🚀 go-pugleaf

"Joe Momma" <joe@mommadillo.com> wrote in message
news:el4e00h6qe3npc192cmmjarn3vd4ibmt5f@4ax.com...
> Some clown using the handle "Fathom" on 66.28.71.29 had the ability to
> wait in the water until an opponent entered, then discharge and kill
> the opponent without killing himself. (yeah, there were pents on the
> map, but pents only last 30 seconds and respawn every five minutes -
> he could do this all the time)  He could also discharge and zap
> someone who was nowhere near the water, again without killing himself.
>
> Anybody know what the deal is?

For this kind of cheat I'd say he would need to have control of the server.
With control of the server, you can do ANYTHING.

> What I really love is the idea that these idiots think anyone's buying
> that it's "skillz" that let them move so fast, jump so far, etc. etc.
> Unfortunately, the history of Quake is a history of lowlifes looking
> for bugs and holes they can exploit.  From the so-called "rocket jump"
> to "bunny-hopping" and proxies, there's simply no such thing as too
> much advantage for some players.  What's truly rich is when one of
> them then gripes at the lack of "challenge" to the game.

It's called getting good at the game. None of the things you mention above
(with the possible exception of proxies, depending on what they are being
used for) is in any respect "cheating." If you can't handle that some
players are better than you (can move faster, jump farther, rocketjump to
get places you can't or to get there faster, have better aim, know the map,
etc.) then that's your problem. (Though I've always thought Quake needed
different groups of servers for different levels of play - you wouldn't end
up playing tennis against Andre Agassi or basketball against Michael Jordan
as a beginner, would you? But in Quake we expect to mix all skill levels of
players up on the same servers.)

> Well, gee, doofus - if you want a challenge, try playing without
> cheating.  What an idea, huh?

The lack of challenge has to do with too few good players getting online and
playing. This has largely to do with the constant chase after the latest
graphics and other technological advances, so that people don't stick with
the same game for long. Unfortunately, computer game designers haven't yet
taken their products seriously as games (rather, they consider them to be
disposable light entertainment, to be replaced by the next version of
disposable light entertainment each year or two; continuity is only required
if it can be used to sell more of the next game), otherwise they would add
the latest graphics to a game system using the same "rules" (such as physics
and weapons behavior) as the existing game they should be trying to sustain
(as well as backward compatibility with existing maps of proven quality).
Chess and other games, as well as football, tennis, basketball, hockey, and
other sports, do not completely change rules, size of field and ball, number
of players per team, etc., every year! (And yet people keep playing them - I
wonder why?)

Quake, like many real games and sports (and unlike many other computer
games), is very sensitive to skill level. Unless players are VERY closely
matched in skill level, a game will be quite lopsided. This is actually a
good thing, so long as most of the time you can play against other players
of fairly similar skill level - it shows the game has depth and continues to
respond to increases in skill and experience almost without limit.
Unfortunately, game developers have tended, naively, to think this was a
deficiency to be "corrected", so when this happens they have typically
altered games so that skill and experience have less influence on the
outcome of the game (I'm not sure what takes their place - mostly random
chance, as far as I can tell).

Yes, there are numerous cheats in online Quake playing - mostly related to
seeing through walls and auto-aiming - but players can be 100 times better
than you (or 100x worse) even without resorting to cheats. Some have
complained that cheating started after Quake was open sourced, but none of
the cheats that showed up were new. They had been floating around for years
already. I'm not even sure if cheating is more common now.

BTW, proxies may legitimately be used to improve network performance,
facilitate communication with teammates, provide live broadcast capabilities
for spectators, and various other functions. Most common proxies do not
inlclude any "cheat" capabilities.