# Camping, Defense, and the First Person Shooter **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [September 1, 2010, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/camping-defense-and-the-first-person-shooter/552304 "2010-09-01T20:21:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Todderbob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e47774/32.png) [@Todderbob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Todderbob)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/camping-defense-and-the-first-person-shooter/552304/21 "2010-09-02T12:59:49Z")
The best method of killing a camper is knowing the map. Is there a gun/spot that will take him out? With the rock, it’s RPD or another LMG with FMJ. On high-rise it’s a noobtube. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/camping-defense-and-the-first-person-shooter/552304/22 "2010-09-02T15:57:59Z")
BTW, what’s a “noobtube”? Is that a rocket launcher? Because amongst the folks I’ve played with, if you use the sniper rifle too much, they start criticizing you for not using a “real weapon” like the rocket launcher. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/camping-defense-and-the-first-person-shooter/552304/23 "2010-09-02T16:02:57Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > BTW, what’s a “noobtube”? Is that a rocket launcher? Because amongst the folks I’ve played with, if you use the sniper rifle too much, they start criticizing you for not using a “real weapon” like the rocket launcher. Every game has this deeply stupid idea that a specialist weapon that’s effective in its element is “for newbies”–in CounterStrike, it was the AWP/M (most of the complainers couldn’t hit someone at 50 feet with it, let alone 400 yards), in MW2 it’s the grenade launcher (noobtube), it never ends. In MW it wasn’t any specific weapon, it was “don’t run constantly and knife people, that’s totally defeating the purpose of the game”. This is almost a side debate to the camping thing–at what point do we take a behavior/item/tactic/whatever that’s implemented in the game and declare it “unfair” or “cheating”? ---
**Author:** ![Todderbob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e47774/32.png) [@Todderbob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Todderbob)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/camping-defense-and-the-first-person-shooter/552304/24 "2010-09-02T16:25:42Z")
Noobtube is a semideragatory term for the under- mounted grenade launcher. ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/camping-defense-and-the-first-person-shooter/552304/25 "2010-09-02T16:33:45Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > > [@Chronos](#): > > > > BTW, what’s a “noobtube”? Is that a rocket launcher? Because amongst the folks I’ve played with, if you use the sniper rifle too much, they start criticizing you for not using a “real weapon” like the rocket launcher. > > Every game has this deeply stupid idea that a specialist weapon that’s effective in its element is “for newbies”–in CounterStrike, it was the AWP/M (most of the complainers couldn’t hit someone at 50 feet with it, let alone 400 yards), in MW2 it’s the grenade launcher (noobtube), it never ends. In MW it wasn’t any specific weapon, it was “don’t run constantly and knife people, that’s totally defeating the purpose of the game”. > > This is almost a side debate to the camping thing–at what point do we take a behavior/item/tactic/whatever that’s implemented in the game and declare it “unfair” or “cheating”? I’m fine with the stabby people, actually. Just call them out and know they’re around. They don’t cause too much trouble. ---
**Author:** ![Gukumatz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/74df32/32.png) [@Gukumatz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gukumatz)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/camping-defense-and-the-first-person-shooter/552304/26 "2010-09-02T17:47:57Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > Every game has this deeply stupid idea that a specialist weapon that’s effective in its element is “for newbies”–in CounterStrike, it was the AWP/M (most of the complainers couldn’t hit someone at 50 feet with it, let alone 400 yards) To be fair, it wasn’t so much the weapon itself, but that a lot of people combined it’s one-hit-kill properties and cheats. Getting one-shotted by a newbie was annoying, to be sure, but the real kicker was when a cheater would show up with an aimbot and you couldn’t get rid of him. Which made private/clan servers so awesome, since you’d always have some server admin in the game. The lack of which is why I don’t play MW2 online. 🙂 ETA: I think camping’s a valid, but cheap and boring strategy in most fast-paced FPSes. I’m not going to bitch, but I am going to think the player is a douche if that’s the mainstay of his repertoire. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/camping-defense-and-the-first-person-shooter/552304/27 "2010-09-02T18:33:03Z")
> [@Gukumatz](#): > > > [@Zeriel](#): > > > > Every game has this deeply stupid idea that a specialist weapon that’s effective in its element is “for newbies”–in CounterStrike, it was the AWP/M (most of the complainers couldn’t hit someone at 50 feet with it, let alone 400 yards) > > To be fair, it wasn’t so much the weapon itself, but that a lot of people combined it’s one-hit-kill properties and cheats. Getting one-shotted by a newbie was annoying, to be sure, but the real kicker was when a cheater would show up with an aimbot and you couldn’t get rid of him. Which made private/clan servers so awesome, since you’d always have some server admin in the game. The lack of which is why I don’t play MW2 online. 🙂 > > ETA: I think camping’s a valid, but cheap and boring strategy in most fast-paced FPSes. I’m not going to bitch, but I am going to think the player is a douche if that’s the mainstay of his repertoire. A lot of my experiences are based on my running my own clan servers for just about every game I played before the “modern” era (say, 2002), and then subsequently only playing on the servers of clan-types whom I trusted. Not sure I completely buy your assertion–I could take down some idiot bunny-hopping across an open field with the AWP and get accused of being a noob hacker aimbotter–once you get past the obvious shooting-through-walls and never-miss-once cheaters, it’s awfully hard to tell the difference between a good player and a subtle bot. Granted, FPSes had such an immature player base at the time that I’ve been accused of being a wallhacker with an aimbot…as an engineer, after a sentry turret kill. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/camping-defense-and-the-first-person-shooter/552304/28 "2010-09-02T18:58:12Z")
> [@](#): > > Granted, FPSes had such an immature player base at the time that I’ve been accused of being a wallhacker with an aimbot…as an engineer, after a sentry turret kill. That’s even better than all the times I’ve been accused of maphacking in Diablo II. ---
**Author:** ![Palooka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/palooka/32/2902_2.png) [@Palooka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palooka)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/camping-defense-and-the-first-person-shooter/552304/29 "2010-09-02T19:03:21Z")
Everyone maphacked in Diablo II. Why would anyone care? ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/camping-defense-and-the-first-person-shooter/552304/30 "2010-09-02T19:16:25Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > Not sure I completely buy your assertion–I could take down some idiot bunny-hopping across an open field with the AWP and get accused of being a noob hacker aimbotter–once you get past the obvious shooting-through-walls and never-miss-once cheaters, it’s awfully hard to tell the difference between a good player and a subtle bot. That reminds me of a long, heated debate I had with a couple friends back in the day of CS beta 1.4 or 1.6, something like that. Back then, I used to get quite emotional, panicky and adrenaline fueled in FPS’s, which lead me to spray machine gun fire all over the place instead of doing short, and more importantly accurate bursts. So, I wrote a quick and dirty “burst mode” keybind script that, when toggled on, would only fire 3 or 4 bullets when I pressed the trigger button (something like “bind mousebutton0 +fire, wait, wait, wait, -fire”). You know, like real guns have. It worked more or less well whenever lag didn’t fuck with the wait instruction, and my scores got a lot better. And then I bragged about my ingenuity and cleverness on our IRC channel - only to get accused of cheating. According to them, since I’d modified the way the commands worked so that I would have an “advantage” over folks who didn’t and had learned to control their bursts, I was a damn dirty cheat. That two bit script, to them, was in spirit no different from an aimbot. And this was coming from pretty smart, rational folks, not frothing 12 years olds. I never really grokked their position. And I still think I wasn’t cheating at the time. I guess it’s sort of moot now, since modern shooters have in-built fire mode switches. ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/camping-defense-and-the-first-person-shooter/552304/31 "2010-09-02T19:24:57Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > > [@Zeriel](#): > > > > Not sure I completely buy your assertion–I could take down some idiot bunny-hopping across an open field with the AWP and get accused of being a noob hacker aimbotter–once you get past the obvious shooting-through-walls and never-miss-once cheaters, it’s awfully hard to tell the difference between a good player and a subtle bot. > > That reminds me of a long, heated debate I had with a couple friends back in the day of CS beta 1.4 or 1.6, something like that. > Back then, I used to get quite emotional, panicky and adrenaline fueled in FPS’s, which lead me to spray machine gun fire all over the place instead of doing short, and more importantly accurate bursts. > So, I wrote a quick and dirty “burst mode” keybind script that, when toggled on, would only fire 3 or 4 bullets when I pressed the trigger button (something like “bind mousebutton0 +fire, wait, wait, wait, -fire”). You know, like real guns have. > It worked more or less well whenever lag didn’t fuck with the wait instruction, and my scores got a lot better. > > And then I bragged about my ingenuity and cleverness on our IRC channel - only to get accused of cheating. According to them, since I’d modified the way the commands worked so that I would have an “advantage” over folks who didn’t and had learned to control their bursts, I was a damn dirty cheat. That two bit script, to them, was in spirit no different from an aimbot. And this was coming from pretty smart, rational folks, not frothing 12 years olds. > > I never really grokked their position. And I still think I wasn’t cheating at the time. I guess it’s sort of moot now, since modern shooters have in-built fire mode switches. Yep. Cheating. ---
**Author:** ![Palooka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/palooka/32/2902_2.png) [@Palooka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palooka)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/camping-defense-and-the-first-person-shooter/552304/32 "2010-09-02T19:35:37Z")
Generally speaking, if you’re using the machine to replace physical controls, you’re probably cheating. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/camping-defense-and-the-first-person-shooter/552304/33 "2010-09-02T19:36:03Z")
> [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](#): > > > [@Kobal2](#): > > > > That reminds me of a long, heated debate I had with a couple friends back in the day of CS beta 1.4 or 1.6, something like that. > > Back then, I used to get quite emotional, panicky and adrenaline fueled in FPS’s, which lead me to spray machine gun fire all over the place instead of doing short, and more importantly accurate bursts. > > So, I wrote a quick and dirty “burst mode” keybind script that, when toggled on, would only fire 3 or 4 bullets when I pressed the trigger button (something like “bind mousebutton0 +fire, wait, wait, wait, -fire”). You know, like real guns have. > > It worked more or less well whenever lag didn’t fuck with the wait instruction, and my scores got a lot better. > > > > And then I bragged about my ingenuity and cleverness on our IRC channel - only to get accused of cheating. According to them, since I’d modified the way the commands worked so that I would have an “advantage” over folks who didn’t and had learned to control their bursts, I was a damn dirty cheat. That two bit script, to them, was in spirit no different from an aimbot. And this was coming from pretty smart, rational folks, not frothing 12 years olds. > > > > I never really grokked their position. And I still think I wasn’t cheating at the time. I guess it’s sort of moot now, since modern shooters have in-built fire mode switches. > > Yep. Cheating. Counterpoint: Not cheating at all–and neither was the mousewheel-setup multilevel zoom that I’ve scripted into every game since Quake 1 that supports it. If macros are supported, and macros are as easy as copy/pasting one line into the command console, then macros are legitimate–especially in old-school CS, where interrupting a macro was not the easiest thing ever. Nothing funnier than a guy like you who couldn’t ever take single shots, or the legions of TFC soldiers who couldn’t rocket-jump without a macro (and were subsequently easy prey in situations where a good soldier could rocket-jump in place but a macroer needed runup room he didn’t have.) ---
**Author:** ![Palooka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/palooka/32/2902_2.png) [@Palooka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palooka)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/camping-defense-and-the-first-person-shooter/552304/34 "2010-09-02T19:39:15Z")
No, they’re not. That’s why scripting has been banned in competitive CS for ten years. The point of the game isn’t who can program it the best. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/camping-defense-and-the-first-person-shooter/552304/35 "2010-09-02T19:42:33Z")
I can’t say that it’s cheating. The macro may make you more effective, but the opponent has access to the exact same tools you do _within the game itself_. When you have to go outside of what the game allows, whether it’s third party programs or exploiting bugs to open up areas of the game not normally allowed, that’s cheating. If you have access to the console in multiplayer mode, whatever you can enter in the console is A-OK. Maybe poor design by the game devs, but not cheating. > [@Palooka](#): > > No, they’re not. That’s why scripting has been banned in competitive CS for ten years. The point of the game isn’t who can program it the best. The rules a community sets for itself and the rules hardcoded by the game are two different things. It may be cheating by the competitive community and will get you thrown out of their circle, but in general it isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Palooka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/palooka/32/2902_2.png) [@Palooka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palooka)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/camping-defense-and-the-first-person-shooter/552304/36 "2010-09-02T19:46:46Z")
Why are scripts acceptable poor design from the developers but floor-clipping exploits aren’t? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/camping-defense-and-the-first-person-shooter/552304/37 "2010-09-02T19:56:49Z")
> [@](#): > > Everyone maphacked in Diablo II. Why would anyone care? First, I never did maphack; I just understood the map-generation algorithm well enough. It was all in my head. Second, one time someone in a public game got mad at me because he was running a hack, and he was convinced that two people hacking in the same game would get Blizzard’s attention and get both of us banned. **Kobal2** , was the script you wrote using an in-game scripting facility, or was it something like a Windows script? If the former, then you were just making fuller use of a designed feature of the game, but if the latter, then it was cheating (albeit relatively minor cheating). ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/camping-defense-and-the-first-person-shooter/552304/38 "2010-09-02T20:02:32Z")
> [@Palooka](#): > > Why are scripts acceptable poor design from the developers but floor-clipping exploits aren’t? Features versus bugs. You can have an intentional feature in a game that nevertheless is unbalancing and it’ll still be separate from making the game do something it shouldn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/camping-defense-and-the-first-person-shooter/552304/39 "2010-09-02T20:03:11Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > > [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](#): > > > > Yep. Cheating. > > Counterpoint: Not cheating at all–and neither was the mousewheel-setup multilevel zoom that I’ve scripted into every game since Quake 1 that supports it. > > If macros are supported, and macros are as easy as copy/pasting one line into the command console, then macros are legitimate–especially in old-school CS, where interrupting a macro was not the easiest thing ever. Nothing funnier than a guy like you who couldn’t ever take single shots, or the legions of TFC soldiers who couldn’t rocket-jump without a macro (and were subsequently easy prey in situations where a good soldier could rocket-jump in place but a macroer needed runup room he didn’t have.) Still cheating. ---
**Author:** ![Palooka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/palooka/32/2902_2.png) [@Palooka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palooka)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/camping-defense-and-the-first-person-shooter/552304/40 "2010-09-02T20:14:48Z")
> [@Bosstone](#): > > > [@Palooka](#): > > > > Why are scripts acceptable poor design from the developers but floor-clipping exploits aren’t? > > Features versus bugs. You can have an intentional feature in a game that nevertheless is unbalancing and it’ll still be separate from making the game do something it shouldn’t. How do you know what’s intended and what’s an oversight? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/camping-defense-and-the-first-person-shooter/552304.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/camping-defense-and-the-first-person-shooter/552304.md?page=3)