We’ll have to agree to disagree then. I don’t see it as any different at all from remapping the controls.
My distinction is as follows:
Available to everyone and built into the game engine? Legal.
Not available to everyone, and built into the game engine? Questionable.
Not built into the game engine: Cheating.
Note that this leads to the entirely idiosyncratic opinion that complex control binds are totally kosher, but games with retardedly large requirements for unlocking weapons (I’m looking RIGHT AT YOU, Modern Warfare) have questionable conduct built right in.
What’s your position on that, then? IMHO the ACOG scopes in COD4 are FAR more game-breakingly awesome than a burstfire macro in CounterStrike.
I simply edited the key binds file in notepad to make use of existing in-game functions available to anyone. I could have done the same from within the in-game console, but then I’d have had to rewrite the bind every time I booted the game.
The documentation is a start. Counterstrike’s console commands are well known and well-documented, and there’s even a configuration menu option to bind a key to open the scripting interface in-game (handy as hell for us server admin types, lemme tell you that).
Hell, the default graphics settings did that for most people I know–I mean, this IS CounterStrike 1.x we’re talking about here.
The right way to deal with this sort of thing, IMHO, is the way the UnReal engine has tended to do it–their consoles simply don’t allow bound scripts and macros to the same extent. Nor do most other modern games.
LOUNE is right. The ACOG was shit. The best weapon was the unmodded AK47, which everyone started with. Not that it mattered since everyone just used the promod that enabled everything (or imported a level 55 hash).
I would argue that programming your gun to fire 3-round burst instead of full auto is a minor form of cheating compared to say, modifying the balistics or damage properties.
In Battlefield: Bad Company 2, there is a map called Atacama Desert. It’s a big desert map consisting of two large opposing deployment bases containing helicopters, tanks and light vehicles for each team to spawn at (as well as AT and AAA defenses) that can’t be flag-captured. Between each team’s base are 2 villages and the rusted hulk of a beached container ship, each containing a capturable spawn flag.
If you are playing on a particularly shitty team, it is entirely possible for the other team to capture all the flags, leaving you with just your deployment base to spawn at. If the other team is organized, they can pretty much fuck you by stealing your helicopter and tanks and just camping in front of your last spawn point blowing the shit out of you as you enter the game.
But even then, it is often possible to sneak out of the kill zone while the enemy is fixated on your base and capture another flag where you can regroup and counterattack.
The point is, if your team provides some basic defense or base security, you shouldn’t get to that point in the first place.
Some questionable, but fun dickhead tactics I enjoy:
The base infiltrator - sneak into the enemies base with a sniper rifle or silenced smg and pick off people as they respawn. It also allows some other tactics:
Helicopter jacking - Kill any nearby bad guys and steal their helicopter. Now your team has 2. If you can get to it, wait until they are about to take off and destroy it on the ground with a rocket or C4.
The car bomb - plant some C4 on a vehicle and wait until they go to use it. Then blammo.
The stealth tank - On hardcore mode (no enemy icons), jump into an enemy tank in front of their base. Use the commanders machinegun turret instead of the main gun to kill infantry. It’s much harder to tell that you have commandeered the tank if the main turret isn’t moving.
Couple this with “being the commander” and “knowing how to spot for artillery” in Battlefield 2, and this is my absolute favorite thing in any first person shooter to do. I WILL rain doom upon the heads of my doomed enemies, and I WILL make them have to root me out of the weeds on that nearby hilltop to stop it from happening.
If you’re kicking the other team’s ass so bad that you’re in their spawns, moving their vehicles away from them and pinning them back, you’re kicking their ass. The question should be raised, though: should vehicles be present? If a good team, plopped into that scenario couldn’t get out of it, that shows balance issues with that game.
And yes, I agree with you.
Basically the only kind of camping that the TF2 servers I play on disapprove of is spawn camping, and some allow even that. They’ll all allow spawn raiding, though, where you go to their spawn area, murder some of their team, and then move on (notably on KOTH maps).
This is as it should be. The only placed you’re forced to be is spawn, so having all the exits guarded by say 2 demomen each would be patently unfair and unfun. Everything else goes, as camping’s main drawback is that you’re not actively contributing to your team a lot, or even the majority, of the time.
it’s not my place to accept or reject play styles. But it is within my rights to dislike or even hate play styles.
And there are different levels of ‘camping’.
There’s defending an objective. - not dislikeable.
There’s holding down an area of a map. - not dislikeable.
There’s hiding in a corner indefinitely, with your aim key held down, pointing at a doorway or passage. - very dislikeable.
Personally I find much more loathsome the use of overpowered weaponry at the expense of level-playing-field type fun. But that’s not the fault of the player (although I will go so far as to call the player a pussy for opting to take advantage of the overpowered weapon)
It’s still a level playing field if the other player had the same opportunity to go for the BFG that I did. It’s not my fault they’re bringing a gun to a nuke fight.