A sample
Jordan Yen >Wow, a lot of clocks spawned here.
Alex Lord >Could be Pally. Send invite and I'll help.
Jordan Yen >Sure, but I just dinged 32. Brt, I'm going to lvl and get my pet.
Alex Lord >Ok, I'll tp you when you zone back in.
If you couldn't follow the above conversation, don't worry. You'll pick it up pretty fast. But if you don't want to bug the other players all the time to tell you what "yw", "greens", and "lmao" mean, it would help to study the game lingo ahead of time. I found a giant guide at Wikipedia, but this is focused on all Internet speak rather than just
Game Speak
| Acc | Accuracy. How likely you are to hit your target. |
| Activation | To luanch, start, fire, or otherwise make a power happen. Activation time refers to the amount of time after activation that the power's effect actually happens. |
| afk | Away from Keyboard. It's a way of warning your teammates that you're gone, not ignoring them. Typical use: "AFK a sec" or "Need to go AFK. brb." |
| Aggro | Aggro is short for aggression and means that an enemy is paying attention to you. Controlling aggro means to keep enemies too busy to attack other team members. Taking aggro is when you are getting hit because you were noticed. Taking too much aggro is what happens right before you die. |
| Alpha Strike | When a group of enemies first notices you, they all simultaneously attack. From there, they attack at different rates depending on what powers they choose after that. With the Alpha Strike, all their concentrated power hits you at once. This is generally a bad thing :) |
| Alt | Alternate character. Any character that you don't play enough to consider your main. |
| Altoholic | A person who is addicted to creating new characters. They will usually level them as far as the mid 20's at most before building a new character to play instead. |
| AoE | Area of effect. An AoE power is one that will affect not just yourself or your target, but anything around you/your target. For example, an AoE heal will affect nearby allies and an AoE attack will affect nearby enemies. |
| AP | Atlas Park |
| AT | Archetype. This refers to what character type your character is: blaster, defender, tank, etc. |
| Atlas Park | One of the two starting zones for City of Heroes. Atlas is most noted for having the city representative who is the source for missions that unlock capes and auras for costumes. |
| AV | Arch-Villain. The toughest enemies in the game (other than Giant Monsters) that usually take several Heroes at a time to defeat. |
| Awaken | The name for the lowest level of the resurrection inspirations. Most people refer to any of these as just 'Awakens' for simplicity. |
| Badge | Badges are special medal like things you get for accomplishing certain tasks. Some are related to finding remote locations, some for reading a series of historical plaques, and some for killing a certain number of a type of enemy. They serve little practical purpose except for gladiators and accolades |
| Bind | A bind is a game command that attaches power activation, text, and actions in customizeable combinations to a key on the keyboard. One of my favorites is my Teleport bind that says a catchy phrase before TPing friends to me. |
| bind | A bind is a command that you set to a key so that every time you type that key, the command is executed. This can be both fun and useful depending on what you use. |
| Bio | Biological. Meaning I have to pee, but sometimes also used to mean I have to eat or take care of some other physical need. |
| Blapper | A Blaster-Scrapper. One who is a Blaster, but builds their character and plays them more like a Tank. |
| Blaster | Blasters are powerful heroes with primarily ranged attacks. They have weak defenses so can be challenging to play. |
| brb | Be Right Back |
| Brickstown | One of the zones in City of Heroes. |
| Broadcast | A broadcast is a type of message that you use to contact everyone in the same city zone as you. It will not reach across zones or anyone who has entered an instanced mission inside that zone. |
| brt | Be right there |
| Buff | To heighten or make greater. For example, a defense buff would increase your defense. |
| CaB | Catch a Breath. The name for the lowest level of endurance recovery inspirations. Commonly used to refer to any endurance recovery inspiration regardless of level. |
| Carnies | Carnival of Shadows. An enemy type that based on a circus theme. They're a bit goofy, but they're very tough for more squishy characters to handle alone. This enemy type isn't often seen until about level 40 or so. |
| Click | A click power is one that you click on and it activates immediately then starts recharging. |
| Clocks | Clockwork. One of the early enemies you face that you don't really see much of after level 20 or so. They're fun and interesting because they're one of the enemy types that doesn't really have any regular human people. |
| CoH | City of Heroes. In my opinion, the best MMO game currently available. |
| Cone | This refers to any attack that has a narrow field of effect near you, but widens the further from you you go. They are especially useful in that they hit multiple opponents, but can be challenging to target correctly for maximum effect. |
| Controller | Controllers use powers of deception and manipulation. They have fairly week attacks and low defense, but are often critical to team success due to their ability to alter battles. |
| CoT | Circle of Thorns. Just one of the enemy types in CoH. Usually abreviated because it takes too long to type the full thing. Note that they are one of the most hated enemy types because few ATs have resistances to their status effects and such. |
| Council | Council are a military organization of sorts. I don't remember much else. |
| CoV | City of Villains. An add-on game to City of Heroes where you can play on the dark side of the law. Also fun, but not as good as CoH. |
| CoX | CoX is shorthand for "CoH or CoV" (or more simply, it means either City of Heroes, City of Villians or both) |
| Crey | Crey is a scientific corporation that uses extremely advanced technology. While they are considered lawful, you will perform many missions to try and assess their true motives. |
| D3 | A defender with Dark Maisma as a primary powerset, Dark Blast for secondary, and Darkness Mastery as the epic power pool. |
| DA | Dark Astoria - One of the zones in City of Heroes. |
| Debt | When you die, you get experience debt. While in debt, half of all experience you earn is spent for debt and the other for regular experience. This doesn't start until level 10. |
| Debuff | To lower something. Accuracy debuff would be a power or effect that lowers accuracy for example. |
| Defender | Defenders have decent attacks and strong support powers. This ranges from heals and buffs to massive debuffs. Many times having a defender in the team means the difference between success and failure for a team. They also have the widest range of powers to choose from by far. |
| Devs | Developers. The game designers. |
| Ding | Ding is short for gaining a level. |
| DO | Dual Origin Enhancements. These are significantly more powerful than training enhancements and will work for two different origins (thus dual origin). For example, there are Magic/Mutation enhancements that anyone of either origin can use. A technology character would only benefit by selling a Mag/Mut DO. |
| DoT | Death over time/damage over time. This refers to any effect that deals damage (surprise surprise) over a period of time rather than all at once. Fire and Dark powers have many DoT attacks. |
| DPS | Damage Per Second. Refers to how fast you're gaining experience. |
| Dwarf | Dwarf or dwarf form. This is the tanker-like form that Kheldans can switch into as of level 20. They have tank taunt powers and great defense, but they are not as good as a normal tank. |
| ED | Enhancement Diversification. A controversial change released with Issue 6 where any more than 3 of the same type of enhanement in a power becomes useless. Many people really hated it, but I think it really promoted variety in enhancements. |
| em | Short for Emote |
| Emote | An emote is an action that you can cause your character to perform by typing /e emotename in the chat window. |
| End | Short for Endurance. Note that when you run out of endurance, you are no longer able to use any powers. |
| Enhancement | Enhancements are items that you can buy from various vendors or find during battles that will make various aspects of your powers more powerful.    |
| Exemp | Short for Exemplar |
| Exemplar | Sidekicking is a way to increase the level of a lower player to your level so they can play with you. Exemplaring is the opposite where you lower your level to theirs. This lets you play their missions without it being too easy. Generally, you get no experience, but twice the debt reduction and twice the influence (if you're out of debt). |
| FF | Either Founders Falls (a City Zone) or Frostfire (a well known boss from the Hallows zone). Ex. The Numina TF is in FF or Anyone want to join me for a FF mission? |
| ftw | For the win. |
| Galaxy City | Galaxy City is one of the two starting zones of City of Heroes. It's flatter and easier to navigate than Atlas, but not as popular a starting place because of the access to the sewers in Atlas (where people can form low-level teams and go up several levels very rapidly). |
| Gather | Gather around me. It's used when there's a power I want to activate that will only affect teammates who are close to me. Many buffs or heals work this way. |
| Giant Monster | Giant Monsters are fun and big creatures that appear in some missions and sometimes in the middle of regular city zones. They are usually quite difficult or impossible to take on alone. |
| gl | Good Luck |
| Glowie | Boxes or other equipment that glow and make a slow pulsing sound. Many missions include a task to find certain items or seek clues which usually involves finding glowies. |
| GM | Game Moderators. It's a carry-over term from Dungeons and Dragons that refers to the people who run the game. In this case, employees of Cryptic. It can also mean Giant Monster such as the ones that occasionally wander around Paragon. |
| Gratz | Short for "Congratulations!" Said when someone levels up or for any other reason that someone would need to be congratulated. Some variations include "grtz, and Congo Rats". |
| Greens | A nick-name for healing inspirations |
| Held | If you see this in the chat window (usually as a single word, not in a sentence), it's a request for help in case anyone has a power or inspiration that will help them get un-held (un-sleeped, un-stunned, etc). |
| Herd | Herding is when someone (usually a tank)aggros a bunch of enemies and runs around trying to get them to chase him/her. Then they hide behind a pole, a corner, or run through a door in order to cluster the enemies together for better elimination. |
| Hold | Any power that causes your character to stop functioning. Sleep, stun, and mez are all examples of this. Most hold effects will also cause toggle powers to deactivate which makes this type of power the most hated in the game. |
| Hunt | Hunting in CoH refers to killing a certain type of enemy only. This can be because you have a mission to take out a scertain number of a type of enemy or becuase you're trying to get a badge. |
| imho | In my humble opinion |
| imo | In my opinion |
| Inc | Incoming. Meaning something bad is coming towards you or your group. |
| Inspiration | Inspirations are consumable boosts to accuracy, damage, your life total, endurance, etc. You can buy them, but you also get them randomly in battles. |
| Interrupt | This refers to the amount of time (in seconds) that it takes a power to activate. For example, if you activate the Teleport power, a short animation plays before you actually teleport. |
| Interruptable | This refers to a power that will fail if you are hit by damage or an enemy effect before the activation sequence has completed. The endurance cost is paid either way. |
| Invincible | There are several difficulty settings for missions which you can control by speaking to NPC's called Hero Corps Insiders. They are Heroic, Tenacious, Rugged, Unyielding, and Invincible. |
| IO - Invention Origin | IO stands for Invention Origin and refers to the new enhancement type introduced as of Issue 9. They are typically stronger than standard enhancements and have the singular advantage of never becoming outleveled. Further, there are sets of IOs that provide special bonuses or powers when arranged properly. |
| IP | Independence Port. One of the zones in City of Heroes |
| Issue | Each new update to the game is called an Issue in sticking with the comic book super-hero theme. In other games, they'd be called expansions, but they're typically much smaller than expansions and come more often. As yet, access to new content has always been free in City of Heroes. |
| jk | Joke. It means whatever was said previously wasn't supposed to be taken seriously |
| k | OK. Sometimes also used as kk |
| Kheldian | Kheldians are an alien life form that merges with humans to create powerful heroes. In the game, they're a special type you can only play after getting at least one of your characters to level 50. |
| kick | To be ejected from a team by the team leader. It's not often necessary, but sometimes certain players are so disruptive, they have to be booted. Either that or they're just annoying. |
| kk | See k. Ok, you don't have to... it means OK |
| Knockback | Referring to effects that send foes flying. These powers need to be used carefully as a very common strategy for battles is to get the enemies to group close together which you can undo in a hurry with a single knockback power. |
| KR | Kings Row - One of the zones in CoH |
| Lag | Lag is the delay caused due to there being too much information for either your Internet connection or computer to handle. This causes the graphics to jump around while the game tries to account for the gaps in data. It can be very frustrating and possibly cause you to end up getting killed (in game) due to not being able to accurately use your powers or know your position. |
| Level Cap | Certain missions or zones have maximum levels associated with them. Many are auto-exemp which drops your level to the maximum limit while on the mission or in the zone. |
| lft | Looking for team. Pretty straightforward. Used in broadcasts and requests to make your intention of wanting to join someone obvious. |
| lmao | Laughing my ass off. It means something was very funny. |
| Log | As in, "I have to log". It means log off. |
| lol | Laugh out loud. Signifying that something was funny enough that it made you laugh. Modifications include lol!, LOL, LOL!!!, and LOLLOLOLOL in ascending order of funniness. Also see ROTFL. |
| Lowbie | Lowbie refers to someone who is low level. Not necessarily someone who's new |
| lvl | Level. Ex. What lvl are you? |
| Main | Your primary character. Often the first character created, but not always. |
| Malta | One of the enemy types you don't see until the 40s or higher. They are best known for their most hated enemy type, the sappers. Sappers drain endurance and draw more hate than almost any other enemy type in the game. |
| Mastermind | Mastermind is a villain type that doesn't have many powers of their own, but has a large amount of ''pets'' to fight with |
| Melee | Melee range is typically within arm's reach. It means hand-to-hand combat. |
| Mez | Mesmerize. It means an psychic hold effect which typically leaves a hero defenseless by rendering them confused or unconcious and drops toggle powers. |
| Minion | Minion is the lowest class of enemy. |
| MMO | Massive Multiplayer Online. Refers to games such as Everquest, World of Warcraft and City of Heroes that are designed for online play with other live people. The key difference between this and online games such as Yahoo games is that there are anywhere from tens to hundreds of people playing in the same virtual environment at the same time. |
| MoG | Moment of Glory - A power in the regeneration set for scrappers that gives near invicibility, but drops life to almost 0. It's a risky, but powerful ability. Paragon Protectors are and enemy type that is well known (and hated) for using this power. |
| Monster | Monster class enemies are tough, but I can't think of anything else intelligent to say about them. |
| Nictus | A Kheldan with dark powers. They are described as evil and dangerous, but some have been reformed and merge with the city's heroes to become a Warshade. |
| Noob | Noob, newb, newbie. Someone who's new. Typically used in a derogatory way to describe someone who is "annoyingly" new. |
| Nova | Nova is a high level attack power for energy blasters that does a massive amount of damage and knockback in an AoE around the caster. Eventually, all similar powers came to be referred to as Novas. |
| Nova Form | Nova is one of the forms that Kheldans can take. It's a flying thing with tentacles that has great attack, but no defense. |
| np | No problem |
| NPC | Non-player character. Any character in the game that is controlled by computer code rather than a live player is an NPC. |
| nvm | Nevermind |
| omg | Oh my god |
| omw | On my way |
| PB | Short for Peacebringer, one of the two Kheldan archetypes. |
| PBAoE | Point blank area of effect. Refers to powers that affect an area, but only near you. |
| Perez Park | Perez Park is a hazard zone. This means there are no trainers, stores, or anything else for that matter other than bunches of enemies of various kinds. It's a great zone for badge hunting and screenshots. |
| Pet | Pets are computer controlled assistants who vary considerably from one character type to another. Their powers vary by the powerset of the caster. For example, earth types summon rock pets, storm users a thundercloud, and dark users a smokey black creature. |
| Pinned | In forums, pinned topics are the ones at the top no matter how old they are. These can only be set by forum administrators and are usually particularly relevant topics such as the forum rules. |
| PL | Power level. It's used to refer to the act of having a higher level character do all the fighting for you so you can level very quickly. Most consider it cheating and it is the reason that you will sometimes find people who play like amatuers even at high levels. |
| Pocket D | Pocket Dimension. It's a CoH "club" that's connected to three zones (Kings Row, Founder`s Falls, and Talos Island) and also connects to zones in CoV. It`s a fun place to mingle with friends on either the hero or villain side and it`s also a way to travel quickly between the listed zones. |
| Police Band Scanner | A new element that was added in I7 was the police band scanner. Similar to the newspaper for Villains, this allows a hero to pick up randomly generated missions in the current zone. Once you've done a few of these missions, you can do a Safeguard mission where you earn additional badges and temporary powers. |
| Power Effects | There is an expandable menu that you open by clicking a small arrow on the team window that will show you all the powers that are affecting your team members. Since I don't know what it's called, I'll just say it's a Power Effects bar. |
| Power Pool | Power Pools are powersets that all heroes can access (beginning at level six) and contain four powers each. |
| Powerset | A power set is a set of powers (imagine that) that are available to a given hero. They come as Primary or Secondary powersets and consist of a series of powers that are related to each other and the hero type involved. For example, Dark Blast and Gloom are both attacks in the Dark Blast powerset for Defenders. |
| Primary | Your main power set. These will be themed based on your Archetype. For example, Blaster primaries are ranged attacks while Scrapper primaries are melee attacks. |
| pst | Please send tell. It means send me a direct message and is often used in requests. For example: Need healer for team. PST if interested. |
| Pull | To attack or otherwise get the attention of an enemie or small group of enemies. The purpose is to separate between 1 and 5 enemies from a larger group so that you or your team can take them on in chunks rather than all at once. |
| PvE | Player vs environment. As opposed to player vs player, this is the normal way to play which is just against computer enemies and such. |
| PvP | Player vs Player. Though the Arenas allow players to combat each other, the zones designated for PvP combat are far more popular. Some only allow Villain vs Hero combat, while others allow free-for-all battles. |
| Pwn | Own. Used as such: ''We totally pwned that team!'' |
| Rad | Short for radiation. Refers to any radiation power sets. |
| Regen | Regen is a comon secondary powerset for Scrappers. It's highly valued because it includes massive health and endurance regeneration and has great protection from status effects. |
| Repec | Character Respecification. Getting one of these allows you to relevel your character from level 1 to your current level instantly. You can choose all new powers and slotting choices (though you have to stick with the same primary and secondary power choices. You get these typically after new Issues or from the Respec Trials which are basically task forces with a respec as the award. |
| RES | Resistance. Refers to a character's ability to absorb or avoid certain kinds of damage. The defense is based on the type of damage such as fire, cold, energy etc. |
| Rez | Short for resurrect. |
| Ritki | Ritki are the race of aliens who invaded Paragon City. They're still around here and there and are big ugly suckers. |
| Roll | An old D&D term, it means to create a character. |
| rotfl | Rolling on the floor laughing |
| Runner | During battles, some enemies, for whatever reason, may decide to run away. This can be a problem for mission completion or if some of your less experienced team members try to chase them (which usually draws aggro from other groups). |
| Safeguard Mission | A safeguard mission is where you enter an instance of a zone and find enemies who are trying to rob a bank. Your job is to stop the robbery by "arresting" the villains in the bank. You have only 15 minutes to do it, but if you do, you get temporary powers which are actually very useful. |
| Scrapper | Scrappers are melee range fighters who have strong attacks that sometimes do double damage (critical hits). They are the second toughest hero type after Tanks and the strongest damage dealers after Blasters. |
| Secondary | Your second power set. This will be themed depending on your Archetype. For example, Tank secondaries are defenses while Defender secondaries are attacks. |
| SG | SuperGroup. This is a group of heroes who work together to build a secret base where they can build special items and such. Similar to what a guild would be in a different game I suppose. |
| Shivan | A type of alien creature found only in Bloody Bay, one of the PvP zones of the city. They are most notable in that if you do a mission in Bloody Bay, you get a temporary power that lets you summon an Elite Boss class Shivan as a pet up to 5 times. Since Shivans use radiation powers, they are very useful against monsters or Arch Villains. |
| SK | Side-kick. When a high level player side-kicks a lower, the lower level player has their level artificially increased to that of their partner. This is to allow friends of varying levels play together. It's also useful for forming teams when you can't find people of the correct level to team with. |
| Sleep | A type of hold that causes you to stand still in the middle of battle unconcious until an enemy hits you. |
| Snipe | Sniping is just as it sounds, using an extremely long range attack. Generally a snipe takes a long time to fire and can be interrupted so you wouldn't fire it in battle. |
| SO | Single Origin enhancements. The strongest type of enhancement you can get. Generally, a single SO enhancement increases a power's attribute by 33%. |
| Solo | Playing alone. Without a team. Solitary. etc. etc. |
| Squid | Another name for Kheldian Nova form because of the tentacles. |
| Squishy | Easy to kill. |
| SS | Super Speed. One of the four basic travel powers. |
| Stacks | An example of this is the Forcefield powerset. If you put a FF on a team mate, you can't use it again on them and have any additional protection (non-stacking), but if a different player with Forcefields puts the same kind on the same player as you did, they get the additional protection (stacking). |
| Star | Commonly referred to as ''the star'', this refers to the yellow star next to the name of the team leader in the team list. ex.'' Pass me the star'' means, make me the leader |
| Stun | A stun is a type of hold where you are unable to use powers, but you can still move (very slowly) by stumbling around. The most common way to see this effect is just after a rez. When you are rezzed, you will be stunned for a short period of time. |
| Supa Trolls | Trolls are green drug users. One of the game events is a random troll Rave that spits out Supa trolls. These are large, glow green, and wander through the zone until someone destroys them. |
| Super Base | Super bases have been around since issue 5 I think. If you have a super group, your group can build a base with various items in it that help your group. |
| Tailor | Tailors are shops where you can have new costumes made or alter your current one. Each tailor will unlock a costume slot allowing you to create new alternate costumes, but you will have to do a mission for them first. |
| Tank | Tank - The toughest class of CoH. They can usually take massive amounts of aggro safely, but their damage potential is lower than Blasters and Scrappers. |
| Taunt | Taunting is the act of pissing off an enemy. Specifically, it's a way of drawing aggro to yourself. There is an ability called 'taunt' and several other similar abilities whose only function is to make enemies focus on you rather than the other team mates. Taunted enemies are also less likely to run |
| team wipe | Team wipe or wipe. It means everyone died. |
| TF | Task Force. Certain contacts give task forces and each requires a certain minimum amount of players to begin. They consists of a series of missions or tasks while you follow a small story plot. They are typically excellent experience and let you see some places in the game you'd never get to otherwise. |
| The Hollows | One of the first self-contained zones and the lowest level one you can go to. Every hero who follows story lines with contacts will eventually get a mission to talk to David Wincott in the Hollows. This is an introduction mission where all that's necessary is to talk to him. Many people don't realize that you can just refuse to take any missions from him and return to the original contact to skip the Hollows. |
| TO | Training Origin enhancements are the first enhancements you get for your powers. They can be used by any type of hero, are cheap and easy to get, but don't give very strong bonuses. |
| Toggle | A toggle power is one you click to activate and it stays active until you click it again or get hit with certain effects (such as stun or sleep). |
| Toon | Toon is just another way to say hero. |
| TP | Teleport. This refers to any teleport power regardless of the name. For example, Recall Friend is the power that teleports a team mate to your location, but you will hear people refer to it as such: Can you TP me? Can I get a TP? TP ME!!!! *SMASH* ....Uh... Too late. |
| Trainer | Trainers are signature heroes most of whom are part of the City of Heroes storyline. They help young heroes by teaching them the way of the hero. In other words, they are the people you need to go to once you've earned enough experience to level up. If there's one on your current map, they're marked with a small green person icon. |
| Travel Power | There are four main travel powers used to move heroes around: Flight, Super Speed, Super Jump, and Teleportation. It's pretty much a given that you will get one of the above as soon as you reach level 14 (the first level you can select such a power) because moving around slowing stinks. |
| Trial | A trial is a similar to a task force in that it is a string of missions, but is much harder and has some of the most unique and interesting challenges in the game. |
| Troll | Trolls are green skinned drug users who cause various damage to Paragon City. |
| ty | Thank you |
| Veteran Reward | The Veteran Rewards system was introduced into a recent issue of City of Heroes to reward players who have played the game for longer than others. Most rewards are costume pieces while others are extra powers that were traditionally temporary, but are now given to any new character created by that player at level 1. This changes the play and flow of the game just like playing Kheldians who have travel powers from level 1. |
| Vhaz | Vhazolik is the name of an Arch-villain who has a horde of zombie followers. Vhaz is the term both for Vhazolik himself and any of his zombies. |
| void | Void Hunter. Dark Black nasty things that are specially designed enemies for killing Kheldans |
| War Wall | These are the giant glowing blue barriers between zones. I've heard that in the future, these will disappear making the whole city semi-accessible with minimal to no zoning. |
| Warshade | A warshade is a dark Kheldan. They have the same shapeshifting abilities as the Peacebringer, but their powers are a lot more defender-like. You can only play kheldans once you have a single character on any server that's reached level 50. |
| wb | Welcome back |
| Woot! | We Own the Other Team. This term originates from player versus player team combat games, but has been adopted by all kinds of gamers. |
| WS | War Shade. One of the two types of epic archetype that you can only access after getting any of your characters to level 50. |
| wtf | What the F*ck? |
| wth | What the Hell? |
| yw | Your Welcome |
| Zone | A zone is a segment of a city. Each is bordered by "War Walls" (the giant blue colored force fields all over the place). To get from one zone to another requires that you go to the zone entrance or use a train. Used as a verb, zoning refers to the time it takes to move from one zone to another. |
| zzz | Meaning that the person has been held or put to sleep |