The Ivory Tower: Establishing a Vocabulary for Online Gaming

[NowhereMan]

Fetuspult (n) - Used to mock unrealistic promises of player freedom or scope of game mechanics e.g. "Our game will allow for full realistic empire building and warfare. It'll have completely destructible terrain that will allow players to literally shape the world and create their byzantine world of alliances and political intrigue in addition to a deep and realistic economy and crating system!" "What about the fetuspults?"
History - Term that has fallen out of use somewhat. Originally refers to Dawn (famed MMO vaporware) that was slated to have a birth mechanic (as players suffered permadeath but could pass on their belongings and some characteristics to their children). While pimping their siege warfare in a dev chat one developer claimed that any object in the world could be loaded onto a catapult and fired at enemy cities with varying effects. One player asked if this meant they would be able to fire foetuses during sieges to which the dev actually answered yes. Thus the fetuspult was born.

Negative Ping (n) - Used to mock ridiculous technical claims by developers since negative ping would actually require packets being received by the server before they're sent. e.g. "Our game will be able to support up to 300 avatars on screen at any one time with no slow down on Pentium III." "Will it support negative ping?"
History - Another term that's fallen out of use, probably because modern MMO developers aren't stupid enough to make the same kind of wild claims that were prevalent in previous generations. Another term based on Dawn which, Developers claimed, had such advanced networking code that it would actually be able to support negative pings. It shouldn't be a shock that Dawn never saw the light of day.

[Rendakor]

Adding some I don't see in here; mostly specific to WoW.

bodypull (v, n) - to pull a mob by moving inside its aggro range; often done for tactical reasons such as avoiding social aggro. e.g. "If you don't body pull you'll aggro the whole room" see pull

facepull (v, n) - as bodypull, but on accident; derrogatory. e.g. "Wow, nice facepull moron, thanks for the repair bill" see pull

carry (v) - bringing a player along to a group/raid that they do not meaningfully contribute to.

loot train (n) - a raid where a player recieves a large number of gear upgrades.

epic -
1. (adj, n) - describes an item that is incredibly powerful, typically obtained only in raids.
2. (n) Everquest/Everquest 2: Class specific weapon obtained as a reward for completing a difficult quest chain.

purple (adj) - an epic item; so described because the text of an epic item's name is purple.

loot and scoot (v) - to leave a raid or dungeon after recieving an item but before completing the dungeon; considered impolite.

shard, disenchant, transmute, 'mute (v) - to destroy an item and turn it into a reagent for a crafting profession. e.g. "If no one wants that sword, we're just going to shard it."

stealth afk (n, v) - to go away from keyboard without informing your group; considered impolite. e.g. "We wiped because two healers went stealth afk on pull."

gear check -
1. (v) - the act of examining a player's equipment to see if he is appropriately equipped for a particular dungeon or raid. e.g. "LFM Ulduar, come to the north bank for gear check."
2. (n) - a fight or encounter designed to test the equipment level of the players. e.g. "Patchwerk is a serious tanking gear check."

faceroll -
1. (v) lit. to play by simply rolling ones face on the keyboard.
1a. used to describe bad player performance. e.g. "Wow, we wiped because our dps are just facerolling."
1b. used to indicate that a particular class does not require skill to play. e.g. "DKs can faceroll and still do amazing damage"

parse -
1. (v) - to numerically monitor the performance of the player(s). e.g. "Anyone parsing this fight?"
2. -r (n) - a program or addon that parses. also: meter

recall, call, hearth (v) - using a spell or item to return the player to a city/quest hub. e.g. "Ok guys we're done here, everyone hearth out."
~Originally from the 'word of recall' spell from Dungeons and Dragons, which found its way into MUDs. Hearth is the WoW term, based on the item WoW players use to achieve this effect: Hearthstone.

[kERRA]

The opposite of a Mangina - a RL female playing a male or male looking avatar is a whole lot rarer. The few RL females playing MMOGs that I know of would NEVER EVER touch a male avatar, they would not even play a "bad" or "gross" looking racial avatars like Ogres, Trolls or Halflings. I have heard the slang term Wenis applied to RL females playing male avatars (usually inherited level 70s) but its extremely rare. In fact, Wenis it may not be widespread enough to be a proper MMOG slang term at all.

The term Shenis might be more common.  Females with male primary characters are probably rare, but most girls I knew in EQ had at least a male lowbie alt to play around with.

Adding some I don't see in here; mostly specific to WoW.

bodypull (v, n) - to pull a mob by moving inside its aggro range; often done for tactical reasons such as avoiding social aggro. e.g. "If you don't body pull you'll aggro the whole room" see pull

Also called prox aggro (concept) and prox pulling (action).

recall, call, hearth (v) - using a spell or item to return the player to a city/quest hub. e.g. "Ok guys we're done here, everyone hearth out."
~Originally from the 'word of recall' spell from Dungeons and Dragons, which found its way into MUDs. Hearth is the WoW term, based on the item WoW players use to achieve this effect: Hearthstone.

Gate is the EQ term/spell.  It differs from the WoW version in that players who can natively cast the spell can set their bind point nearly anywhere.

I s'pose I'd better add Bind Point: The place to which EQ players are teleported when they cast the Gate spell or are killed.   A player's bind point is changed with the Bind Affinity spell.  Non-spellcasting classes must have Bind Affinity cast on them by another player or certain NPCs, and unlike spellcasters can only be bound in city zones.

[Gunzwei]

Some of these are game specific so might not be too common unless people have played a lot of the mainstream MMORPGs. If I can think of anymore I'll be sure to add em.

Twisting - (n), twist (v) - The act of using multiple key binds at once repeatedly or in very quick succession for a desired chain effect. Popular with the bard class in Everquest 1, song twisting.

Yard Trash - (n) - Scattered hostile npcs in an instance zone that do not drop any high quality items or serve in quests. Usually refers to the ones found near the entrance of the zone. Earliest example of this being used commonly, that I know of, was in Everquest 1 for the Unrest instance zone in reference to the dozens of mobs in the courtyard leading up to mansion in the center of zone which contained all the mobs that dropped quality items.

Mage Tank - (n) - Character build who can melee and cast a variety of magic. Popular Ultima Online term.

GvG, RvR - (n) - Guild versus Guild, Realm vs Realm or Faction vs Faction.

Loot Pinata - (n) - Term used to describe a boss/instance as full of easy to acquire items.

Dex Monkey - (n) - Used to describe a character whose stats focus primarily on dexterity/speed/agility or stat synonymous with those. To my knowledge this term originated with a patch in Ultima Online which made the dexterity stat affect weapon attack speed. Was also used to describe characters who stacked dex in EQ1 in order to trigger the procs more frequently on weapons.

Flagging/Flag - (v) - The act of changing one's status to enable PvP (common usage). The act of changing your status to "criiminal/murderer" (UO usage).

Red/Blue/Grey - (n) - Red, short for Murderer or PK / Blue, short for Innocent / Grey, short for Criminal or Thief (UO usage).

Rez Camp - (v) - The act of waiting for a player to ressurect/respawn in order to kill them repeatedly. (MMORPG usage) Spawn Camp used for FPS.

PK Thief - (n) - Term used to describe player killers who would "flag" by stealing an item from someone. Usually dressed naked or more commonly wearing only a robe or deer mask. Flagging would prevent them from taking a murder count if you attacked them. Often carried carried a variety of poisoned weapons. (UO term)

Newbify - (v) - The act of acquiring or making an item stay on your person upon death instead of leaving it on your corpse. (UO term)

Retard Check - (n) - Boss or environmental mechanic put in place to test the mental capacity of players. (Raid term)

Clicker - (n) - Derogatory term to refer to players who click their skills as opposed to key binding them. (WoW commonly used)

Train - (n, v) - Term used for when many hostile npcs are aggroed and a player attempts to run away from them. (commonly used). First time I heard this used was in Everquest.

Lockdown/Lock'em Up/Sitting on em - (v) - Term referring to disabling a monster or player from being active or using skills. (Common Guild Wars term). Used occasionally in other MMO's.

Peel/Peeling - (v) - Intercepting or aggroing a mob or player off another player. (Common term in PVP, occassionally used in Raiding)

Squishy - (adj, n) - Term used to denote that a player, class, or archtype is easily killed.

Grape Harvest/Vineyard + Vendor Trash - (n) - Items that are not valuable to players and are usually sold to a NPC Merchant. Grape/Vineyard is a similar term used in Guild Wars in reference to Purple items when collected in mass by a "Chest Runner".

Chest Runner- (n) - Term used to describe players who repeatedly zone in and out of an area for the sole purpose of opening treasure chests. (Mostly used in GW but I've seen it used in WoW)

Runner- (n) - A player who specializes in running through a zone(s). Pretty sure this originates in Guild Wars in reference to the Lion's Arch and Draknar's Forge runs.

Corner/LoS Pull (n, v) - The act of aggroing a mob and then running around a corner. This is done usually to create a Line of Sight issue to prevent spell casting or to position a mob in a specific manner. (mostly used in WoW, but I think it originates with Everquest 1).


 

[Rendakor]

Rez Camp - (v) - The act of waiting for a player to ressurect/respawn in order to kill them repeatedly. (MMORPG usage) Spawn Camp used for FPS.

Also Graveyard Camp, GY Camp (WoW).