An asterisk is often used to indicate a correction to a previous statement. The replaced words are retyped with an asterisk added to the beginning or end.

"Hacker speak" for "leet," or "elite."

"One-flag capture the flag."

One-on-one tournament play.

"Amphibious assault vehicle." An APC with limited armaments that can travel in water.

A server administrator.

A plugin-based architecture for Counter-Strike (and Half-Life servers in general) that allows greater remote administration than rcon.

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.

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.

"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.

"Area of operations." In first person shooters, this typically just means on the map somewhere, in visible range of one of your teammates.

"Armored personnel carrier."

A term used for map in Quake III Arena.

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.

Short for "artillery."

Aliens vs. Predator.

Aliens vs. Predator 2.

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.

Short for "Asian."

Back to Karkand, the first Battlefield 3 DLC.

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.

Another way of saying the act of banning someone, or the ability to ban someone.

In standard 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.

Excessive base camping, to the point that the game becomes totally unplayable for the other side.

"Be back."

"Be back in a bit."

"Be back later."

The Battlefield series.

The Battlefield: Bad Company series.

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.

"Bad game."

"Bunnyhop."

Someone with the rank of colonel or higher.

"Bad job."

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.

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.

To be killed by a bot. Especially in multiplayer games, where bots are used to fill up spaces, bots are set on an easier difficulty level, and so this is not a compliment.

"Be right back."

"Bullshit."

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.

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.

Someone who is losing and complaining angrily about it (i.e., raging). Usually said mockingly to someone who's been complaining, probably because they're losing. "Are you butthurt?"

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).

Generally, this usually refers to the single player form of the game, whether it's a specifically scripted game experience such as Battlefield 3, or a series of normal games against bots in a certain order (perhaps with some nonlinearity in terms of which order the missions are done), such as Quake III Arena, Battlefield 1942, or Unreal Tournament 3. In Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, campaign mode is a sequence of three maps where the XP accumulated among all three. This allows for players to acquire the higher-level skills that wouldn't generally be possible while playing in only one map.

A player who camps.

Short for "capture," as in capture a control point.

Short for M2GC Carl Gustav recoilless rifle (usually just called a rocket launcher in-game). When used as a verb, it means to use the weapon to kill infantry directly, rather than against armor. Even though the weapon was fully intended to be used this way by the game designers (the Carl Gustav gets a damage bonus against infantry whereas the RPG-2 gets a bonus against armor), some server admins frown on using the weapon this way.

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.

A player who is cheating.

The decreased responsiveness and reduced framerate accompanying heavy disk activity, usually due to swapping.

Strafing around an opponent in the form of a circle, rather than just from side to side.

A team of players who play together regularly. These evolved naturally among early first person shooters, but modern games often allow facilities for players to designate which clean they're in (usually with a prefixed acronym in brackets). Clans are generally exclusive (to varying degrees), and will not allow their members to be in other clans at the same time.

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.

A small map with limited areas where almost all enemy contact takes place at close range. Snipers are ineffective on close quarters maps.

The Call of Duty series.

"Counter-Terrorists."

"Crash to desktop."

"Capture the flag."

Short for "covert ops."

Originally called "conquest head-on," this is the standard mode of play in Battlefield games. The goal of both sides is to take control points and hold them from the enemy; taking a point is accomplished by simply standing with in range of the flag representing the point for a certain period of time (the flag flying the color of the team that owns it). Each team has a certain number of tickets, which is decremented each time a player dies and respawns (in later games, medics who revive players prevent that ticket from being lost when the player respawns). The goal is to make the other team run out of tickets before yours does. When a team holds more than half of the control points, the enemies' ticket count starts decreasing at a fixed rate, regardless of whether or not they players are dying and respawning, creating a powerful incentive for players on a team, even if it's ahead in tickets, to retake points. All players start in permanent bases, sometimes called uncapturable points, which the enemy cannot take (and, later games, the enemy cannot even reach), and the control points all start as unowned or neutral.

A variant of the conquest game mode, only one team (the attacker) has a permanent base (where they initially spawn), but the other team (the defender) holds all the control points. If the defended loses all of their control points and all their players are killed, they cannot spawn anywhere and immediately lose, however many tickets they have to start with. In earlier games, the attacker starts with a certain percentage more tickets than the defender for fairness (it is generally harder to attack than defend, and they start with the ticket drain penalty since they have no points); in Battlefield 3, the attacker has unlimited tickets.

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.

In the Battlefield series of games, and abbreviation of the conquest game mode. Outside of the Battlefield games, it is sometimes used as an abbreviation for "close quarters," combat that is at short range and (usually) in a confined area.

"Close quarters battle."

"Close quarters combat."

Counter-Strike.

Counter-Strike: Source.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

"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.

"See you."

"Disconnected."

Short for "Desert Eagle."

The type of gameplay in which players can respawn immediately (or after only a brief, constant delay) once killed.

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 problematic 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 considered a less grevious offense, and is base camping.

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.

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.

"Download."

"Downloadable content."

"Deathmatch."

Short for "dual Elites," akimbo pistols available to the Terrorists.

A common misspelling of "dualies."

An exploit that involves a recon using an MAV as a platform to lift a teammate up to high ground, one normally inaccessible.

Short for "engineer."

Short for "engineer."

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.

"Flashbang."

"Friendly fire." Sometimes, "firefight."

"Free for all." Deathmatch.

"For fuck's sake."

A flag that either needs to be captured and taken to the enemy base (in capture the flag modes) or the flag representing a control point that is to be taken (in conquest modes).

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.

Short for "flamethrower."

A military term, meaning behind the rest of the party, or behind the enemy forces.

"Fucking new guy." A military term for a soldier that has basic training but no actual combat experience, made popular in first person shooters by Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

Short for "field ops."

"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.

"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.

"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.

A kill. Sometimes used as a euphemism for a certain other four-letter word beginning with F.

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."

"Fuck you."

Another way of writing "got to go."

"Go ahead."

"Good fight."

"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).

"Good game, all."

"Good game, I guess."

A deliberate misspelling of "gay," which probably originated in order to circumvent profanity filters.

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.

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.

A particularly messy frag.

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.

"Good job."

"Good kill." Usually said by the one killed.

"Good luck."

A player.

"Good night."

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.

Heavy disk access, usually in conjunction with swapping, causing severely decreased responsiveness and very low frame rates.

One who engages in griefing behavior; a troublemaker.

"Good shot."

"Got to go." Player has to leave the game.

Short for M2GC Carl Gustav recoilless rifle (usually just called a rocket launcher in-game). When used as a verb, it means to use the weapon to kill infantry directly, rather than against armor. Even though the weapon was fully intended to be used this way by the game designers (the Carl Gustav gets a damage bonus against infantry whereas the RPG-2 gets a bonus against armor), some server admins frown on using the weapon this way.

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.

A player who is using a hack.

A deliberate misspelling of "hacks."

A deliberate misspelling of "hacker."

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.

"Have fun."

A set of abstract geometrical shapes arranged around each player (which are not visible) which are used to determine whether or not they are hit by a bullet, and if so, which part of their body is hit (for games which make this distinction; early games did not). Especially in modern games, player models are far too complicated to use to determine whether or not a bullet track intersected the player's body, so a set of shapes is used to make this determination. Some games had notoriously bad choices for hit boxes, making, for instance, the head way too easy to hit, or allowing players to be hit even though their model seemed to be behind cover. The position of the set of hit boxes is also involved and depends on the motion of the player to take into account lead time as well as client-server lag. When players are complaining about bad hit boxes, they are complaining that they think the set of hit boxes and how they work is miscalibrated.

Short for "hostage."

Short for "hostage."

When used as a verb in a team game, a player who is not helping his team achieve its goals, or who is otherwise more interested in bettering his score than contributing to team victory. Examples range from players who get in vehicles that are intended to have gunners and leave without anyone else, or players who let an enemy target kill several of his teammates so that he can get a close-quarters melee kill.

To capture a point in a helicopter (with or without passengers) by hovering within range of it but without landing. This is effective but leaves you highly vulernable to enemy fire and thus is highly inadvisable, outside of quickly capturing your own points behind the front lines early on in a round.

"Hit/health points." The amount of damage you can take before being killed.

"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).

"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.

"Headshot."

"Heads-up display."

"Infantry fighting vehicle." A modern APC that has weapons of its own.

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.

Any activity which results in an instant and complete player death, regardless of the player's health status. Examples would be telefragging in Quake III Arena or Unreal Tournament 2003, a head shot from an AMW/P (a.k.a. AWP) sniper rifle in Counter Strike, any hit from from a player in instagib mode, or even non-hostile activities such as falling off the void (off the map) in Quake III Arena, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and so on.

"In real life."

Having high latency which leads to reduced responsiveness; spikey. Excessive jerkiness is noted when the connections are about to drop.

The Joint Operation series.

"Okay."

Something along the lines of "Acknowledged; do you also acknowledge?"

"Okay?" as in, "Is that okay?"

Another abbreviation of "kill-to-death ratio."

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.

To forcibly eject a player from the game, usually due to misbehavior.

"Knives-only," a form of a game where players are encouraged or expected to only use their knives.

A Deliberate misspelling of "leet."

Slow responsiveness to commands while playing online; high ping.

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.

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.

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."

"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.

Spotting a target for indirect fire, whether for artillery strikes or mortar fire.

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.

"Light armored vehicle." A type of APC with limited weaponry.

"Loud and clear."

Short for "elite."

An occasional term used to refer to a newbie, probably derived from lamer.

"Laughing my ass off."

"Laughing out loud."

A player who does not join a squad. Most servers typically insist that their players join squads, so this is normally considered inappropriate.

"Low ping bastard" -- someone with a low ping. Said since people with low ping are generally envied by those without.

Someone who is just lucky rather than skillful. The term primarily arose in Counter-Strike, but has been occasionally been used in other first-person shooter games.

A "micro aerial vehicle," a man-portable type of UAV that is placed in the environment and remotely operated by a recon, which while in flight can help manually spot enemies, automatically spot moving enemies within range, and short out enemy equipment before or after acquiring a weapon lock.

"Main battle tank." A modern military term for what is normally just considered a tank, to distinguish it from IFVs.

In the Battlefield game series starting with Battlefield: Bad Company 2, the objectives in Rush mode which the attacking team must destroy.

The type of combat that involves physically striking or stabbing an enemy with a weapon, rather than using a firearm normally. Examples in various games would be using knives, bayonettes, or even the butt of one's rifle.

The set of geometrical shapes and textures that represent the player while he is in the game.

"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.

"Multiplayer."

The Call of Duty: Modern Warfare series.

"No."

"Newbie."

A nickname for automatic shotguns, most notably the Benneli XM1014 from Counter-Strike. 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.

A nickname for a weapon that is considered unskillful to use since it is easy to get kills at short range, such as automatic shotguns, grenade launchers, or even rockets.

A nickname for an underslug grenade launcher, or using a rocket launcher to kill infantry at relatively close quarters.

A deliberate misspelling of "noob."

"Nice one."

Short for "grenade."

In game design, the process of making a weapon or feature in the game significantly less powerful.

Short for "newbie."

A new player; someone not familiar to the game.

"Nice job."

"Nice kill."

"Never mind" or "not much."

"No problem."

"Non-player character." In other game genres, and in the single player campaign, these are characters in the game which are not represented by an actual human playing the game. Occasionally NPCs appear in multiplayer first person shooters; for instance, the hostages in the Counter-Strike.

"Nice shot."

"Nice try."

"Newbie."

A mod or skin for a game that replaces the player models with versions without any clothes. It's much less exciting than it sounds.

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.

The Operation Flashpoint series.

"Oh, I see."

"On mission," or sometimes "on the move."

"Oh my fucking god."

"Oh my god."

A military term, meaning out ahead of the general party; on scout.

A very frequent misspelling (often deliberate) of "oops."

To be completely dominated by another player.

"Pick-up game."

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.

The process of slowly sweeping from behind cover with a sniper rifle or otherwise scoped rifle in order to seek targets while being maximally protected.

See ticket penalty.

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.

A military term for when two separate groups converge on an enemy from opposite sides.

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.

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. See vehicle camp.

A more informal group of players that like to play together. Players can be a member of several platoons, and can even make their own. Platoons help players join a server at the same time as a squad so they can easily play together.

To take out an enemy unit, often a tank.

"Please."

"Phone jack of death." In Quake, and other first-person shooter games based on the same engine, when the client detects a network interruption, 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.

"Pistols-only," a form of a game where players are encouraged or expected to only use their pistols (and perhaphs knives), not any primary weapons.

A control point.

One who point farms.

The process of playing a game where you are trying to accumulate points to rank up more than you are trying to play the game and help your teammates (see PTFO). Point farming comes in numerous forms, from minor annoyances such as a medic repeatedly reviving a teammate who is directly exposed to enemy fire just for the points, a whole server full of players agreeing not to shoot so that they can just rack up points for accomplishing objectives, to extreme cases such as two colluding players (sometimes on opposite teams!) stealing away to a relatively quiet part of the map so that they can do repetitive things and rack up points (though since Battlefield 2 this type has been made more difficult).

"Predator."

"Program."

A deliberate misspelling of "porn."

"Play the fucking objective."

In other game genres, this indicates servers where players are allowed to attack each other; non-PVP servers only allow players to attack NPCs. In some games, this refers to one-on-one tournament mode.

A deliberate misspelling of "own."

Quake III Arena.

Quake III: Team Arena.

Quake 4.

To be angry, usually resulting in inappropriate chat, from someone who frustrated and not doing well.

To quit after immediately after raging, usually accompanied by a lot of profanity in chat beforehand.

One who is proficient at using the railgun. Often used as both a compliment and an insult.

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.

"Remote console." Using a password one can use the console during the game as if one were sitting in front of the terminal.

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.

"Reload."

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.

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.

Short for "respawn" or "revive," especially when other players (acting as medics) can revive/respawn other fallen players.

"Roger."

"Rocket launcher."

"Rocketjump."

"Rolling on the floor, laughing."

"Rolling on the floor, laughing my ass off."

Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

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. To other players, the player with this kind of a connection problem will appear to be walking forward and then suddenly teleport back to where he was, and this will repeat as he tries to move around. Because of this jerky motion, the situation is called "rubber banding."

Generally, to run headlong for the enemy, hopefully en masse, in an attempt to rapidly overwhelm their defense and overrun their position. In the later Battlefield series, a game mode where the attacking team's mission is to destroy two stations caled M-COM stations by planting explosives on them (no C4 is required; any attacking player can plant), and prevent the enemy from disarming it (again, any defender can disarm) before the explosives go off. Once both M-COM stations are destroyed, the action then shifts further down the map and there are nother pair of M-COMs to destroy. This continues for several rounds until all of M-COM pairs have been destroyed, at which point the attackers win (the number of pairs on each map varies). Defenders have unlimited tickets; attackers have a certain number of tickets with which to destroy each M-COM pair, but once they do and move on to the next pair, their tickets reset. In Battlefield: Bad Company 2, some M-COMs are in destructible buildings; if the buildings are destroyed, then the M-COMs will be destroyed as well.

An organized contest between two or more clans.

"Squad deathmatch."

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."

Short for "shotgun."

"Spawn kill."

The 3D model that a player appears with in the game.

A colorful way of referring to a troublemaker or griefer, particularly popular in Battlefield 1942.

A quick shot made with little aiming.

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).

One who snipes.

Soldier of Fortune.

Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix.

Soldier of Fortune: Payback, the third game in the Soldier of Fortune series.

A rather curious contraction of "sorry."

"Single player."

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").

One who spams.

The creation of an object in a game. Spawning applies to both players and objects.

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.

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.

A position on a map where players can spawn.

To spawn camp in a way that is considered inappropriate; for instance, to camp an uncapturable point in one of the Battlefield games.

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.

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.

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. This could be either a local connectivity problem or a server-side problem.

Characterized by spikes; e.g., "This server is spikey."

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.

Starting with Battlefield 2, players have the ability to spot other players by hitting a certain key (using the commo rose or not); spotted enemies will show up as red triangles for a certain period of time both in the HUD and on the radar mini-map to all teammates, making spotting an indispensible aspect of effective teamplay.

A smaller group of players within a team who have the ability to spawn on either the squad leader (Battlefield 2142) or any squad member (Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and later). The later games also tend to give slight bonus points to team actions (e.g., healing, supplying, reviving) squadmates above and beyond normal teammates, further encouraging squad play.

"Squad deathmatch."

"Sorry."

Another name for point farming. 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. Also known as "point farming," though point farming often implies more specific activity designed to accumulate only certain kinds of points.

"Shut the fuck up."

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.

"Sloppy seconds." Picking up an easy frag after a player has been weakened or distracted by a recent skirmish.

Movement from side to side instead of forward movement and turning. Strafing is essential for dodging attacks.

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.

The process of using existing games and maps to make stunt videos.

Another name for grinding.

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.

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.

"Terrorists."

"Team attacking." The process of attacking your own teammates, usually deliberately.

A one-shot, one-kill action from some creature or weapon, such as headshot from a high-caliber sniper rifle, a stealth knife kill, or even something more exotic than a facehug from a facehugger in an Aliens vs. Predator 2 lifecycle game.

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.

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.

"Team deathmatch."

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.

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.

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.

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."

"Talk frag." Fragging someone while they're trying to talk.

A puzzling shorthand for "thanks."

Short for "ticket."

The number of respawns that each has left before they lose; the goal is always to make the other team run out of tickets first. A medic reviving a player prevents his ticket from being used to respawn. A constant drain in tickets is imposed on a team when the other player controls more than half of the control points.

The continuous drain in tickets that a team will be penalized with when it controls less than half of the control points on the map. This encourages the team to retake points.

"Team kill."

In the Enemy Territory series, the process of a medic deliberately team killing a wounded player and then reviving him with the hypodermic needle, rather than simply giving him health packs. The process is somewhat controversial since some servers and players always find team killing inappropriate, but it can save the medic charge if the wounded player is hurt particularly badly and/or if the medic in question has an upgrade that grants full health to a player he revives.

A puzzling shorthand for "thanks."

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.

"Thank you."

A puzzling shorthand for "thanks."

"Thank you."

"Thank you very much."

"You too."

"Unmanned aerial vehicle," a miniature helicopter-shaped remotely-operated vehicle that can be used to fire on enemies, launch Hellfire strikes, and spot enemies. Some maps have a UAV station, which can be operated by a player of any class from either side.

"Uncapturable point."

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.

"Upload."

Short for "uncapturable," used in reference to an uncapturable (base) control point.

Short for "uncapturable," used in reference to an uncapturable (base) control point.

Short for "uniform." In Enemy Territory, Covert Ops can disguise themselves as the enemy by obtaining the uniform from a dead enemy soldier.

"Uncapturable point."

Urban Terror.

Unreal Tournament -- either the game or the series.

The Unreal Tournament 2000 series -- Unreal Tournament 2003 and Unreal Tournament 2004.

Unreal Tournament 2003.

Unreal Tournament 2004.

An abbreviation of Unreal Tournament 2007, the prerelease name for what eventually became released as Unreal Tournament III.

A sometimes-used abbreviation for the original Unreal Tournament, as comparison to the Unreal Tournament 2000 series.

For games that offer mods and DLCs, this term refers to the original game with no additional bells or whistles.

To wait in an area for an inappropriately long time for a vehicle to spawn, rather than assist your team in taking control points.

"Very good game."

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."

"Welcome back."

"Well done."

Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory.

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.

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.

"What the fuck?"

"Way to go."

"What the hell?"

Synonym for "corpse camp."

Short for "experience points."

One who is an XP whore.

In the Enemy Territory series, a more common name for point farming.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"You too."

"You're very welcome."

"You're welcome."

Short for "bazooka."

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!"