Beginner's Guide to MMORPG Abbreviations and Terms List

Massively multiplayer online role-playing game, or so named MMORPG is a world of its own.  With its ever expanding population and knowledge guides.  Many of which become confusing to first comers.  This guide will provide some insight to commonly used language and abbreviations used in nowadays MMORPGS.  This list is very limited because each game has its own unique language.

Below lists out the common language that MMORPG gamers use, however note that different games will have even more specified language that players use. 

AOE:

AOE means area of effect damage.  This term is usually grouped with Mob/Pull to emphasize the act of leveling.

ASPD:

Attack Speed.

Buffs:

Buffs refers to passive or active skills that players use to further increase stats in their characters.  Buffs can be used to either increase combat skills or sometimes life skills.

Builds:

Characters have specific builds or stats points on how they are setup.  MMORPG players can create different type of builds for their appropriate character classes.

Classes:

MMORPG worlds usually have different type of classes of characters that you can play under.  This is very much like the real world of different professions in which different classes specialize in certain area of the game such as Tank, DPS, Buff Support, and Heal Support.

DC:

Disconnected from Server.

DPS:

DPS originally means damage per second.  However, MMORPG players generally describe main damage dealers as DPS.
  

EXP:

Experience points.

HP:

Health Points.

Instance Dungeons:

Nowaday MMORPGS generate a set of parallel dungeons in servers that players can play in without the interference with the majority of the other players.  Many of the instance dungeons typically has a difficulty that requires a group of players to participate.

KS:

When one player starts attacking or kills a monster that another player had attacked first. 

KS:

When one player starts attacking or kills a monster that another player had attacked first. 

LFP, LFG, LFM:

For MMORPG's, one of the major concept is to play with other people and form parties.  LFP means Looking For Party, LFG means Looking for Group, LFM means Looking for Member.

Leveling:

Leveling refers to the act of killing mobs to gain EXP in order to gain additional levels.

Mobs (noun):

They refer to monsters or enemies in game that you can kill.

Mob, mobbing (verb):

Group monsters together.  Usually used together with AOE in order to achieve faster leveling speed.

MP:

Mana or Magic Points.

They refer the action to group monsters in order to kill them with AOE skills that can generate more exp, see Pull (Verb).

Noob (noun):

Usually refers inexperienced players who either act inexperiencedly or ask stupid questions.

NPC:

Non-player controlled characters.  These characters are very important to the MMORPG world because they serve as merchants, stores, auction houses, quest givers, and more.

Power Level or Plvl

Refers to a two players leveling together, which one player is significantly stronger than the other one and thus bring more exp for the lower leveled player.

Pull (verb):

They refer the action to group monsters in order to kill them with AOE skills that can generate more exp, see Pull (Verb).

PK:

Player Kill, or PVP.

PM:

Private Message.

PVM:

Player Versus Monsters.

PVP:

Player Versus Players.

Tank:

This term refers to a specific class that specialize in defense, this class usually draws heavy fire either from bosses or other players.

Vent:

Vent is a popular gamer software that enable players to have real time chat while in game.  This empowers players to communicate and focus on game play without spending time to type. 

Quests:

These are little tasks that can be mostly done with little amount of time such as killing certain amount of mobs or deliver this item to a certain NPC.