Mob (computer gaming)

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Not to be confused with "MOB", a gaming term for a sprite or on-screen moving object; or other uses of the word mob.

A mob is a type of non-player character (NPC) or monster in a computer role-playing game, especially MMORPGs.

Killing mobs can give such rewards as experience points and items. Usually the combat is player initiated, however, if the mob is flagged as aggressive, it is configured so that it will challenge a player who enters within a certain range. This area is known as the aggro range or aggro radius. A player engaged by such a mob is said to have aggro. This marks that player as the primary target of the attacking mob(s). Combat between players and mobs is called player versus monster (PvM) or in a broader sense, player versus environment (PvE), as opposed to player versus player (PvP) battles where the emphasis is on defeating an opposing player. Monster versus monster (MvM) battles, though rarer, may also exist.

[edit] Etymology

The most commonly-held belief about the origin of the term is that it derives from mobile or mobile object. In many early MUDs, there were three basic structures in the game: rooms, objects and mobiles. The latter were objects that can move (i.e. they are mobile), can be attacked and thus removed from the game, can be aggressive (may attack the player), and which wander through rooms when permitted. The term, mobile, was later replaced by NPC to cover a broader spectrum of mobiles: dialog or quest givers, vendors, trainers, and now mobs, to name a few.

There is also some debate over whether the term is somehow related to MOB, a synonym of sprite usually considered an acronym for Movable Object Block, stemming from its use in the earliest text-based multi-user dungeons (MUDs). Another suggested origin is that mob is derived directly from (NPC); the letters M, O, and B respectively precede N, P, and C in the alphabet.

Backronyms such as "monster or beast" and "mere ordinary beast" have been developed.

[edit] Usage in MUDs (multi-user dungeons)

The term "mobile" was originally coined by Richard Bartle in a paper describing an early MUD which was being constructed as a research project at the University of Essex. Although it originally referred to an object that could move (as opposed to one that couldn't), one reviewer of the paper misunderstood the term to be a reference to the classic children's toy or sculpture that goes by the same name - and referred to it as "an incredibly beautiful analogy to those hanging toys, which appear to move around randomly as if alive, while in fact being composed of mechanical parts and operating in accordance with fixed scientific laws". (Bartle was also suitably impressed by the analogy, and wished he'd thought of it.^{[citation needed]})

Other MUDs and MUD-like software use a variety of terms to describe these as objects, emitters, and actors.

[edit] Usage in MMORPGs

Mobs in MMORPGs usually refer to the generic monstrous NPCs that the player is expected to hunt and kill rather than NPCs that engage in dialog or sell items. Elite mobs, as in the game World of Warcraft, are special monsters that are tougher than their regular counterparts and usually have better loot. Named mobs are distinguished by having a proper name rather than being referred to by a general type ("a goblin", "a citizen", etc.) and are often key to the objective of missions or quests. Boss mobs are mobs of unusual power, often the most powerful foe in a defined area. Boss mobs are usually also named mobs, although named mobs are not always encountered as bosses. Farming is the repetitive killing of one specific mob type (usually well below the capability of the player) for the purpose of gathering large quantities of a specific resource dropped as loot by that type. Farming can also be used for the gaining of in-game experience points and/or valuable loot or money. This type of farming is known as grinding due to the tedious process of repeatedly killing mobs in one area. The mobs used for this type of farming are usually much tougher or easier depending on said mob.