a broken tooth in your mouth reacted to the chill, etc.
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would for presumption or expectation
Probably why. Iâm not entirely convinced youâre right on this one.
" X would do this or that " is used to express an attempt.
People use it in a " If not stopped, he does this " way.
As for OP, my best advice to you is to build your emotes in such a way that they offer information the other characters might notice ( focus on what your character does, not what he thinks ) so that they can actually interact with the emote.
This is a weird and jarring way to do that though.
/e throws a pebble at the bad guy.
Has the same amount of uncertainty of outcome as.
/e would throw a pebble at the bad guy.
Thatâs like⊠your opinion, man? People do it, so clearly they donât think it is.
Itâs not grammatically incorrect AFAIK.
It seems more invitational to me.
Iâve read the examples for that ages ago and they donât apply.
Is not a presumption or expectation raised in first person, itâs a broken conditional of describing an action. As an example it can translate into âHe would throw a pebble at the bad guy if there are pebbles at his feet.â, the latter bit being omitted due to mutual understanding.
However, if you can provide some examples of would being used the exact same way as they are in these emotes without causing the more grammatically inclined native speakers to roll their eyes, feel free to support that point. Iâve just scoured through google for any instance of third person storytelling using this sentence structure and came up with nada.
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people doing something does not make it good
would-ing is v much a weird thing because it implies the very act of him throwing the pebble is already being stopped instead of where the thrown pebble lands
Also it just looks ugly and is basically the spawn of people giving good catch-all advice to new RPers that they should eventually grow out of once they learn how to do better, not stick to forever.
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Everytime I see a would, I wait for a but or if. Neither ever arrive.
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Best thing I can say is when you ingest whatever content you watch (games, TV, Streaming, Books, etc.) describe the action in your own words. For example:
Minerva flips and kicks the unfortunate attacker.
Could be described as:
Minerva pushes off her back leg, twisting her body and flipping to the side. At the apex of her spiral, her leg comes out, aimed squarely for her opponentâs torso.
Someone once described writing emotes to me as, âMaking them fluffy and a meal for the eyes.â Generally just make the actions descriptive, even breaking down a punch into two sentences can add more to it.
Kelian ducks under the arm, punching inwards towards the guardâs rib.
vs.
Kelian steps forward and down into his attackerâs guard. As the sword narrowly passes overhead, he focuses his Chi and drives his palm forwards for a brutal strike intowards his foeâs ribcage.
In terms of fights, âwouldâ is a word that is situational. It gives your opponent an out for a multi-move counter if they can counter, beat the move, or otherwise alter it.
Awahe snorted through her muzzle, hurling her horns forward to break their brow lock. Stepping forward, the Tauren moves to wrap her burly arms around the other Grimtotem. If uncountered, she would squeeze her smaller attacker tight, before leaning back in a fully-committed suplex!
This is, as Tehya said, very much a âbeginnerâs thing.â Use it once or twice, and learn to pull away from it.
The best I can explain for getting better at âfloweryâ emotes (with a lot of descriptive/epic stuff in it) is consume more action-heavy media and break it down. âAnimeâ (weebtrash) can be good for this, given how they like to explain techniques annoyingly in the middle of fights, but a lot of Martial Arts films or even Marvel movies have good enough fight-scenes that you can break-down and âre-describeâ the action. Over-time, introduce more âfloweryâ language to your emotes as you get more comfortable, focus on explaining the move in more detail and that will give you the basis you need to make them âepicâ and pump more into them!
And, of course, never underestimate the power of a simple /smirk. Not every emote needs to be POWERFUL! \o/