Looking for "gaming terms for dummies"

[ghotihook]

My Sister in law doesn't know anything about gaming and as a gag gift I want to get her a list of gaming terms. Something that is either a published book or some kind of list/pdf of the most common terms. I did find this site, but I will have to do a ton for formatting and cut paste to make it work. I was wondering if anyone knows of something like this that already exists.

[clarc21]

Terms you should explain:
-Meta. basicaly how the player base thinks the game should be played, or what is considred to be effective atm. (if this definition is found lacking, then that just undersocres the need for it to be explained here).
-Lag/Packet loss. Lag is the delay between information sent to the server and recieving an answer. Packet loss is when information is lost on the way. If you move along a path in an online game, and suddenly, you are teleprted a few meters back, that's packet loss.
-DPS/DPM (theoretical vs actual). Damage per second/minute; essentialy how much you can hurt an enemy in a given amount of time. Attack rate times damage per attack equals theoretical DPS/DPM. This damage is reduced by various factors like missing shots, shots getting blocked, damage being reduced, line of fire being obstruckted or the enemy moving beyond your attack range. All those factors ensure that effective or actual DPS is allmost allways lower than theoretical DPS.
-Tank (and probably other rolles in MMOs) Do I realy have to define what a tank is?
...Fine. A tank is a type of player character in a game that is designed for taking and surviving incoming damage. The point is to draw attacks away from player characters that are designed to fulfill other roles in combat and are thus ill suited for surviving attacks.
-griefing. The act of deliberately undermining other players enjoyment of the game for one's own amusement. Generaly frowned upon.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Mob = the enemies you fight in a game.

HP = Health Points/health pool. How much health something has. When it reaches 0, the thing dies. You win by reducing mob health to 0. You lose if your health reaches 0.

DMG = damage, how much damage you can deal to a health pool. For example, if a mob has 5 HP, and I deal 3 DMG to it, the mob will have 2 health left.

Ability = how you deal damage. You trigger an ability by pressing a button on your controller or pressing a key on the keyboard.

Macro = a player created script that allows the player to do multiple things at once with the push of a single button.

GCD = Global Cooldown. Most abilities in a MMORPG are on a GCD, meaning that when you use one ability, all of your other abilities on the GCD go on a short cooldown, meaning you can't use them until the cooldown is over. This is to prevent players from using macros to use all of their abilities at once. The GCD is pretty short, usually between 0.5 seconds to 2.5 seconds. Your haste stat will usually shorten the GCD.

OGCD = off global cooldown. An ability that does is not put on cooldown when you use a GCD ability.

Weaving = using multiple abilities at once. If you have a abilities that are off of the GCD, you'll want to use them while the GCD is on cooldown.

Casting = you press a button to activate an ability, but it doesn't go off immediately. You'll usually have to stand in place and wait for the cast to finish for the ability to finally go off. Sometimes, taking damage might interrupt the cast. Cast times are usually implemented to prevent mages from simply kiting the mob, so they have to stand still to attack the enemy, allowing the mob enough time to close the distance and attack the player.

Kiting = attacking from afar while running away from them. Usually done by ranged classes, who can attack the mob outside of the mob's attack range. If done right, the player can theoretically kill the mob without ever taking damage. Leashes and cast times were implemented to combat this.

Leash = when a mob is kited far enough away from when he was initially aggroed that he resets, loosing aggro on the player, and returning to his initial position. This was implemented to prevent players from kiting dangerous mobs from high level areas to low level areas and killing low level players.

Aggro = Threat. Multiple players can be fighting a mob, but a mob will only target one player at a time. The mob will target the player with the most threat. The targeted player has aggro. Normally, the player who is dealing the most damage to a mob has the most threat, and therefore has aggro. However, a player called a "tank" can use special abilities to increase their threat level, taking aggro onto himself. Healers can also attract a lot of aggro, as healing players involved in combat with the mob tends to generate more threat than damaging the mob.

OOM = Out of mana. Usually spouted by a healer, meaning that they no longer have enough mana to cast healing spells. If that occurs then there is a good chance that the party will wipe.

Wipe = everybody in the group dies. Usually the result of either the tank (who is holding aggro, keeping the mobs from killing the rest of the group) or the healer (who is keeping everyone alive) dying.

Rez = resurrection. When you die, you can press a button to resurrect at a graveyard or in town. Sometimes, a player can use an ability to resurrect you where you died, so you don't have to walk all the back from the graveyard or town.

Tag = who gets kill credit for a mob. Way back when, usually a mob could only be tagged by the first person who attacked the mob. Even if another player joined in and did most of the damage, he wouldn't kill kill credit and therefore didn't get EXP or loot. Nowadays, it is common for any player who deals sufficient damage to a mob to be able to tag it.

EXP = experience. When you obtain enough exp, your character levels up.

Drop = loot dropped from a mob you killed.

Loot table = all of the loot the mob can drop.

RNG = Random Number Generator, or just known as "random". Even though a mob can have a small loot table, there is still a random chance that the loot will actually drop.

Farming = doing something over and over again, like killing the same mobs or doing the same content. Usually done in an attempt to get exp or loot. If a mob gives a lot of exp or good loot, people might farm it over and over again to gear up their characters.

BIS = Best in Slot, the most powerful equipment in the game your character can equip. It is an endgame goal for players to make their character as powerful as possible. However, the likelihood of attaining BIS gear varies from game to game. In modern WoW, it is statistically impossible to obtain BIS gear, as there are multiple layers of RNG involved in whether or not the gear will actually drop. In games like Guild Wars 2, obtaining BIS is pretty reasonable, as there is little to no RNG involved, and the steps to obtaining it are predictable.

Twink = a low level character who is wearing BIS for their level. This is a term applied derisively to people who PvP with twinks, as they have a substantial power advantage over other players who are just using normal gear drops.

Port = teleport. Ie, "I'm going to port to town".

Cap = the highest number of something. Ie, a money cap of $999,999 means you can only carry at most $999,999 at a time.

Level = how powerful your character is. There is usually a cap on how many levels you can have. Ie, if the level cap is 90, then once your character hits 90, they can't get any more levels. The level cap is usually raised whenever a new expansion is added to the game.

Patch = a content update for the game.

Expac = expansion, a massive content update for the game. Expansions usually added new zones, new instances, new classes, and raise the level cap. Expansion titles are usually abbreviated. For example, "Wrath of the Lich King" = WotLK. "Path of Fire" = PoF. "Stormblood" = SB. Expansions are important to the health of a game, as they bring a lot of publicity to the game and a lot of revenue for the developers, which they need because developing a game is very expensive.

X.0 = a specific version of the game, denoted by which patch the game is running on. A game is usually released as patch 1.0. Expansions are usually labeled as 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, etc, while smaller patches are labeled as 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, etc. Just because the current version of a game is 2.0 doesn't mean that there have been 10 patches. It could have had four patches (1.1, 1.2, 1.3, and 1.4), and then had an expansion, leaping straight to 2.0.

Instance = a private version of a map. Usually applied to dungeons, which are a form of "instanced content". Ie, there is a dungeon called Blackrock Spire. Even if 100,000 players enter Blackrock Spire simultaneously, they will not be packed in there together, as each player will be in their own private version of it. Multiple players can be invited into a single instance, up to the instance's cap of players.

Dungeon = a small group instance, usually capped at 4-5 players. Takes about 10-30 minutes to complete.

Raid = a large group instance, usually capped between 10-20 players. Usually takes at least an hour to complete. In MMOs, raids are usually the hardest content in the game. Players often find an organization called a "guild" to regularly do the content every week.

Boss = a mob that is hard to fight, as they have a lot of health and complex abilities. Makes up the meat of instanced content. Boss mechanics can be simple and easy to overcome, but if even one person screws up a mechanic, it is possible for the entire group to wipe. The core experience of raiding is wiping to bosses over and over again, memorizing the mechanics until everyone can do it right.

Guild = an organization of players. Guilds can be casual, where nobody really does anything together and only hangs out in the guild for the benefits (ie, free repair costs). Raiding guilds are groups of players who get together every week to do a raid.

PuG = pickup group. A group of players who have temporarily assembled together to do something.

Loot system = how the limited amount of loot in a raid will be divided among the players. In raid guilds, the guild leaders will usually assign the loot to the players who will most benefit from the loot (and therefore make the next week's raid night more successful). PuG's usually "roll" for loot, where each player types in /roll and a random number is generated. The player with the highest roll gets that piece of loot.

Ninja = a player who steals loot. Because most MMOs have implemented protection features, they are nowhere near as prevalent as they used to be. Being called a ninja would be a black mark on a player's reputation and could lead to a player being blacklisted.

Blacklist = a list of bad players who should be avoided.

Voice = voice chat. Players put on headsets and talk to each other using microphones. They use voice chat software such as Discord.

Discord = voice chat software, free for anyone to use. It is the currently preferred method of voice chat for gamers. The two previously preferred voice chat software were Ventrillo (abbreviated as "Vent") and TeamSpeak. Discord is currently popular for its easy access and its many features. Discord has become popular among non-gaming communities.

[Mysterymask]

kinda tough..I mean there is an ENTIRE vocabulary for different Genres and Different games...sometimes the same word is different for 2 different games......

but....I do know a bit for fighters, some for Super Metroid (EVERY room has a name), Smash Bros (DIFFERENT FROM FIGHTERS), Speed running in general don't even get me started into game specific ones

Tank (and probably other rolles in MMOs) Do I realy have to define what a tank is?
...Fine. A tank is a type of player character in a game that is designed for taking and surviving incoming damage. The point is to draw attacks away from player characters that are designed to fulfill other roles in combat and are thus ill suited for surviving attacks.

^this is a GREAT example...in a fighting game for example a character can be considered "Tanky" simply because he/she has really high health or are heavy and hard to move ....characters like Bowser in Smash, Zangeif in Street Fighter, and Potemkin in Guilty Gear....

its SIMILAR but in a 1v1 you have no choice but to draw attacks so