an esoteric computer hacker language in which numbers and symbols are put together to look like letters

Ya.... see.... most "computer hackers" I know.... well they don't speak leet speak. They mock it.

Shouldn't the example be "w00t! I won teh contest!"

Why is this in the WoW section when w00t has been used long before this game?

w00t

Thats so manly, them hackers are s000000 c00l.

leet a computer hacker language? lmao I know a few hackers and they prefer to speak coherent English over reducing themselvers to leet :-P In fact, I beleive leet was created by people who lacked the capacity to hack properly ;D

Whilst your point is valid, it was the World of Warcraft fan base that took this word from the backwater communities of obscure online games and passed it into everyday usuage, along with expressions like noob, owned and others that are credited to us, the original unaltered pioneers of the modern English language... muahahahhha

Tbph, It is fitting that WoW gets the credit as it is WoW that saw these terms move into pop culture right across the world.

I have to disagree with you. W00t was far from the backwaters before WoW. If any game deserves the credit it would have to be either Unreal Tournament or Counter-Strike. W00t is something that I have heard for years prior to WoW, and in abundance. Even back on the ol' Halo (one) Xbox Live days it was a term used constantly in every game. Also, to even begin to imply that WoW coined n00b, owned or others alike is a tad ignorant. While there are MANY words that WoW has coined (grats, ding and of course Chuck Norris :p), w00t, noob and owned are among those that specifically did not.

I find that, if anything, w00t has DIED down in recent years.

If I recall correctly, 'w00t' actually originated in the IRC community. I don't think it was even associated with games :)

Mostly correct. 1337-speek, or leet speak, originated in Counter Strike. A lot of CS-kiddies have moved on to other games, spreading their immaturity wherever it is they go.

I think that is correct. Ah the days of IRC as entertainment. lol

Eeh, no.

You fail to see my point. I even specify that I had been using it long before WoW... My point is that World of Warcraft is directly responsible for these terms moving from the closed online communities (including gaming....) to mass usage in everyday speech. Also, coined means to create and I said that these terms existed pre-WoW... so... how did I imply what you are implying I implied? O_o

World of Warcraft is the most played video game... of... all... time. It has had more commercial success that games like Halo or MOH or CS (numbers prove that). It has received more attention from media outside of video gaming than any other PC title ever. It has been used for adverts aimed at people who have never even played the game. It is a household name, as is Blizzard.

I am not debating that the terms existed before World of Warcraft. I am not debating that they were in wide usage in gaming before World of Warcraft. What I am saying is that World of Warcraft is the single largest title (by a hell of a long way) responsible for these terms moving from the closed online gaming and IRC communities to the general masses. It is responsible for the pop culture image these words now portray... not Halo, or CS; I'm sorry to bring that message but it stands proven quite effectively as well.

I remember using terms like "w00t" as far back as 1998 when i used to play Ultima Online. All the terms used nowdays in WoW originated from all these early games and from irc. Pwn was around long before WoW came out as well...I just hope they don't make that an actual word.

Actually, unless I'm mistaken, which may be the case, the term 'ding' was coined in Everquest. Seeing as the leveling up noise sounded like a ding, at least more so than WoW's 'shwing', it was used as a phrase to signify that one has leveled up. And to say grats was coined in WoW....yeah...no. It's just an easier way to say congratulations and I know many people who have used it long before I had even heard of WoW, myself included.

Of course they must mean the "hackers" who badly wish to be real "pro's", and use 1337-5p33k just to sound better than they really are. If they don't, there's just one thing to say; get more knowledge about the theme before posting things on websites. (To the original article authors, since this seems to be an extract)

i was under the impression that woot came from D&D standing for WOnderful loOT or something along those lines