Quote Originally Posted by VanilleFang View Post
Yeah. It doesn't make sense but it's just what people say, I guess. I haven't been playing MMOs since the beginning so I'm not really sure how it came to be like this but it's what I'm use to. I try not to think of it as Damage per second or else I would be complaining about too. xD
I have been playing MMO's since the beginning and "DPS" basically came from Ultima Online circa 1997. It predates Google. But at that time it was just referring to gear.

Though I'm not sure when it caught on as a name for damage-dealing players. If you change the time-frame to just before WoW was released, this http://www.lagkills.com/gaming-acronyms.htm shows up circa September 4th 2006. It looks like "DPS class" may have come from EQ more than anything around 2003-2004 from player jargon seen in forums of that age. So somewhere between 2003 and 2006 (Wow was released in 2004) it became common.