The Lantern Hall
Painting: an ancient lexicon open on a carved lectern in a dark chapel of books, glowing runes and symbols lifting off its pages like fireflies.
TermDigital term

Raid

A large-group challenge in an online game, typically a series of powerful bosses that require many players, careful planning and repeated attempts. Raiding guilds built schedules, voice chat and loot rules such as Dragon kill points around it.

A large-group challenge in an online game, typically a series of powerful bosses that require many players, careful planning and repeated attempts. Raiding guilds built schedules, voice chat and loot rules such as Dragon kill points around it.

Origin

Big-group encounters appeared in MUDs and early MMORPGs; EverQuest (1999) and World of Warcraft (2004) made raiding the pinnacle of the endgame.

Quick answers

What does "Raid" mean?
A large-group challenge in an online game, typically a series of powerful bosses that require many players, careful planning and repeated attempts. Raiding guilds built schedules, voice chat and loot rules such as Dragon kill points around it.
Where does the term "Raid" come from?
Big-group encounters appeared in MUDs and early MMORPGs; EverQuest (1999) and World of Warcraft (2004) made raiding the pinnacle of the endgame.

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Instanced dungeon

Digital term

A copy of a dungeon or zone created separately for one group, so parties do not compete for the same monsters in a shared world. Instancing solved the problem of thousands of heroes all wanting to slay the same dragon.

The holy trinity

Digital term

The three-role party structure of group content: a tank to absorb enemy attention, a healer to keep everyone alive and damage dealers (DPS, damage per second) to kill things. It formalized the fighter-cleric-wizard balance of the tabletop The party for real-time online play.

Dragon kill points

Digital term1999

A points system raiding guilds use to share scarce boss loot fairly: members earn points for attendance and spend them to bid on items. It turned guilds into small economies with their own bookkeeping.

Boss

Digital term1975

An especially powerful enemy that caps a level, dungeon or story arc. Boss fights test everything the player has learned and are often the most memorable moments in a game.

Painting: a huge raid of adventurers assembling at dawn at the edge of a vast continent, spell-lights and torches.

EverQuest

MMORPG1999

Sony's 3D world of Norrath turned the text MUD into a nightly obsession: camped spawns, corpse runs, forty-player raids, and a player base so hooked it nicknamed the game EverCrack.

Painting: two great fantasy armies, one of tusked orcish warriors and one of armored humans, facing each other across a sunlit valley.

World of Warcraft

MMORPG2004

Blizzard took the grind out of EverQuest, poured in quests, cartoon color and Warcraft lore, and built the online world that twelve million people paid to live in and that is still expanding two decades later.

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