Glossary

This page serves as a repository for definitions of words that don't really need their own individual pages. A Game term is a good candidate for the glossary if all relevant information can be condensed into a couple of factual statements that don't require multiple headings/subheadings, especially if the term being explained isn't specific to Zenith. A term in the glossary can potentially become deserving of its own page later on.

## Aggro

**Aggro** is an English slang word, probably originally derived from the words "aggravation" or "aggression", and used since at least the 1960s. In MMORPGs, such as Zenith, aggro denotes the aggressive interests of a monster/NPC.

Some examples are "We've got aggro!" and "Go aggro that monster".

For example, you may read of a player who died while fighting one mob because she aggroed another mob — that is, another mob decided to attack her because she got too close to it, or for other reasons. See Aggro radius. Aggro is closely associated with the concept of threat. If a mob is under attack by more than one player (or by a player and her pet), then the mob will aggro onto (i.e., will begin to attack) the attacker with the highest threat.

Aggro is understood to be the condition of a particular mob attacking a particular character, while threat is the numeric value that each attacker has towards each character on its threat list. The basic behavior of aggro is controlled by the rules outlined below. Some mobs will have secondary attacks which have different targeting procedures; even for a normal creature, the target who has aggro is not necessarily the player highest on its threat list. Managing aggro is one of the most important aspects of grouping because it determines how much damage the group receives and where the damage ends up.

Holding aggro is done by (usually) one person (the tank) who uses his abilities to make the enemy attack him and no one else. Many tanks have specific abilitys to draw aggro of monsters so that the members of their party with less health can survive longer and deal damage without having to defend against monsters at the same time.

Aggro control is the art and work which is done by all members of a party to force the mob to attack the tank(s).

## Area of Effect

Area Of Effect or AoE/AOE abilities are abilities that can be used on anyone within a specified area. One example in Zenith is the Naga boss that has an AoE where it smashes its sword on the ground dealing damage in front of it. In Zenith the AoE's are denoted by a red area where anything within that area will be hit and damaged. They usually take some length of time to charge up giving the player a chance to dodge out of the way of the attack. Normally in Zenith AoE abilities are reserved for boss monsters or other powerful creatures.

## Avatar

Also called a character image, character or player avatars are 2D or 3D rendered still versions of in-game player characters.

See the player avatars category for examples of custom generated images.

## Breadcrumb

A breadcrumb quest is a quest given to the player in order to indicate they should go to some specified location. These quests consist of traveling from point A to point B with nothing in between; they usually automatically complete at the destination.

## Buff

**Buffs** are temporary increases to a Stat. Buffs may be granted by eating food, magical items, spell effects, etc. Buffs may increase damage, defense, attack speed, XP earning rate, etc.

A percentage increase must be calculated based on the stat's initial value.

For example, if you have a 10% crit chance, and you get a buff that improves your crit chance by 20%, that's 20% of 10%, = 2% increase, so your crit chance would be 12% while the buff is active (an increase of 0.10 \* 0.20)

## Character

**Character** refers to an interactive humanoid representation of a game persona. Characters controlled by a player are most often referred to as a character and sometimes as avatar. Characters controlled by the game are usually referred to as Non-Player Characters or NPCs.

Characteristics include: class, race, faction, talents, profession, and equipment.

## DPS

**DPS** is an abbreviation for Damage Per Second

It may be used to refer to a player's role/specialty. A DPS player is responsible for dealing high amounts of damage to monsters.

It may also be used as an adjective, statistic, or metric, to quantify how much damage a particular weapon can deal over time

## Equip

To place (wear or wield) an item (equipment) in a slot on the player character. Typically this is done by either dragging the item from the inventory to the equipment window or (assuming no vendor window is open) clicking on the item in the inventory.

## Heal

There are multiple ways to **Heal** a player

Eating oranges or apples will restore a very small amount of health.

Anyone playing the Support role will have special healing abilities available to them. It is a role that focuses on restoring teammates health and resources. see Support Blademaster and Mage Support for details.

## Mage (class)

**Mages** are a set of classes in the World of Zenith which use use Essence to cast spells. Currently, the only known mage class is the Essence Mage.

## Outlanders

"Outlanders" is a term used to describe anyone living in the lands outside of Zenith.

## Player

A **player** in *Zenith* is the actual person behind an in-game character. For example, *you* are a player if you are a person who plays *Zenith*.

A player is distinguishable from [[player characters in that one player can have multiple player characters. While playing with the default interface configuration, player characters can be identified by a permanent character name panel floating above their character.

## Player Character

A **Player Character** (**PC**) in *Zenith* is an in-game character controlled by you or another person (also known as a player).

When you first start playing the game, you create a character for yourself, and you play the game as that character.

Also referred to as just a **player** or a **character**.

Some other names used:

* Alt or Main
* Avatar
* Toon

NOTE: Player characters are just one type of in-game character; see Non-Player characters (NPCs).

Fighting another player character is called Player versus Player (PvP).

In many role-playing games, a strict division is made between the player (the human being that plays the game) and the fictitious character that the player controls in the game (i.e., the player character or short: character).

## Recipe

A **recipe** refers to an action in which the player is capable of using a set of required ingredients (also known as reagents or materials) to make or produce an item. Different types of recipes composes different **crafting**-professions.
see Cooking for more information

## Timesink

A **timesink** is any endeavor in which *time sinks away* meaning it takes up time to do.

This term is sometimes derogatory, but often just neutral in tone, and seen usually as a joke or jest. For example, "grinding is such a timesink".

## Zenithian

Term used to refer to a citizen of Zenith.