On a related note to the unrelated derailment of this thread,
The term 'troll' used on forums did not initially refer to a mythical creatures that live under bridges. It was a reference to a type of fishing technique, making the analogy that someone was baiting others into arguing.
It still drives me crazy when people connect the mythical creature to someone attempting to elicit an argument.
From now on, every mob of trolls in the Hollows is going to make me think of this thread.
Arc#314490: Zombie Ninja Pirates!
Defiant @Grouchybeast
Death is part of my attack chain.
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Incorrect. While a great number of acronyms are initialisms, there are various terms that are classified as acronyms that are actually contractions of the full term.|
Originally Posted by seebs
It's not an acronym. An acronym is an initialism (a word consisting of the initials of other words) which is pronounced as a word, but mob isn't an initialism. It isn't "Mobile OBject", it's just "MOBile".
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CONUS, for example.
MOBCOM
USAREC
WILCO
CINCPAC
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| I don't think it makes any sense to play a game and object to people using "gamer" terms. |
Right?
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| We're playing a game; we are by definition gamers. |
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| We refer to a patrol as a "pat" and to an NPC we can attack as a "mob" because short names let us communicate quickly in combat. |
<Lone Ranger> Looks like we're in trouble Tanto.
<Tanto> What mean "we" paleface?
In short, YOU may refer to these concepts this way. It doesn't mean your mode of thought is universal, nor more correct than another.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
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Originally Posted by seebs
No, an acronym is an initialism.
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Wrong. An acronym CAN be an initialism. But not always.
[quote]
No. To be an acronym, it would have to be a short form of a three-word phrase, where the THREE words started with M, O, and B respectively.[quote]
Quoth Lex "Spacy" Luthor
WRONG!
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| Otherwise, it's an abbreviation but not an acronym. |
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
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No, you are wrong. Definition is:|
Originally Posted by seebs
No. To be an acronym, it would have to be a short form of a three-word phrase, where the THREE words started with M, O, and B respectively.
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"a word formed from the initial letters or groups of letters of words in a set phrase or series of words, as Wac from Women's Army Corps, OPEC from Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or loran from long-range navigation. "
Please note, it says initial letters or GROUPS OF LETTERS. It is not restricted to only the FIRST letter. They specifically give the example of loran which is constructed from THREE words, not five.
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
Wow!
Thanks, I concede the point. Cool, never knew that.
I still don't think "mob" is an acronym, though, because it's an abbreviation of a single word. Using the first syllable of a single word as a short form of the word is not normally viewed as an acronym or put in block caps. I mean, no one says that a jazz band has a SAX player, on the grounds that SAX is the initial part of a word.
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Ok, as my college transcript would reflect, English and grammer is not my strong suit. So let's try to put this train back on the tracks. |
Originally Posted by Organica
I was mostly speaking of classic herding of course. "I'm gonna herd to here! Wait for me!" THAT kind of herding.
Some of the other points are quite valid. Making sure people don't spam holds and the like prematurely -- valid. Pulling one group forward into another group -- VERY valid. Using a second tank (brute/scrapper) to pull other groups to the kill point -- VERY valid. To be honest, the tanks I like best herd quite a bit, they just don't corner-pull every single group or announce everything they're doing. They just try to make sure the majority of enemies are bunched up in one place. I'll usually wait a few seconds for them to accomplish this, then unleash death. Or, if I'm on my scrapper, I'll aggro stragglers and go stand next to the tank. Normally this doesn't involve corner-pulling and it certainly doesn't involve pausing to make sure everyone is on the same page and then having them wait while you go get the bad guys. It just means letting the tank rush in and draw aggro for 2-3 seconds so you can AoE more effectively. Not classic herding, but it's what any good tank does. |
I think we all agree the old way of herding the whole map and then killing one enormous mob are gone. That strategy just doesn't work any more. Todays strategy requires a little more thought. Some may disagree, but a tanks role is now a combination of strategies. Depending on the room make up - maybe herding is best, maybe it's not. Some teams require a big brother to look out for them, other teams can handle whatever is thrown at them. In any case the tank should decide what he does based on the variables. Defensivly how much he can handle, how much aggro can he hold within the caps and how much can the team can handle are the limits, the rest is personal play style.
As a player who does enjoy tanking, I would have to say I love having teams that I don't have to monitor much. I'd prefer to jump mob to to mob, using the terrain features to get them into melee range and let the team work their magic. If all goes well, just before the mob is completely toast, I am on my way to the next mob. But, this isn't always the case. At times, I jump to the next mob and I'll have a trail of dead squishies behind me. So, in those cases, an adjustment is required on my part. Maybe, I am forced to herd more and stay longer. I may be on a team full of "Sallys" that depend on me to buffer the aggro or I may be on a team where I can go AFK and they still finish the mission. Each team needs me to perform different. Tanks that see that, makes the team more fun and allows the rest of the team to do what they do best.
So, there should never be a herd after herd tank, unless absolutely necessary for some reason, nor should it be eliminated from his or her repitoire. It's my opinion that it all depends on the situation.
As far as I'm concerned mobs are crowds of angry people armed with torches and pitchforks who hunt abominations of science with (sometimes literally) hearts of gold.
Anyway, I have to confess to being a noobsicle on the matter of herding and its history and all that shizniz. My sole experience with herding was teaming with a "wait here" tank, and you know what? It's boring. In fact, let's assume that this way you can kill mobs a lot faster, what this means is that I spend even less time fighting dudes and more time waiting, and fighting dudes is what I came here for.
Then again, from what I can tell from this thread, a good herding tank is one you don't even notice herding, so for all I know I have more experience with actually good herding tanks.
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Well, my understanding is that it is short for Mobile OBject. If that is correct, it would be an acronym. If not, then not. I don't claim any expertise regarding the origin of the term.
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Originally Posted by seebs
I still don't think "mob" is an acronym, though, because it's an abbreviation of a single word.
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Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
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It's short for "mobile". It's just a shortening of a word. Programmers do this all the time:|
Originally Posted by Ironblade
Well, my understanding is that it is short for Mobile OBject. If that is correct, it would be an acronym. If not, then not. I don't claim any expertise regarding the origin of the term.
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string => str
instruction => insn
mobile => mob
internationalization => i18n
macro => m4
message => msg
object => obj
procedure => proc (NOT an acronym for "Pogramed Random OCcurrence")
window => win
diagnostic => diag
People love to try to make up backronyms for these things, but they're just abbreviations. What happens is, someone learns that it's a technical term, and writes it in all caps, and then other people infer that it must be an acronym and try to make up the acronym for it.
All of these are just abbreviations, not acronyms. They are shortenings of single words.
(ETA: To further emphasise how stupid my claim that acronyms had to be initialisms was, consider that I already knew that DEFCON was an acronym.)
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This has been my experience, whether I'm playing deathknights and bears or Dark Armor. I go into the first spawn, I do my job normally, I see what happens. If people aren't having any trouble, I speed up a bit, start leaving a couple of things for them to finish killing. If five seconds after I enter a group there's not a blue bar in sight among the enemies, I worry a lot less about leaving a couple of things for a scrapper to mop up.
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Originally Posted by Bad_Dog
As a player who does enjoy tanking, I would have to say I love having teams that I don't have to monitor much. I'd prefer to jump mob to to mob, using the terrain features to get them into melee range and let the team work their magic. If all goes well, just before the mob is completely toast, I am on my way to the next mob. But, this isn't always the case. At times, I jump to the next mob and I'll have a trail of dead squishies behind me. So, in those cases, an adjustment is required on my part. Maybe, I am forced to herd more and stay longer. I may be on a team full of "Sallys" that depend on me to buffer the aggro or I may be on a team where I can go AFK and they still finish the mission. Each team needs me to perform different. Tanks that see that, makes the team more fun and allows the rest of the team to do what they do best.
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It's an acronym alright, it came from MUDs...
There was a huge fuss at some point (and rumors of a lawsuit) after Everquest had basically ripped off a ton of stuff from there & started making oodles of cash from it. But they didn't steal the actual code - just 
the more amazing ideas, innovative fun bits, and elements of MUDs built on that code.
Mobs, Agro, Con, etc. Con'ing Mobs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consider_(MUD)
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DikuMUD for more details if you're interested.
EDIT:
Dang, I posted this after reading/seeing the top of just one page - then I went back thru (most of) the thread and skimmed thru all the previous pages of nitpicking, symantics & whatnot.
FWIW, & IMHO... 
A "Mob" is = to that next, random "Minion, Lt., or (Non-Elite) Boss" that you can expect to find as a "spawn", irrespective of it being a "spawn point"-based spawn, or a spawn due to a Game/Server Reset, or an (Uber-Sekrit) Trigger-Based Spawning... and regardless of the size & number of said "Mob"(s) - in said "Spawn". 
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
City of Heroes didn't fail, City of Heroes was killed. If a 747 dropped on your house, you'd say you were killed, not you failed to find a safer dwelling.
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I know it came from muds. I was there. I was playing Abermud II and IV back in the 80s.|
Originally Posted by Cardiff_Giant
It's an acronym alright, it came from MUDs...
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Now consider this text:
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| You should use the consider command as a good way of guessing whether you should attack a mobile. |
Excuse me while I shove my way past this massive pile of broken train parts.
As for "mob", it's any and/or all of these: abbreviation, acronym, and word,
as follows:
If you believe:
A> mob = derivative of "mobile", then mob = abbreviation
B> mob = derivative of "Mobile OBject", then mob = acronym
C> mob = group of (often angry) people, then mob = The Queen's English
So, count yourself RIGHT! (or at least close enough for government work) 
As others have mentioned, "mob" is associated with MUDs, but until we
can get the actual guy who coined the term to say which (of A or B)
he was thinking, I'd have to say that both of those are singular and
synonymous, while the English word clearly describes a group.
Of course, given that we can't get folks to realistically and consistently
distinguish between "to" and "too", "they're" and "their", "its" and "it's"
(among others), arguing over "mob", while highly entertaining, seems a bit
of a silly nit to me.
My vote? English - the word was first, so it wins... 
(although I often use the other two interchangeably and let context
clarify whether I mean the word or one of the gaming terms).
That said, if real clarity is required, I'd say "critter" for one foe, and
"spawn" for a group as those terms clearly have no ambiguity. YMMV.
Cheers,
4
PS> Can't we all get along???
I've been rich, and I've been poor. Rich is definitely better.
Light is faster than sound - that's why some people look smart until they speak.
For every seller who leaves the market dirty stinkin' rich,
there's a buyer who leaves the market dirty stinkin' IOed. - Obitus.
Wait, what?
Dr. Todt's theme.
i make stuff...