Glossary of Terms

This is a small glossary of a collection of terms that I use here on the site, and sometimes while I’m playing RA2. Most of this is just to make my job of doing reviews and tactics easier, but in some cases it is just for laughs. I hope you like it as much as I enjoy keeping it updated. :)

A – B – C – D – E – F – G – H – I – J – K – L – M
N – O – P – Q – R – S – T – U – V – W – X – Y – Z

Newest Entries as of May 6th, 1998

Grenade Corralling

Rail Retribution

The Letter A

Ambushing
The act of purposefully remaining very quiet, and visually undetectable in hopes that your opponent will give their position away so that you can make a surprise attack… possibly scoring a first hit. Commonly confused with Camping.

Angle of Attack
The angle at which you are above your opponent when you attack them. In most cases this should be a very high angle, as it lets you have a higher chance of scoring splash damage with explosive weapons. See Dive Bombing, Higher Ground, Jump Shooting, Ground Shooting.

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The Letter B

Bounding Sphere
The region around your player model that is considered “hittable”. The “sphere” is actually rectangular in nature and can be hit OUTSIDE of the actual player model (if this weren’t the case, it would be smarter to play with the female model as it is smaller than the male model… making it a smaller target).

Buckwheat
The act of shooting someone in their posterior end.

Brute Force
What you will have until you are dead, meaning: at all times you can muscle damage onto people carelessly, so long as you still have health points. Relying on this will unusually get you killed by a skilled opponent, but this might also scare the crap out of them so much that they choke under pressure. See Dancing Range.

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The Letter C

Camping
Term under large debate as to a valid tactic… or the definition as a whole. As defined by this website, Camping refers to finding a weapon or powerup and using its importance to other players to lure them in for easy kills. As you may have noticed, there are no weapons or powerups in RA2. See Ambushing.

Chainbait
Slang term to identify a player with no armor, less than 25 life, or both. Its root comes from the fact that the Chaingun is an excellent weapon choice for killing such a player.

Chaingun
Weapon number 5 on the default configuration for Quake 2. This weapon shoots 200 bullets in less than 10 seconds. Not a good starting weapon due to the armor your targets will have… possibly the best finishing weapon due to the armor your targets WON’T have. Considered “weak”, “wussy”, “cheap”, “wimpy”, “easy”, and many others by novice Rocket Arena 2 players.

Cheap Kill
No such thing in RA2, so long as everyone knows what weapons are available to everyone.

Comic Sans MS
My favorite system font for the week. This entire site uses this font in all shapes and sizes.

Continued Lead
The act of firing a rocket (usually) at a point which will merge with its target so long as that target continues to move in their present course.

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The Letter D

Dancing Range
Refers to the distance at which a large number of direction changes will take place from both (all) players because of their close proximity. Best avoided if low on health.

Dive Bombing
The act of falling off a very high area of a map and firing upon targets below before reaching the bottom, increasing Angle of Attack. See Angle of Attack, Ground Shooting,Higher Ground.

Dummy Shot
A shot fired in hopes of getting lucky, but still fired in a way as to either throw off your position, or to fire so that your target may peek out at the right time to meet the blast of the shot.

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The Letter E

Ear Biting
Placing yourself in a position of obvious disadvantage (killing yourself, jumping up and down shooting a blaster and making extensive use of the “wave 0” command, etc.) while playing someone that is consistantly beating the crap out of you, in hopes of saving face because you “don’t really care about this match.” For more information on Ear Biting, go here.

Essobie
(ES’ OH’ BEE’) 1. n. Bastardization of the term “son of a bitch” which abbreviated is S.O.B.  2. n. One that plays like a son of a bitch, but doesn’t act like one no matter how bad he is doing.  3. adj. ruthless, cunning, extremely modest.  4. n. Webmaster of this website.

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The Letter F

Fahrenheit 176
A resource for Console Commands, Joystick settings, Aliases, and more. The webmaster of this page (Essobie) runs the Alias section on F176. See Pimp.

Finishing Weapon
A weapon that can more easily end a match than your primary weapon (Rocket Launcher orRailgun). Wait until you know your opponent is hurt, then open fire with a constant flurry of Chaingun or duck around corners and peek out with a snap shot of Super Shotgun. SeeCheap Kill

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The Letter G

Grenade Corralling
The use of the grenade launcher to place pills in areas of the map that you think your opponent may go to in hopes that you can force them to go somewhere else instead, giving you a better shot with another weapon.

Grenade Launcher
Sometimes “pipe thrower”. This weapon is unique because you can bounce explosives around corners and over ledges and they explode at a set time (as opposed to a timed explosion of Hand Grenades).

Ground Shooting
The act of shooting at your opponent’s feet with Rockets in hopes that if the rocket doesn’t hit your target directly, the splash damage on the ground will at least do some damage… and/or toss him/her up in the air causing disorientation.

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The Letter H

Hand Grenade
Possibly one of the most enjoyable weapons in Quake 2, these guys can be held onto after priming so that you can both throw them farther, AND so you can make them explode when you want (with a little practice). Of note here is the fact that this is the only weapon available to you right after a round is over… MAKE USE OF IT! If you left a mess (your opponent’s body is not gibbed) then CLEAN IT UP! Whip out a grenade, and toss it on that carcass. See Postmortem Grenade.

Higher Ground
A sure way to increase your angle of attack is to head to a higher location than your opponent. Depending on the map, the highest point on it is most likely the best place to make most of your attacks from. See Ground Shooting, Dive Bombing.

Hitscan
A type of weapon that in essence, has the ammunition strike its target instantly upon firing. Examples are Shotgun, Super Shotgun, Machinegun, Chaingun, and Railgun.

HPB
Short for High Ping Bastard. The line between HPB and LPB is really relative to the players… since RA2 is a 1 on 1 game most of the time, a person with 100ms ping BETTER than their opponent will have a huge advantage… even if one player is 0 and the other is 100.  Yes, a tenth of a second actually counts. Most people define an HPB as someone with a ping of about 180 or higher. Everything lower than that is an LPB.

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The Letter I

Inside and Out
1. The name of this website.  2. Term describing the flow of motion between two players inDancing Range.  3. What you get to see of your opponent if you beat them correctly.

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The Letter J

Jump Shooting
The act of jumping up and firing rockets at the peak of your jump, in hopes that the angle of attack is slightly increased, giving you less room for error while ground shooting.

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The Letter K

Keyboarder
One that uses the keyboard for turning. The best turning device for Quake 2 is something that can give you both instant turning, slow turning capabilities, and constantly varying degrees of speed in between. It is impossible to do this using the keyboard with any functionality. If you would like an example of why you should abandon this practice, just mail Essobie here and I will show you personally.

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The Letter L

Learned Opponent
One who has become completely predictable. Don’t let this be you.

LPB
Short for Low Ping Bastard. This is usually defined as someone with a sub 180 ping or better (lower). These players are on higher connection speed hardware, be they ISDN, Cable Modem, or direct internet access (T1, T3). It is possible to reach LPB status with a 56K modem (I personally get about a 100 ping on a lot of RA2 servers with only a 46000 connection with my 56K). These are a misunderstood folk… mainly because the only LPBs we (HPBs) see are the ones that are just playing against us modemers to practice hitting moving targets. This is NOT to say that they are all mean people. I highly recommend playing against LPBs since they have the most potential for reaching higher skill levels compared to HPBs. Playing people better than you is Good.

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The Letter M

Mosh Jump
Rocket jumping right next to an opponent that you are “dancing” with too close.

Mouser
One that uses a mouse in some form or another in their control configuration for Quake 2.

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The Letter N

Namecalling
The act of actually verbally assaulting someone to put them down before, after, or during a match by specifically placing a label on someone identifying them as something. Example: asshole.

Nostromo Syndrome
The act of purposefully starting a match with a rocket jump, and inadvertently removing all of your armor opening you up to a direct rocket hit or a railgun shot for an easy one shot kill. Taken from the Nostromo RA2 servers that add the armorprotect option in their arena.cfg file that gives your armor, as well as your health, immunity to your own splash damage.

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The Letter O

Owned
Past tense of own. To Own: to know exactly what your opponent will do before they do. See Learned Opponent.

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The Letter P

Parallel Shot
To shoot a rocket along the same line as the ground’s angle, as opposed to shooting the ground at your target’s feet. This is usually a bad thing, but if you are a great shot with the rocket, or there is a long distance between you and your opponent… or you are just plain lucky, this can be a good thing. See Ground Shooting.

Prediction Zone
Place where a player can aim that is a likely spot for a target to emerge from, probably with little or no way of dodging a shot. Shot is usually done with a Railgun, as a shot with the Rail is most lethal of all hitscan weapons.

Ping
The time it takes for one packet of information to go from one IP address to another, and then back again. Usually measured in milliseconds. See HPB and LPB.

Pimp
To shamelessly flaunt something where you have the power to do so, regardless of whether or not it has relevance. Ex: redeath.pcx, Fahrenheit 176.

Postmortem Grenade
The phenomena of being able to prime a grenade and throw it even though a RA2 round is over. See Hand Grenade.

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The Letter R

Rocket Arena
Name of the Quake 2 Modification discussed in this webpage. Name is based on the fact that the Rocket is usually the weapon of choice in most situations during the game itself.

Railgun
A hitscan weapon that fires depleted Uranium pellets instantaneously at whatever you are aiming at. Weapon of choice when looking up at an opponent standing on a high ledge with no walls directly behind him/her.

Railgun Retribution
The psycological belief that after getting hit with a railgun early in a match that you must immediately even the score by pulling out the railgun and attempting to return fire with that… even though the railgun may not be the best choice given the current situation.

Real Position
The actual position of your target in the “now”, which is what you base your target leading on. If the target is moving, shooting at someone’s real position will miss unless you are firing hitscan weaponry.

Rocket Dancing
The act of moving around in circles in both clockwise and counter-clockwise fashion to try to ground shoot rockets at your opponents feet at close range. See also Dancing Range.

Rocket Launcher
Primary weapon of most Rocket Arena 2 players. Slow moving, high damage projectiles with large splash radius. Can be used to lead your opponent from long distances. Can also be fired at walls or floors to allow higher than normal jumping… especially when self damage is disabled on the arena that you are in.

Redeath.pcx
The file name of the only skin that Essobie has done for the Quake 2 Male Model… and probably the last. Name is derived from the fact that he wears bright red armor and has a skull mask strapped to his face, hiding his identity from everyone… and instilling fear into them as well. Possibly one too many sentences for this definition… hmmm…

The Letter S

Snap Shot
A shot taken after a quick reactional movement. Ex: You are walking along on the ground floor of The Cage, and you hear footsteps above you… so you quickly turn upwards and take a snap shot at him/her..

Strategy
Term to loosely describe the act of thinking before you act or react to a given situation… but more importantly to this site is the NEED of it to do well in any arena you step into… no matter how small.

Sumo Wrestling
Rocket Dancing in a particular area of an arena that is deemed as the “most advantageous position” by both parties in question, usually an area that allows Higher Ground. Areas of note are the top shelf in Sun Baked (ra2map5), the platform in Stone Cold (ra2map4), and the top area in That Not So Fresh Feeling (ra2map6).

SupremeBeing
My sister in Real Life(tm) that I had a hand in corrupting into playing Quake and Quake 2 on the Internet. She is a big fan of Loki’s Minion’s CTF, Freeze Tag, and HeadHunters 2, and is a mother of the cutest nephew a QuakeFiend like me could ever want… THE JAKE-O-NATER (soon to be a Quake God in about 8 years…).

Switched Lead
The act of firing a rocket (usually) at a point which will merge with its target assuming that they will reverse their present course when you fire your weapon at them.

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The Letter T

T3
A really, really, really, really, really, really, really fast connection to the internet. Usually yields 0 pingtimes to multiple Quake 2 servers. The users of such a connection aren’t even classified as LPBs… they are just bastards. Commonly used by College students that live in dormitories at nice Universities.

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The Letter U

Unoriginal
Term used to describe Rocket Arena 2 Strategy Webpages with map reviews, advanced tactics, daily updates and graphics and layouts similar to those found here. Also see the bottom of this page.

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