Origin of calling characters twinks?

Danikat

It's not an important or particularly serious question, just something I'm curious about: over the years I've seen a lot of names for characters in games: character, avatar, toon, person etc. but this one is new to me, and I'd like to find out (if anyone knows) where it comes from.

A google search tells me that 'twinking' is the process of giving high-level or high-quality/powerful equipment to a low-level character who obviously can't have gotten it on their own and that sometimes the character is referred to as a twink to acknowledge that this has happened (either derogatively or simply as a statement of fact).

But that doesn't quite fit the way I've seen it used on this forum and in ESO, which is more in-line with simply being a word for characters in general. For example people talking about "my main twink" or "I made my first twink during the headstart".

Is it simply that it's spread from it's original usage to be simply a word for characters? Or is there something more specific that I'm missing?

Nestor

Danikat wrote: »

A google search tells me that 'twinking' is the process of giving high-level or high-quality/powerful equipment to a low-level character who obviously can't have gotten it on their own

All my Alts are Twinks then....

I have a set of L1 Armor, all with Exploration, and Improved to Blue that every character wears until they get to L4, then I have a set of armor for them (3/2/2), improved to Blue with the Training Trait on all pieces, and again at L6 same thing. I keep these sets on a mule so I don't have to keep making them. Once they are at L8, then they get a 5/1/1 armor set that jives with their build, this set is improved to Green. This gets replaced every two levels until they get to L16, then get a Crafted Set to use. I run Training on all pieces until their skill is at 50.

But I could not do this without my two experienced Crafters making the gear for them. I will say that having armor and weapons of decent quality makes a huge difference in how the game plays at lower levels.

Milktray

Lol .. also means something else ;-)

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=twink

Vandril

The word "twink" appeared in the Ultima Online: Renaissance playguide in the glossary of terms. It was asserted to have a meaning similar to its current one, but also included powerlevelling.

On the MUD Sojourn, which several creators of EverQuest played, "twink" was alternately used to refer to powerleveling and metagaming. As MUDs date to 1978, this use of the term may possibly predate later uses.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twinking#Etymology

This is the best I could find on the matter. Unfortunately, it's Wikipedia, where all "facts" are actually half-researched at best.

fromtesonlineb16_ESO

Milktray wrote: »

Lol .. also means something else ;-)

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=twink

LOL, yeah, that was the meaning of 'twink' I knew long before I saw it in an MMO context.

Celless

I recall twinking around 2002.

In ESO's case, a combination of blue, purple, gold gear with enchants and loads of champion points would be a form of twinking on a lower level character. Granted, it's possible to do this with a low level crafter that's been around for a while.

Kind of how gibbed used to mean an attack or event that hit so hard, your character turned into guts and bloody bits. So when I read insta-gibbed, a part of my mind is imagining blood, guts and butts.

bellanca6561n

The Renaissance Edition for Ultima Online had a wonderful game manual...one of the last great game manuals actually.

Been playing these since '84 and, personally, the first time I recall hearing about twinking was in '99 or so with EverQuest.

Celless

bellanca6561n wrote: »

The Renaissance Edition for Ultima Online had a wonderful game manual...one of the last great game manuals actually.

Been playing these since '84 and, personally, the first time I recall hearing about twinking was in '99 or so with EverQuest.

Crap, you're right that was in '99. Don't know why I thought it was a 2002 release.

I think that's around the first time I heard it too. E.g. A level 10 wearing a full set of end gamish rubicite plate.

Danikat

In that case I'm surprised I've not heard it before.

I played Ultima Online from just after The Second Age came out until just after Third Dawn (Wikipedia tells me this was 1998 to 2001), I didn't get the Renaissance manual but I would have thought I'd hear it in game.

I also played a lot of Guild Wars 1 which had a prime example - it was almost standard practice to skip the low level armour and get a max level set right away. It wasn't a big deal (once they disabled low level PvP and simply scaled everyone up to 20) because your armor stats didn't make a big difference and you levelled so quickly (especially in the expansions) that it would be a waste of money to buy all the tiers.

Huggernaut

@Danikat the term "twinking" has been around a very very long time.

I've been personally using it since the mid 90s during the era of text based online games (Muds, Mucks, Mushes, etc). All it means is to simply use a high level character to farm items for a low level character, to give them a headstart.

It's not really a big deal.

In this game, it's extremely easy to twink alts. Since we have a shared bank, as well as account wide unlocks with the champ system, mounts, etc.

Language is constantly evolving, and over time, how people use a particular word can change, but in this case, it is what it is. There is no special or alternative meaning for twinking in regards to gearing your toons.

Lastly, there is obviously another definition for the word "Twink" that has nothing to do with video games but I don't think I really need to go into that here hehe.

Danikat

Huggernaut wrote: »

Lastly, there is obviously another definition for the word "Twink" that has nothing to do with video games but I don't think I really need to go into that here hehe.

Oddly enough that's the one I did already know. But I'd kind of assumed it meant something different within MMOs.

coryd0n

Celless wrote: »

bellanca6561n wrote: »

The Renaissance Edition for Ultima Online had a wonderful game manual...one of the last great game manuals actually.

Been playing these since '84 and, personally, the first time I recall hearing about twinking was in '99 or so with EverQuest.

Crap, you're right that was in '99. Don't know why I thought it was a 2002 release.

I think that's around the first time I heard it too. E.g. A level 10 wearing a full set of end gamish rubicite plate.

Fun Fact about EverQuest:
When it was released in 1999 it was not published by SOE but rather "989 Studios" and the monthly subscription fee was 9.89 USD