Top Five MMO Quotes
In this top five editorial, Sanya Weathers takes a look at the top five quotes surrounding MMOs and some of the history surrounding them.
Editorial By Sanya Weathers on April 30, 2009
There are certain phrases that crop up over and over in the MMO world. You see them in signature files, as ripostes in flamewars, and scrolling across your screen in open chat. Chuck Norris and Leroy are latecomers to the catchphrase scene. Here are five quotes (and their histories) that have been around for almost as long as there have been MMOs to play.
#5 "Catass."
Catass is the common term for grind, for boring repititions, for multi-hour raids requiring dozens of people to hurry up and wait. Lots of people say it, without any sense of where it came from. Well, here's where it came from. This article represented one of the first attempts by a member of the media to describe the MMO phenomenon to outsiders. The phrase "den of cat ass" caught our collective imagination, back in 2000.
#4 "I disagree with what you said."
I have a serious bias when it comes to this one. The news of my making the jump from ranter and writer to community manager had just been announced. Ranting does not pay in actual money, whereas industry jobs do. These days, a media type switching to the dark side to work for a game studio doesn't garner so much as a raised eyebrow, but in 2001, people who got into the industry for filthy lucre came in for a certain amount of disparagement. One message board discussion of my hire quickly turned into an epic flamewar. One of the participants. G. Bob, was a former writer/ranter who himself had just made the jump to working for the industry as a community manager. One of the participants was just a moron.
The moron said: "I dunno, maybe I'm living in a fantasy world but perhaps some people put their integrity and principles above and beyond the almighty buck. Some of us have to live with ourselves."
G. Bob replied: "You know the worst thing about the community job is? You can't say things like "it's amazing that somebody with that much man-dick in his mouth is still able to say such stupid things". Instead all you can say is, "I disagree with what you said". "Hey Binky, I disagree with what you said."
Sadly, the original thread is long gone, but I saved that quote into a text file that has sat on my desktop ever since.
#3 "I will taxi to victory!"
Not every MMO launches in good shape. Okay, make that "almost no MMO launches in good shape." Server instability, exploits that the asshats didn't report during beta so they could level/get rich faster than everyone else, and more. But some launches are legendary for their problems, and grow even more legendary when someone gets drunk and liveblogs his attempt to play a title released way too early, with way too little documentation. Did I mention the game was aimed at a particular type of simulation player who dearly loves recreating every real life movement necessary to use a piece of equipment? Only back in the day, we didn't call it liveblogging. We called it IRC. Check it out.
#2 "Shut up and give me my ten bucks per month, little man. My Porsche needs some performance upgrades."
It was one of the first examples of a developer really stepping on his own foot - without being particularly at fault. Sure, it shouldn't have been said, but the boards were crackling for months over it. Milo was a character artist for Verant (the studio that was spun off from Sony to avoid risk while they made one of them newfangled MMOs, and eventually brought back into the Sony fold when it turned out that EverQuest wasn't so much a risk as a license to print money). He wrote a fun little Q&A column for Everlore, a now defunct EQ fansite. His column was supposed to be about EQ artwork, and therefore was not overseen by anyone at all. He wrote with humor and style... and due to a general lack of communication from the dev team, quickly became a focus for every nutjob who played the game.
Nutjobs are one and all convinced that MMO devs are all filthy rich, rolling about in a pool of money. This is so far from the truth that insiders regularly joke about it amongst themselves. Back in August of 2000, Milo blew off one of the more hysterical nutjobs with the quote heard round the internet: Shut up and give me my ten bucks per month, little man. My Porsche needs some performance upgrades.
It was his last column.
#1 "It's working as intended."
Every MMO company in the world has an employee utter this one in public, because who doesn't love a public hanging? Whatever "it" is that's supposedly working, saying so on a message board is practically a guarantee that the thing in question is horribly broken, or an agility item that improves when you buff charisma, or not connected to a drop table despite being a boss mob.
I can't possibly link to all of the bloopers this one has been connected to over the years. You're invited to list your favorites in the comments!
Excellent list, Stradden. I was hoping to see "ass-clown" in there, but "cat ass" makes up for that one. I don't hear it used nearly as much today, but back in the EQ days it was rampant.
'Catass' is the only one I'm familair with. Well, other than 'working as intended,' but that's pretty much a common quote in most projects
I was expecting to see some of these:
"Soon(tm)." - Devs in general
"I'm sorry, I cannot help you with that." - GMs
"A FUCKING COMPANY IS AT STEAK" - Glitchless
I can't take credit for this one. This one was written by Sanya Weathers.
i was really hoping to see "Leeeeerrrrooooooyyyy Jenkins"
all I can say is, lol !
I recognized the origin of all of those except Catass. I think I read most of them first on Lum the Mad back in the day.
Some of the greatest rants and also some of the greatest game design discussions I have read on Lum's. It was one of the best sites for news about what was really important to players. Whether it was a major exploit or some 'booby dress', they were very familiar with what the players of MMOs liked and disliked. They were in tune with what affected the game that players are playingin an MMO, which is sometimes very different from game that the developers perceive them to be playing.
I can't take credit for this one. This one was written by Sanya Weathers.
Oh geez.... how'd I miss that. My apologies to Sanya.
Thanks for the laugh. and yes I've heard "Working as intended." waaaay too many times lol.
I think this should be retitled as "Sanya's Favorite Five MMO Quotations." The only one I'm vaguely familiar with is the "working as intended" which applies to ALL software rather than just MMO's.
I was thinking of Quotes from a game. Stuff like broken English in quests or dev misstypes. Eh the list was ok but the only one i really knew well was no1. Never heard of no5 ever...most people just call it 'the grind' nowdays.
Started playing EQ in July of 2000. Been addicted to MMOs since. I've never heard of "catass". Perhaps, this is more like "Top five IRC quotes that only MMO insiders would ever recognize."
Obviously, everyone has heard of "Working as intended", which I thought would be on this list. I also thought "woot", and "twink" would make it.
Great list. = )
"Soon (tm)" should be added though, this one was made popular by the eq chat team way back when the game was new.
Or along the same lines... "The server will be up in about 10 minutes." We all knew it would be another 3 hours.
Isn't that so true LOL
I was almost certain that "why have a burger, when you can have steak!" was going to make the list. That caused so much pandamonium when it was quoted, and some still joke about it.
Not to mention any number of John Smedley's rants...
that "catass" phrase must be a trendy thing for every MMO except the ones i've played. never heard it. though 10 years ago i wasn't playing any of the most popular ones.... >.>
You forgot "Its been release ready for months" X a couple years - Tasos.
"Can I have your stuff?"
'Nuff said.
Thats your list of top 5? Um .....ok, if you say so. Ive played dozens of mmos starting with eq1 and only heard of one of those.
Soon(TM) is one I would add to the list, along with a note that "soon" can mean anything from a few months to never.
Nice. I remember reading those back in the day. But I am dissapointed that " It's not a mirror" didn't make it in. And no mention of "Kewl Dewds".
In a world filled with SomethingAwful/4chan-derived catchphrases, that's the best you could do? I've been MMOs since the UO beta and I've never heard of any these "quotes." This article is covered in weaksauce.
Anyone who has never heard "working as intended" has never played a Funcom mmo. That's been the defacto response to every screwed up bit of code they've dumped on players since Anarchy Online first launched.
Fun read to start the day ^^
Particularly liked the snarky Milo *giggles* - just too bad the sarcasm wasn't appreciated by the Powers That Be :(
It would seem to me that a MMO quote should be specific, and ought to say something about MMO's in general, or a game in particular, with preferably a heavy dose of irony, and ought to induce a "WTF" moment in the reader.
Of those chosen in the article, only #2 meets all those criteria -- a developer clearly stating what he thought of his game's subscribers. "Taxi to victory" is old-hat and, I think, very very niche considering the game that led to its birth, and really doesn't say much.
If I had to submit one quote, I would choose that of Isildur, lead designer of Pirates of the Burning Sea, six months before release:
"The people who want to gank are waiting for the Next Big Failure to come along, to let them grief noobs for a few months before it shrivels up and dies. This is because every sane developer has learned this lesson: griefing and ganking doesn’t just lose you the $15/mo from the person who was griefed. It has a multiplicative effect, creating an environment in your game, and a reputation outside your game, and people tend to steer clear. ‘Play to Crush’ as a selling point and marketing slogan probably lost SB twice the players it ended up bringing them." (Full quotation here.)
Anyone who played Pirates of the Burning Sea can fully appreciate the irony of this statement, and I wish Isildur had stuck a post-it of it on his monitor frame when designing the rest of PotBS.
Gaute Godager's infamous steak comment might not have been in the Top 5, but I think it's definitely Top 10 material.
Since I played WOW for so long I would have to say, "More DOT's" would probably be my #1 on this list. Good list though, very fun!
My favourite (no matter how many times I see it) will always be...
Party:> Player1-"RUNwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww"
Player1 has died
Someone explain the story behind the "Taxi to victory" one to me.
Perdition, that one is exceptionally funny to me asit was one of the last statements before a wipe in a group I was recently part of in AION. :)
Wow, look at all the MMO nubs.
this
I almost ROFL'd in RL.
QFE
The 2 above this are priceless.
Call me crazy, but I thought the legendary "All your base are belong to us" would at least get a mention.
It really won't have much of an effect unless you've been around long enough to remember who Lum the Mad was.
But basically Lum was playing WW2 Online and couldn't get his plane off of the ground because he had no throttle control on his joystick. So... he was just taxing around the runway... Below some of the priceless quotes from the IRC chat session:
{21:12} <@Lum_> STEP 1
{21:12} <@Lum_> LOCK THE TAIL WHEEL
{21:13} <@Lum_> CHECK
{21:13} <@Lum_> STEP TWO
{21:13} <@Lum_> HOLD DOWN RIGHT AND LEFT WHEEL BRAKES
{21:13} <@Lum_> NOW I AM SUPPOSED TO SAY CLEAR
{21:13} <@Lum_> HOW DO I SAY CLEAR
{21:13} <@PyroRaven> yell to loh clear
{21:13} <@AIRtrafficControl> enter to chat
{21:13} <@Lum_> I SAID CLEAR
{21:14} <@Lum_> it didn't say to turn on the engine
{21:14} <@Lum_> ok
{21:14} <@Lum_> now it does
{21:14} <@Lum_> ok
{21:14} <@Lum_> engine ON
{21:14} <@Lum_> propellor thingy moving
{21:14} <@Lum_> we're COOKIN WITH GAS
{21:14} <@Lum_> READY TO BOMB THE HELL OUT OF FRANCE
{21:14} <@Lum_> max rpm SET
{21:15} <@Lum_> I AM MOVING
{21:15} <@DA_SLOG> throttle up on the joystick
{21:15} <@Lum_> my joystick doesn't have a throttle
{21:15} <@Lum_> WHAT DO I DO
{21:15} <@Lum_> WHAT THE HELL?
{21:15} <@Lum_> I CANNOT FLY A PLANE?
{21:16} <@Lum_> BECAUSE MY JOYSTICK DOESN"T HAVE A THROTTLE?
{21:16} <@Lum_> My plane is still moving
{21:16} <@Lum_> I WILL TAXI TO VICTORY
{21:16} <@Lum_> YES
{21:16} <@Lum_> I FIRED MY GUNS
{21:16} <@Lum_> I AM SO DANGEROUS
{21:16} <@Lum_> I DROPPED A BOMB!
{21:16} <@Georgi_Zhukov> You dropped the bomb?
{21:17} <@Lum_> I only had one bomb
{21:17} <@Lum_> I guess I dropped it
{21:17} <@Lum_> the plane is like bucking around now
{21:17} <@Lum_> OFFROAD TAXIING
{21:17} <@Lum_> BUT I ONLY HAD ONE BOMB
{21:17} <@Lum_> HOW DO I RELOAD
{21:18} <@Lum_> oh and I can't steer
{21:18} <@Lum_> I can only taxi forward
{21:18} <@Lum_> HOW DO I DO FLAPS
{21:18} <@Lum_> THAT SOUNDS IMPORTANT
{21:18} <@DA_SLOG> you locked the tail wheel
{21:18} <@Lum_> TAIL WHEEL UNLOCKED
{21:18} <@Lum_> um
{21:18} <@Lum_> and I still can't steer
{21:18} <@Lum_> OK
{21:18} <@Lum_> I STABILIZED
{21:18} <@Lum_> no, it's spinning again
{21:19} <@Lum_> REALISTIC
{21:19} <@Lum_> WHAT THE HELL IS REALISTIC ABOUT MY STUKA JOYSTICK NEEDING AN UPGRADE
{21:19} <@Lum_> I AM GOING BACKWARDS NOW
{21:19} <@Lum_> HEY
{21:19} <@Lum_> I THINK I TOOK OFF
{21:19} <@Lum_> no
{21:20} <@Lum_> it was an optical illusion
{21:20} <@Lum_> I just bounced real hard
Excellent quote thanx.
Dear Sanya - will we ever see a review / overview / interview from you that dares to criticize the Holy Company who developed the game? I know in your worldview players are ALWAYS the ones to blame for everything that goes wrong but maybe a wee bit of objectivity and honesty might creep into your writings every once in a while?
I miss Old Man Murray and good ole CorpNews / Mr. Poppinfresh back in the day. They'd a ripped Sanya several new ones.
I am not sure if it was released in english, but back when Age of Conan was about to launch, Gaute claimed to a Norwegian newspaper that WoW was like a hamburger, and Age of Conan was like a fine steak. I will do my best to find that article, but it still brings laughs to my wife and I. Dont get me wrong though, I loved AoC for a good while. Still doesn't change the irony.
I didn't find the exact article I had read, but this one is good enough: http://my.curse.com/blogs/aoc-en-news/archive/2008/09/17/N11185Id.aspx
Always lightens my day as a good "last words of the fool".
That was a great read. The only one I didn't know was 'catass'. There are many great quotes floating around from dev's and players and the like. But definitely the working as intended one is one of the best ones in my opinion. There are so many, it's hard to wheetle the list down to just five and I wonder what criteria Sanya used to choose the ones she chose. Smedley is a goldmine for many quotes: things pertaining to the legitimate RMT going on on all servers of VG and EQ2 for example, or the NGE release in SWG. Mythic is great at making silly quotes especially in their DAoC days. Funcom, even CCP. Blizz is pretty boring in comparison.
I would have prsonally put the CCP/t20 fiasco in these quotes since it's one of the rare events of a dev playing a PvP game and being caught red-handed giving his alliance an unfair advantage in the equipment available to them. CCP's explanation of events was pretty attenuated considering what t20 was accused of. Their community messages were written in the most understated terms ever. Pretty cheeky...
"I must disagree with that list"
What about some of the SWG gems?
"We'll fix that in the combat upgrade"
"The smuggler patch is on the horizon/around the corner"
"We'll never do this to our playerbase again"-Smed
"It just wasn't Starwarsy!"-Smed
"There was too much reading involved"-Macintyre
"We need more kill/loot/repeat"-Nancy again
"If you don't like the NGE you should stop complaining and go play something else"-Torres
"I apologize for my statement and wasn't implying 90% of the playerbase should rage quit" (words to that effect) -Torres 2 weeks later
"This is the last Jedi publish" - SOE
"We won't give refunds on the ToOW expansion" - Smed
"We've decided to give refunds on the ToOW expansion to anyone that pre-ordered it or purchased it before the NGE" - Smed after threatened with lawsuit.
"The game is more Starwarsy now!" - Smed
"We'll gain far more players than we will lose" - Smed on the NGE
"Don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining!" - Agricola
Only one i recognized/have ever heard was "working as intended". Never heard fo any of the others till now... so, can't be too common of phrases.... lol
Well, they're antiques, and from way before my time.
In a way, it's nice to have them; they remind you of the evolution of the industry. However, when all those quotes seem to come from the turn of the century, with nothing from after 2002, well, the choice is questionable -- especially when many of the quotes are just so vague as to be meaningless.
I fear that if they tried the same exercise in ten years (so that we'd get all the "classic" quotes from today), the wittiest we'd get would be "Nerf pallys!".
The premise is great, but the execution is flawed.
Working as intended is the only one I have heard of....... But I have heard of a saying like...... Man that pizza is the cats ass. Which basicly means it was Its really good.
"The cat's ass"? Put like that, it sounds like someone went through a list of obsolete 1920's expressions and decided to give them a nudge towards the obscene.
ah working as intented so many memories from City of Heroes
"Tankers are working as intended"
"Invunerability is working as intented."
"controlers are working as intented"
Which are then followed by, the global defense nerf, the purple patch, the control patch, enhancment disfunction...er Diversification, controler pet nerf, and then a invunerbility nerf or 3
I am sure Vetarnias remembers this, "Characters can be attacked by virtually anyone, and they can most certainly be ganked. That's the nature of the system, and we're not changing that system. So we don't want to hear any crying about it." This is another POTBS developer, DREWC's, infamous explanation of the POTBS mantra, there is no crying in the red circle.
Those words virtually guaranteed POTBS would be a niche title and never enjoy wide circulation, which has come to pass. What was amazing about this was the lead designer's understanding that griefing and ganking will kill a game, but yet they built the game for griefing and ganking. And the developer's didn't want to hear any crying about it? It's no wonder the game has failed on so many levels.
I am sure Vetarnias remembers this, "Characters can be attacked by virtually anyone, and they can most certainly be ganked. That's the nature of the system, and we're not changing that system. So we don't want to hear any crying about it." This is another POTBS developer, DREWC's, infamous explanation of the POTBS mantra, there is no crying in the red circle.
Those words virtually guaranteed POTBS would be a niche title and never enjoy wide circulation, which has come to pass. What was amazing about this was the lead designer's understanding that griefing and ganking will kill a game, but yet they built the game for griefing and ganking. And the developer's didn't want to hear any crying about it? It's no wonder the game has failed on so many levels.
Sure, I remember that one too. Drew's quote is perhaps even more worthy of belonging in a Top 5 of quotes, perhaps in tandem with Isildur's, a la Laurel & Hardy. One is far diminished without the presence of the other.
ones that come to mind for me are
Train to zone
No one expects the Seru Inqisition.
Come on, We can take <uber mob here> without everyone here.
<archer character> just broke mez.
Healer or Mage: I'll pull!
Quite a few classics forgotten:
Train to zone, Train inc, Train to exit and my favourite:
Lets train to DOT
- AO's Temple of Three Winds had a mob called Defender of Time which was halfway in and surrounded by mostly grey mobs which aggroed on sight but was easy to kill. They would instagank lowbies though. What you did was zone in the instance, which was shared with lots of players, no seperate wowie instancing here, and run like hell to DOT causing an extremely big train with 50+ mobs which where trivial to 55+ characters but deadly to 20+ ones.
Another favourite from the same place was:
Aztur at exit
- Aztur was the last boss in the same dungeon and one hardass mofo. Often players would aggro him, fail miserably and start to run towards the exit. Aztur followed them and stayed at the exit for a while ganking everyone that entered except the twinked-out 60's or GA fixers with the giant blue dildo of doom
Another good one is:
Heal you noob
- You often get this when you play the main healer and almost everytime you see this, you're dead cause of stray aggro and get yelled at why you dont heal and what a nub you are cause you're dead.
Now that one has me ROFL!!! SOOOOO many personal experiences with that one.I had a vague recollection of "Catass"(but I know real life people who's house smells like cat pee:~{) and ya mostly just "grind" now. I am bad about forums so the others are also only vague recollections. But the "working as intended" has been in every game I have have ever played, and I have played since UO and it usually is followed by a *groan*.
I would have to say that they posts are better than the list as well. SoonTM (Groan), Train to Zone (which doesn't happen much with mob pathing and anti-kiting now days), Server will be up in x minutes (groan). PotBS and SB quotes are good. AoC another good one. All, I think, are more current and infamous than the list provided. But I would agree with (whoever said it in a previous post) that a clarification in the title about the list being a writers favorite list from old times might be appropriate.
"Originally posted by Perdition_uk
My favourite (no matter how many times I see it) will always be...
Party:> Player1-"RUNwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww"
Player1 has died"
LOL; that would have me laughing too... :)
There's relatively good odds I might have been the one that said that "I dunno, maybe I'm living in a fantasy world but perhaps some people put their integrity and principles above and beyond the almighty buck. Some of us have to live with ourselves" bit, but I honestly can't remember the thread well enough to be sure.
It might as well have been. I consider it a sad state of humanity that, "selling out your ethics for money is pretty underhanded" is answered with, "your mouth is full of man-dick" and the former gets pegged as the deluded moron of the two.
so i presume theirs woman-dick now?
I'm not exactly sure what the expression means, either. If you read the original article you would see I'm just repeating what was said in it. It's probably something like, "well, you must be a pathetic sycophant so desperate to make other people like you that you are constantly fellating them." Of course, this is a really pathetic way to answer any appeal for ethical behavior.
It's a bit off-base as to the point of "I disagree with what you're saying." They're basically just saying a CSR can't speak plainly because, generally speaking, many customers are so over-reactionary that they can't handle the truth. This, unfortunately, is a bit of an ethical override brought about by popular demand I cannot deny. Still, two wrongs never made a right, so it remains a double-wrong that is an industry practice through lack of better alternative.
So I guess that, under a deeper examination of what happened here, I (if that was me) was not so much a moron as I was relatively bright to point out that this double-wrong exists and GBob's response (which I partly agree with) was so very moronic as to join a hall of fame of other incredibly moronic things MMORPG developers say. It was Sanya Weathers's mistake to interpret it was the other way around - just because something is an ugly industry practice brought about by necessity doesn't make it a smarter course of action.
[edit: Actually, I'm going to quit while I'm ahead. If I start spinning theories about how such moves like this undermined the economy, I'm sure I'm going to ruffle feathers without much of a basis to argue other than big picture conceptualization.]
I'm not exactly sure what the expression means, either. If you read the original article you would see I'm just repeating what was said in it. It's probably something like, "well, you must be a pathetic sycophant so desperate to make other people like you that you are constantly fellating them." Of course, this is a really pathetic way to answer any appeal for ethical behavior.
It's a bit off-base as to the point of "I disagree with what you're saying." They're basically just saying a CSR can't speak plainly because, generally speaking, many customers are so over-reactionary that they can't handle the truth. This, unfortunately, is a bit of an ethical override brought about by popular demand I cannot deny. Still, two wrongs never made a right, so it remains a double-wrong that is an industry practice through lack of better alternative.
So I guess that, under a deeper examination of what happened here, I (if that was me) was not so much a moron as I was relatively bright to point out that this double-wrong exists and GBob's response (which I partly agree with) was so very moronic as to join a hall of fame of other incredibly moronic things MMORPG developers say. It was Sanya Weathers's mistake to interpret it was the other way around - just because something is an ugly industry practice brought about by necessity doesn't make it a smarter course of action.
[edit: Actually, I'm going to quit while I'm ahead. If I start spinning theories about how such moves like this undermined the economy, I'm sure I'm going to ruffle feathers without much of a basis to argue other than big picture conceptualization.]
When i say something like "woman-dick" your sumose to not your head and make a off the cuff joke.
Kids these days do i got's to teach them all the rules of forum Humour
Forum humor is for those who have yet to accept the responsibility of taking the red pill.