Are You Literate in Gaming?
We’ve all had our moments when we’ve had to ask for an explanation of a certain term in the in-game chat. Usually these results in us feeling stupid and our team mates thinking we’re idiots. If you play video games or are looking to start, these are some very gamer words that you should be aware of.
20. Troll 
Poor troll players immediately getting labeled.
A troll is not the mythical beast that lives under bridges or deep in the woods. It is someone who has way too much time on their hands and uses it all to screw with people. Very simple examples of trolling include giving wrong directions, tricking other players out of loot, and spamming the chat with ridiculous, and often inappropriate, content. No one really knows how the mythical troll came to be used as gamer slang for a tricky douchebag.
19. AoE
Some AoE makes sense, others not so much.
AoE stands for Area of Effect. It means that your skill or ability will not only hit the targeted enemy, but also all surrounding foes. How this works is a mystery. Perhaps the swing of your sword was so powerful that waves of kinetic energy are released in all directions. Who knows?
18. FPS
First person shooter. Battlefield, Call of Duty, Halo, you name it.
FPS is the acronym for First Person Shooter. This is simple but needs to be understood. If someone says FPS, they mean a game like Halo or Call of Duty in which you control your character from a first person view and shoot things.
17. RTS
Spawn more Zerglings!
This stands for a Real Time Strategy game. Have you ever played any of the older Warcraft games? How about Starcraft, Red Alert, Command & Conquer, or Age of Empires? If you’ve played any of these games, then you should know what an RTS is. You build a base, create units, and destroy the opponent’s base. End of story.
16. Ownage
Captain Falcon owns the competition with his fiery punch of doom
This term means that someone or something is really good. A player can be “owning” another person in any type of PvP (which will be covered later down in this list) game. Not like a slave, but more like they keep killing you and you suck in comparison. This is another example of gamer slang. Twisting words and giving it meaning to new things.
15. OP (Overpowered) 
This is not a fair fight!
This is pretty straightforward. Certain characters or classes are usually better than others. Most game developers try to balance their games to make them fair, but they don’t always succeed.
14. Respawn
Gaming logic.
You die and then you come back, usually with a penalty of sorts unless you’re playing an FPS game.
13. GG
GG, it's just that easy
GG stands for Good Game. It is what you should say according to proper etiquette at the end of every competitive game match. If you’re playing Starcraft and you don’t say GG at the end, it means you’re a prick. Don’t be a sore loser.
12. AFK
If you're going AFK, please let your team know!
AFK stands for Away From Keyboard. In most games you can detect afk players due to them just standing around for long periods of time without doing anything. It is polite to announce that you are going AFK before leaving to do whatever you need to do.
11. Lag
Sometimes game glitches enhance the gameplay through comedy
This is by far the most common excuse known to man for players losing games. Lag refers to the delay in time between when you hit a key and when your character executes that command. If there is any problem with the signal pathway or servers, that delay can become very long. This is simply gamer slang for latency or having a slow connection.
10. Mob
The Minecraft mobs look a lot scarier like this!
A mob is one single enemy unit. A boar can be a mob, but so can the mightiest demon of the Underworld.
9. Grinding
Kill, kill, kill... Level up. Kill, kill, kill some more.
No one likes grinding. It is the process of repeating the same action over and over and over again in order to reap a certain reward. The most common example is killing crappy mobs to level up.
8. Nerf
The Interceptor in Destiny got nerfed
Nerfing is a dangerous term among gamer words. This is the action that nobody likes. The game developer decides that a certain character or class is too OP, so they lower their power and make them worse. Nerfing is the process of making something weaker than it was.
7. NPC
Leliana is one of the best characters from Dragon Age: Inquisition. It's a shame you can't play her.
Non-Playable Character is what this acronym stands for. These are any characters in a video game that you can’t control. It is quite simple really. If you can’t play them, they are NPC’s. They often give you quests and stuff.
6. Simulator
Goat simulator is one of the most pointless games ever made
Simulators were once upon a time used for pilots or driving students… Now we use it to drive tractors around or summon evil devil goats. Simulators are pointless games in which you take control of something incredibly mundane like a goat or a tractor and do regular tasks. For some reason these “games” become quite popular.
5. PvE/PvP
Some PvP action in Guild Wars 2
These stand for Player Versus Environment and Player Versus Player. It is exactly what you think it is. Think of it like this: PvP is Halo in multiplayer mode where you fight your friends. PvE is the campaign.
4. DLC 
This outit for Serah came as DLC
Downloadable Content. This is how many game companies make loads of money of their games. They release the “full game” and then release a bunch of awesome features or key elements as extras that you have to pay to download.
3. Farming 
Sometimes it quite literally is farming
You’re playing World of Warcraft when you discover that you need 5 million bear steaks for your next cooking recipe, so you set about committing bear genocide for steaks. This is farming. You are spending a large amount of time collecting one material. This gamer slang actually makes sense when you think about it.
2. Noob
It takes a big man to admit being a noob!
Noob, newb, nub. There are many ways of saying it, but it means that you suck. It is the calling someone bad in gamer words. The actual meaning should be that you are a beginner because everyone started out being noobs, but that is not the case. If someone calls you a noob, it means that they think you are awful and should not be allowed to share the same air as them. It is the harsh truth.
1. WASD
Don't change these keybindings, just don't
WASD are the keys you use to move around with. Remember the arrow keys on your computer? Well you might as well throw them out. WASD are they keys that move your character around in pretty much all PC games out there. Also, don’t be a weirdo and rebind the keys to something else. Just accept it for the way it is.
What important gamer slang terms do you know of? Let us know in the comments below.
