an abbreviation of special procedure. Basically a proc is a thing, usually a cool thing, that happens when something else happens. Sometimes it only sometimes happens when the other thing happens and sometimes it always happens when the other thing happens. For example, “when Unrelenting Darkness procs cast Shadow Weave” (this implies that Unrelenting Darkness only happens sometimes, and when it does happen, you should cast Shadow Weave) versus “cast Kidney Stab to proc Blood Frenzy” (this implies that casting Kidney Stab causes Blood Frenzy to happen).
PuG
Abbreviation for pickup group. Randomly assigned players put together by the computer to do group content. Sometimes executing tricky tactical encounters with a collection of strangers you will meet again, some of whom may not speak your language, and all of whom are restricted to communicating entirely in text, is more fun than it sounds. Sometimes it really, really isn’t.
Pull
To attract the attention of a group of enemies. For the initiated, a convention of the medium is that packs of monsters will obligingly stand around, minding their own business, until the players are ready to attack them.
Raid
A large group of players, often but not always drawn from within a guild, who work together to defeat difficult group content.
Spec
Abbreviation for specialisation. Most classes in MMOs can be played in more than one way. Each way of playing the class is a specialisation. Some classes can spec for multiple roles (DPS, tank, healing), others can spec to do damage of different sorts or in different ways. See also: mainspec, offspec.
Solo
To kill an enemy or group of enemies with no help from other players.
Stack (1)
A number of mechanics in this kind of game are proximity related and many of them require all of the players to move close to a single player, forming a sort of giant pile of particle effects and ridiculous shoulder pads. This is called stacking.
Stack (2)
A number of buffs and debuffs can be applied multiple times, having a cumulative effect. This process is known as stacking and the number of iterations of the buff or debuff that have been applied is referred to as the number of stacks. Although this terminology can lead to confusion with the first sense of stack (see above), it is still far more effective to say, “Wait until you get ten stacks of pyroclasm,” than “Wait until the pyroclasm buff has been applied ten times without any of the previous applications expiring, thus resulting in a cumulative effect ten times stronger than the original buff.” See also: debuff, buff.
Tacs
Abbreviation for tactics.
Tank
In traditional MMO gameplay, enemies will ignore all sensible principles of warfare and strategy to focus their attentions on the least vulnerable and most heavily armoured character in the party. Players will ignore all sensible principles of warfare and strategy by arranging for damage to be concentrated on a single character rather than the burden being spread amongst the group. Somehow this works. The character, in both instances, is said to be the tank. See also: MT, OT.
Tempest
The fictional entertainment company responsible for creating and maintaining the fictional MMO played by the characters in this book. Any similarity between Tempest and the real world organisation to which it is obviously a thinly veiled reference is purely coincidental.
Threat
A game mechanical measure of how much a monster wants to murder your face off. Tank characters are good at generating threat and also good at dealing with the resultant face murdering. DPS characters should be good at mitigating threat but often aren’t. They are very bad at the dealing with the resultant face murdering, which is why they should also be nicer to healers. See also: DPS, healer, tank.
Vanilla
The original version of a game before it was ruined by expansions and dumbed down for the noobs.
Wipe
The tragic but ultimately unavoidable death of everybody in a group or raid.
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As always, I’d like to thank my editor, my agent, and everyone who has supported me in writing this book, particularly Eddie, Kat, and Santino for casting their nerdy eyes over it. Also, much love and gratitude to the Hassell & Hall Facebook Group for helping me with the cover.
I should also probably thank Blizzard Entertainment for creating the game on which Heroes of Legend is transparently based. It’s not a rip-off, it’s a homage. Honest.
Spires series
Glitterland
Glitterland: Aftermath (Free download)
Waiting for the Flood
For Real
Kate Kane, Paranormal Investigator
Iron & Velvet
Shadows & Dreams
Sand and Ruin and Gold
Prosperity series
Prosperity
There Will Be Phlogiston
Liberty & Other Stories
Alexis Hall was born in the early 1980s and still thinks the twenty-first century is the future. To this day, he feels cheated that he lived through a fin de siècle but inexplicably failed to drink a single glass of absinthe, dance with a single courtesan, or stay in a single garret.
He did the Oxbridge thing sometime in the 2000s and failed to learn anything of substance. He has had many jobs, including ice cream maker, fortune-teller, lab technician, and professional gambler. He was fired from most of them.
He can neither cook nor sing, but he can handle a seventeenth-century smallsword, punts from the proper end, and knows how to hotwire a car.
He lives in southeast England, with no cats and no children, and fully intends to keep it that way.
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