- *
An asterisk is often used to indicate a correction to a previous statement. The replaced words are retyped with an asterisk added to the end.
- 1337
"Hacker speak" for "leet," or "elite."
- 1fctf (Quake III: Team Arena)
"One-flag capture the flag."
- 1v1
Tournament (one-on-one).
- admin
A server administrator.
- adminmod (Counter-Strike)
A plugin-based architecture for Counter-Strike (and Half-Life servers in general) that allows greater remote administration than rcon.
- akimbo pistols (Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory)
Two pistols, one wielded in each hand. In Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, attaining a light weapons skill of 4 grants one the ability to use akimbo pistols, which at short range are nearly effective as a submachine gun.
- ambush
To briefly stay in one place and remain quiet in order to get the drop on some unsuspecting player, usually by knowing their position in advance through noise they have made. Staying in one place for extended periods is called camping.
- afk
"Away from keyboard." Player will be unavailable for a short time. In round-based games where play continues until only one team survives (or accomplishes their objective), "going AFK" for extended periods is generally considered rude, since it forces everyone else on the server to wait for the AFK player to be eliminated; on some servers you will get kicked.
- arena (Quake III Arena)
A term used for map in Quake III Arena.
- artifact
A defect in the modelling of a 3D object or map, or a glitch in the rendering engine; this can result in invisible textures, fractured-looking objects, flickering, or other such unintended behavior.
- arty (Battlefield 1942)
Short for "artillery."
- awp (Counter-Strike)
The AWM rifle. Although it is the Arctic Warfare Magnum, the abbreviation used in the game (which you can see in the console) is "awp," and as a result it is referred to as the "awp" far more than it is referred to with its proper name.
- azn
Short for "Asian."
- ban
The process of ejecting a player from a server permanently. Bans are only lowered on players who are causing the most trouble; on most servers, cheating will result in an immediate ban. Bans are often done by IP address, although for games that involve unique player IDs (e.g., a WON ID), the ID is used instead or in addition.
- base camping (Battlefield 1942)
In conquest maps where one or both sides have permanent points (i.e., flags with a "no" sign on them), camping the enemy's spawn point (or indeed even your own) is considered very bad form, since it constitutes gameplay which was not intended. The goal is to take and hold the other points, not the permanent ones. The one instance where this is usually considered tolerable -- or at least inevitable -- is when one side is dominating the other and has taken (and held) all the spawn points and is simply pressing onward into the enemy base. In assault conquest maps (where only one side has a permanent spawn point), it is not possible for the assaulting team to base camp, since the defending team does not have a base.
- base rape (Battlefield 1942)
Excessive base camping, to the point that the became becomes totally unplayable for the other side.
- bb
"Be back."
- bbiab
"Be back in a bit."
- bbl
"Be back later."
- bfg jump (Quake III Arena)
Similar to a rocket jump, but with the BFG substituted for the rocket launcher. Since the BFG delivers more splash damage and recoil, one can jump higher with a BFG jump than with a rocket jump, but at the same time one takes more damage.
- bg
"Bad game."
- bh
"Bunnyhop."
- bj
"Bad job."
- boomed (Counter-Strike)
To get killed by a grenade. This is peculiar to Counter-Strike, where the high-explosive grenades are notoriously underpowered, so getting killed by one usually indicates weakness.
- boost
To use a teammate (or sometimes a non-player character) as a stepping stone to get up into areas of a map that are otherwise not accessible, or are only accessible through other means. Boosting is usually considered inappropriate behavior and will be punished.
- brb
"Be right back."
- bs
"Bullshit."
- bugzapper (F.E.A.R.)
Another name for the Type-7 Particle Weapon in F.E.A.R., since the process of killing someone with it contains the sound of an electrical discharge that sounds vaguely like electronic bugzappers.
- bunnyhop
To move (often while strafing alternatively left and right) while jumping repeatedly, allowing the player to gain extra speed. In Quake III Arena this is considered normal behavior; in games like Counter-Strike it was an unintended consequence and was removed in later versions.
- camp
To take a position for an extended period and fire on any enemy who comes past, particularly when the chosen place is where some crucial resource is, like a weapon spawn point or a common crossroads. Whether camping is acceptable in a game really depends on the style; in deathmatch-style games it is usually considered unsportsmanlike, but in survivor-style games it is often considered a valid tactic when used appropriately (i.e., to defend an objective).
- camper
A player who camps.
- cap (Battlefield 1942)
Short for "capture," as in capture a control point.
- cheat
To intentionally do something contrary to the rules that gives you an advantage. Cheating comes in different forms, such as subverting the rules in order to gain an advantage.
- cheater
A player who is cheating.
- chunk
The decreased responsiveness and reduced framerate accompanying heavy disk activity, usually due to swapping.
- clan
A team of players who play together regularly.
- clan stacking
The process of deliberately keeping teams unbalanced so that members of the same clan can continue playing with each other, when to be fair they should be splitting up between the different teams to make things more even.
- close quarters map
A small map with limited areas where almost all enemy contact takes place at close range. Snipers are ineffective on close quarters maps.
- circle strafe
Strafing around an opponent in the form of a circle, rather than just from side to side.
- ct (Counter-Strike)
"Counter-Terrorists."
- ctd
"Crash to desktop."
- ctf
"Capture the flag."
- corpse camp (Aliens vs. Predator 2)
In lifecycle mode, the process of waiting by an impregnated human or Predator for the chestburster to surface and then destroying him on the spot. This is generally considered very bad form, since it prevents adult Aliens from entering into the game; in a sense it is equivalent to spawn killing.
- cq
"Close quarters." Combat that's up close and personal.
- cvar
"Configuration variable." These are variable set in both the client and server that determine behavior and affect gameplay -- for instance, the number of frags required to progress to the next map, or the way the heads-up display appears.
- cya
"See you."
- deagle (Counter-Strike)
Short for "Desert Eagle."
- deathmatch-style
The type of gameplay in which players can respawn immediately (or after only a brief, constant delay) once killed.
- deckbomb (Battlefield 1942)
Although this has origins in legitimate terminology (a deck bomb is simply a bomb designed to be dropped on a ship's deck), the term is usually used to mean the process of stealing an enemy plane and, instead of taking off, idling on the enemy carrier's runway and dropping bombs. Due to a glitch in the mechanics of the game, with friendly fire off, a stationary (or slowly moving) plane dropping bombs on an enemy carrier does not itself take damage. This is particularly a problem on public Coral Sea servers. Sometimes the term is used to mean perpetually dropping bombs on the enemy's deck before they have a chance to take off, although this is certainly a less grievous offense.
- dedicated
A server which is devoted only to playing the game; that is, there is no one playing on the console. This is in contrast to non-dedicated servers, where one of the players is also the console.
- defensive camp (Counter-Strike)
Camping done by the defending team, in the process of defending the objective. On most servers, defense camping is considered a valid (sometimes required) tactic, whereas assault camping is almost never considered appropriate.
- dl
"Download."
- dm
"Deathmatch."
- dualies (Counter-Strike)
Short for "dual Elites," akimbo pistols available to the Terrorists.
- duelies (Counter-Strike)
A common misspelling of "dualies."
- exploit
A configuration or additional software designed to do something disruptive and not intended by the authors of the game, such as to remotely crash the server. Also, less severely, making use of an unintended map or game feature in order to gain a (some would say unfair) advantage; for instance, helping another player climb up to an area of the map which is not intended to be accessible by the map designers.
- fb (Counter-Strike)
"Flashbang."
- ff
"Friendly fire."
- ffa
"Free for all." Deathmatch.
- ffs
"For fuck's sake."
- flag skip (Battlefield series)
To capture points by taking a chopper to neutral or enemy points, hovering above the flag just long enough to take it, and then moving on to the next one, without leaving any forces to defend the newly-taken flags.
- flamer (Wolfenstein series)
Short for "flamethrower."
- flank
A military term, meaning behind the rest of the party, or behind the enemy forces.
- fph
"Frags per hour." A measure of the rate of frags that a player has accumulated, divided by the number of hours he's been playing.
- fpm
"Frags per minute." A measure of the rate of frags that a player has accumulated, divided by the number of minutes he's been playing.
- fps
"First-person shooter." The generic name for the type of game of this genre. The origins of the FPS genre were in Wolfenstein and Ultima Underworld; the archetype first FPS game was Doom, followed shortly by Quake. Also, sometimes "frames per second," a measure of the smoothness of the graphical update of the screen.
- frag
A kill. Sometimes used as a euphemism for a certain other four-letter word beginning with F.
- friendly fire
Being shot at by your own teammates, or more commonly, a game option where getting fired at by one's own team causes damage. When friendly fire is off, teams do not have to be careful about picking their targets. In deathmatch-style games, friendly fire is usually off by default; in survivor-style games, friendly fire is usually on. Having friendly fire leads to a more realistic, professional environment, but also unfortunately promotes deliberate team killing. In some games, friendly fire is set as a percentage, with 0% being "off" and 100% being completely "on."
- fu
"Fuck you."
- g2g
"Got to go." The player has to leave the game.
- ga
"Go ahead."
- gf
"Good fight."
- gg
"Good game." It is customary to say "gg" to your fellow players once a game map ends (whether or not you actually had a good game).
- gga
"Good game, all."
- ggig
"Good game, I guess."
- ghey
A deliberate misspelling of "gay," which probably originated in order to circumvent profanity filters.
- ghost
In survivor-style games, to use inappropriate real-world means (e.g., a phone call) to track the positions and behaviors of the enemy to your own remaining teammates, after having been killed yourself during the current round. Some competition servers, for instance, blank the screens of players who are dead, waiting to respawn the next round, in order to emphasize that relating information to your living. Whether this is considered cheating depends on the server.
- glitch
As a noun, an artifact in the rendering system (for instance, allowing you to see through a wall), or a bug in a map which allows players to do something clearly not intended, such as hop walls or get inside objects not intended to be hollow. As a verb, to exploit such a thing unfairly for one's own benefit.
- gib (Quake III Arena)
A particularly messy frag.
- glocked (Counter-Strike)
To be killed with a Glock. In Counter-Strike, the Glock pistol is noticeably underpowered for its real-world reputation, and so being killed with a Glock -- particularly when you were decently armed -- is considered somewhat humiliating.
- gj
"Good job."
- gk
"Good kill." Usually said by the one killed.
- gl
"Good luck."
- gladiator (Quake III Arena)
A player.
- gn
"Good night."
- grief
To play a game in a way that is solely intended to frustrate and annoy other players. Obvious examples of griefing are deliberate team attacking or killing, but more subtle forms of griefing are possible, such as blocking peoples' progress by obstructing a key passageway, taking a key resource and sitting idle with it rather than using it as needed, and so on.
- grind
Heavy disk access, usually in conjunction with swapping, causing severely decreased responsiveness and very low frame rates.
- griefer
One who engages in griefing behavior; a troublemaker.
- gs
"Good shot."
- gtg
"Got to go." Player has to leave the game.
- hack
To use a piece of a software, which is not a part of the regular game package, in order to cheat. Also, the name for such a piece of software.
- hacker
A player who is using a hack.
- hax
A deliberate misspelling of "hacks."
- haxor
A deliberate misspelling of "hacker."
- heads-up display
Additional annotations that are displayed on the player's screen, superimposed on the rendered display. These shows things such as player health and armor, weapon selected and remaining ammunition, and so on.
- hf
"Have fun."
- hossie (Counter-Strike)
Short for "hostage."
- hostie (Counter-Strike)
Short for "hostage."
- hp
"Hit/health points." The amount of damage you can take before being killed.
- hp?
"Hit/health points?" as in, "What was your HP?" You are being asked by one of your victims how many health (or hit) points you had the last round, or during the last skirmish in which he was involved (and presumably he died).
- hpb
"High ping bastard" -- someone with a high ping. Originated since players with high pings referred to those with low pings as "low ping bastards," probably out of a combination of jealousy and frustration. The symmetrical term eventually took hold.
- hs
"Headshot."
- hud
"Heads-up display."
- instagib (Quake III Arena, Unreal Tournament 2003)
A form of play (usually as a mod or mutator) where players have sniper weapons (the railgun in Quake; a modified shock rifle in Unreal Tournament 2003) and play a game where any hit is lethal.
- irl
"In real life."
- jerky
Having high latency which leads to reduced responsiveness; spikey. Excessive jerkiness is noted when the connections are about to drop.
- k
"Okay."
- kk
Something along the lines of "Acknowledged; do you also acknowledge?"
- k?
"Okay?" as in, "Is that okay?"
- k:d
The kill-to-death ratio, or the number of times a player has killed an enemy divided by the number of times that player has been killed. A kill/death ratio of greater than one means that the player is killing at least one enemy for every time he himself dies. Kill/death ratios are a useful way of judging which members of a team are holding up their own and which aren't.
- kick
To forcibly eject a player from the game, usually due to misbehavior.
- lag
Slow responsiveness to commands while playing online; high ping.
- laggy
A connection state with high latency, where a player is experiencing high latency and thus is experiencing lag. Also said of servers where many or most players are experiencing lag, usually due to networking troubles or high CPU load on the physical machine which runs the server.
- lag kill
A kill that was scored against someone who was having latency problems and could not fight back. To the victim, this usually looks like a connection problem and then suddenly they are dead; to the attacker, the victim usually seems either not to be moving at all or to be moving very slowly or erratically.
- lag out
In many FPS games, when a player drops from the game abruptly (say, due to a machine crash), it takes some time for the server to timeout the connection (since games use UDP which is a connectionless protocol). During that time, the player will still appear in the game but will not move (occasionally there are other effects, such as a spastic model vibration in Counter-Strike or a constant "talking" icon in Quake III Arena). Eventually the disconnection is detected and the player disappears; in the interim, while the server is timing out, the player is generally referred to as "lagging out."
- lan
"Local area network." A network of machines that are directly connected via Ethernet, and do not require any sort of ISP connection to communicate with each other. LAN machines will have extremely low pings (less than 10 ms) and are ideal for organized tournaments so that everybody will be on the same ground in terms of latency.
- lase, lasing
Spotting a target for indirect fire, whether for artillery strikes or mortar fire.
- latency
The measure of how fast or slow a server connection is, measured in terms of the ping. Low latency means low ping; high latency means high ping.
- llama
An occasional term used to refer to a newbie, probably derived from lamer.
- l33t
A Deliberate misspelling of "leet."
- leet
Short for "elite."
- lmao
"Laughing my ass off."
- lol
"Laughing out loud."
- lone wolf (Battlefield series)
A player who does not join a squad. Most servers typically insist that their players join squads, so this is normally considered inappropriate.
- lpb
"Low ping bastard" -- someone with a low ping. Said since people with low ping are generally envied by those without.
- motd (Counter-Strike)
"Message of the day." Information and details about a server, often including the rules. On Counter-Strike servers, the message of the day is printed upon entry to a game.
- mp
"Multiplayer."
- n
"No."
- noob
"Newbie."
- noob stick (Counter-Strike)
A nickname for the Benneli XM1014 fully-automatic shotgun. It is so-named since the devastating short-term damage makes it easy for even newbies to rack up kills with one, particularly in close quarters maps.
- n1
"Nice one."
- nade
Short for "grenade."
- nerf
In game design, the process of making a weapon or feature in the game significantly less powerful.
- newb
Short for "newbie."
- newbie
A new player; someone not familiar to the game.
- nj
"Nice job."
- nk
"Nice kill."
- nm
"Never mind" or "not much."
- np
"No problem."
- ns
"Nice shot."
- nt
"Nice try."
- nub
"Newbie."
- offensive camp (Counter-Strike)
Camping that is done by the offensive team (the Counter-Terrorists in a hostage rescue or assassination map, or the Terrorists in a bomb/defuse or escape map). This is usually considered disruptive since it interferes with the flow of gameplay; if the team which is supposed to be accomplishing its objective is instead camping somewhere, either the defending team will be forced to go hunting (turning the objective on its head) or the round will timeout. On the other hand, defense camping is often considered a perfectly reasonable tactic on most servers.
- oic
"Oh, I see."
- omfg
"Oh my fucking god."
- omg
"Oh my god."
- opps
A very frequent transliteration of "oops."
- own
To be completely dominated by another player.
- panic fire
Fire from a target who is not sure where his enemies are and is losing control. This is often subtly different from spamming, where a player is simply spraying his ammunition into a target; panic fire is usually fired either not at anyone in particular or at a place where it is not really clear an enemy is.
- pin
In deathmatch-style games, a tactic where the use of weapons which cause splash damage and momentum transfer (such as rockets) are used to knock a player into a corner, and by continued fire, keep him that area, continuing to receive splash damage. Such a pinned target can fire back, but cannot easily retreat.
- pincer movement
A military term for when two separate groups converge on an enemy from opposite sides.
- ping
The time it takes for a TCP/IP packet to go from the client machine to the server and back, measured in milliseconds (ms), or thousandths of a second. This round-trip time indicates how smooth the gameplay will be on that server; lower pings are better. In general, a ping of 100 ms or less will allow smooth gameplay; 50 ms and under will be indistinguishable from being on a LAN. Ping depends on the type of connection you have and the proximity (in terms of the network, not physical distance) of the server you're pinging. Using standard 56K modems will rarely allow pings lower than 200 ms. LAN pings will typically be less than 10 ms.
- plane camp (Battlefield 1942)
To camp a plane spawn point. Planes are among the more popular vehicles in Battlefield 1942, and on most maps they tend to spawn in short supply (only respawning after the original plane which spawned there has been destroyed, and even then after a delay), and are popular choices of vehicles among the newbies. Plane camping far away from the front is considered unconstructive.
- plink
To take out an enemy unit, often a tank.
- plz
"Please."
- pjod (Quake III Arena)
"Phone jack of death." In Quake, and other first-person shooter games based on the same engine, when the client detects a network interrupted, it displays a "Connection interrupted" messages in the center of the screen and an icon in the upper right corner representing a phone cord removed from a wall socket.
- point
A military term, meaning out ahead of the general party; on scout.
- point farmer (Battlefield 2)
One who point farms.
- point farm (Battlefield 2)
An exploit which allows a number of cooperating players to generate unlimited points, without actually contributing to gameplay. This is considered highly inappropriate. There are different methods based on the class type, but as a concrete example, two players can get unlimited ammo points by going to an isolated section of the map, and one firing off their weapons while the other provides ammo, and then alternating. Point farmers are usually noticeable when they both have very high scores but no one has seen them contribute. Furthermore, on assault maps -- where the defensive team does not have a permanent control point -- if point farmers are on the defensive team and that team has lost all its control points, the point farmers are usually the last two players to survive and, since they're hiding, need to be hunted down. The name for this behavior in Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory is "XP whoring."
- pred (Aliens vs. Predator 2)
"Predator."
- proggy
"Program."
- pron
A deliberate misspelling of "porn."
- pwn
A deliberate misspelling of "own."
- railer (Quake III Arena)
One who is proficient at using the railgun. Often used as both a compliment and an insult.
- rats map (Counter-Strike)
A custom map in which the map scale is out of kilter, and the players are effectively the size of mice -- or, at least, are smaller than normal.
- rcon
"Remote console." Using a password one can use the console during the game as if one were sitting in front of the terminal.
- reinforcements
In survivor-style games with reinforcement periods, when a player dies, he must wait until the next reinforcement period before he can respawn. Reinforcement periods happen regularly at timed intervals (the interval involved being chosen by the server administrator); this means that sometimes upon dying, a player can respawn almost immediately (if he died just before the reinforcement period), and sometimes he will have to wait almost the entire reinforcement period (typically 20-40 seconds). Such is the luck of the draw.
- relo
"Reload."
- respawn
The act of a player reentering the game after being killed. Depending on the game type (deathmatch vs. survivor), one may be able to respawn immediately, or only after a short delay, or only when the next round begins. Respawning takes place at certain well-defined player spawn points that vary from map to map, and depending on the game, may be "owned" by one side or the other.
- revive rape (Battlefield 2)
A combination exploit/grief, involving two (or more) cooperating players on either side, and one unwilling victim from either side. With the cooperating player on the same side as the victim being a medic, the cooperating players alternatively revive and kill the victim before he has a chance to do anything, and thus can neither respawn normally nor fight back. A knife is often used as the weapon to kill the player after a revive due to its extra humiliation value.
- rgr
"Roger."
- rl
"Rocket launcher."
- rj
"Rocketjump."
- rofl
"Rolling on the floor, laughing."
- roflmao
"Rolling on the floor, laughing my ass off."
- rubber band
As a verb, used to describe the process of a player's movements being restricted when under heavy lag. Typically when there is enough latency to cause a serious connection problem (usually detected by the client and displayed to the user), the server's object tracking and client-side prediction code are in conflict -- especially when the client's activities are not properly getting to the server due to packet loss. This results in an effect where, during the outage, a player can walk forward, but then the server walks him back against his will. When this process is occurring, it is called "rubber banding."
- rush
To run headlong for the enemy in an attempt to rapidly overwhelm their defense and overrun their position.
- scrim
An organized contest between two or more clans.
- sec
Short for "second." When used by itself, it usually means "in a second" as in "Give me a second" or "I'll be there in a second."
- shottie (Counter-Strike)
Short for "shotgun."
- sk
"Spawn kill."
- skin
The 3D model that a player appears with in the game.
- smacktard
A colorful way of referring to a troublemaker or griefer, particularly popular in Battlefield 1942.
- snapshot
A quick shot made with little aiming.
- snipe
To take position in a relatively hard to reach place and take potshots at players who pass through. In pure arcade-style deathmatch games, this is often considered unsportsmanlike, but in many survivor-style games with realistic weapons and damage, it is often considered a valid tactic (provided it furthers one's own team goals).
- sniper
One who snipes.
- soz
A rather curious contraction of "sorry."
- sp
"Single player."
- spam
The process of doing the same thing -- particularly something annoying -- over and over again. This term is usually generalized to any repeated behavior, such as saying something over and over again, repeatedly calling for the same vote, holding the voice chat talk button down, or even (in the case of Counter-Strike) buying and throwing grenades over and over again. Sometimes this term is uesd to mean overreliance on a particular weapon, or indelicate use of a weapon ("shotgun spammer").
- spammer
One who spams.
- spawn
The creation of an object in a game. Spawning applies to both players and objects.
- spawn camp
To camp a spawn point. In most games where acquiring spawn points is not allowed, this is considered very bad form, by anyone (even camping one's own spawn is usually not considered acceptable). In games where acquiring spawn points is one of the goals, spawn camping (i.e., waiting to take control of an enemy spawn point even though other enemies may be spawning there) is a normal part of gameplay.
- spawn kill
The act of killing an enemy player immediately after they spawn. In some games, such as Counter-Strike, this can be considered extremely bad form (and is only possible in some custom maps where opposing spawn points are in direct line of sight of each other), but in other deathmatch-style like Quake III Arena it is usually considered just a part of the game.
- spawn point
A position on a map where players can spawn.
- spawn rape (Battlefield series)
To spawn camp in a way that is considered inappropriate; for instance, to camp an uncapturable point in one of the Battlefield games.
- spectate
An optional mode where players can watch the other players play. To prevent cheating, usually players cannot see what spectators type, so erstwhile spectators cannot give away enemy movements.
- spec killing (Return to Castle Wolfenstein)
A shortened form of "spectating killing," this involves switching back and forth between spectating and your team so you can tell your teammates about the position and strength of enemy forces. This is only possible in games where dead players can still communicate with their teammates.
- spike
A sudden surge of latency that lasts for a brief time and then goes away. Such surges are often indicative of dropped frames, where a series of server updates gets lost.
- spikey
Characterized by spikes; e.g., "This server is spikey."
- splash
The damage caused by an area effect weapon, such as an exploding rocket or grenade. Splash damage is indirect fire that comes from fire despite not scoring a direct hit.
- sry
"Sorry."
- stat padding (Battlefield 2)
The process (in Battlefield 2 and other ranked games) where players act not to further the cause of their team and win the round but rather score as many points for themselves as possible in order to achieve additional ranks and unlocks.
- stfu
"Shut the fuck up."
- suppressive fire
Fire intended not necessarily to directly inflict damage, but rather to deny or make more difficulty entry via a certain passage, or to prevent or delay the enemy from pursuing.
- ss
"Sloppy seconds." Picking up an easy frag after a player has been weakened or distracted by a recent skirmish.
- strafe
Movement from side to side instead of forward movement and turning. Strafing is essential for dodging attacks.
- strafe jump
Jumping and strafing at the same time; like a regular jump it help evade enemy fire but coupled with the strafe it becomes more effective.
- stunt
The process of using existing games and maps to make stunt videos.
- stutter
Another name for grinding.
- suicide
A death that is not caused directly by another player; e.g., falling to one's death, or accidentally killing oneself with a grenade. Depending on the game, this may either count as -1 kill or simply as 1 death. Note that even though an enemy might have substantially caused the death -- e.g., if enemy fire knocked you off a ledge, where you fell to your death -- as far as the game is concerned it still counts as a suicide. That is, FPS games do not have a concept of assisted suicides.
- survivor-style
A gameplay mode which takes place in rounds, where each round ends when some specified objective is met or only one team remains. If a player is killed during around, then he must wait until the next round to reenter the game.
- t (Counter-Strike)
"Terrorists."
- ta
"Team attacking." The process of attacking your own teammates, usually deliberately.
- tap out (Return to Castle Wolfenstein)
In Return to Castle Wolfenstein, the process of going from being wounded and waiting for a medic to revive you to going back into limbo mode and waiting for a reinforcement cycle. The reference comes from wrestling, where a competitor can "tap out" by slapping their hand against the ground to admit defeat and end the match. Often used by medics in the form "Don't tap out," to indicate that players should not go back into limbo but should wait to be revived.
- taxi
To move a plane around while remaining on the ground. In some games, such as Battlefield 1942, there are maps where you need to be able to taxi competently to line up for a takeoff.
- tdm
"Team deathmatch."
- team kill
Usually abbreviated as "TK." The act of intentionally injuring a member of one's own team -- although the term has the word kill in it, team killing involves any attempt to damage to your own team, whether that results in a fatality or not, even if it is done indirectly (say, by hitting a switch on the map which results in injury to your teammates, even if you do not fire a gun). This applies only to team games where either friendly fire is enabled or there are other incidental ways in the map for team members to kill each other. This is considered a heinous offense and repeated team kills will almost certainly get the offender kicked and banned.
- team stacking
The process of deliberately keeping teams unbalanced so that one group of friends (often a clan) can continue playing with each other, when to be fair they should be splitting up between the different teams to make things more even.
- telefrag (Quake III Arena, Unreal Tournament 2003)
The process of killing someone via in-game teleporting (for instance, by stepping through a portal or activating the personal transporter in Quake III Arena, or using the translocator in Unreal Tournament 2003). If one can manage to teleport to a location where another player is already standing, that player will be "telefragged" and instantly killed.
- teleport
In games where there are physical objects that allow players to move instantaneously between one part of the map to the other by entering them, such as Quake III Arena, this refers to those objects. Otherwise, it often is a synonym for "warp."
- tf
"Talk frag." Fragging someone while they're trying to talk.
- thx
A puzzling shorthand for "thanks."
- tk
"Team kill."
- tnx
A puzzling shorthand for "thanks."
- tracking (Aliens vs. Predator 2)
The term for using the mask to lock on to opponents using the disc. Since the disc is a one-shot, one-kill weapon, and is quite difficult to avoid once it's been fired at you, this is sometimes considered unsportsmanlike and its use is banned on some servers.
- tu
"Thank you."
- tx
A puzzling shorthand for "thanks."
- ty
"Thank you."
- tyvm
"Thank you very much."
- u2
"You too."
- ucp (Battlefield 1942)
"Uncapturable point."
- udp
The connectionless TCP/IP protocol used most by online first person shooter games. It is distinguished from TCP in that UDP does not have an active "connection," and there is no guarantee that any particular UDP packet will be delivered to the destination; this results in less overhead both in terms of bandwidth and latency. As a result, UDP packets (or datagrams) are sent in a long stream between the server and client so that they can keep in sync.
- ul
"Upload."
- uncappable (Battlefield 1942)
Short for "uncapturable," used in reference to an uncapturable (base) control point.
- uni (Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory)
Short for "uniform." In Enemy Territory, Covert Ops can disguise themselves as the enemy by obtaining the uniform from a dead enemy soldier.
- up (Battlefield 1942)
"Uncapturable point."
- vanilla (Battlefield 1942)
In Battlefield 1942, used to refer to the original game, as opposed to user-created mod like Desert Combat.
- warp
A term used to refer to the skittering movement that plagues players with high ping; the latency involved causes jittery movement with gaps instead of fluid motion, frequently frustrating other players. These jitters and gaps are sometimes referred to as "warping."
- wb
"Welcome back."
- wd
"Well done."
- whore
A term sometimes used for a player who uses a weapon or equipment that is deemed annoying or unskillful by other players; often the suggestion is that the player relies on it.
- wingwalking (Battlefield 1942)
A rather silly tactic where pilots get more passengers on a plane than it can normally carry by flying level and carefully and arranging infantry on the wings.
- wtf
"What the fuck?"
- wtg
"Way to go."
- worm camp (Aliens vs. Predator 2)
Synonym for "corpse camp."
- xp whore (Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory)
In Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, an XP whore is a player who doesn't do anything useful in core teamplay but rather strives to get as much XP as possible, regardless of its utility to the rest of the team. Extreme examples of XP whoring involve players firing off rounds at nothing so that the XP whore can give them ammo, or deliberately team attacking so that the attacker can heal his teammate. The name for this same activity in Battlefield 2 is a "point farming."
- y
"Yes."
- y?
"Why?"
- yt
"You too."
- yvw
"You're very welcome."
- yw
"You're welcome."
- zook (Battlefield 1942)
Short for "bazooka."
- zzzzz...
A suggestion of boredom, or impatience in that the other players should finish the round (in survivor-style games).
- *
Players will often correct their typos in chat by reentering just the word they misspelled followed by an asterisk.
- ?
A standalone question mark is usually the equivalent of "Huh?" or "What do you mean?"
- !
A standalone exclamation point is usually the equivalent of "Wow!"