User:Kaon

KAAL

Kaon's essay on the meaning of "euro"
Euro is a monetary unit that is completely owning the dollar at the moment. In Guild Wars the term "euro" is a discriminating term that denotes all people from Europe. It can be compared to the N word as they both serve as an insulting term to people with a certain racial background or from a certain continent.

Euro in popular Guild Wars culture
Americans often insult euros criticizing them with hyperdefensive playing style and builds, lack of honour, and excessive rage. In late 2006 after the release of Guild Wars Nightfall euros quickly made highly successful spike builds that would destroy anyone in their path but make the game extremely stale. The term "euro spike" was invented, originally denoting a build using domination mesmers with Spiritual Pain, the term quickly came to be used as all builds that spike and play defensively. Not too many months later, the same guild that mostly ran eurospike (Clan Detained) would invent a highly dedicated split, and the term eurosplit was coined. Currently all builds run in europe are being considered either eurosplit or eurospike (most of them eurospike) by Americans. Ironically for the pride of America, Rebel Rising is the icon of defensive spike proving that this playstyle is in fact the most powerful in the game.

Euro trash (not to be mixed up with the "euro trash" guild existing between mid 2005 and early 2006)
Euro trash an even more insulting term than euro. It denotes a euro that also fails at the game. Sadly this term is being used so frequently it completely lost its value, if you haven't ever been called euro trash, you're not a euro, or you've never played guild wars.

Reply by the European community
Euros first reacted quite furiously, not because of the term itself, but they felt insulted that Americans claimed they were better. Heated debates on Guild-Hall.net were the result with heavy insults coming from both sides. Euros would argument the failure of American guilds in the GWFC qualifyers and the defeat of Treacherous Empire by Lamers Ultimate Majority in the GWWC, while Americans would just tell euros how bad they were without backing up their words. Americans did get to back up their words after the failure of euro guilds on the GWFC. Since then the debate slowly started to calm down and the term euro slowly got accepted as popular Guild Wars term, sometimes even used as a reappropriation, something to be proud of ("I'm a euro so what? I'm still better than all the American retards out there" -- Kaon 2006). Also recent developments in playing style (especially Rebel Rising taking a European playstyle and other American guilds trying to copy this) often make American statements about euro spike hollow because in many cases the opposite is true.

The existance of the euro
Objectively speaking the actual euro doesn't exist, for the obvious reason that there is no such thing as Euroland. Mixed European guilds are as common as European guilds from 1 country. The author of this article has been in mixed European guilds in his entire Guild Wars career since day 1 but still does not acknowledge existance of euro. The excited French, vocal Dutch, drunk Fins and humourless Germans are hard to unite in a single group. Not to mention the south-europeans who have a completely different attitude towards everything. Italians for example live in a different time. Tests at CERN showed that through a complex system of wormholes and timerifts it is proven that Italians always lag a few minutes behind: ask a question and chances of an instant reply are near 0, while the probability of Italians going randomly afk while you're talking to them, or even during a match is very real (specimen: Bison). Some of them also take part in long and complex rituals involving sacred dinner together with their families for a period of time that usually amounts to one whole hour, and therefore can't come for GvG (specimen: Akaraxle). Despite all this, the term euro is still used actively for lack of a better word.

Thanks Kaon, that was very uh interesting!