Gaming Lingo
There are thousands of chat acronyms and slang terms in gaming, but we've muddled together a few of the more common and colourful ones.
- Aggro: Slang for attack, usually by a hostile creature, and used as both a noun and a verb. If you wander into a hostile creature's "Aggro radius," chances are it will attack you. If you're with a group, usually the stoutest warrior character goes in and takes the first aggro to distract the monster.
- AoE (Area of Effect): A magic spell or attack that spreads over everything within a given space.
- Buff: A temporary increase in the powers or abilities of your character.
- Camp: The place where monsters spawn. Also a verb—if you wait by a spawn point to kill new creatures as they're created, you're "camping" them.
- Character: The person you control in the game. In many games, you can have more than one, so there might be more characters appearing in the game over time than there are players logging on and off.
- Con: Short for consider. Most games will tell you how strong an opponent is compared to how strong you are—and whether you have a chance of winning a battle with them. All smart players check this information before a fight.
- Ding: To gain a level in experience. Players who advance in levels often say "ding" in chat, either to inform their team mates or just to gloat.
- Experience: The closest thing to keeping score in most MMO games. Dozens of levels of experience await the new player; as you gain experience your character becomes more powerful and can survive more and more gruelling events.
- Group: A temporary assembly of characters, gathered semi-formally to pursue a quest, battle, or puzzle.
- GTG: Acronym for Good to Go. Means you're ready for whatever's next.
- Kill stealing: When others are fighting and someone swoops in and kills a dying fighter to gain experience points for the kill, that's kill stealing. Waiting around for easy prey at someone else's expense is bad manners.
- Loot: In-game items. You can loot items from fallen players in some games, or take the loot from foes after a victory. You can keep the loot if it's something your character can use, or sell the loot for currency to buy something you can use. Used as both a noun and a verb.
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