Games that changed your vocabulary

[skyride]

Some games have created brand new words that are now commonly used by gamers who may not even have played the original game. Lets give credit to some of these game. Just a few off the top of my head:

Ding

Origin: Everquest (Verant)

So popular that it got it's own poll (http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=25439&highlight=ding)recently. This was a sound effect played when you leveled up. This word is still widely used despite the fact that very few games actually have a "Ding" sound effect attached to leveling anymore. Why did it stick? I think partly because it sounds catchier than saying "I leveled up!" Out of curiosity, what was commonly said when you leveled up in games pre-Everquest (e.g. UO, MUDs)?

Zerg

Origin: Starcraft (Blizzard)

I like this one as it relates to gameplay and isn't just a shortcut. "The Zerg" or "Zerging" is the act of using overwhelming numbers to beat the opposite team. It originated from a common strategy used by SC players by producing massive number of cheap Zerg units (which was one of the three races in SC) to rush the enemy. This term is mostly used in a condescending manner referring to someone who doesn't have much skill but can only win with superior numbers. Speaking of cheese...

Cheese

Origin: Street Fighter? (Capcom)

I'm really not sure about this but I first heard the word "cheese" being thrown around while playing Street Fighter 2 in the arcades. This is the act of using cheap tactics frowned upon by more skilled players. These cheap tactics are easy to master for most people so when you win with "cheese" you are deemed to be an unskilled player.

Woot

Unsure about the origin, I heard it in Everquest first. But I hear people used it in Quake? Does it stand for Wicked Loot? There is a website woot.com

Pwn

Don't know. I heard Ultima Online was the first but I never played UO.

[Jason McCullough]

Beat 'Em & Eat 'Em (http://www.google.com/search?q=beat+em+and+eat+em) added its title.

[TriggerHappy]

Cheese

Origin: Street Fighter? (Capcom)

I'm really not sure about this but I first heard the word "cheese" being thrown around while playing Street Fighter 2 in the arcades. This is the act of using cheap tactics frowned upon by more skilled players. These cheap tactics are easy to master for most people so when you win with "cheese" you are deemed to be an unskilled player.


I forget which version it was, but one of the Street Fighters even put up a Cheese logo for your win logo if you threw too high a percentage of fireballs or whatever.

[Derek French]

Some games have created brand new words that are now commonly used by gamers who may not even have played the original game. Lets give credit to some of these game. Just a few off the top of my head:

Pwn

Don't know. I heard Ultima Online was the first but I never played UO.
I am pretty sure that this was Starcraft as well. I believe it came from one guy trying to type that he just "owned" someone and he mistyped and hit P instead of O and we got "pwned".

[Gordon Cameron]

I got my first exposure to (quasi) Elizabethan English by playing the Ultimas.

[Derek French]

Woot

Unsure about the origin, I heard it in Everquest first. But I hear people used it in Quake? Does it stand for Wicked Loot? There is a website woot.com
It was just a variation on Yahoo! Yipee! etc. It doesn't stand for Wicked Loot. It can also be spelled Wh00t! and such. I believe that it is pretty much a cross-game exclamation.

[Tom McNamara]

There's actually a pretty considerable Wiki entry on this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woot

[Jasper]

I forget which version it was, but one of the Street Fighters even put up a Cheese logo for your win logo if you threw too high a percentage of fireballs or whatever.
I don't remember which one it was, but I recall you got the cheese icon if you knocked out your opponent with penetrating damage while he was blocking. SFA3 maybe?

[unbongwah]

How can "frag" not be the first word on this list? :-)

[rei]

spam
spam
spam
humbug

[Backov]

How can "frag" not be the first word on this list? :-)

Vietnam.

[Shadari]

I guess Quake gave us "gib." It probably never really reached mainstream status though.

[Troy S Goodfellow]

Vietnam.

I never used it until it hit gaming vernacular, whatever the original derivation. Plus, the Vietname version has the connotation of fratricide where you kill someone on your own side, not an enemy.

Troy

[Bill Dungsroman]

nerf
Pally
mob
train
buff
turtle
camp
lewt
minmax
etc.

[unbongwah]

According to Wordsmith, "frag (http://www.wordsmith.org/words/frag.html)" (as a verb) originated during the Vietnam War era to mean "to kill (especially an unpopular superior) by throwing a grenade or other explosive." However, I think it's safe to say that online FPSs popularized the word's usage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frag_%28video_gaming%29) to refer more generally to an in-game kill.

Considering "cheese" is not a new word (merely a new meaning) and "pwn" is just a popular misspelling, I'm gonna say "frag" counts as new gamer vocab. :-)

[Stroker Ace]

Bill, do you play multiplayer games? I only remember you chatting about single player rpgs.

[Robert Sharp]

cheese didn't even get it's new meaning from SF. Isn't it just a version of cheesy, as in "That's cheesy?" That was around in the 80s, at least. Frag, is of course, from fragmentation grenades...though 'explosive' is close enough.

[Jab2565]

I remember first seeing the cheese icon in Primal Rage , never saw it in SF2

[mouselock]

There's actually a pretty considerable Wiki entry on this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woot

None of which covers where I first saw "Woot!" used as a happy expletive, which was Elfquest comics, viz. the mid 1980s or before. (It was a wolfrider victory/attack cry.)

[Jazar]

I got left in a bowling alley arcade for a cheeze move in Mortal Kombat.

[Jojo]

gank - from UO I presume?

[Stroker Ace]

I played some mud once in the '50s that had all of these terms way before EQ/UO/WoW.

[Jaysun]

Hepl!

Popular mispelling of someone shouting for help while running for their life.

[Elton]

I got left in a bowling alley arcade for a cheeze move in Mortal Kombat.

Abandoned by your parents? Or do you mean left by your girlfriend? Either way -- Harsh.

Then again, breaking down Mom's blocking with cheesy little hits is a tad ungrateful.

[andrew_fm]

Unsure about the origin, I heard it in Everquest first. But I hear people used it in Quake? Does it stand for Wicked Loot? There is a website woot.comI remember back when I played MUDS in like 1994 (I am sure I am a little nublet compared to most of you but anyways) that "woot" was a common expression that was basically "awesome" or "hell yeah" or what have you. So it's probably been around forever in some form.

[Rimbo]

it is squishy to smell you

[Dirt]

Bad Girl
Good luck!!
Broad Band
Hustle
Neo Acoustic
Social Worker

[Rorschach]

it is *squishy* to *smell* you

Fixed.

[Rorschach]

nerf
Pally
mob
train
buff
turtle
camp
lewt
minmax
etc.

I'd think minmax predates computer games as a pen-n-paper RPG term?

[Shadari]

Where did twink come from?

[Gordon Cameron]

wakka wakka

[instant0]

I believe I first saw PWN'ed in Counterstrike, when the kids came to play (on the server, not my kids), but it could have been UO as well.

"WOOT" I also first saw in Quake.

PEKAY - Ultima Online (A player killer, in my experience on pacific server it was the korean guilds : PEKAY ^-^ KEKEKE etc... )

PK - Diablo... Playerkillers, first experienced by me in Diablo [The beta no less..]

XPLOIT, SPLOIT, ZPLOIT, SPLOITZ, etc. - Diablo; People using glitches in the system to gain advantages. Some sploits were fun. :-)

DUPE - Diablo; Duplicating items.

"Farmer" - Ultima Online: Course, we also called ourselves 'farmers' when we were roleplaying in UO, even though we were Honorable Playerkillers =)

[Bill Dungsroman]

Bill, do you play multiplayer games? I only remember you chatting about single player rpgs.

Negative. I suck at games and have no friends, there's no chance I'm going to play a MMOG. I just have a big stupid head full of pointless fucking nonsense.

[DennyA]

Okay, having (1) read yesterday's PvP, and (2) not having played MMORPGs in a couple of years now, can someone please define "aggro" for me?

[Shadari]

PK - Diablo... Playerkillers, first experienced by me in Diablo [The beta no less..]
First time I ever heard the term PK was in Meridian 59, but I suspect its roots can be traced back before that to MUDs.

[instant0]

Okay, having (1) read yesterday's PvP, and (2) not having played MMORPGs in a couple of years now, can someone please define "aggro" for me?

When the mobs (monsters) attack you because you got within their 'aggro' (detection) range.

[shift6]

I forget which version it was, but one of the Street Fighters even put up a Cheese logo for your win logo if you threw too high a percentage of fireballs or whatever.
That was MK, I think #3.

[Cosmic Hippo]

I follow the belief that "pwn" in its popularity came from a typo on a Warcraft II map. I know it's at least that old, originally.


it is *squishy* to *smell* you

Fixed.
Always remember to *enjoy the sauce*!

[tromik]

Gib/gibs/gibbed

Although ragdolls have basically killed gibs.

[shift6]

I've called people "taffers" since Thief. Also, a kind of mass-synergy while playing the Robo-Rally board games with 8 people produced a phrase "The Blam", which is a proper noun used thus: "If I ever find the taffer who implemented this shitty company policy, I'm going to put The Blam on his fat ass."

[Redfive]

one-shot
disco
dot
CC
DPS
tank
rouge (yes I meant to spell it that way)
bot
boom
rush

[Raife]

Do you people use these in regular conversation? I know them, but wouldn't say that they've changed my vocabulary.

[Damien Neil]

Okay, having (1) read yesterday's PvP, and (2) not having played MMORPGs in a couple of years now, can someone please define "aggro" for me?

The person being attacked by a mob (mob = "monster") "has aggro".

If I shoot an arrow at an orc, the orc will attack me. I now have aggro. If he has friends, they may aggro when he comes: i.e., they will also attack me. If someone heals me, one of the orcs may aggro on him: i.e., it'll stop attacking me and start attacking him.

In games derived from EQ, aggro management is quite important: Some classes are good at being hit, while most aren't. A group has to cooperate to make certain that the mobs attack the former group and not the latter.

[bago]

First on the woot etymology rumor list it states:
An expression of joy, coming from the "Woooooo!" often exclaimed by gamers.

[Jason Cross]

Okay, having (1) read yesterday's PvP, and (2) not having played MMORPGs in a couple of years now, can someone please define "aggro" for me?

Aggro is "aggression" or something. A mob (short for "mobile" - a computer-driven monster or character) has an "aggro range", which is the distance at which it will come attack you when you walk on by.

Aggro is also used to talk about the amount of "hate" a mob has for you. Typically in MMOs, the more damage you do to an enemy, the more it wants to attack you rather than anyone else in your party. It's not quite that simple anymore; these days, healing party members and doing other beneficial stuff usually increases aggro (otherwise healers could sit back and heal all day long without worrying about monsters ever attacking them).

So part of the strategy of MMOs is dealing with "aggro management." Knowing which monsters to hit, and sometimes when to do less damage or less healing so that the monster doesn't turn on you, and keeps hitting the guy in your party you want it to be hitting.

The PvP joke: warriors in WoW are made to keep aggro in a party. They're the "hit me, I can take it" class.

[SolomonGrundy]

One that became popular in my circle back in the day was 'snotbubble' from Madden 96.
Gib- the great debate if it is a hard G or a soft G. Giblets? Almost everyone I know says it with a hard G, except for the old doom players, and developers from Texas.
Frag has definately been taken over by the FPS crowd.
Another funny one was from C&C- and I still get people to do this- the 'Enginnering' wav. I always manage to get a couple of programmers to say this all the time wherever I work.
## needs food badly.
I guess more of an internet thing- but I do know a few people that actually say AFK out loud.

[Dave Long]

When I was laughing and talking too loud while playing something on Xbox Live, my wife pounded on the floor upstairs to get me to shut up. I mentioned it on Live and Xaroc chimed in...

"Ooooo... wife aggro!"

[Joel]

My friends and I sometimes say "Okloma" and "Plurbus" from the first Age of Empires. That's more inside jokey than an addition to my vocabulary, though.

I do tend to say 'In the pipe, five by five' fairly often, mostly in the hope that someone will explain to me what the 'five by five' part means.

[unbongwah]

Negative. I suck at games and have no friends, there's no chance I'm going to play a MMOG. I just have a big stupid head full of pointless fucking nonsense.
Shit, dude, why do you think any of us are here in the first place?

[Balasarius]

hax / hax0r

[Flowers]

With the advent and increased use of TeamSpeak and Ventrilo, it's just a matter of time until you hear the best and the brightest of these expressions infect common parlance. People will get comfortable saying them, and they'll slip out at work, they'll get explained to nongamers, and the damage will be done, and America will sound like a Finnish guildmaster in no time.

DoT-EQ was the first time I saw it, but, of course, wasn't the first game to have DoTs.

[Jake Plane]

Daikatana is certainly a game that changed my vocabulary. Specifically, prior to playing it, I never cursed.

But after installing it, I found myself uttering the foulest string of swear words known to man.

Another $@%# @#% piece of @#$! craptacular @#$! FROG to fight? Are you kidding me? Are you f@#$!-ing kidding me?

Jake

[Troy S Goodfellow]

With the advent and increased use of TeamSpeak and Ventrilo, it's just a matter of time until you hear the best and the brightest of these expressions infect common parlance. People will get comfortable saying them, and they'll slip out at work, they'll get explained to nongamers, and the damage will be done, and America will sound like a Finnish guildmaster in no time.

Some of my students use pwn in everyday conversation with no sense of irony.

"I pwned that test, Dr. G."

Troy

[Talisker]

I do tend to say 'In the pipe, five by five' fairly often, mostly in the hope that someone will explain to me what the 'five by five' part means.
Five by five (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_by_five).

[ElGuapo]

The only term I ever use from videogames in real life is "piker" from PS:T.

I just grokked it, somehow.

[Gordon Cameron]

My friends and I sometimes say "Okloma" and "Plurbus" from the first Age of Empires. That's more inside jokey than an addition to my vocabulary, though.

I do tend to say 'In the pipe, five by five' fairly often, mostly in the hope that someone will explain to me what the 'five by five' part means.

Habidakus.

As you may know, the "in the pipe" phrase was in the movie "Aliens" and then quoted in Starcraft as homage.

[extarbags]

Tag (Fallout)

[roguefrog]

I'd think minmax predates computer games as a pen-n-paper RPG term?

Yes.


The only term I ever use from videogames in real life is "piker" from PS:T.

A lot of planescape chant is based off 18th century british slang.

[Joel]

Five by five (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_by_five).

Of course, Wikipedia! Thanks!

[Arbit]

Habidakus.
Erectus.

Try making the priest conversion noise during a religious discussion. You will look like a giant retard to anyone who doesn't get it but you'll establish a lifelong rapport with anyone who does. They will probably die laughing, too.
Oh-no-nooo!

[nKoan]

Some ones I picked up from Counterstrike:

Fag
Fagatron
Fagitolia
Fagorama
Fagtard
Faggitus Maximus
...

With the help of my Couterstrike friends, I found many new ways to express my dislike of homosexuals throwing grenades at me in real life.

[Old Man Gravy]

zugzug

Also, a couple other Thief adherents and I regularly use "taffer".

When we were (much) younger, the term "turbo-bonk" snuck into our vocabulary for a while after we played Battletoads co-op. Those of you who played it may remember why.

[DennyA]

Thanks for the explanation of "aggro." It was "mob" that was throwing me -- I thought that was referring to large groups of players, so I was never able to figure out the meaning from context. Does this term come from Everquest?

My current work environment isn't as game-geeky as in the past. It was always fun at CGW to be able to consistently expect the proper response to this hallway greeting... "Dona-ee?" "Homus!" And of course "zug-zug" was a more common acknowedgement than "yes."

Nowadays my slang comes more from sci-fi, which has more recognition in these halls. If my son picks up bad language from me, at least he'll be saying stuff like "Frack. I can't believe I have this much gorram homework."

[instant0]

Would love to work a place where they said 'Zug-Zug' for affirmative/yes.

(As long as they dont go around dressed as Orcs, that is...)

[Stroker Ace]

I think MOB is MUDspeak, a generic term for stuff that moves about in the game world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mob_%28computer_gaming%29

[Lara C]

How about "grue"? Or does nobody fear them anymore?

[Ryan A]

This thread really shows how young some of the gamers here are.

No way did "PK" originate with Diablo. Think older... like back when you had to actually dial a specific phone number with your modem to get to that really cool BBS.

[mutt]

How about "grue"? Or does nobody fear them anymore?
They're pretty gruesome. It's funny you bring up Zork because while everybody is running around saying "Woot" these days, I still stick with "Woo woo," which is what the vapor says in Beyond Zork. No one else gets it, of course. They prolly (there's one for you: "prolly" or "probly") think I'm a n00b.

[bago]

Mob was short for Mobile. Came to mean any non-Player Killable thing. Thusly sourcing PK.

[ciparis]

baf, add (+2 for using those irl). Oh, and aggro as a mental state description.

[JMR]

SH1T BONERZ!

I swear I've gotten into the habbit of saying it when someting goes wrong.

[Qenan]

Cheese

Origin: Street Fighter? (Capcom)

I'm really not sure about this but I first heard the word "cheese" being thrown around while playing Street Fighter 2 in the arcades. This is the act of using cheap tactics frowned upon by more skilled players. These cheap tactics are easy to master for most people so when you win with "cheese" you are deemed to be an unskilled player.


Not even close. Cheesy has meant "shoddy" or "low quality" for a long time -- certainly since my childhood in the 1960s, but dating to a century before that (http://www.word-detective.com/030299.html) by some accounts.

[forgeforsaken]

Anyone know where/when munchkin got popularised in regards to RPGs? I've heard this used way before MMOs, was it an issue of Dragon or something that kicked it off? Usenet?

[LarryLard]

"aggro" is a perfectly cromulent word in British English and has been such since before we invented computers (the Shorter OED says 'M20' meaning 1930-1969). It always amuses me when Americans explain what it means to each other on web pages. It amuses me even more when people talk about 'argo', which as far as I am aware was a ship full of ancient Greeks.

And surely AoE priests say "hollo wollo", not "oh no noooo" ?

[eliandi]

Anyone know where/when munchkin got popularised in regards to RPGs? I've heard this used way before MMOs, was it an issue of Dragon or something that kicked it off? Usenet?

I remember frist laughing about munchkin's in RPGs on a BBS back in the early 90s or so.

Twink is almost equally as old. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twinking

[Gordon Cameron]

And surely AoE priests say "hollo wollo", not "oh no noooo" ?

I always heard it as "wo-lo-lo, wo-lo-lo."

[Hanacker]

Not even close. Cheesy has meant "shoddy" or "low quality" for a long time -- certainly since my childhood in the 1960s, but dating to a century before that (http://www.word-detective.com/030299.html) by some accounts.

What about "cheese" as a verb as in "Stop cheesing that fireball and fight like a man"?

[The Bitter Cynic]

I actually called some one a n00b at work the other day.

There was an akward moment where I felt like an uber geek and the insultee was mostly confused.

[Rimbo]

Fixed.

NNGGGGGGGGGGGAAAHh!

Now, we *dance*!

[Qenan]

What about "cheese" as a verb as in "Stop cheesing that fireball and fight like a man"?

I'm pretty sure that "cheese" as a verb came from "cheesy".

[Mike Hussey]

cheese didn't even get it's new meaning from SF. Isn't it just a version of cheesy, as in "That's cheesy?" That was around in the 80s, at least. Frag, is of course, from fragmentation grenades...though 'explosive' is close enough.

I'm pretty certain it predates the 80's too. I can remember my parents using it. Slang is cycllic in nature, it comes in and out of fashion. Anyone using the word '''cool' to mean good in the '70s, for instance, would have been alaughed at as a throwback to the '50s.

I'm waiting for 'fab' to make a comeback.

[Raife]

NNGGGGGGGGGGGAAAHh!

Now, we *dance*!

http://www.morsa.net/orz.gif

[mutt]

I'm pretty certain it predates the 80's too. I can remember my parents using it. Slang is cycllic in nature, it comes in and out of fashion. Anyone using the word '''cool' to mean good in the '70s, for instance, would have been alaughed at as a throwback to the '50s.
Huh? I was a teenager in the seventies and I used "cool" all the time. Everybody did. And no one laughed. My parents, on the other hand, who grew up in the fifties, never used the word "cool" as slang.

[Mike Hussey]

Huh? I was a teenager in the seventies and I used "cool" all the time. Everybody did. And no one laughed. My parents, on the other hand, who grew up in the fifties, never used the word "cool" as slang.

Well slang is also regional. I live and grew up in England and the only people using 'cool' here in the '70s, other than to describe the weather, were ageing jazz freaks.

[Hanacker]

I'm pretty sure that "cheese" as a verb came from "cheesy".

I'd assume so as well, but was the verb form purely a gaming convention or did it also have mainstream usage? I don't think I've ever heard someone tell someone else to "stop cheesing" outside of playing video games.

[Qenan]

Huh? I was a teenager in the seventies and I used "cool" all the time. Everybody did. And no one laughed. My parents, on the other hand, who grew up in the fifties, never used the word "cool" as slang.

Right. 50s phrases: nifty, keen, neat-o. Based on my older brothers, who grew up then...

[wisefool]

Anyone know where/when munchkin got popularised in regards to RPGs? I've heard this used way before MMOs, was it an issue of Dragon or something that kicked it off? Usenet?

I remember reading it off dragon. The cover was blue sky, snow on bottom. Shot of barbarian wearing chainmail riding some lizard thing. I'd estimate it was 1989-1990 as it was the earliest issue of dragon i'd bought with lunch money.

The article was one of those Real Men, Real Roleplayers, Loonies, and Munchkins. Something like Real Men play barbarians. Real men eat $20 steaks with ketchup.

Google links claim 1983 as an origin. http://www.cif.rochester.edu/~adnd/stories/MRLM.html

[Sten Friberg]

Maybe not vocabulary per se, but:

All your base are belong to us!
Who set us up the bomb?

Both from Zero Wing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_your_base_are_belong_to_us

[Gordon Cameron]

I am pretty sure "cool" in some sense or another dates to the '50s at least. Going to the wiki for anecdotal confirmation... The Miles Davis album "Birth of the Cool" was released in 1957; the Chester Himes novel "Real Cool Killers" was published in 1959; "cool jazz" as a movement flourished in the West Coast in the 1950s although I don't know when the phrase was coined. This wiki article on the word itself seems to suggest it was in use by Beatnik culture in the '40s and '50s and also derives from African American jazz culture (I know, wikipedia isn't authoritative, but that's the best I can come up with on short notice):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool

Anyway, since my youth in the '80s, I have never known a time when the word "cool" was considered old-fashioned or out of style. It has been standard slang for as long as I have been cognizant of language.

[John Many Jars]

"Cool" was very common in the US in the 70s, not least because of "Happy Days," Grease, and the Sha Na Na TV show. I guess that particular 50s revival didn't reach the UK...Maybe because the Rockers (the guys who fought the Mods) had kept the 50s going there well into the 60s?

[MattKeil]

That was MK, I think #3.

The cheese logo was first used in Street Fighter Zero/Alpha. It popped up when you won with a block damage kill. I don't recall MK ever using it.

[shift6]

The cheese logo was first used in Street Fighter Zero/Alpha. It popped up when you won with a block damage kill. I don't recall MK ever using it.
Hmm, well I never played SF after SF2 but I played MK from 1 through 3, and I remember one of them had a thing where if you beat a guy using certain cheesy combinations all the way through, it changed your two win markers in the top bar to blocks of cheddar cheese. Maybe that's what you're talking about but I'm almost positive it was MK.

[MattKeil]

I played MK a lot, and I don't remember that at all. SFA was the first fighter to use the cheese icon, though.

[Dave Long]

Matt's right. It's from Street Fighter Alpha.

[Erlend Grefsrud]

Shadari noted "gib" as coming from Quake, which I think is wrong. First time I can remember seeing the word in a gaming context was with Rise of the Triads from 1994. Every now and then, the game rewarded a well-placed rocket with "ludicrous gibs", meaning the enemy struck would explode into an even larger fountain of gore and body parts than usual.

Mh. I occasionally go "Duh-duh-duh-duuuuuuuuh" Zelda-style when I find something I've been looking for, and ... this one is really bad, and most people don't get it, but whenever I am confronted with something lethally obvious, I do my best David Hayter impression and say "Metal Geeeeeear ..?".

As in the moment when Snake sees Metal Gear in the hold of the ship, and expresses surprise? Even though he was sent on a mission to find Metal Gear, and he knew it would be in that exact location?

[Ranulf]

Would love to work a place where they said 'Zug-Zug' for affirmative/yes.

(As long as they dont go around dressed as Orcs, that is...)

SCORBU!


Troll with Axe....

[Bob Violence]

I played MK a lot, and I don't remember that at all. SFA was the first fighter to use the cheese icon, though.
Matt's right. It's from Street Fighter Alpha.

Actually, pfreak was right. Primal Rage had one and it came out in 1994. SFA was a '95 release.

[MightyMooquack]

Clan

Origin: Mechwarrior 2: 31st Century Combat (Activision)

Mechwarrior 2 with NetMech was one of the earlier online-enabled 3D action games. The modern phenomenon of "clans" (by that name) started with this game. The name comes from the BattleTech universe, in which there were numerous militant high-tech "clans" named after animals. People (13 year olds) got quite serious about their "clan" and much high drama and angst ensued. The word quickly escaped, and is used everywhere now.

[Rimbo]

Do you people use these in regular conversation? I know them, but wouldn't say that they've changed my vocabulary.

yes, I have been known to end conversations in real life with "it is *squishy* to *smell* you"

also, when hungry?

"wizard needs food badly"

[Derek French]

Playing QuakeWorld taught me how to swear loud and long. Transformational vocabulary there.

[skyride]

Not even close. Cheesy has meant "shoddy" or "low quality" for a long time -- certainly since my childhood in the 1960s, but dating to a century before that (http://www.word-detective.com/030299.html) by some accounts.

I didn't say "cheesy". In the 60s did you ever say just "cheese"? In Street Fighter usage it was always just "cheese".

[skyride]

Clan

Origin: Mechwarrior 2: 31st Century Combat (Activision)

Mechwarrior 2 with NetMech was one of the earlier online-enabled 3D action games. The modern phenomenon of "clans" (by that name) started with this game. The name comes from the BattleTech universe, in which there were numerous militant high-tech "clans" named after animals. People (13 year olds) got quite serious about their "clan" and much high drama and angst ensued. The word quickly escaped, and is used everywhere now.

I'm boycotting MW after hearing this, they must be responsible for the KKK.

Hearing another term being thrown around a lot lately:

Carebear.

[shift6]

Actually, pfreak was right. Primal Rage had one and it came out in 1994. SFA was a '95 release.
You're right, it was Primal Rage. I played that also, but for some reason had MK on the brain.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/coinop/arcade/review/R88546.html

[Kunikos]

I think Quake holds a special spot in my heart:

gibbed
telefragged
camper
spawnraped
owned
pwned
etc

[Rimbo]

Dude, "clan" is so much older than MW, and by MW I mean pen-and-paper MW

[Ryan A]

The word "clan," as used by guilds/clans in games, was no more taken from game terminology then the word "sniper." Which is to say, your etymology is weak kung fu.

[quatoria]

it is squishy to smell you

You are not a *happy* *camper*.

[Brian Koontz]

Okay, having (1) read yesterday's PvP, and (2) not having played MMORPGs in a couple of years now, can someone please define "aggro" for me?

When your wife pulls you away from a game because she wants you to do chores. Though technically that's more like being a victim of a rogue's Distract.

[Bill Dungsroman]

When your wife pulls you away from a game because she wants you to do chores. Though technically that's more like being a victim of a rogue's Distract.
Which is why you always do more chores than she does, so all she can do is smoulder while you play them (you still lose, though).

[John Sansker]

Hearing another term being thrown around a lot lately:

Carebear.

Means someone who plays an MMO that has open PvP and doesn't wish to participate in PvP.

[Kunikos]

nobody has even mentioned "mashing", as in hitting all the buttons and hoping something good happens...

[SlyFrog]

Rape

To win. In the gaming world, it has very little to do with sexually penetrating a nonconsenting victim causing lasting physical and emotional trauma. Most terms in the gaming world and most gamers actually have little to do with sexually penetrating anything, and yet most terms in the gaming world are based on terms that involve sexually penetrating things in real life.

[roguefrog]

Here is some more:

Foozle - RPG: antagonist, who 99.9% of the time must be killed to complete the game.

Poo Dip - Fighting Game: Someone who blames their inaptitude on the input device

Frob - MUDD: To interact with something in the gameworld

Turtle - RTS: Playing 100% defensively

Res Kill - Online RPG: Killing another player, resurrecting them, then killing them again

[The Bitter Cynic]

BOSS: end level guy or thing.

I think I first saw this used was a game called bayou billy.

Where each level had a "Boss" at the end. Each one looked similar to "Boss" Hog from Dukes of Hazzard.

I think that's where that came from, but I may be wrong.

BB is an old, old NES game.

[nKoan]

I would think "boss" comes from the end level enemy being the boss of the gang/lesser minions.

[Lunch of Kong]

If someone in the office is having trouble with his/her spouse or partner, we smile understandingly at them and say "Ah, wife aggro."

[Derek French]

And who can forget the Boss Key in Microprose games that brought up a fake spreadsheet?

[croman]

The only word that I use a little to much, even to this day, that always gets a 'huh?' and a sheepishly embarrassed explanation is my over use of the word Uber. It may be ingrained in my head a little more because I had a gaggle (^*10x5 times greater than a google) of friends I used to work with that were EQ fiends.

edit, added an a. Because I've never 'had gaggle' .

[Morkilus]

I've heard some EQ-ers use some word that sounds like "proke" to mean an effect triggered by your weapon when you hit something with it. It spilled over into M:tG with Sword of Fire and Ice and such.

[croman]

From my recollection, the best pronunciation is 'proc'. Or 'Prock'. As in Prock and roll.

[LarryLard]

I've heard some EQ-ers use some word that sounds like "proke" to mean an effect triggered by your weapon when you hit something with it. It spilled over into M:tG with Sword of Fire and Ice and such.

The word is 'proc', short for 'process' but pronounced with a hard c. AFAIK it comes from MUDs, where you would have a weapon hit its target, then a check made as to whether to 'process the effect'.

[shift6]

On that tip, I don't know anyone where I work who says "porn". They all say pr0n, pronounced like the animal: prawn. I think it helps disguise it from all those sissy over-sensitive losers with HR on speed-dial.

[Derek French]

Yes, from the top two above, its "proc" with a hard c, and pr0n as in prawn.

[Derek French]

Gank is another interesting one. I know that me and friends have used it for a long time and its meaning was basically the same as "yank", to pull away or to borrow or remove. "My CD drive was acting up, so I ganked one from the storage room." "Hah! I ganked that health pack right from under you!"

In WoW, I hear that Gank means something different?

[Stroker Ace]

Yeah, in MMOspeak ganks are gratuitously unbalanced PvP kills... usually someone half your level and/or busy fighting something else.

[Thrag]

When I was a kid there were lots of games that expanded my vocabulary and my knowledge of geography, history, etc. The only problem was that I would just read these words and never hear them spoken so I have all these horrible mispronunciations engrained in my head. It's only recently I've stopped calling Samarkand "Smackard-land".