StarDestroyer.Net BBS

I've been breaking my learning curve on my first MMO, EveOnline, but even after four months I don't get the lingo (also, I suck at MMOs, since I've gone broke twice now just flailing about blindly trying to stay competitive). And I see the same terms *everywhere*, Guild Wars, Eve, WoW, you name it.

Is there a reliable MMO-to-English dictionary out there? Terms like 'gank', 'DPS', etc. obviously aren't meant to express complex ideas and I can somewhat decipher them in context, but it would be nice to have a literal translation.

For the specific terms you used:

gank = ambush another player, especially one that is significantly less powerful than you
DPS = Damage Per Second. If you are in a DPS role, your purpose is to deal as much damage as possible in as short an amount of time without getting killed in the process

Civil War Man wrote:gank = ambush another player, especially one that is significantly less powerful than you

Well, not in Eve. In Eve fitting your ship for gank means fitting for max dps.

In most other games in my experience it also meant killing other players with overwhelming force, like 10 versus 1.

Civil War Man wrote:DPS = Damage Per Second. If you are in a DPS role, your purpose is to deal as much damage as possible in as short an amount of time without getting killed in the process

Actually if you're a DPS class your job is to deal as much damage as possible and sustain it. What you're describing is burst damage.

General Schatten wrote:Actually if you're a DPS class your job is to deal as much damage as possible and sustain it. What you're describing is burst damage.

Or, as it would be called in Eve - what Lagmonster wants to understand - alpha or volley damage.

Eve also has a shitload of specialised terms especially relating to ship loadouts and types, and many terms like 'tank' often mean different things from what they'd mean in WOW and the like, so you probably want an EVE glossary in addition to an MMO one in general. Six seconds on google found me this: http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/ISK

It's not really perfect and doesn't really explain what a lot of these things like Hictors=Heavy Interceptor, MWD=Microwarp drive, etc. are/do in game, but it's at least a start, and it's as much as I care to look for since I'm not the one who needs to actually understand it.