Definition of BOSS 1 a : a protuberant part or body <a boss of granite> <a boss on an animal's horn> b : a raised ornamentation : stud c : an ornamental projecting block used in architecture 2 : a soft pad used in ceramics and glassmaking 3 : the hub of a propeller
I can kinda understand the first one, insofar as the difficulty of a boss is higher than that of normal enemies in a video game, and that if you drew a line graph with the Y-axis representing difficulty level and the X-axis representing different types of enemies the spike on boss would protrude higher than the rest of the line, but I really doubt that's the reasoning.
I assume it's a translation error from Japan. It has to be.
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"SMOKEDOG42O taught me how to feel love, but fetus taught me how to make love." - Pablo Escobar
From: LeonhartFour | #004 I've literally always called them bosses.
I can't remember a time when I didn't.
And I don't know why.
But I ain't stoppin' now.
Oh, neither am I. I remember playing, like, 1943 and calling these random huge planes bosses. But they weren't my boss, they were my enemies. I had to kill them.
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"SMOKEDOG42O taught me how to feel love, but fetus taught me how to make love." - Pablo Escobar
It is sort of a legacy term I guess, but I see it like the evolution of any other language. What else would you call the extremely common video game cliche of having a particularly strong enemy at the end of levels? It's just "boss." The word "boss" means that now. In fact, I'd say the word is common enough in our overall language that the dictionary is being negligent in not including this definition of the word "boss."
(Other video game words that are funny if you break them down: enemy, level)
...It doesn't just mean that. Boss has more than one way to be used, even just as a Noun. Merriam-Webster changed its definition page formatting. Look at the 2nd option for "Boss (Noun)" in the entry-selection thingy.
1 : a person who exercises control or authority; specifically : one who directs or supervises workers 2 : a politician who controls votes in a party organization or dictates appointments or legislative measures
Origin of BOSS Dutch baas master First Known Use: 1653
For a few years I called them dungeon masters (I think that was what they were called in LttP), but when everything else I played called them bosses, I eventually switched my terminology.
From: Paratroopa1 | #010 It is sort of a legacy term I guess, but I see it like the evolution of any other language. What else would you call the extremely common video game cliche of having a particularly strong enemy at the end of levels? It's just "boss." The word "boss" means that now. In fact, I'd say the word is common enough in our overall language that the dictionary is being negligent in not including this definition of the word "boss."
(Other video game words that are funny if you break them down: enemy, level)
I agree, mos def. I'm not arguing against using the word, I'm just confused as to why we do. Well, the second definition that Azp posted illuminates it a bit, but that still seems a bit off to me. Sure, Bowser is ostensibly the boss of all the koopas and goombas and what have yous, but not all video game bosses are bosses. The first boss in Ninja Gaiden? The Colossi? Any Mega Man boss ever other than Dr. Wily or Sigma? Every boss fight in every Final Fantasy game other than Rufus?
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"SMOKEDOG42O taught me how to feel love, but fetus taught me how to make love." - Pablo Escobar
I think the Mega Man bosses actually do have supervisory roles - the ones in Mega Man 1 definitely do. I mean hell, they're called "Robot Masters," which is what I usually refer to them as instead of bosses.
Literally just watched the Family Guy where they go in witness protection, and the FBI dudes are playing video games, and the one goes "You were busy, so I played your guy."
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"Guy" I can understand. "Man", even though it literally means the same thing as "guy", just doesn't work for me.
Damn arbitrary terminology. I had a friend who called the rings in the Sonic games coins because they were pretty much the same damn thing, and he had pretty much only played Mario games up to that point I guess. I called bull**** on him all the time, but I can see why he would have done that.
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"SMOKEDOG42O taught me how to feel love, but fetus taught me how to make love." - Pablo Escobar
From: StealThisSheen | #024 Literally just watched the Family Guy where they go in witness protection, and the FBI dudes are playing video games, and the one goes "You were busy, so I played your guy."
Well yeah, he's talking about his character. Guy is acceptable there.
But I don't hear people refer to your lives/continues as "guys" or "men," and the latter sounds really weird. The former is such a casual, catch-all word that it's acceptable, I guess.
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I barely accept calling them 1ups outside of Mario, even if the game itself identifies them as 1ups
and since it got brought up again, level only really made sense in old games where you were basically repeating the same thing over and over again, and the difficulty level increased
Rad Link 5 posted... Well yeah, he's talking about his character. Guy is acceptable there.
But I don't hear people refer to your lives/continues as "guys" or "men," and the latter sounds really weird. The former is such a casual, catch-all word that it's acceptable, I guess.
Nah, 'cuz they're playing a one player game, so it implies they were taking turns/he meant "guy" as "life."
-- SEP Nash, Smelling Like the Vault since 1996 Step FOUR! Get Paid! http://img.imgcake.com/stevenashgifpu.gif
"Level" makes sense when regarding a stage, if you think of it in terms of floors. First floor, second floor, etc. can be referred to as levels of a building. "Map" makes sense too, because the stages literally are maps and you get actual maps of the areas too (in some cases). Was about to say stage wouldn't make sense, until I thought about how it could be applied to plays, where they act everything out on a stage. Games wouldn't be too different from this.
However, I'm not sure about "level" in terms of character strength. Perhaps going by the phrase, "They're on a whole other level" it might make sense? In which case, it's almost more like leagues. Leagues ahead of others. Could also go back to the floor idea, where you literally go up levels, but I wouldn't be too sure on that one.
I remember getting upset at my cousin when I was little and was playing Kung Fu for the NES and he called the levels "stages". No, a stage is what opera singers perform, a level is a video game level.
Maybe that was a regional thing, though. He's from Kentucky and I'm from Maine, and there are any number of dialectical differences between those two places.
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"SMOKEDOG42O taught me how to feel love, but fetus taught me how to make love." - Pablo Escobar
hm. level doesn't seem THAT weird. i dunno, i think i've always called them bosses. at least i remember playing Kirby on the GB and that was pretty explicitly a case of fighting bosses.
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stage is certainly a weirder one, that's more of a hybrid of like... stage of a caterpie to a butterfree (yes i went there) and a physical stage. in the next advancement there will be a new place to stand on - a new floor.
it's a stretch though, that one.
edit: but level doesn't run into that problem. easiest example is something like a parking lot - a level can have stairs go between it just fine, or be called 2A, 2B, etc. in real-life there's a pretty similar way to do it.
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The King Wang. Listen up Urinal Cake. I already have something that tells me if I'm too drunk when I pee on it: My friends. - Colbert.
Yeah "level" definitely comes from the concept of each stage being on its own level of a building or something, but it's still strange to use in such a general sense when levels are rarely actually on different levels.
"Level" in terms of RPGs is using the most common definition of the word. A level is supposed to be a number that represents the extent of an ability or attribute. It makes sense to say "level of strength" or "level of experience".
-- _foolmo_ 'You are obviously intelligent and insightful' - Sir Chris about me
The REALLY weird thing about the select button is that in modern games it's almost exclusively used to back out from things, as in deselecting them. >_>
From: Rad Link 5 | #042 I specifically remember games on the NES where pressing select would move the cursor on the main menu, and the control pad didn't. Like Dr. Mario.
That's just blatantly trying to make the Select button seem worthwhile.
I think it was the opposite. Like, the only reason the Select button existed was because someone thought that there needed to be a button solely for selecting options for some reason, but everybody preferred using the control pad.
I wonder what's the most recent game that actually uses the Select button to select something.
-- Okay, I rolled a 14. What's that mean? Hsu That you're a cheater. This is a 12-sided die. Chan
From: Xiahou Shake | #043 The REALLY weird thing about the select button is that in modern games it's almost exclusively used to back out from things, as in deselecting them. >_>
When I was in elementary school, we usually called cartridges, "tapes". "Level" and "stage" were common terms, but we also used "board" with them interchangeably.
They seemed a little odd even at the time, but I guess they actually have legitimate origins. Many old computer games actually WERE stored on cassette tapes, so it's easy to see how someone could have gotten used to calling all game media "tapes" and continued to use the term even after they changed formats. And "board" makes more sense in terms of old single-screen arcade games. You could easily say you "cleared the board" when you killed every enemy on a Space Invaders screen, for example. I think it might go back to actual board games, like chess possibly.
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