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Guild Policy and Rules
Loc's Guide to Etiquette and Terms
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Loc's (incomplete) Guide to WoW Etiquite and Terms
Welcome to Loc's Guide. For new players this will be an attempt to answer many of those small questions you have.
Concerning Shorthand and Acronyms
The following is a list of commonly used shorthand in World of Warcraft and even some common Internet shorthand.
BRB - Be Right Back
AFK - Away From Keyboard
DND - Do Not Disturb
OMW - On My Way
BRT - Be Right There
FTW - For The Win
FTL - For The Loss
PST - Please Send Tell
LFG - Looking For Group
LFM - Looking For More
LF - Looking For (usually followed by a class type)
WTS - Want To Sell
WTB - Want To Buy
WTT - Want To Trade
AH - Auction House
PVP - Player Vs Player
PVE - Player Vs Environment
BIO - Biology (used for bathroom breaks)
BG - Battleground
GM - Game Master (a Blizzard employee). Sometimes this is used as Guild Master, but only in certain context
DPS - Damage Per Second
CC - Crowd Control
SS - Soul Stone, or Screen Shot, depending on context.
NPC - Non Player Character
PC - Player Character or Price Check, depending on context.
DOT - Damage Over Time
HOT - Healing Over Time
FP - Flight Path
TP - Teleport
BE - Blood Elf
NE - Night Elf
UD - Undead
Agro - Threat: The likelyhood a mob will attack a target.
Mob - Mobile: Any creature in the game designed to be there to be killed.
Port - Teleport: A mage spell that allows them to teleport party members to capitol cities.
Pat- Patrol. Used to warn of a moving mob or group of mobs that's about to add into a fight.
Add- Additional mob(s) that are going to get into the fight that is already occuring.
Location Shorthand
Instances and Battlegrounds
WSG - Warsong Gulch
AB - Arathi Basin
AV - Alterac Valley
RFC - Ragefire Chasm
WC - Wailing Caverns
RFK - Razorfen Kraul
RFD - Razerfen Downs
SFK - Shadowfang Keep
BFD - Blackfathom Deeps
VC - Van Cleef, used to refer to Deadmines commonly to distinguish from Dire Maul.
Uld - Uldaman
ZF - Zul Farak
ST - Sunken Temple (officialy called the Temple of Atal'hakar)
Gnomer - Gnomeragan
SM - Scarlet Monastary (4 parts)
BRD - Blackrock Depths
UBRS - Upper Blackrock Spire
LBRS - Lower Blackrock Spire
LStrat - Live Stratholme
DStrat - Dead Stratholme (sometimes also abbreviated UDStrat)
Scholo - Scholomance
DM - Dire Maul
Mara - Maraudon
SV - Steam Vaults
Ramp - Ramparts
BF - Blood Furnace
CoT - Caverns of Time
MT - Mana Tombs
AC - Auchedoni Crypts
SLabs - Shadow Labs
World Location Shorthand
UC - Undercity
TB - Thunder Bluff
Org - Orgrimmar
IF - Ironforge
Darn - Darnassus
SW - Stormwind
XR - Crossroads
Camp T - Camp Turajo
Camp M - Camp Mojache
SRR - Sun Rock Retreat
TM - Tarren Mill
SS - Southshore
1k Needles - Thousand Needles
EPL - Eastern Plaguelands
WPL - Western Plaguelands
LHC - Lights Hope Chapel
BB - Booty Bay
GG - Grom Gol
STV - Stranglethorn Vale
MG - Moonglade
WS - Winterspring
Concerning unafmiliar terms
Raid: A raid, by definition, is any grouping of more than 5 people, up to 40 people. Raid groups are commonly formed for either PvE or PvP purposes. Many high end PvE instances require anywhere from 20 to 40 person raids to complete. "Raiding guilds" are commonly focused around this idea. When you enter a Battleground, you are automaticly placed in a raid group with the other people fighting on your side. Some people also form raid groups to attack cities and outposts of the opposing faction. The advantage to being in a raid group is the increased communication. However, in a raid, players recieve a penalty on experience earned, or honor earned. The penalty is 50% of what you would normally earn.
Instance: An instance is an area that is seperate from the regular world. Instances are set to the player, or group that enters them. So, one group can enter Wailing Caverns at the same time as another and have their own, identical copy of the instance. Instances usually have more difficult mobs in them and require a group to succsessfully complete at level.
Elite Mobs: This is referring to mobs that have an elite level. This can be indicated by a dragon around their portrait. These mobs are much more diffcult than regular mobs of the same level. They have more health, mana, and many times hit much harder than non-elites. For instance, a typical level 20 mob may have around 300 health, whereas a 20 elite might have around 4000.
Concerning Realms and Realm Types
You may regularly hear players refer to realms, or servers. It's important to dsitingusih that a Realm is the entire world you play in (our guild is on the Quel'dorei realm for instance) and that although sometimes these are refered to as servers, that statement isn't entirely true. Each continent(Kalimdor, Eastern Kingdoms, and Outland) has its own server. Battlegrounds are on seperate servers and so are Instances.
As for Realm types, there are Four different types of realms. Info regarding these can be found at https://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/basics/realmtypes.html Suffice to say the realm types are PvP, PvE (Normal), RPPvP, and RP. We play on a Normal realm, also commonly reffered to as PvE. On this realm PvP (Player vs Player) is only possible under restricted circumstances. Those are: If you are out in the world and flagged for PvP, then any member of the opposing faction can attack you. The same is true if a member of the opposing faction is flagged, you can attack them. If you are in a Battleground, everyone can attack everyone at any time.
Concerning your Role in a Group
There are four main roles anyone can play in a group, and many times these rolls overlap each other and can be done simultaneously by one person. Those roles are, the Tank, the Healer, the DPS, and the CC.
The Tank: The Tank is argueably the most important member of any group. As a Tank, it's your job to hold the attention of all the mobs the group is fighting. This is called maintaining agro. Tank's do this by inflicting damage, and using agro gaining abilities like Taunt, Growl, and Righteous Defense. Because Tanks hold the threat (agro) they will be taking all the hits. This means that Tanks are meant to be the physically toughest classes in the game. The classic Tank is the Warrior, however Druids (in Bear form), Paladins, and Shaman can also tank at times. Even some Hunter and Warlock pets can do a respectable job tanking.
The Healer: Healers are indespensable in a group. A group without a healer trying to take on really tough mobs, may as well not try. The Healers job is quite simple, to heal. In particular, healers should pay attention to the Tank, since they will most likely be taking most of the damage. However, do not be single minded in this as many times other members of the group will need healing as well. Healers are also ressers. That is, they're expected to ressurect any fallen party members if they are able. Druids are the exception, since their ressurect ability is on a 1/2 hour cooldown. Druids ressurect as a last resort. Healers can be any class with healing spells, but the best healers are Priests and Druids (in caster form). Paladins and Shaman can also heal and can do a good job if played well, so do not underestimate them.
The DPS: DPS stands for Damage Per Second. These are the group members whose job it is to kill the mobs as fast as possible. It is a simple job, but can be tricky if you do not know how to manage agro. That is, to do damage without pulling mobs from the Tank. DPS classes are most numerous, and anyone can do damage so it's hard to define at times. However, the classes most suited to DPS are Mages, Rogues, Warlocks, and Hunters.
The CC: Finally we have the CC, or Crowd Control. Some may say this is not a distinct group role, but sometimes it is. Crowd Control refers to using special abilities to manage how many mobs a group is fighting at a time. Some examples of CC are Sap, Polymorph, and Banish. This role is important if your group is facing many tough mobs that you cannot get seperated and you need to remove a few from the fight temporarily to focus on the others. Many classes have some form of CC or another, but a few examples might be Rogues (Sap and stuns), Mages (Polymorph), Hunters (Freezing Trap), Priest (Shackle).
* Edited and maintained now by Tzia.