Evolution of the word "PWN"

[GammA]

first of all i am starthing this threat in response to a side tracked post that was made in the general discussion forum, but i felt it more appropriate to give those who are interested insight in the evolution of the word "PWN" and how it came about to become into the h4x0r language.

the word pwn obviously has evolved from the word own. often used as a verb to show your own superiority over another player.

the phrase "i just owned you" or "OWNED!!!" did't really come into play or was vastly used until the late 1999 till 2000. During the early Quake and Duke Nukem era back in 96 - 97, most people simply used the word FRAGGED as showing superior skill. "I JUST FRAGGED YOUR ASS" phrase lost its appeal slowly considering the word fragged was strictly used for FPS games and was a longer word to type, and was replaced by OWNED when applied to more team games such as Team Fortress or Counter-Strike, at that time many FPS players also played strategy where the word OWNED applied more to territorial take over and the take over of bases. and such the word OWN was adapted to fit much better as a common term then simply fragged, because fragged was strictly only applied to one catagory. Afterwards this is where the "all your base are belong to me" hype came in arround 2000 and lasted for acouple of years. in short to sum up the entire phrase of AYBABTY it was easier to say "I OWN YOU". Then during the early to mid 2001 the RPG game Baldur's Gate 2 online community put a turn to the word OWN and and changed it from "I OWNED YOU" to, "i OWNZOR j00" (sidenote: yes that is where the word "you" was replaced by "j00" - not to common yet but still.) the word ownzer was then taken to more of an extent than simply own considering it made the person who said it more "1337" (side note, the word 1337 was originally simply typed l33t but was changed to all numbers by some radicals from CS - i know i was there, and its a story for a later time). the word "ownzor" didnt have that much of a like span due to its longness, and the baldur's gate community sort of broke away. Afterwords game the new generation of FPS games which hit shelves and the word "OWN" was still pretty commonly used until the arrival of WARCRAFT3 hit the shelves. then from the "i ownzor'd j00" phrase was changed to "i pwnz j00". yes pwn is a mistype of someguy that was then rapidly adapted as more popular than simply own because it had more of a effectiveness and individuality and as well as distinguished itself as more of a h4x0r language then a normal common english word own*. so the word pwn was most largely use in warcraft3 as a way to express a players ability to micromanage their units in battle. therefore when i say" i just pwnd you" it refers that my skills in microing my units on my HUD is much more faster/better than yours. From their it took its way into planetside. In Planetside i havent seen it used that much, but now and then you see people who use it, and easily you can identify what it is referring to.

There are alot of details i missed as far as how it went through MOHAA and SOF2 and unreal tournament but those arent the main turns of the word so i skipped on mentioning them, i only have a *brief* history on how the world evolved and its durastic turning points.

if any of you have any other *questions* on how something related to game phrases become or evolved post a thread asking and ill see if form my experience i can tell the history of it :P