The Video Game Revue

The Burning Crusade

The Burning Crusade has dropped, and even as I write this, Sunny's adventures in Outland with her level 60 Warrior continue to unfold. Getting the game was something of a quest in itself: the local EB Games downtown had a midnight opening to give eager gamers the opportunity to get the game a little bit sooner, but I was shocked to find upon arrival that the turnout for this event numbered in the hundreds--literally, at least two-hundred customers were there, if not three hundred. Sunny and I waited in line for two hours (plus a bit) to get our copy of The Burning Crusade. We did get some free posters, at least. At this rate, there's no telling what time it will be when we finally get to bed. The catch-phrase for the intro movie to The Burning Crusade--"You are not prepared!"--seems particularly apt.

This seems like as good a time as any to mention the massive influence that WoW slang has had on the RPG world. Not all of this slang was necessarily coined by WoW players, but WoW certainly had major role in popularizing it. It's hard not to talk about "mobs," "pats," and "ads" when playing Final Fantasy XII, for instance, and I even recently used the word "drops" to describe equipment acquired from a fallen foe in Counter-Strike: Source (which, I admit, is something of a heresy.) I don't have the energy right now to dive into an exhaustive list, but I'll try to cover the basics.

"aggro" - the state of having trained the game A.I. to have enemies attack you; to "draw aggro" is to get the attention of an enemy such that it engages you in combat

"pull" - a controlled attempt to gain aggro; eg. a ranged attack with the intent of drawing the attention of one specific enemy

"mobs" - standard enemies that populate the game world (sometimes also called "creeps")

"pats" - enemies that patrol (hence, pat) as opposed to shifting around a limited space

"ads" - enemies that aggro along with a master enemy, such as minions, or simply enemies that are unintentionally aggroed during a fight

"dps" - damage per second; the basic measure of combat efficiency in an action RPG

"drops" - treasure or "loot" dropped by defeated enemies

"ninja" - a player who is zealous about collecting treasure, even at the expense of his other party members

"rez" - ressurect; to return a fallen ally to life

"oom" - "Out Of Mana;" often announced by healers to warn the party that heals are no longer available

"mats" - "materials," as in those used for crafting or enchanting

"kk" - meaning "okay"

"zomg" - meaning "omg," an acronym for "Oh My God"

"grinding" - repetative actions, typically performed for levelling up, items, money, or gaining skill points

"skilling" - grinding for skill points specifically (may also refer to building up one's own skill)

"toon" - a player's character

"main" - a player's primary character

"alt" - a player's non-primary character

"gank" - to repeatedly kill a character; typically a sign of great disrespect in MMOs

"bubble" - a spell that create a protective barrier temporarily shielding the target from physical damage ("Power Word: Shield" is one such spell in WoW, "Protect" is one such spell in Final Fantasy series games)

posted by Parappa @ 2:04 AM