Be Excellent To Each Other

Terry's Cock said he didn't like the look of CODBLOPS because the new gadgets and features made people more likely to camp.

I started playing FPS multiplayer with Quake 3 and Half Life, and moved onto Counter Strike during its early beta days. Counter Strike wasn't called Camper Strike by idiots for nothing, the game encouraged the Terrorist team to dig in and stop the Counter-Terrorist team from rescuing the hostages. Later versions of the game added a bomb so the CT team could camp too (but there were always two bomb targets, so the team had to split up). Anyway, it was ace, and became the official game of the Internet for about eight years. And, when you played in leagues or 'proper' matches, no-one complained about campers, because camping makes perfect sense.

It doesn't matter what the game is, if there are people running around with guns only proper idiots would be out in the open. The smart players, much like you would in real life, find themselves a little bolthole, lock the door behind them and start racking up the kills. There can be two reasons why this pisses people off.

1) The game does indeed make it too easy to camp - regenerating health is a big help, map design that allows only one line of sight to a hidey-hole, zoomed rifles that are too powerful or fire too rapidly, things like that. Obviously it's no fun getting shot every time you walk around a corner, but that's probably because
2) You're not very good, or, perhaps more accurately, you're not being very sensible. I don't want this to sound like "wah wah wah you're not playing it 'right' way" but if someone keeps shooting you every time you walk around a corner then you're doing something pretty wrong. In CS (playing as a proper team, at least) you might lose one team-member to a camper, maybe two if you were unlucky, before someone sings out, two people sneak off to flank the campy camper and one stays behind to throw the odd bit of distracting fire at him. One carefully-aimed headshot later, and on you move. Campers die just as easy as anyone else (easier, in some ways, because their attention is normally focussed in one direction).

Now, I know that often (like, 99% of the time) that situation won't arise, because people you play with are dicks and won't talk to each other, or stick together as a team, blah blah - but that isn't the camper's fault. You can get annoyed and call him a n00b fagosaurus all you like, but at the end of the day he's not the one dying, is he?

[Note] I'm aware this post doesn't translate well to 1 on 1 deathmatch games, but they're rare nowadays anyway.

Finally, if you get sick of people playing objective games and other players not communicating or even playing toward the objective...come and play with us*!

CS certainly wasn't fun when they had a gun that you could shoot someone in the toe with and kill them instantly (also completely unrealistic). I believe they fixed that later but I had already moved on to something a little more balanced.

(also completely unrealistic)

Yeah, the AW-P. It's still brutally powerful but in the early versions it reloaded so fast it was practically a semi-automatic.


If you get shot in the toe with a high-powered sniper rifle, you are going to lay on the floor and cry about it. You'll probably go into shock, too. You version of realism seems to be based on Rambo

Surely most of the zombie team in L4D2 vs mode will camp ahead of the survivors?

And die as soon as someone breathes at them.

Can't be bothered. Left 4 Dead's non co-op multiplay can go and suck a testicle.

Am I the only person that doesn't know what cess means?

Am I the only person that doesn't know what cess means?

What happens in FPS games where both teams like to camp? A lot of staring at the scenery until one team loses their patience?

I don't play a whole lot of online games and have never taken any of the CODs for a spin online, but I did go through a fairly heavy patch of playing Killzone 2 online. The whole gameplay style and map design in that lent itself very well to camping, as you'd naturally want a few guys on your team taking up sniping positions by your enemy's mission objectives to provide proper defence.

However, the maps were all designed in such a way that for all the nooks and crannies in each map, there was never really anywhere that didn't have multiple access points, so the trick was to simply learn where people were camping and approach from an angle they wouldn't be expecting or weren't adequately covering.

That was a fucking great game online... Might have to dust off the PS3 when I get in!

I don't play a whole lot of online games and have never taken any of the CODs for a spin online, but I did go through a fairly heavy patch of playing Killzone 2 online. The whole gameplay style and map design in that lent itself very well to camping, as you'd naturally want a few guys on your team taking up sniping positions by your enemy's mission objectives to provide proper defence.

However, the maps were all designed in such a way that for all the nooks and crannies in each map, there was never really anywhere that didn't have multiple access points, so the trick was to simply learn where people were camping and approach from an angle they wouldn't be expecting or weren't adequately covering.

That was a fucking great game online... Might have to dust off the PS3 when I get in!

I gotta agree with Grim…

There’s nothing wrong with hiding and shooting. One of my favourite multiplayer games of all time (which no one bloody plays) is Ghost Recon AW 2. The guns were lethal from any distance and a quick brap-brap was all that was needed to take down any opposing player. Games invariably play out with people creeping around the maps, holding down choke points and nudging forward to get the best spots. Games were tense affairs looking down the scope of your assault rifle (since assault rifles had just as decent scope as any sniper) trying to spot someone trying to cross open ground or nudge out from behind a wall.

It was all team deathmatch back in the day but not once did a game end in stalemate with neither team wanting to push forward. Everyone wants to get a kill so some impatient lot would rush off and get themselves killed or give the position away of the enemy while both teams unwittingly crept forward into the inevitable stand off.

And it was great: hiding and hunting. Best multiplayer experience I’ve played bar none.

The best thing about MW2 is that you could potentially play any of the maps like GRAW2 or like Serious Sam. The problem seems to be that most of the time you’ll be playing with random people and you’ll never get either one type of game or the other (depending on what you want to play). I’ve played games on MW2 where there has been a loads of snipers on either team and it was fantastic - I’ve played Hardcore HQ on Rust and everyone seemed to have a rocket launcher and it was insane fun.

At the end of the day, it’s horses for courses. Camping is fun. Running and gunning is also fun. One game cannot however sustain both styles together without someone getting cheesed off in the process. Unfortunately everyone seems to be playing just one game.

I know this isn’t a thread about MW2 but there is a whole list of other problems with that multiplayer game (The endless single player quest for titles and emblems and not being able to turn off explosives, being my pet hates)(an explosives “off” playlist would be fantastic – keep on killstreaks though) but you and I know that the best games are with like-minded friends and MW2 is great in that the private matches are so versatile.

Killzone 2 online...That was a fucking great game...

Day of Defeat and Day of Defeat source had good objective based gameplay which kinda got around the camping problem, the game modes made the teams constantly push push push and going from 1-4 down to win 5-0 on a flag based map is excellent fun. Although it seems to be only me who ever played it.

I played the original but went back to CS after a few months. Didn't bother with Source because I was probably playing WoW or something.

Day of Defeat began as a modification for the game Half Life, before being updated to run on Half Life 2’s Source engine. It is a multiplayer first person shooter set in World War Two. Players are on either the Axis or Allied team and the object of the game is to secure objectives. These objectives can be as simple as running over a flag, turning it to your sides colour, to planting a bomb on an installation, be it a tank, radio mask flak gun. Some flags take a longer time to capture, and some require two people to do so. There are many, many different maps.

Each map is well designed, with several objectives and several routes to each objective. Players will find themselves fighting uphill to take control of a town, fighting in narrow streets in the rain or enjoying the sunshine in a small hamlet. This creates for fast and flowing game play, with central objectives changing hands many times over the course of a round. Players can choose which side they wish to be on, but there’s an "Auto Assign" to keep the teams balanced in numbers at least, although, somewhat predictibly, this tends to put you on the Axis side. Some maps appear at first to favour one side over the other but this doesn't detract too much from the fun factor in the game play. The design of the maps make for fierce fighting over areas that allow an obvious tactical advantage, and taking and holding one of these is a fun and engaging challenge.

If you end up dying, you respawn back at your base in a short time. The respawn counter constantly ticks down, from about 20 seconds or so, meaning many people respawn at the same time, adding a feeling of waves of reinforcements appearing. Players score points by capturing these objectives, or preventing the capture of the, and these are more important than a good kills to death ratio. A typical round can be over in seconds or last the whole of the, usual, 20 minutes until the map changes.

There are classes of soldier to play, from accurate, powerful but slow loading rifles like the K98, to heavy machine guns like the MG44 which is useful to provide covering fire over an area to prevent access. Overall, the classes are fairly well balanced, and with there being nothing that is obviously overpowered, the limits on the number of each class per team helps this greatly. The difference in classes also changes how the play plays the game. In the Assault classes (MP40s and Thompson guns) running forward to capture points is your job, being the first one through a door way whilst the machine gunners and snipers are covering the flanks and the riflemen follow you to mop up and hold position until you respawn. Players also get grenades, which either explode or create smoke. Which grenades you get does depend on your class. A fun option is to choose the "random" class and return with a different weapon new each time you respawn. Aiming is the now standard “expanding Crosshair” device, whereas if you are running, your shots will be less accurate than if you were standing still, crouching or lying down. Deploying some weapons onto a biped is possible, giving great accuracy but a limited field of fire. Also, this makes the user vulnerable as they cannot move until they have un-deployed the weapon, which takes time, and as a fizzing grenade lands near them, time is an issue. Grenades can be thrown back, as they have a five second fuse. However the player can choose to ‘cook’ the grenade but holding it for a time before throwing it, making it explode sooner.

Graphically, it is beginning to show its age now, however, the speed of the game means you don't often notice this, as you are more concerned where those shots are coming from, does your machine gunner have the alleyway covered and where’s the backup? However, the smoke grenades do cause a bit of slowdown on your correspondents computer, but this is probably due to the age of the hardware, rather than the game itself. The different maps do have a varied visual style, and the Source engine handles objects thrown about by explosions and gunfire well. Sound is useful, as you run about there's a satisfying "clump" sounds which changes according to which surface you are walking over. Players can use these audio cues to get an early warning of an approaching enemy, and get ready for him as he comes around the corner. Shooting off a clip from an M1 carbine makes an appealing "PING!" sound, which is a nice touch, and the heavier machine guns are very loud and very bassy.

Overall, despite the game showing its age in both the graphics and the declining playerbase, it’s a solid enough shooter which you can play for short bursts, and those that play it do seem to be more mature than the titles dealing with more modern warfare (Servers tend to have their own communities with websites and take their admin roles seriously), and I would recommend it for both the causal and hardcore FPSer.

(Sorry for the lack of pictures, but I dunno where it stores the screenshots..)

EDIT: Here's my stats from one server. I'm always first over the top and into the line of fire. "Forwards, men! You didn't want that pension anyway!"

I had already moved on to something a little more balanced.

4) being hit with a 50cal bullet almost anywhere would kill you.

Ahem.

I don't think sniping has anything to do with it being unbalanced. I'm more concerned about ridiculous shit like heartbeat sensors, the knife-warping commando perk, noobtubes and ridiculous akimbo shotguns. It's a goldmine of cheap kills.

I'm not sure "in the ear defenders" can count.

Wait - is that a real thing?

Killstreaks don't encourage camping in MW2 (unless you're defending an objective). It's exceedingly hard to get a big one (wahey!) without moving, unless you're playing against buffoons.

I've not played MW2 - is a killstreak "the number of people you can shoot without dying"?