What are some pet peeves you have about promos? For instance do you hate a certain style? Do you hate double posts? Maybe you hate dark characters? Or hate when your opponent doesn't promo? Maybe you hate opponents who promo a lot?

Discuss.

-When people post OOC's that mean nothing in their promos.

-When people promo like Philosophers, it's dull as fuck to read and I don't get why so many do this. Not only do wrestlers not talk like that but people in general don't either and if i want to read some philosophical crap, I'll go to a philosophy class. You don't come off smart, you're just boring me to tears.

I do dislike it when my opponents don't promo OR promo in the very last minute. The thing about promoing back and forth is it actually makes you invest some interest into the match/feud. It also gives you an idea about your opponent's character than just simply looking up his gimmick. The promos themselves end up feeling like the "match". When your opponent doesn't promo you can only talk about them so much, after that it just becomes a game of name-calling and trash talking.

I don't have anything against dark characters, but I think people forget that these dark characters are still "human" to some aspects. I think many consider dark characters supernatural and forget what their limits are. One gimmick I dislike is the lone wolf gimmick. Its been done a million times and sooner or later you get allies/you have to tag with someone. I think the moment you "team up" using a lone wolf gimmick it has already gone to waste. Some can pull it off really well but I have yet to see it. 

I actually like it when my opponents promo a lot, it gives ME more material to promo with. From their promo I can see their point of view, their mannerisms and their character fleshed out further. 

Lastly the whole "quality not quantity" balance. It is very hard to achieve, especially when your opponent relies on quantity. Sometimes a short promo just destroys the other promo'er clearly. But other times it just gets buried in the other promo'ers 5 paragraph trash talk which is basically the same idea being repeated over and over again, worded differently.

Aw yiss, the perfect thread to be salty.  

The main things that irk me are:

- The whole numbering of promos (and to an extent saying which show like "Showdown Promo 98"). To me, it always feels like someone is saying "hey look, I've done this many promos this week" whether that be their intention or not.

- Rambling or repetition. A combination of the two actually makes me want to drink bleach. If you find yourself saying the same thing in a different way for more than the second time, stop. If your point just trails off into something unrelated, link or bring it back or undo it.

- Using certain words. This might actually be the most annoying one for me. I read so many promos where somebody has: a) used a word they clearly don't know the meaning of, b) used a word in the wrong context, c) broke out the motherfuckin' thesaurus or d) are trying to sound more articulate than they or their character is/should be.

- Grammar and proofreading. Gonna lump them together because neither is overly difficult unless English isn't your first language. The majority of people here are American afaik and the way they write English is like they're from Cambodia and weren't brought up speaking/reading/learning English in school.

I don't hate people who promo too much... I just hate myself that I can't keep up with them. Otherwise, yes, I hate people who not promoing.

In general, I don't hate any specific promos... everyone make their promo in their own way and that's one of their way to make themselves stands out.

Question: At what point do you guys have a problem with a promoers choice of words? At what point does it seem "thesaurus-y"? Because I do think there is a line between any shmuck who breaks out a bunch of big words, and Impact who's character naturally uses a wide range of words because that's actually how he/his character talks.

Gib an example

or not, just an open ended question

Hate when my opponent doesn't promo. Cause most of the time I like to promo and when my opponent doesn't promo I get bored so yeah.

Mr. DEDEDE wrote:

Question: At what point do you guys have a problem with a promoers choice of words? At what point does it seem "thesaurus-y"? Because I do think there is a line between any shmuck who breaks out a bunch of big words, and Impact who's character naturally uses a wide range of words because that's actually how he/his character talks.

Gib an example

or not, just an open ended question

To me it all depends on what sort of character you are trying to portray. Do you wanna be all brawn and no brain? In that case I don't expect you to use words which would require me to look them up, atleast not often. 

Or are you trying to be a wrestler who would seem, you know, reasonably educated. In that case I have no problems. 

Basically I don't expect a wrestler with a rural hillbilly gimmick to promo like Shakespeare. But hey if you're an educated rural hillbily then all the power to you 

Off the top of my head - a lot of Liam Catterson, Nick Angel and Venom (as Venom, don't mind Erebus) promos are a really good example of those particular types imo. I think it's hard to really provide a good example but personally, I find you can just tell when someone is speaking/writing like they shouldn't be.

If I really had to pick an example, I think it's best to look at the Shock Value promos between myself/Rami/Nick. Rami's read really nicely and made sense whereas Nick's just seemed like they were trying to be what Rami's were without actually achieving that through a mix of the above peeves. Note: this isn't me being salty about losing at my SV loss, I'm using this as an example and comparison to demonstrate a point.

Mr. DEDEDE wrote:

Question: At what point do you guys have a problem with a promoers choice of words? At what point does it seem "thesaurus-y"? Because I do think there is a line between any shmuck who breaks out a bunch of big words, and Impact who's character naturally uses a wide range of words because that's actually how he/his character talks.

Gib an example

or not, just an open ended question

As for myself, my character uses a... well, Wikipedia said it's a Simple English. I used a simple and basic choice of words and grammar because I admit myself that I have a limited vocabulary. Whem people promoed against me and uses a wider range of vocabulary choice is somehow confused me. This is the reason why I pick a Japanese character who is naturally unable to speak English at the first place. And because of my simple English, that's the reason I can't promo back and forth because I'm afraid my promos are just a repetition of my previous ones.

When it's obvious that your opponent didn't read your promo in their response. Sometimes you can just tell it's a generic reply they would have posted no matter what you said.

Just look at Venom (when he is doing the Venom gimmick or James Martin Gimmick), Liam's promos and Ventura's promos.. except for the Caster gimmick because I really expect some of his promos have a wide range of vocabulary and diction. But other than that Venom's and Liam's promos come to mind when I first got into feds with them in FWE.

I necessarily don't have a pet peeve about promos as long as it make sense and it doesn't come off forced or boring. 9/10 If it's boring im probably not going to respond at all or if it's not worth responding too.

In terms of Character development, I don't really care for what gimmicks someone uses as long as it comes naturally to them and they can make it unique or make it their own. For Dark gimmicks I see that people tends to go to the supernatural or emo like approach (Draven and FD) and it has been overdone a lot. Dark characters to me should have a solid backstory to what has made them the way they are and it doesn't hurt to make them look human at all. Best example I can think of who has used a dark gimmick well is pretty much Dark Demon

Dark Characters could work as long as your backstory isn't shit, like you killed your parents and your brother is the therapist. Shit this ain't no drama, ain't no need for a twist at the end, just get a fucking good backstory. In fact if your fucking backstory has to depend on some kind of twist, then I'm sorry it's not going to work.

I think if you use bad grammar in your promos then it has to be intentional and it has to be for the way your character talks. Like my character doesn't have the best grammar so when I do non-scene promos and all dialogue it's not supposed to be grammatically correct. Any other reason I would think has to be a mistake, if you do a description and it reads like "I saws the moon and it was rawnd as fuck and it was nite tyme !!! :WOW: " then obviously you need to work on your writing skills.

I'm actually okay with all of DDD's examples, including people not promoing. It gives me an excuse to break out Lyuncrust and Lauren - two of my alts from way back in the day - for a scene promo where I goof off the whole time. If somebody promos a lot, I'd encourage them to be careful - we don't need to be repeating the same things. If you're out of things to say (side note: I think this can happen with Vixens because while they promo their asses off, women's storylines are typically fairly shallow throughout all the efeds I've been in; they either involve the title or a guy, not the Vixens' fault, not Carlos' fault either), then develop your own character in a different way.

I'm not a fan of promoing at the last minute like the promo page is eBay or the transfer market in FIFA Ultimate Team. This applies, in one on one matches, to the person who kicked off the promo battle. Now, for this last Showdown, I did exactly that, but I wasn't trying to do so at the expense of an opponent - I had no opponent.

I'm also not a fan of passive-aggressive pot shots that involve behind the scenes issues. There's a time and place to settle things with your writer, and the forums aren't even that place, much less the promo page.

Uhh... as a former writer/booker of my own efed and one other one, I don't like it when people promo AT me, as if to try to get my attention for a push. I'm capable of reading a story, not just persuasive letters. Yes, I actually have seen people do this.

What else... this is more common with heels than with faces, but simply being an asshole, trying to bury the opponent, more pot shots, etc. It just gets dull, and being dull is probably the worst way to get heat. Or, you'll get the wrong type of heat, I suppose. On the other end of the spectrum, I've seen some heels try to be funny in promos. Not the type where Kurt Angle goes on a hilarious rant about the You Suck chants - the heel himself is cracking the jokes. In both instances, the heel doesn't do a good enough job of getting heat. We can include dark characters here, too. Those are a challenge to play in the sense that it's a very bad look when a dark character fails to get heat. Props to anybody who's done a good job as a dark character.

This next one is very easy to fall into, and I've certainly been guilty of it - trying to out-debate the opponent. The point of a promo in real life is to get fans interested in the match/fight. To get into a debate and poke at little holes in the opponent's story or logic can have the opposite effect. Doing that is fine, but I think that gaining interest in the match should be a higher priority.

That being said, I hope that all of the "pet peeves" on this thread don't scare anybody out of trying a new style of promoing every once in a while. Going with your bread and butter is good, but it's okay to throw a curveball every now and then to keep yourself from relying on the same thing too much. If you try something different and it turns out awful, don't go to it again for a while.

My biggest pet peeve, however - and I hope I "scare" everybody out of doing this - is promoing anywhere other than the promo page. There's a time and place for you to be your character, and that place isn't the chat. Some people can pull this off (Corporate/Demon RRS), but it's usually just annoying. In the chat, I want to talk to you, not your character.

I might have more - I'll go check my efed books (shameless plug) and I might have another go at this thread.

Lioncross wrote:

On the other end of the spectrum, I've seen some heels try to be funny in promos. Not the type where Kurt Angle goes on a hilarious rant about the You Suck chants - the heel himself is cracking the jokes. In both instances, the heel doesn't do a good enough job of getting heat.

Got some feedback about this in the chat, and DDD, Demon, and Aaron made an interesting point:



This promo is funny because Angle finally blew a fuse after being chanted at for years. On its own, there's nothing funny about this promo.

When my opponent promos it's a pet peeve because then I have to promo. I probably still won't promo but it's just annoying. Fuck y'all.

I USED TO BE CHAIRMAN wrote:

Reading them.

Fixed

Mr. DEDEDE wrote:

I USED TO BE CHAIRMAN wrote:

Reading them.

Fixed

That too.

I'd have to say...though probably a few people are looking at me for two things here. Those two things being the "Dark character cliché and the Vocabulary for the character cliché but I'll take a stab at this, with the limited time I have on this computer right now.

Ignoring key facts of the opponent. Lord this one is annoying. A lot of times when I see good promo battles between people, they target the character and actually delve into that character, looking through their history and what not. When people don't, and just judge off the pic base or the last promo...it's...well it's pretty simple to notice. It's really annoying to look at.

Stagnation. A lot of people that struggle with their promos or gimmicks, and talk about, when you reread their promos there is something pretty clear. It never changes. The style, the way the character acts, the motions, the word play. Branch from your character, explore it. being familiar with a character is good, but you also have to explore to achieve success.

Know your gimmick and how to play it out. Eclipse Diemos makes very little jokes, if any at all. This isn't because I don't have a sense of humor, I do, and so does Eclipse. The difference is, character wise he wouldn't make any jokes unless he truly found something amusing or interesting. That same way, a lot of characters that I read their promos for...either they do something that makes no sense for the gimmick, or they start trying to make jokes and do things that have fit characters like TLA, Clark Duncan, or Maxwell Dachs. If humor is the driving force for the character, by all means use it...but if its brute force and a twisted mind...any humor other than dark humor just doesn't really fit.

I don't have any real pet peeves except one: let the gimmick match the character/pic base. I don't see this problem too much in EAW, but I have in other feds. If you're character is based off a fun babyface like Ziggler or Evan Bourne, why go dark? That's how guys like Kidman (dark grunge maybe), Crow Sting, and Jimmy Jacobs are for if you want to be an agile guy.

I think I have one more actually and I bring this up because I've caught myself out there a few times recently: Let your NPCs enhance your promos not take them over. I've noticed it a few times, but after seeing future promos I've realized people were trying to make a point. May of us including myself use promos as a way to build upon our backstories, and the promo page is the only real place to do that.

I know I'm guilty of other peeves, and wouldn't mind knowing a few. I want to become a better e-fedder.

When I work my ass off on something and then a motherfucker gets two paragraphs in and still jobs me.

Another one I thought of is when people directly contradict what their character did in shows in their promos. Like I get you didn't actually write your segment, but it still happened, and your opponent can use it in their promo. I've seen people act like what happened on the shows never even happened (either that or they never read it which is probably more likely).

This one depends on how you look at promos - do you interpret them as being typed, as they actually are on the promo page, or do you interpret them as being spoken, as they would be if we were actually wrestlers?

The peeve is calling somebody out on spelling or grammar within a promo. I don't like it to begin with because it's a very minor issue to have with a person you're going to fight in three days, but I suppose it'd be somewhat legitimate if you interpret the promos as being typed. And yes, I have seen that happen. You see a lot of bullshit when you run your own efed for a bit.

Decapitated Christina Applegate