None of those are particularly new to online games in general or TFC in particular. But with the steady increase of people playing online games the number of lamers and cheaters has logically increased as well.

For those who have no idea what a "lamer" is: A lamer is somebody intentionally interrupting, hindering or affecting the game in a negative way. Examples from TFC: Killing teammates, blocking passages or doors with sentries, constantly shooting at teammates, intentionally spreading infections, hiding with the enemy flag somewhere at the map, etc. I guess we all have met such behaviour on way too many occasions.
Those people's intention is to provoke, to ruin the game for others. They get off when people start swearing and shouting at them. They want to draw attention with their actions. Either they’ve joined a server with the intention to piss people off, or they are frustrated by the way the game runs for them (some people just can't cope with losing).

Not much one can do against lamers. Unless there’s an admin nearby to warn the lamer and – if necessary – kick him options are few. Just one word of advice: Regardless what these idiots do and how much they annoy you, refrain from sinking to their level and responding with lame actions yourself, however understandable that would be. Often the best idea is switching to another server …

Your standard cheater is a different animal. Cheating means to utilize bugs or modifications to gain advantage over the other players. One prominent cheat for TFC is using a pak with modified models (spiked models) that makes it easier to spot enemies, to make out positions of sentries through walls or to locate snipers.
The problem with cheaters is that most of them try to get away with cheating without being caught. Their main motivation is to pretend more skill than they actually have and/or to be more successful in the game than they would be otherwise. Being revealed as cheater of course destroys that impression. Because of that people will always deny when accused of cheating. And often enough it's difficult to tell if you deal with a cheater or a skilled person (I expect voices of protest here).

Everybody hates lamers. Messageboards are full of stories and complaints about them. With Encounters with Lamers exists a site fed with stories about them (though occasionally it's difficult to say who the lamer is: The one described in the story or the person telling it). 
Interestingly the same is not true about cheating. Sure, everybody is looking down at cheating and the people using it. But when it comes to dealing with cheating people start to dance around the topic, sometimes presenting some strange thoughts.

On a messageboard a newsie of a TFC-site anonymously posted a link to the mentioned cheat-pak. When uncovered and approached he justified his action with the argument that the cheats would exist anyway, so everybody should have access to it to even the field. 

So why define any rules for the game at all? Why having maps with dark spots when glowing models can be used? Why playing sniper when everyone could spot where this sniper are aiming at? Why caring about sentry placement when a spiked model will give away its position through walls.

No, such a game would no longer be worth playing. 

The other interesting aspect is the way some people to try to play down the power of cheats. I read a few postings on the Counterstrike Forum where people tried to deny the existence of certain cheats and then pointed out how useless the usage of such cheats would be (headshot script). Besides that people never grow tired to point out that cheats would have only limited effects and could easily be dealt with by experienced players.

Strangely enough two of these threads were started by people complaining of being accused for cheating because of their incredible skill.

I can’t help but thinking that these people are afraid to admit that some cheats can very well compensate skill to a certain degree. The use of glowing or spiked models, wallhacks, scripts to counter certain game effects (removing recoil-effect in CS or conc-effect in TFC) is a powerful tool and will enable even lesser skilled people to pull of some nice stunts (isn’t that why people cheat in the first place?).

Or all these people who tried to justify the use of the spy-burrowing bug, when it was still possible. “New feature”, “no advantage, everyone can do it” … some people won’t refrain from any means giving them an advantage, however cheap or disgraceful.

So, people, get down your high horse. Stop pretending cheats were just child’s game and give your ego a rest and admit that cheating can make up for skill (Note: cheating does not replace skill, and in many situations a lesser skilled cheater will still loose. But a cheater will always have a number of advantages. And if the cheater is skilled as well he will easily own an equally skilled non-cheating player). And keep in mind that the effect of cheating is far more devastating on clan matches than on those “unimportant” pub games. I wonder how often games have been decided by a clan using cheats … 

Cheating ruins the game for all of us, independent of skill and experience.

We have to be stronger outspoken against cheats. We - as community - have to take a clear stand against cheating, without any dancing around.

Cheating sucks, cheaters suck, and all those people creating and publishing cheats should burn in hell (read: be sentenced to play Daikatana 24/7).

The community should knock off that “skill-is everything”-attitude and take a stand for the game they play and love, and for the way it’s supposed to be played (though I have my doubts that most of these 14-year old immature CS-kids will realize this).

TFC (and any other game in that matter) is not a game where “anything goes”. Fight hard, fight with skill, but remember to fight honorable. I know that some people never stop to promote to take any means necessary to win. But when these means include cheating then the line is crossed.  

Sure, newbies make stupid mistakes and ask stupid questions (and they never RTFM), they slow down the gameplay, they might mistake CTF with DM, and too many of them either play snipers or HWG. So what?

Was anybody here born with a mouse and a keyboard? Has anybody here joined the game the first time making everything perfectly right? Does anybody of you collect all information including manuals before joining a game the first few times?

I don’t know about you, but I remember that my first games on TFC weren’t that glorious. I played HWG in my first game. I built my sentry near the GC the first few times I played rock2 because I thought it was a good point, having no idea of the dynamics on that map. I suspected cheating when I met my first spy grenade, and of course I suspected cheating the first time I encountered c-jumpers :-).

So what kind of game community is this, which ridicules the people who want to join the game? Many of them will be your future teammates, maybe even clanmates. Some of them will learn, and practice, and one day own your sorry ass.

This is the new blood TFC needs. In fact desperately needs, with people leaving the game to play other Fortress-MODs like Q3A (and maybe UTF soon) or other games like CS or Firearms. Enough people left in disappointment of TF1.5.

So instead of bashing or mocking these new players you should try to help them making their first steps and teach them the way of the game.

And don’t carry your nose too high When I join the pubs today I see a lot of people who obviously play the game some time now. But they don’t communicate, they don’t care much about teamwork, some of them actually seem not to care about the team at all.

So any other day I would rather have a newbie at my side with no skill and no experience, but the right attitude than one of those “experienced” and “skilled” people which are just on another ego-trip on TFC. I will have more respect for a newbie with a 2/51 score who helped to defend the flag than somebody with a 51/2 score who just made his solo-stunts.

If anyone deserves bashing then these arrogant assholes who play TFC for some months now and still cannot spell teamwork, much less exercise it.

Thanks to all the replies and comments so far about my netcode article. Just as I expected some people pointed out a few mistakes I made. Additionally a few new questions popped up.

If my time allows I will revise my article tomorrow to clear up the mistakes. Any new content will have to wait a bit, though. I'd like to collect some more data first.

Until then, keep it coming :-).

Wow, that has been quite a while since we last updated the page. 

I mean, Totentanz at least has a good excuse: He was devoured by Diablo 2 as billions of other people, too. But I, I was just lazy :-).

Then again: not completely lazy, as you will see in the following …

Well, since TF1.5 brought us the new netcode we have led lots of discussions about its advantages and disadvantages. Especially LPB’s claimed the game would play worse for them as before, while the majority of the HPB’s seems to be pretty pleased with it.

Yet all these discussions are a pretty wild mixture of facts, perceptions, opinions, polemics and guesswork.

Though my knowledge about the netcode of HL (or any other game in that matter) is rather limited I tried to understand how the netcode works. I have to thank Yahn Bernier for answering a few questions about the netcode as well as PainKilleR, who shared some of his extensive knowledge with me. (And I guess I have to apologize for all the harassment :-)).

So the following is a description of the netcode how I came to understand it. This is bound to be inconclusive (this one took far to long in the making) as well as being partially wrong. So please correct me where I’m wrong and point out what needs to be clarified or laid out more extensively. If possible I will try to continue revising this article.

Just do me one favour: Spare me those pathetic arguments like “For the money I spent on my connection I deserve a better gameplay”. If you have nothing better to say than that, don’t bother to say anything at all.

But besides that I’m open for any kind of comment. As always, either drop me an email, or use the PlanetFortress-Forums for comments or discussions.

So, here we go :-)

July 4th - to Americans, it's Independence Day - the day we celebrate the birth of our country, signified by the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and telling King George to go to hell. Most people celebrate it with parades, fireworks, going camping or to the beach with the family - just another day off from work. Not many even bother to think back to what actually happened to give the people of this country their freedom, and the hell our forefathers went through. It's taught in High School, and History majors in college might learn more about it - but once exams are done, all too often it's usually forgotten. Many of us military veterans do remember it, cause of the bond we do share - a common bond of service to our country, to protect the rights of the citizens - ordinary people like you, like me, and like our forefathers. I received this email first from someone who I only know from the name on the email - John Riddle - and a couple of days later I also got it from Bundy himself. I informed him that I planned to put it in a post on the Fort, not only to continue a tradition he had started, but because I feel the same way about things he does.

Now, I'm not asking you all to get all gung-ho and patriotic all the sudden - entirely too much to ask in this day and age. All I'd like, is for you readers to take a brief moment to consider the character of these brave men, and ask yourself "would I have the same strength of will to stand up for my beliefs like they did?" These men were soldiers too, fighting for what they believed in, and many paid a horrible price. They fought not only for themselves, but for their families, their neighbors - for everyone who believed in that way of life. They were all heroes, and not all got monuments or holidays named after themselves. Very few real heroes get the accolades they deserve. The common soldier, or policeman, fireman, paramedic, schoolteacher, father, mother - these folks are heroes too. They fight their own battles every day - stalwart, not complaining, doing the best they can all the time, whenever they are needed.

America does NOT have a monopoly on heroes, either. The soldiers of all countries are viewed as heroes by their people, whether it's the USA, Canada, England, France, Germany, Israel, Russia, Italy - or any other country. Their members serve to protect the way of life of the people of their beloved homelands, whether they have mandatory service, or they are volunteers. In wartime or in peace, they stand ready to defend. The same is true of all the other people I mentioned above - they all do their part, what they see as their duty. And I salute them all.

So, with all this rambling, what exactly is Tot trying to say? Yes, it is Independence Day here in America - but even if you are not a citizen of the USA, take a moment today, to think to yourself of someone you consider a hero, who gave of themselves for the betterment of other people. And if you can't thank them in person - thank them in your head, for what they did, and might continue to do. It won't take long, and you might discover something about yourself you never knew before, while doing it. And to all the people that read what I rant about here - I thank you as well.