Selected Editorials (2001)

Young people, playing online games or on the Internet (06/24/2001) by Kalashnikov (Guest Editorial)

Female Gamers in TFC (05/14/2001) by Battle Angel (Guest Editorial)

Mindsets (05/07/2001) by Teatime

Wargames (05/02/2001) by Teatime

A Change In Command (04/29/2001) by Totentanz

Player Accountability (04/12/2001) by Teatime

Why do we play this game (04/02/2001) by PainKilleR

Bunnyhopping revisited (03/23/2001) by Teatime/PainKilleR

Humble yourself (03/18/2001) by Teatime

In case you didn't understand (03/05/2001) by Totentanz

Enough is enough (03/04/2001) by Totentanz

Sportsmanship (02/13/2001) by Teatime

Sunday, 24 June 2001 1515Z
Young people, playing online games or on the Internet... -Kalashnikov

For quite a while now, I have been a dedicated half-life gamer. Starting out when I was 13 (I am 15 now, and have been for ... oh 30 minutes ... since 12:00 PM/00:00 AM on Fri/Sat the 22nd/23rd). And have been in 2 clans, staying in the first for around 1 year, and being in the second for 6 months ... and being a floater (drifter) in between. And what really scares me is the fact that, even though I am not a 9 year old whiner, (15...) I am still afraid to reveal my age, or even hint at the fact that I am not an adult.

The reason for this is whenever I see someone doing this in a game that is younger than 16, they get slagged off, or whenever they ask a question, intelligent or not, most of the time they are told 'fuck off you whiner/child'. It has happened to me time and time again. The problem is, older people, or even some people like me that I have had the misfortune to meet, have had the image of the 9 year old CS gamer impressed onto them. The major problem people like me have is that we become tarred with the same brush as the minority of really young players that have been give half-life as a present, for their birthday.

Let me tell you why some extremely young people become disliked as much as they are. Ever since I have come onto the net at about 12, as an Age of Empire's gamer (ugh), I have conducted myself in much the same manner as I would in RL (Real Life™). This means being responsible, helping others out with problems, not insulting people, and generally being sociable. I do not see the internet as a barrier that means I can do whatever I want with impunity, though I probably could. The problem is, younger children see the net as something where everyone is anonymous, maybe rightly so, and they make use of it in that way. They insult people that they would not in RL™, they attempt to hack, and they generally do not conduct themselves with the same respect or maturity that they do in the Real World. This does bring a certain amount of dislike to them, and this, unfortunately, carries into their gaming. We all know that at a young age, we took almost everything very seriously. We would have (and I expect quite a few did) whine about petty things, such as who got the extra millimeter of coke in that glass that your mother poured out for you. Some people would bawl their eyes out because of that. Because at a younger age children take things more seriously, games become more than a game for them, they become something they 'must' be good at. And they cannot accept that there are people better than them out there. So when they lose, they don't like it and take a bad attitude, not treating it as a game.

As a result people hate them. This sort of child normally is the person you see in a game of TFC spamming 'LAG! LAG!" Over and over again. This is the sort of person that will make up all kinds of excuses to explain their death. This is the sort of person that overuses 1337speak (come on, we all use it sometimes ;)) and spams it over and over again. And consequently, this is the sort of person people hate. Understandably. But from what I have seen, people will do one of two things about this.

Ignore the person completely, giving no constructive criticism or taking no action
Or...
Take too much action, and not suggest anything, but immediately kick/ban the person from the server.
This does not help anyone. This just serves to infuriate the person more, and make them take their anger out on another person. What I propose is this. Before banning them, talk to them. don't shout. (caps). don't annoy them. Just calmly explain to them that what they are doing is not good for them, and it isn't 'cool', and it isn't 'funny'. Tell them how to enjoy the game, and tell them, for gods sake, to play like a normal person. I do accept that some/most children wont accept this, but try. Otherwise things will only get worse.

The problem, in short then, is this: The declining age of the TFC/Half-Life community means that too many people are taking it more seriously than before. This leads all too frequently to arguments, and people being pissed off at the young person. Possibly with reason. However, too many responses to shouting, name calling etc. are 'I bet he's 13.' this comes from generalization, and is wrong. Maybe if some people took the time to try and change the way these '9 year olds' feel, we wouldn't have these problems.

What I propose is this: Try and be a little more tolerant of the younger gamers. Tell them where they go wrong, help them to improve. Try and ignore some spam, and tell them what is wrong with spam, if they continue. But most of all, try and help them to understand that it is only a game.

What I expect or demand from the older gamers is to be able to tell that the number of so called '9 year old whiners' is a minority in the community. And also, try and understand that a 15 year old is not automatically a whiner. Or a 9 year old (that should be obvious). Please, don't tar us all with the same brush. don't punish the majority for a very small minority, most of which is there because of the unhelpfulness of the general community.

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Monday, 14 May 2001 1900Z
Female gamers in TFC...-BattleAngel

So you want to know what it is like for a female playing Team Fortress Classic. Well I asked some of my fellow female friends from the Bombshells, female guilds and girls that play in co-ed clans and boy were they all but to happy to respond to this one. I guess it is like any other sport a girl would play. It's degrading, self-challenging and not to mention, just plain fun.

Lets talk about the degrading part and get the fun stuff out of the way. The most common response I got from the girls was " I would of quit along time ago if it wasn't for…" Let's face it, more than all to often female players have been called, bitches, dykes, lesbos, stupid and ugly. I don't know how they could figure out we were ugly, I mean how did they know that I didn't wash my hair and put on my war paint before sitting down to play a good game of TFC but ok . And the sexual taunts, comments like "come here little girl let me show you my rocket launcher" or ones that aren't so bad like " hey baby you can come over here and heal me anytime". It takes all I've got not to say "You can take that rocket launcher and shove it up your…" well you guys can finish the rest but you get my point. Which brings us to the self-challenging topic.

When we don't respond to those nasty comments it can be quite a challenge on our part. I mean how long do we take the name calling and blatant degrading remarks? I would like to that think that the girls have acquired the great art of holding their tongues. If we responded to them with nasty comments wouldn't we just be putting ourselves in those nasty little dwellings that they crawled out of. You can't be a wuss and play this game, you have to be a thick skinned. And what better way to get revenge when someone is making fun of that cute little name that took you hours to pick out then by shoving a rocket where their sun doesn't shine. And man isn't that revenge sweet.

But the main reason we play is, well, it is just so much fun when you get to open a can of whoop ass on someone. I mean who can resist putting your little red dot between someone's eyes and blow their brains out left and right. Or taking out a sentry gun with your rocket launcher. And the high your get when you finally learn to conch as a medic, no pun intended. I bet those are all reasons why the guys play this game as well.

I also would of given up on this game if I had not found a wonderful bunch of girls to play with. But it also wouldn't be fair if I didn't mention the tons of support I have been given by many many male players, and you guys know who you are **wink wink**. So watch out guys we are aren't going anywhere, and we are coming to a server near you with our med packs, EMPS, rocket launchers and grenades in hand!

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Monday, 07 May 2001 1450Z
Mindsets... -Teatime

Well, various discussions on the PF forums as well as a few emails pointed out not to tell people how to play the game. While this sentiment is fair enough it has a major flaw: Most of us are telling people how to play the game!

I think the vast majority of TFC players will agree not to accept cheating. Consequently we tell people willing to cheat to play the game in a different way as they would like to. Much the same goes for indisputable lamers, such as teamkillers, people deliberately infecting teammates or building sentries to block doors. We tell them how to play the game (or rather how not to play the game).

If we continue to respawn camping we will still have a - hopefully - large number of people condemning RC, but even here it starts to get harder. The majority is not as apparent as with cheating and lamerism (and of course it is a different matter to distinguish it from these two). But still many people feel entitled to tell others how to play the game (and to my knowledge it's even frowned upon in clan matches).

Okay, ladies and gentlemen, let's take one step back. In various discussions I had voiced opinions about a number of lame behaviour and questionable tactics. This eventually looks like a complex rulebook of do's and don'ts which is more annoying than helpful, especially since such opinions include tactics and moves which appear to be perfectly valid (I just think of the medic-discussion we had on the forums one or two weeks ago). The main problem is that people just see the facade either unable or unwilling to look behind it and grasp the underlying issue. So maybe I should approach the whole affair from another angle.

If we ignore cheating and obvious lamish behaviour (like described above) I'm basically attacking and condemning two mindsets, both sadly very common:

1) Winning at all cost and by all means.

2) Playing the game to satisfy ones personal pleasure by annoying and pissing off people.

While (1) is a problem for both clan matches and pub games (2) is just an issue in pub games. But as usual I will only look at pub games in the following.

Under the first category fall such tactics like chasing, turtling, all-D games or - at some extend - respawn camping. Some people feel all these tactics and others are valid and using them is completely justified by the goal of winning the game. To these people the victory is more important than anything else, and they are willing to sacrifice the overall fun of the game to achieve this victory. In my editorial Wargames I tried to point out the foolishness of this attitude, especially since victory in pub games is fleeting and holds little value (and depending on the circumstances is no achievement at all, e.g. winning a game with 8 to 4 people, or a team composed of skilled players against a bunch of newbies). And even victory in the fiercest game on the highest level of gameplay is shallow if people didn't enjoy the game. Just yesterday I was in a game which slowly turned into an all-D game by both teams which eventually was unsatisfying and annoying for both sides. So was it worth to defend both our flags so effectively when it killed the fun?

I'm not quite sure what the reason is for that attitude ...
Is it the determination from clan matches which influences the pub games? Is it the increasing obsession with skills which causes people to show these skills at any time and any opportunity, regardless of the circumstances? Is it a lack of self-consciousness so people cannot accept defeat, unless they used all means and every tactic in their arsenal?
Whatever the reasons may be, often enough it is not improving a pub game at all, but rather turn it into an unpleasant game. I don't say you should not play to win and to play with skill and determination. Just keep in mind that others want to enjoy that game as well. And frankly, if you are unable to enjoy a pub game unless you win I pity you for your narrow-mindedness.

The second category is a little more complicated, and likely even more flame-material than the first one.

"Playing to satisfy ones personal pleasure by annoying and pissing off people" comes in many ways and many flavors, some of them looking perfectly valid on the outside. In my book this category contains behaviour like the bad kind of respawn camping, sentries in enemy bases, camping and spamming or 'infect and run' (just to name a few). Now I'm sure a lot of you will start to take this all apart and nitpicking, this or that could impossibly be lame.

So, in big lettered words: I do not attack the tactic, I'm attacking the mindset which abuses this tactic.

Those people I criticize are not interested in the game, or their team, or the goal of the map. They want to piss off people. Just the same as the usual lamer does, who infects his teammates. However, this breed of lamers are disguising themselves by relying on apparently valid behaviour and tactics. It's a bit like crossing a cheater - who likes to succeed without being exposed - with a lamer: The attitude of a lamer with the caution of a cheater. With that mindset these people camp respawns. Not because the want to contain the enemy D while their offense goes for the flag. No, just for the fun to blow up everyone coming through that door. If possible, repeatedly. But hey, he is still helping his team, isn't he? But is he? I have seen people trying to RC the 2fort respawn repeatedly while no one from their team was going for the flag. I have seen people spamming and camping in well's attic while the flagroom was unguarded and the spammer could as well have grabbed the flag and scored some points for his team. I have seen medics ignoring the nearby enemy flag just to go on to infect other players.
All these things are lame in my opinion as they have nothing to do with the game itself. It's just a more discreet mean to satisfy the lamer's ego.

The main problem with that is to distinguish between the same tactic serving a valid purpose and a lame purpose. At one side you have the lame respawn camper as described. On the other end of the spectrum you have someone who validly guards the respawn while the medic is escaping with the flag. So the same tactic can be right or wrong. It all depends on the context and the intention. And between both extremes is a large gray area which often enough is bound to be misinterpreted.

Yet I think we should not accept a lamer even if he sticks to 'valid' tactics. A respawn camper isn't helping his team. All he cares for is to kill as many people as possible, either for his score or just because it gives him the kicks when the enemy is complaining or bitching. He will not help to take out sentries when needed. He will not assist to take out the HWG or soldier at the flag. He will not help out at D when needed.

Variations of this kind of lamerism can be found on many occasions. I suspect many of these are only part-time lamers, living out their dark side on occasion. They often follow this dark side when given the opportunity - be it a low populated server which makes much of this behaviour very easy, or a weaker enemy team which is easier to push around.

But most people don't care to differentiate. On behalf of these people I have to admit that a lot of stupid complaining, whining and bitching - either in game or in chats or forums - is only blurring up things and blowing up issues out of proportion. Some people complain about spamming when you drop two instead of one grenade. Some people accuse you of camping when you use a pipetrap in a completely valid situation.

So many people are tired of discussing certain tactics because it all comes down on the context, and often enough the context is misinterpreted. Yet I don't think we should accept lamerism of any kind, even when it comes in disguise. Those people have no respect for the game and they have no respect for the people they play with (yep, I know I sound like a broken record). So don't just shrug it all off because it's a bit more difficult to identify as the lamerism it is.

Having said all this about category 2 I will also try not to blow things out of proportion myself. While this kind of lamerism isn't rare at all it's not common enough to be too big a problem. But I think we should keep it in the back of our minds when evaluating certain situations. And we should make a clear stand on the game we love and should not allow people to abuse it to satisfy their own twisted needs. The game and the community can do very well without them.

So, now I'm looking forward to all the people telling me that respawn camping and infecting people and whatever other tactic comes to mind are perfectly valid under all circumstances ...

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Wednesday, 02 May 2001 1750Z
Wargames... -Teatime

Last week we had some animated discussions about whether or not TFC was a wargame on the PF forums. I will not rehash that discussion. Let me just say one word why I think TFC is not a war game: Push.

But right now I'd rather take a look at why certain people are so persistent in claiming TFC was about war.

The answer is quite simple. The saying goes 'All is fair in love and war'. So if one relates to TFC as war one can argue that while playing TFC all means are justified to achieve the victory. On base of that one can easily justify every tactic short of cheating, and every kind of behaviour.

Respawn Camping, Chasing, Turtling, Bunnyhopping ... all valid because it's winning that counts. Fairness? Sportsmanship? Since when has a war been fair? What place has sportsmanship in a war? Both will only restrict ones ability to win. Being fair means being weak.

In that discussion the motto of 'survival of the fittest' was mentioned. The strongest and the most ruthless will succeed. The party which is willing to take any means necessary will come out victorious of the battle.

A valid point of view, you think? Well, I think it's bullshit!

It's sad enough that clans feel to play the game not caring about sportsmanship. I'm quite sure that sportsmanship and competitive gameplay are no contradictions. I'm not familiar with the clan scene, but I'm sure there are a lot of clans proving all the time that a clan can be successful while being sportsmanlike and by trying to avoid certain - IMO lame - behavior. My respect for all those clans.

But when it comes to pub games the notion to war not only gets ridiculous, but it usually shows the disrespect of people for their fellow players.

During mentioned discussion someone very correctly pointed out that we have approx. 1260 servers running TFC (according to Gamespy). With the standard running time for a map of 30 minutes this makes 60480 games each day. Now if you only count one half of that (to make up for empty servers or servers running only part of the day) you would still have more than 30000 games each day.

So what fucking war are we fighting here? What makes one of these 30000 games so important that justifies to use 'all means necessary'. What remains of that victory in that single game that you would retreat on Chasing and Respawn Camping to win it? Will anybody remember the next week? Heck, there aren't even any stats for TFC to reflect such efforts (and now don't make a fool out of yourself by mentioning CLQ).

So is there one good reason to annoy or piss off the other players in a pub game by insisting on using questionable (read: lame) tactics? Just so you can satisfy your ego? So you can be like those lamers who say "I win" at the end of a map?

Referring to a game of TFC as war is far too often just a poor excuse to be allowed to act like an ass and to disrespect the people one plays with. Pub games are not about winning or losing, they are about having fun (and if you can't keep apart one from the other I pity you).

And - as mentioned before - it is by no means necessary to have as well an enjoyable as a competitive and thrilling game. Usually quite the opposite: When you feel Respawn Camping is necessary to successfully get the enemy flag just consider the challenge to get it without RC. If the enemy O is that strong rather see the challenge in either creating an appropriate defense or an equally efficient offense instead of retreating to a half-baked solution of chasing.

Instead of focusing on the fleeting end result of a map rather make the game itself count.

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Sunday, 29 April 2001 2215Z
A change of command... -Totentanz

All things must come to an end - usually by circumstances beyond one's control - and it looks like it's that time for me, now. As of late, my work schedule, which wasn't exactly relaxing and liesurely in the past, became a slice of Hell. We're at 40% manning, and are no longer a 24-7 shop. I've gone from my comfortable graveyard shift, to one that runs 6am to 2pm, Eastern time. As you might guess, going to bed at 10pm, to wake up at 4:45am puts a serious cramp in my social life - even one online. Add to that, my marked decline in interest in playing TFC, or being involved with it, brought me to make some hard choices.

1. I've completely dropped any and all involvement in the TFC Reform Project. I've given control to it in total to Warthog. A combination of the lack of time and a complete lack of interest in the game has brought me to this point. My disgust with several glaring loopholes being exploited to hell that completely DESTROY the spirit and intent of the game and it's design - by what I thought at one time were fine, outstanding members of this community. For those of you who can't read between the lines, I'm referring to the "BunnyHopping" techniques that allow a HWGuy to outrun a Scout, and still fire his Chaingun. And if you want to argue semantics as say I don't know what I'm talking about by using that particular term AGAIN, frankly you can blow me. See that motto up there, the one that says "Dedicated to Honour, Sportsmanship and Team Play"? Use of that exploit violates the first two completely - there is NO grey area in that call, folks. If you say otherwise, you're lying to yourself and your fellow players. Add to this the last patch, which Valve led us here to believe was slated to fix many of the recurrant and annoying bugs - instead only offered the new models. Oh, yes - and a couple of minor bugfixes - oh joy. Some of the models I do like, some I don't. That's not the point. I started the TFC Reform Project as an effort to get Valve to fix, and continue to maintain a mod which at that time was SERIOUSLY broken. I managed to achieve most of the former, but since Counter-Strike has become their Golden Goose, I doubt we'll see much action on maintaining TFC any time soon.

2. I've handed command of The Fort to my valiant comrade in arms, Teatime. Like my mentor, comrade and personal idol in things TF before me, Bundy - I will be retiring into a capacity where I reserve the right to pop in and add my own blend of madness to this place - but expect it to be a rare thing, indeed. Perhaps it's good that my appearances will be rare indeed, because my few posts on the forums as of late seem to have brought up some bad feelings, as to the content of them. Oh well, as the French would say, "C'est la guerre". Teatime has my full confidence that he will be able to continue his sterling job of trying to beat some semblence of manners and intelligence to the uncultured ones that plague the game that is TF. I'm hoping that you continue to give him support and insightful feedback to this game that has captured the minds and spirits of so many of us for so long.

3. I've decided to discontinue ANYTHING to have to do with TFC, or any other Half-Life engine related mod. Last week I deleted Half-Life off my hard drive, and I haven't felt so good about doing something in a long time. John, Robin and the other guys that came up via the QTF/QWTF community - I have all the respect in the world for you guys in particular. You people gave me a game that literally took control of my free time, and gave me countless hours of enjoyment. In particular, I offer a heartfelt salute to David Sawyer, the genius mapmaker that brought us what I consider to be the best damned TF map EVER made, CanalZone. Some of my most fondly remembered playing time was me hunting Ramirez thru his own map, on the legendary CTSNET 24/7 CZ server (bows head in a moment of silence for it). He made me earn every frag I managed to get on him, and usually was the one ending up respawning. But I managed to learn that map completely as a result of those great times. Thank you, Ramirez - I will treasure those memories for a LONG time.

However, in this modern age, when you do move to the model of having to make games for a living, rather than making them as a labour of love - some things must by necessity be sacrificed. TFC started off as a great idea, and one that excited me - as something to hold us over while the legendary TF2 was being made. But time has passed, and passed - and still nothing. I still remember hearing TF2 would be out for Quake2 - and I bought that for the express reason. I played less than 20 hours of Quake2 online, because I only bought it for TF2. I played the single player game to kill time while I waited - but it never popped up. Then Half-Life came out, and it was said TF2 would be made for that. I'll be truthful and admit I bought HL for it's own merits as much as for being able to play TF2 with it, and in the beginning HL, and then TeamPlay HLDM, and finally TFC was good - but them it was announced, TF2 will be it's own game. So we wait more. And then They scrap the old engine, and start again - so we wait more. Then they start using TF2 technology in TFC, and TFC get's turned into a guinea pig. That wasn't so bad, and I agreed with the idea, initially - until they made two decisions which started my slow decline into hatred for this game. First, they put in the netcode which penalizes you for having a good connection. Getting lag-sniped, and infected or backstabbed by HPB's who were literally across the room from me - if it was reality, imagine being knifed from over 6 metres away - started to made me get disgusted. Then the decision was made to make it "easier for someone to get right into the game" - which I term changing it into AOL-Fortress. Couple that with the decline of the Moral Fibre of the so-called "community", and it caused me to no longer want to be involved in this game. At least the TFC players are head and shoulders above the cesspool that is the vast majority of the CounterStrike community - that's a really good mod, ruined by it's players. I only enjoyed it when I played either at LAN sessions, or on passworded servers with friends I knew would NOT be arseholes.

I've always held the opinion that if you usually do something to have fun, and it's no longer fun for you - don't do it anymore. So, finally having freed myself from my self-imposed obligations to the community, I've taken my own advice and left it behind. GG Valve, but in my opinion, not only are you no longer the only TF game out there, you're not even close to being the best of them. When I need my TF fix, I'll continue to play Quake3Fortress or Unreal Fortress, but presently my game of choice, when I get the time to actually play, is Tribes2. As for my thoughts on TF2 - I'll sum it up like this: "I'll get excited over it when I see a demo or the finished product. Until then, I could care less." Only so many times you can jerk people's chains, before they start to not care anymore - and I've hit my threshold.

It's been real, it's been fun - and occasionally it was really fun. But not in my recent recollection. If you want to get hold of me, my email will be there. You can find me playing usually on East Coast Tribes2 servers, and sometimes on a Q3F one. But usually I'm just working. To all the true believers out still there - keep fighting the good fight, while the flame still burns. Just don't let get to the point where it starts to take you down - learn when to walk away before you become bitter and spiteful.

Totentanz out. *salute*

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It is very annoying to be confronted with lamers, who blocks passages or teamkills, or cheaters abusing bugs or using external means to gain an unfair advantage. But even more annoying, because far more common, are people acting like asses by using foul language, by insulting fellow players or simply by acting like spoiled little children. We all witness all kinds of poor behaviour far too many times when playing the pubs. The general lack of teamwork and proper approach is bad enough, but having people spamming nonsense or insults on mm1, doing their worst to piss off other players and to - deliberately or not - ruin the game for others.

People feel encouraged or even entitled to such behaviour because they feel not to be accountable for their actions. The worst thing that can happen to them is being banned from that particular server for their behaviour, which on top requires an admin to be present. On unmonitored servers a player can get away with all kind of behaviour without any repercussions.

In real life a group of people would apply social pressure to people misbehaving. If social pressure would fail people would still have other means to uphold an appropriate code of behaviour (either by talk, by exclusion or different kinds of punishment). Yet most of these means don't exist in online games or don't apply to the world of online games. What makes things worse is the anonymity of the player. People can act poorly rather anonymously by playing under different names.

With the increasing size of the online playing community the problem gets worse every day. The fact that there's a large percentage of young people playing who have not yet learned to act responsibly in real life or deliberately enjoying the freedom of acting against such rules isn't exactly helping (note: I do not accuse young people in general of showing poor behaviour, I merely point out that young people more likely display such behaviour). Repercussions are very limited, as mentioned. Being banned on one server still leave a couple of hundred other servers to pester. And those large commercial servers will sadly always be safe territory of lame behaviour of any kind.

This has to change, for the sake of the future of online games. IMO we need to held people accountable for the behaviour they show when playing with other people.

The question at hand is how to accomplish that ...

The means are there.

People showing poor behaviour can be gagged, kicked or banned. Bans can range from minutes to lifetime. Creating a single WON-ID prior to the last patch was very helpful as well.
Kicking or banning a player is a - granted: poor - method of holding a person accountable for his actions. Now as mentioned banning does not teach much of a lesson when this particular player can just join the next server and continue his lame behaviour.

But imagine - just speaking theoretically for a moment - being banned on one server would deny a person to play at any server for... let's say ... 24 hours! Don't you think people would think twice before they teamkill, before they spam profanity or insults? And let's assume being banned a second time would deny access to any server for 48 hours. It would be so easy to teach people to act more friendly and responsible.

Yet this is at most part just a sweet dream for a number of reasons.

1) The game companies could not pull off such a system gameside. Legally they would have no right to deny people playing the game they'd paid for.

2) We will have to acknowledge that mentioned commercial servers will never do anything else than running a game by default values. They don't admin or even monitor the servers. Such servers would never be actively part of such a system, and likely not passively as well.

3) The standards of which behaviour would be poor or lame will always differ between people. Profanity is a big issue to one, but no issue at all to another. Respawn camping is lame to some, but valid to others. On top of that admins are not free of personal prejudice and character flaws. An admin might ban a person for personal reasons regardless of that person's general behaviour.

Yet I think many admins could create a common ground on which to act. Cheating is an easy issue. Many kinds of lame behaviour, like teamkill, hiding with flags or blocking passages should be easy as well. And I would hope that many admins would support such annoying behaviour as message spams or profanity as well. Remember that in my example I spoke of a limited ban. We are not talking of severe punishment, more of a friendly clap on the fingers, as a reminder.

I'm sure there are already admins exchanging ban lists to keep the worse lamers and cheaters off each other's server. Yet of course this is a rather clumsy method and achieves nothing on the banned players (with some very few exceptions).

Any system working with bans more efficiently and along the idea of enforcing accountability would require a database to work with and a tool importing/exporting updates on a regular basis. Actually I'd assume this to be fairly easy to create. The database would b required to keep records of bans (how often has a player been banned, on which server and for what reasons) and to handle the duration/expiration of bans. And it would create a central place for players to ask for being removed from a ban list.

The biggest challenge would not be to establish the technical means but to convince admins to participate on such a problem (the more if it would involve having a 3rd party tool running on the server). The biggest problem on the other hand would be to determine if an admin was trustworthy and responsible enough to participate on such a project. It would provide a powerful position and could easily be abused.

In fact a similar utility does already exist. HLACS was created for CounterStrike, but according to the website can be used on any HL-MOD. What I dislike on HLACS - at least based on the limited information from the website - is that it basically just creates a more efficient way to share bans. I don't see any approach to teach people to act more cooperatively. I also think it puts too much power into the hand of the admins ("only the Admin who banned someone can edit/remove the ban"). Yet it is a step into the right direction. I have contacted the creator of HLACS for an interview, but I'm still waiting for his answers.

In the future I would wish game developers would consider to provide tools - or at least the interfaces - to help the respective communities to enforce players accountability.

Just providing a game and then leave the trouble with assholes and lamers to the gamers is no longer a reasonable attitude. A game might be ever so cool, but with people continuously and increasingly being unpleasant and irresponsible the pleasure dies fast.

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This question has been plaguing me lately, and I've noticed that a good amount of the community has been as well. Perhaps it's the game's age getting to some of us. Perhaps it's the game undergoing changes to gameplay and to the way it looks. Perhaps it's the bugs that continue to live on in the game after all of these revisions.

While writing this up, I changed direction a bit. Therefore, things at the beginning may seem unrelated to things at the end. However, I feel that it all intertwines somewhere along the way, and at the least gives you all a bit of an introduction to where I'm coming from, and some of the things I believe in. It's probably one of the worst samples of my writing you'll ever see, but it all needed to be said eventually. May as well get it out of the way now.

I played TF in many of it's revisions for NetQuake and QuakeWorld, taking occasional breaks to play other games that caught my eye. Still, I couldn't let go of TF completely, even with Quake2 CTF, Diablo, and numerous other games pulling for my time. While I was waiting for TFC, which promised a much needed visual update to the game I spent so much time playing, I continued with TF, staying mostly to a particular Canalzon server that lives only in our memories now.

TFC brought something else that really drew my attention, something other than the visual updates. It brought a much-needed end to the cheating that plagued QuakeWorld after 2-3 years of it's existance. It also brought a fresh community that seemed mostly untainted by the arrogance that existed among many in the TF clan scene.

I'm beginning to think that perhaps that arrogance is a part of a game's age, something that grows within a community as the newbies that were dealt harsh blows by their elders become elders themselves, and the elders that believed in helping others and spreading honour in the community decide that it's no longer worth their effort, usually leaving the game behind for something else.

As I've played this game, I've gone from a veteran of the TF pubs to a player just on the virge of completely giving up on the TFC pubs. When that happened, though, there was a group that caught my eye. I had been opposed to playing in clans in TF because the bad side of that particular community was very evident when I started looking. TF had gone through some nasty cheating scandals, and some of the arrogant few were winning matches, feeding their arrogance even more. However, when I started looking at TFC clans, the vast majority (with one noted exception) were upholding honour in the game and showing that you could play a straight up game and get the wins. The TFC clan scene was, at that time, the pillars of the community.

Somehow, for reasons barely known even to myself, I managed to make my way into the best clan in the game at that time. Their beliefs were the same as my own, that the game was to be played for fun, that cheating was not to be tolerated, and that although winning was not the sole purpose of playing, it was something worth working for.

Somewhere along the way, my clanmates started to grow tired of the harsh regimine of practice that we held, and of the game itself. Many of them had been playing the game equally as long as I had, however most of them had never had the occasional breaks that I had taken as a pub player. New mods came along for Half-life that had playing styles that, while rehashed to someone like myself that had spent time with various Quake 2 mods, were new to people that had not spent much time with that particular game. Needless to say, I didn't agree with my clanmates, though I needed a break as well.

I took a month off, barely even touching TFC for 2-3 weeks of that time. The TF1.5 patch came out during my time off, and pushed me a little further from the game, making it easier to spend that time away. Still, eventually, something called me back. The game was different, but it still held the same call. It wasn't long before I found a new group of people that held similar beliefs, and was back to playing clan matches again. It also wasn't very long before I started noticing that, with 2 or 3 of the major forces in the clan scene gone in a short time period, the scene had started to change.

I guess, to some extent, this shift had started much earlier, it was just hidden to an extent. There were numerous flame wars between various clans regarding the tactics people chose to play. Some clans play the game to win, and some play for fun. Unfortunately, on occasion the tactics used to win don't leave a lot of room for a fun game on the parts of the clans being played against. This leaves a clan that came to have fun feeling cheated, even if they won.

What does this mean to everyone out there that isn't in a clan? Well, think about why you play this game. Think about how your actions effect the other players in the game. Are you in the game to have fun, or to win? Is your idea of fun or winning causing problems for other players on the server that may be trying to have fun? Respawn campers are usually having fun, so are the cheaters, but the people being camped aren't having fun, and in many cases neither are the people being cheated. It may be fun to ask for an all-crowbars game every once in a while, but what about the people that came to play a real game of TFC? The players that wish to play offense are often discouraged in a pub game by the incredibly heavy defense. The players that are highly skilled at defense are often discouraged by the near total lack of offense.

People have lost site of why they play the game. When people stop having fun, even if their reason for playing is to have fun, they never just leave the game. It doesn't work that way for most people. We drag it out, we try to find the fun again, we ask for other people to change things to make it fun again. I went and joined another clan, with which I had a great deal of fun, but slowly certain things started wearing on me again. It wasn't the fault of the clan I was with, the game just stopped being fun again.

Still, I'm here, ranting about bunnyhopping and running a league that mandates use of Punkbuster to detect cheaters and expose them, effectively keeping them out. From time to time I've also been known to rant about chasing, turtling, respawn camping, and a few other choice issues. In the last week I spent an hour spectating TFC matches, one hour actually playing TFC, 8 hours playing Black & White, and 4 hours playing Tribes 2. I've also spent 4 hours working on a program that some people might find useful, should I ever manage to finish it (it's certainly not the first time I've started work on a similar project).

Why am I still here? As much as I hate the state this game is in, the changes are possible. Maybe if I shout loud enough, pound on the walls hard enough, people will start to listen, and the changes will happen.

Punkbuster mandated in every league and playing on more of the public servers is just a start in the right direction. It's time to start removing the dark seeds that have tainted this community. The end does not justify the means. There is no substitute for honour and a game well played. Dishonour should not be met with flames and angry villagers, it should be met with a brick wall and solid refusal to accept it as part of the game or the community that has formed around the game.

(for more information on Punkbuster, visit Punkbuster, for more information on Black & White and Tribes 2, visit PlanetBlackandWhite and PlanetTribes , respectively).

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Friday, 23 March 2001 2000Z
Bunnyhopping revisited ... -Teatime

On Wednesday we had another heated discussion on the topic of Bunnyhopping on the PlanetFortress Forums. In that discussion PainKilleR-[CE] made an excellent post presenting a very elaborate and detailed standpoint towards the topic. With his permission I repost it here, not only for all those who have missed the discussion in the first place, but also to be able to add it to our archives for later reference :-). Thanks a lot, PK.

BTW, this was posted as a reply to another post, hence the quote in the beginning from a post to which PainKilleR was responding.

"Also, I'm puzzled over why you keep bringing up how this "wasn't intended by Valve" thing. Were flying scouts and meds INTENDED to fly across the sky over long distances in TF?! Were Soldiers INTENDED to leap out of the elevator in 2fort?! I don't speak for everyone, but in my opinion, conc jumping is MUCH more useful then bhopping."

You want to talk about TF, then we'll talk about TF. It's quite true that concjumping was not originally intended in TF. It's also true that they (TFS, now part of Valve software) changed a number of things numerous times in TF's time under their control. They modified conc effects several times, modified the effects of gas grenades, added classes, added (and removed) abilities, grounded (and later ungrounded) HWGuys, and so on.
Eventually they turned the code over to another group, which released one or two patches and then gave up on the TF community, the reasons for which should be obvious (see the last month of posts...).

Now, we come to TFC: conc jumps are a well known phenomenon in TF, and Valve chooses to leave them in TFC. However, they screw up some code bits, and we end up with handheld conc jumps that throw you further than any conc in TF could (actually, the maps in TFC are just
preportionally smaller than their TF counterparts, but the HH concs probably still could throw you further back in 1016 than any conc in TF). Valve actually *DID* remove the HH concs completely during beta testing, and then decided to put them back, though limited. You want to discuss intent, talk about something other than the current state of concs in TFC. You want to talk about TF, talk about TF. Cannonhopping isn't a problem in TF because HWGuys can't jump and fire the AC at the same time. Bunnyhopping is an issue there, but the TF code is dead and the idea of modifying the QuakeWorld code's physics to get TF working better probably only appeals to a certain group of people.

TFC's balance has shifted quite a bit from it's early days. Most of this was a result of the 1.5 release, which altered the properties of conc grenades (weakening medics and scouts), reduced the running speed of scouts (weakening scouts again), decoupled hitscan weapons from the players' pings (shifting weapon balance on scouts and medics from nailguns to shotguns, making snipers more accurate, giving soldiers a better chance at long range fighting, etc), and decoupling the rate of fire for any hitscan weapon from the ping of the player firing (increasing effectiveness of the HW's asscan and the sniper's autorifle, the only hitscan weapons in the game that have a high enough firing rate to be effected by normal pings). In fact, it seems that the HWGuy's firing rate was so high that you couldn't even achieve it with the previous netcode, even on a LAN. GG Valve, squashed that bug, here come the asscans.

Towards the last days of 1016 (despite a recent resurgance of players looking to play clan matches on 1016 I'll still refer to the last few days before 1.5 as the last days of 1016), a certain script, known as the demoscript, or quickdet script, became VERY widely used in clans. All of a sudden clans that never used a demoman before had multiple demomen in each match, detting pipes dead-on target, doing the pipe-rocket-jump (the entire jump could be scripted), and just in general proving that a simple exploitation of a bug could have a massive effect on the game balance.

Bunnyhopping in itself is an effect of Valve using the Quake, Quake2, and QuakeWorld code to build their engine. If they *had* intended the HWGuy to be as fast as other classes and to be on offense, then wth does the manual read like this: ' Heavy Weapons Guy - A walking tank.

The name says it all. A slow moving, heavily armored beast toting an enormous assault cannon, the HW Guy can mow down any enemy in seconds. Not a lot of finesse in this one, since the cannon spits out so much fire you barely need to aim it. If you like picking a defensive position in a map and saying "No-one, and I mean no-one, is getting past here", then the HW Guy's the class you want. '

Hmm... not only does it emphasize slow-moving, but also says defensive position. hmm... of course it goes on to say 'Defend Don't go on offense with this class until you're fairly experienced. Soldiers and snipers will pick you off in an instant because of your slow speed'

Yeah, just too bad the HW isn't slow if he's bunnyhopping, and it takes a sniper a fully-charged head shot or quite a few normal shots to take you down, and takes a soldier 3-5 rockets.

Again to relate to TF, an HWGuy, bunnyhopping or not, couldn't show his fat face to the enemy snipers without gibbing, bunnyhopping or not. In TFC, just gliding I can do fairly well putting a big open hole in the enemy defense as an HWGuy, even with 2 or 3 enemy snipers playing their version of the game.

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Sunday, 18 March 2001 1430Z
Humble yourself... -Teatime

Being killed is part of the game. It happens in many different ways and of many reasons. Sometimes it's inevitable (e.g. when you make a desperate dash towards the flag in the open, knowing you will be killed, to keep the flag there for another 60 seconds), sometimes it's bad luck, sometimes it's being owned by a better player and sometimes it's just the course of the game.
When you play keep that in account.

No matter how good you are there is always somebody out there who is even better than you. Or your opponents timing is a little better than yours. Defeat by the hand of a better player is nothing to be ashamed of and definitely that player deserves respect for his skill. Childish bitching or making poor excuses only makes you look like a fool. Rather watch and learn, and try to improve yourself. Playing against better players is in most cases the only way to sharpen one's skill and to become a better player. So take being owned as a lesson and as an example of how to do things better.

Losing by ping difference is a sad thing, but as long as we don't talk of worldwide broadband and optimized network protocols it is a reality we have to live with.
So the lower pinging player has the advantage. Show the maturity to accept that, even if you don't like it. If you feel it hurts your ego being defeated by a supposedly weaker player just due to his ping you might be advised to look for servers that give you a better ping. And if - for whatever reason - you have to play with LPB's you might be advised to try to adept (either by changing your tactics or by assuming roles and positions more forgiving to HPB's) or just accept what comes with it.

Snipers and HWG's are part of the game.
And though both are in a better position to kill their opponents - each in its particular way - their kills are not cheap.
This is perhaps the hardest thing to accept for many people, but it's usually based on a lack of understanding for the roles of those two classes. Both classes are intended to be effective and deadly. The sniper is supposed to serve as first line if defense (due to the unlimited range of the sniper rifle) and his job would be to pick up primarily any heavy offense and additionally to thin out light O where possible. The fact that many snipers fail to assume this role is not to blame on the class, but on the players.
The HWG on the other hand is primarily a supportive class on O or D (though keeping classes like the HWG from going O is exactly one of the reasons the sniper is as strong as he is). He's supposed to be a deadly obstacle to the enemy O, hard to kill, but also slow to balance his deadliness.
So one could say that both classes are having it easier to kill their opponents than the other classes. Yet both classes can be countered in many ways. If you are going against a HWG as a light or medium class you should better know what you're doing. If you end up dead it's not because the HWG would be a cheap class, but because you made an error of judgement, either of the situation or of your own abilities.
The same goes for snipers. If a sniper headshots you while you are standing still in the open you might call it a cheap kill. I would rather call it an incredible stupidity on your part :-p. If you play a heavy class passing through the range of fire of snipers better take into account to be picked up. That's what snipers were created for. The easiness to kill a slow opponent is part of the balance process. Just as the pyro blinds you, or the weak engy is given a strong arsenal of weapons. And one should keep in mind that even a heavy class can evade snipers.

So if you don't like being killed by HWG's and snipers you might ask yourself if you have understood the mechanics and rules which make this game work.
You don't have to like the fact that a sniper can kill you with one (lucky?) shot, but you have to accept this part of the game. I would even go that far to say that this is one important part, which distinguishes TFC from ordinary CTF.

So in the future humble yourself when being killed in the game.
If it happened by a better player rather acknowledge his greater skill and congratulate him. If it happened by other reasons try to react maturely, because bitching and whining will not only fail to help, but also make a fool of you.
But please keep from acting like a child which can't stand to loose. Unless, of course, you are :-p

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Monday, 5 March 2001 1515Z
In case you didn't understand... -Totentanz

Like I say above, in case you didn't understand - and reading some of the feedback, some people HAVE misunderstood what I'm aiming for - I'll try to explain it again, in simpler and clearer wording, to attempt to ensure there is NO CONFUSION on the matter whatsoever.

The fix for this annoying situation *I* personally would like to see, is to make it so the HWGuy is unable to FIRE unless he has both feet on the ground. I want him to still be able to move - at the usual slower speed if he's running, or at the higher speed if he's performing some form of the "bunnyhop" - and keep his gun spun up so he can plant his feet, and be ready to "Stand and Deliver" in an instant. This would also negate the ludicrous ability for the HWGuy to fire that gun while swimming - something personally hate as bad as the bouncing HWGuy ball o'death. :P

I agree with many people that to remove the ability to bunnyhop at all - that is a much harder task that would most likely take a total rework of the HL netcode (again). That would be an ideal solution, because it would remove this exploit from ALL classes, even though the HWGuy is the one that benefits most from it - but at this point I do not think it would be a feasible one, nor would it be one that Valve would give any consideration to. In fact, this line of thinking is the reason I believe Valve has NOT been responsive to suggestions to fix this problem with the HWGuy in the past.

Summary: Tot would ONLY like to see the HWGuy's ability to shoot if he doesn't have both feet on the ground. Leave him the ability to move (at the slower speed) while firing, and leave his gun spun up. Hell, I don't even mind the speed increase from the "bunnyhop" - cause all classes can do it. It's the firing while doing that maneuver, that violates the spirit of the class - and that I object to.

On another note, I've gotten a couple of comments about my remark that if it's not fixed, I'll quit TFC. Some people have said I'm immature - or used harsher language for using that as leverage. Sorry, that's not the case. People that have known me for a while are aware of my ongoing displeasure with TFC, and the only reason I kept playing, is that I made a commitment to the community with the TFC Reform Project. However, I'm sick of the game, and I can't find any reasons to really justify continuing with it. I stated I was going to evaluate the status of the game and community after the patch and make my decision whether to stay or go then - but Valve hasn't given it to us yet. :P So, I'm lumping a resolution to this issue in with my "status of the game" evaluation - that's all.

Speaking of getting comments - here's a quick rundown of the emails I've received, and what people have said:

Out of 22 email responses received, 2 were "good riddance you whiny-crybaby" ones - at least the authors of these 2 were literate, unlike all too many of the flames I do receive. 4 were ones that agreed something needs to be done, but did not agree with my solution, or did not agree with me trying to use the threat of quitting as leverage (which is NOT my intention, merely a statement of my frustration with the game as it stands). That leaves 16 responses that said they completely agreed with my position on this.

I haven't totalled up the posts on the thread in the PF forums, and I agree this is only a small representation of the entire community - but I think I might be onto something here...

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Sunday, 4 March 2001 2045Z
Enough is enough... -Totentanz

WARNING: the following editorial you're about to read WILL piss some people off. Hopefully, others will agree with what I'm saying here. Either way, it doesn't matter to me - this is MY (and Teatime's) webpage, and we tend to make it a habit of getting under people's skin. Many times, I glory in it - especially if it makes them stop and think, instead of acting like a sheep. Hang on to your socks, we're in for some turbulence...

First off, in case you folks don't know, I consider myself an old-timer when it comes to TF. I started playing it back in the Quake1 days, BEFORE all nine classes were in the game. I can remember when Engineers were able to make Teleport portals. I remember the Pyro's days of "sticky napalm grens" - when Sentry Guns didn't last, because you could airburst a napalm gren, and take out an Sgun with minimal effort (oh how I loved playing Pyro in my clan back in those days). I also remember the final version of QWTF, TF version 2.9, when they made it so the HWGuy could not move AT ALL, when his gun was spun up. Both good and bad playbalance decisions where made by TFS in those days.

Recently, on the PF forums (I no longer have the time to read any other ones, and often am lucky to read the PF ones), there has been a rather heated discussion about HWGuys (I can hear the groaning already), and their ability to accelerate to speeds on par with the fastest classes. I've personally seen these bouncing HWGs catch up to and pass a scout. Folks, something is definitely WRONG here. Let's analyze the class itself for a moment, shall we?

The HWGuy has the slowest running speed, on purpose. He has the ability to have 300 armour factor - that's 50% more than the Soldier can carry, and he's barely faster than ole fatso. He carries the godsawful nasty Assault Cannon/Chaingun/GE Mixmaster 2000/whatever you want to call it, which is capable of shredding lighter classes in under a second at medium to close range. The heavier classes, besides another HWGuy , it might take him 1-2 seconds to annhilate them. Folks, this gun, in real life, is designed to be mounted on a VEHICLE, like a helicopter, an airplane, or some nasty Armoured tracked or wheeled conveyance. The mere weight of the gun assembly itself, the ammo supply that voracious beast would devour, and the batteries required to spin it up would preclude any normal person from moving faster than a walk. Hell, I've carried the US Army M-60 machine gun, with tripod mount, on patrols, with a full combat load - and that thing is enough of a burden. Most of us that play TF have seen the movie "Predator" - and have seen what that thing would look like in action - if it actually existed in a man-portable format!
All of the characteristics of the class, put together, lends itself to the HWGuy conforming to TFS/Valve's original idea of the capabilities of the class. A slow, plodding but durable as hell SUPPORT class. Scouts were designed to run FAST - and as a result they have next to no armour, and no weapons that pack a punch. The Sniper has "that damned rifle" (another quote from the Vault, for us oldskoolers) - but next to no armour as well. He can't fire his rifle unless he has his feet on the ground - that's called playbalancing there, folks - back in the OLD-OLD days, he used to be able to jumpshoot. Bundy helped put an end to that crap.. As we work throught the other classes, they get progressively more lethal, and more armoured - and slower moving - for a damned good reason!
In conclusion, when you have a class with that much armour, that powerful of a weapon - to offset those advantages, he was designed to move slow. And if he's shooting that gun while walking, he moves even slower - as is logical for a gun that lethal.

But now, thanks to ingenious people exploring the limitations of the Half-Life Engine, they have discovered ways to invalidate the DESIGNED checks and balances. Thanks to these techniques, we see plagues of these insane creatures, bouncing like a playground ball, and firing as they do so. Warriors, there is something seriously wrong with this picture. And now, all you advocates of this technique are going to start battering me with reasons why this should be. Hmmm, let's go through a couple of the statements they'll make in defense of this crap. In interest of simplifying this discussion, and with all due respects to Maj. Ghob - who recently provided a very thorough post (since I disapprove of this tomfoolery, I refuse to use the adjective "good" in reference to it) on how the various techniques are done - I'm going to call them all "bunnyhopping", because that's how ludricrous it makes a HWGuy look on the battlefield when he's doing it. A "bunny rabbit" with an assault cannon and a tonne of armour. *spit*

1. It's not a cheat! It's a skill anyone can learn, like rocketjumping or concjumping - *bzzt* Rocketjumping and gren1 jumping has a definite cost to it - it take a significent amount of armour and health away from you when you perform that maneuver. The concjump leaves the jumper concussed until it wears off, leaving you at less and optimal combat effectiveness during that time. If you mess up you bunnyhop technique - all you do it slow down to your normal - designed by Valve - speed. No other negative effects. You cease abusing a loophole, and revert back to how the design document intended the class to be.

2. The soldier can fire and shoot, the HWGuy should be allowed to as well, to be able to survive being attacked by them - "Uhm, negative on that, Houston" Lets go back to the design of the class, folks. What happens when you're walking/running, and you crank up that gun? That's right, you slow to approximately half-speed. For a damned good reason, a weapon like that would have one hellacious recoil to it, that there would be no chance of keeping it on target if you didn't have a firm stance. But besides that - it was designed that way.

3. If Valve didn't mean it to be in there, why haven't they fixed it yet? - *insane laughter* Anyone remember how much effort it took to get Valve to START working on the initial problems, bugs and other nonsense with TFC? I damned sure do - I started the TFC Reform Project to try to make these fixes happen, and I'm glad to say between it, help from other people/organizations, Valve decided to keep maintaining a product that generates them ZERO revenue. But remember, they're working on TF2, and using TFC as a guinea pig for technology that might be used in that product. How many people are screaming "Where's the patch?" - hmmm? In previous posts I've detailed the lengthy QA process Valve has to go throught, because of their relationship with Sierra, because of all the various mods out there, especially their present darling, Counter-Strike. Meanwhile, in the time between the last OFFICIAL release, and now, there have been at least 2 newer versions of the Speed Cheat, 2 of the Unban Hack, and other cheats that are probably higher on their priority list, WITHOUT breaking the working functionality they have at present. Change takes time, and persistance. Hence me being persistant. But I'm about to take this persistance to another level.

I could probably come up with a few more of the prevalent arguements that advocates of this idiocy would use to try to defend it - but I'm not in the mood to waste my time doing so. I'll probably get a bunch of flamemail calling me a talentless whiner that can't play the game for shit. Well, quite frankly, I've got a simple answer for anyone who feels that way about my stance on this issue. And I'll make it really simple, so everyone can understand it. "You can kiss my ass." This little exploit is by itself destroying the "balance" TFC had before, and I feel it needs to be reined in, ASAP.

As for myself, I've made a decision. Right now we're polling the PlanetFortress staff as to their positions on this issue, and at the end of that, we plan to send a group email stating our position on this issue. I'd recommend any other large TFC-related webpages to do likewise - both clan-related ones, and general discussion ones. But either way, if Valve decides that they will NOT take prompt action to eradicate this lunacy, I know what I'll be doing. If that is the end result, and Valve allows this to persist, *I* personally will stop playing TFC completely. I will discontinue my participation in the TFC Reform project, and leave that in Warthog's hands to do with as he sees fit. If it comes down to that, I WILL be deleting Half-Life from my system, and I'll definitely be looking VERY warily at TF2 - if in the event it actually stops being anything more than vapourware. What, it was shown at E3 2 years ago, wasn't last year, and will not be this year - not very encouraging, in my eyes.

This is a very sad decision for me to make, as I've always been a big fan of the TFS guys, and that stayed when John and Robin achieved their career goal by being hired by Valve. However, As much as I love the TF genre, and as much as I respect John and Robin - this is no longer the only TF game in town, and I'm having MUCH more fun playing Q3F and UnF these days. I see no reason I should waste my time supporting a game that no longer gives me any enjoyment. I'm not getting paid to do this, and when a hobby ceases being enjoyable - there's no sense in doing it any more. :(

If you feel a need to want to email me, to try to convince me why it should stay as is, or to send the usual slings, arrows and other abuse - you know the email address. Be forewarned - I'm cocked, locked and ready to rock, and as usual, I reserve the right to respond to intelligent conversation, ignore inane, profane and abusive ones, and to post suitable ones for ridicule here on The Fort - if they're truly deserving. That having been said - Bring it on....

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Tuesday, 13 February 2001 1600Z
Sportsmanship... -Teatime

What does sportsmanship mean in the realms of TFC? What would I consider to be sportsmanlike?

(Disclaimer: My main focus here - as usual - is on pubs games. Clan members will find many points mentioned below not fitting for clan matches. Yet I think sportsmanship has its place in clan matches as well, but requires a different focus).

To start with I'd say: Fairness and Fairplay.

Playing fair means not to use any tactics or actions, which are against the rules. But I would like to point out that the 'rules' of TFC are laid out very roughly and are by no means neither explicit nor exhaustive.
The Physical rules are defined by the creators of the game. Eventually it's up to them to decide which actions are parts of the game or not. The removal of the quickdet script was such a case where Valve stepped in to adjust a bug in the game engine.
This is the layer most people look at: Playing inside the boundaries of the game engine without cheating. However, it is clear that there are other components involved, like game ethics, behaviour and conduct. For example there is no explicit rule, which forbids to block a door by building a sentry there or to kill a teammate when friendly fire is enabled. Yet I think a vast majority would agree that such behaviour (usually by what we call lamers) is against the way the game should be played.
Between this behaviour and the way of playing the game properly is a grey area that often enough is controversial and discussed fiercely, like respawn camping, spamming, etc.

Sportsmanship adds another layer to the subject. It has much to do with the way you treat other players and your code of conduct inside the game.
In relation to the other players it means to treat them with respect and to acknowledge their right to enjoy the game as well. I would even go that far to say that it also holds the obligation to try making the game enjoyable for the participating players (inside the boundaries of common sense).

But it also suggests a certain level of conduct.
This includes refraining from cheap tactics, to keep from harassing other players and to show a little dignity, especially when facing defeat. It also means to keep teams even, definitely in numbers but sometimes circumstances suggest including skill to the equation.

What would I consider 'cheap tactics'?
Respawn camping, Spamming, Camp'n'Spam and similar things (a pet peeve of mine is building sentries in the enemy base on servers with few players or lots of newbies).
While these tactics may hold a certain tactical value in many cases they are not required to play the game successfully and often enough just damage the atmosphere on the server. Often enough people are using these tactics for no tactical value at all, but solely to piss other players off. In such cases I fail to see any difference to the actions of your common lamer.

So why should a player act sportsmanlike?
Isn't it enough to refrain from cheating, to play fair and to follow the rules of the game?

The simple answer is: It helps enormously to keep games enjoyable!
Some people might consider being sportsmanlike as a weakness. It is not!
A sportsmanlike conduct does in no way veil your skill. Being polite and to acknowledge other people's skill does not make you appear a bad player. Trying to extend the term fairness to have some regards for weaker players or newbies is not a sign of weakness (IMO quite the opposite).
Playing in the spirit of sportsmanship does by no means keep you from playing competitively and to strive for victory.
The common misconception is that sportsmanship would restrict you. But that's wrong. Sportsmanship represents no restriction for a good player. Being skilled and playing effectively and successfully while playing sportsmanlike is no contradiction.
In fact I believe that such players are held in higher regards and are more respected than skilled players who display poor behaviour.
BTW, sportsmanship does not presuppose skill. I think a player has much more chance to gain some respect while not being very skilled (yet) when being sportsmanlike than otherwise. Nobody respects an asshole that isn't even skilled :-)

But of course it could have an impact on that precious personal score of yours.
To disregard sportsmanship and to go deathmatching, or respawn camping, or to join the leading and more skilled team works often wonders on a personal score. And a lot of people like to define their level of skill by personal score (lol).
After almost 2 years I still fail to see what people draw from their personal score on pub games and how people can take pride or joy from their score when the game offered few comptetition. (Not to mention that both personal score and even the team score is rather fleeting as much as pub games are concerned.)

In my opinion there is nothing more enjoyable than playing on a server with a good and friendly atmosphere, where people treat each other with respect and where the game is tough and competitive without cheap tactics and poor behaviour.

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