by Cuddy, Luke
Let’s put this into a little perspective. You now know that in order to play a game of slayer at least some of the players must not camp. But you also now know that those who are moving around the map are putting themselves at risk. Putting those two thoughts together implies that some players must risk themselves in order to keep the game going. Ultimately, legitimate frustration stems from those individuals who are trying to play the game, are thereby forced to take risks, but who are forced also to compete with individuals who do not see the bigger picture or who do not care. Those that camp benefit from those poor saps who run around the map to achieve a greater good. The tension and hostility between campers and non-campers in a slayer type game—in its purest theoretical form—is a tension and hostility between egocentric free riders77 and those that are working to keep the game going. It is a matter of fairness and getting what you deserve.
Spawn Camping
Now, of course, it is the way of the philosopher to shoot for the most theoretic and often esoteric explanation of a problem possible, even when a simpler explanation is readily at hand (Occam’s Razor out the window!). Even Socrates who claimed regularly to speak like the common people, rarely made his point without making some mind-bendingly complex arguments. However, if we want to call campers to the mat, and truly make a mockery of their behavior, then we will do well by our argument to make the strongest case possible against the fairness of camping. We certainly can’t do this if people don’t understand what we’re talking about, and admittedly, talk of game-theoretic and dominant strategies was probably over the heads of those campers who end up ruining what would otherwise be a good match. It certainly didn’t change the minds of those we most need to eliminate from our games. We need a simple example.
Spawn camping is probably the clearest example of what we would want to call an unfair or unsportsmanlike form of camping. We’ve seen how camping can be legitimate in some forms, and so instead of muddying the waters of debate by equivocating on the types of camping we might not like, we can focus on this obvious example. Spawn camping occurs when the camper’s strategic location allows them to frag opposing team members shortly after they have entered or re-entered the game. Entering the game or reentering the battle after you have been fragged is often referred to as spawning, hence the name. The camper’s position has been strategically chosen because they know this is where the opposing team spawns, and thereby makes them relatively easy targets.
This type of camping is thought of as unfair, since it doesn’t allow the spawning team an opportunity to fight back. This strategy can be so dominant and prevalent in certain game types that if players are intent on spawn camping, then it takes a change in game design to prevent it. The issue we’re looking at here is basic to the question of whether games should be designed to prevent this behavior. We can’t simply assume that they should. We need to explain why this is unfair and what problems come from it. Since spawn camping can occur in any type of game and it is advantageous to do it in virtually all types, the question as to whether or not this is a good or bad way to play is a significant philosophical issue.
Determining the standing of spawn camping is a matter of evaluation, and evaluation is the process of making a determination about the value or worth of some thing or action. Oftentimes people refer to this as giving an “opinion” about the thing or action in question. Tragically, that term has an unfortunate history in our educational system, which trivializes the importance of these evaluations. Children are taught from elementary school on that there is a difference between facts and opinions, and that facts are things that can be proven true or false while opinions cannot. The result of this logic is that opinions are often thought of as things we cannot argue about, since we can’t prove them to be true or false.
As you might expect, the truth is actually far more complicated than this. Proving something to be true requires an entire theoretical framework, including criteria for what counts as evidence. At best these frameworks, like those foundational to scientific reasoning, have been proven practical or reliable. Of course, if that is our standard—being practical or reliable—then opinions and evaluations are equally justifiable, since they are at their core practical, and when done well, reliable. It’s good enough for our purposes if we grant that evaluations, judgments of value, or determinations of value are considered better or worse depending on the reasoning that supports them. Making a claim that spawn camping is wrong, unfair, or unsportsmanlike depends on whether or not those descriptions aptly apply. And this requires an argument and reasoning to prove that those terms do in fact apply.
We’ve already seen that people often equivocate when they make evaluations. Terms like “right,” “wrong,” “good,” “bad,” “fair,” “unfair,” “sportsmanlike,” and “unsportsmanlike,” are evaluative words. They describe things much like any other way of describing something. For example, if I say that a table is two yards long and one yard wide, then I have described that table. Anyone I’m speaking with who understands what a yard is and what a table is now has a better idea of the table I’m talking about. If I say the table is white and good for writing on, then anyone I’m speaking with who understands what white is and has an understanding for the process of writing, now knows even more about the table.
You could, of course, disagree with me about any of these things I’ve said about the table. You might, for example, measure the table, and show me that the table is not actually two yards long. In which case, my original description of the table would have been inaccurate. When a way of describing something does not fit the way a thing actually is, in this case the table, then we have inaccurately described the thing in question. This happens in the sciences when a thing or event is described inaccurately, just as it happens in evaluations.
How does this all matter for evaluating spawn camping? Well, the problem we want to avoid is making an evaluation based on criteria that are unclear or not shared among most other users of the words. We can argue about the length of the table, because we actually agree on what a yard was. In the same way, we can argue about whether or not spawn camping is good and fair, or bad and unfair, provided that we share some understanding of what those words mean. In this way, we avoid equivocating, and we can have a substantive discussion. The upshot of all this intellectual effort is that we can stop acting and thinking like the children who often dominate us in online battles.
Covering Values
Covering values are the values we employ when we make a comparison between two or more things. Typically, a covering value is used to compare two things that are similar in some ways but different in others. For example, the expression, “You’re comparing apples and oranges,” is a good example of when a covering value might be used. Even though apples are different than oranges, that doesn’t mean we can’t compare them. Further, it doesn’t imply that we can’t decide one is better than the other. What it does mean is that when we do make a determination that one is better than the other, we must be very clear why and how we made that determination. When we evaluate two things so that we can make a comparison to determine which is better or worse (or if they are the same), we use some set of criteria to determine the “pros” and “cons” of each thing we are evaluating. Once we have our lists of what’s good about a thing and what’s bad about a thing, we then use those lists to compare. For apples and oranges, we can compare these fruits using a covering value, and we can determine that one fruit is better than the other with respect to that particular covering value.
So suppose I decide that oranges are better than apples, and you disagree. To understand our disagreement, and to determine if I have correctly assessed the apple and orange, we must first unpack the covering value I used to make the comparison. Let’s say that you ask me why it is that oranges are better than apples, and I respond that oranges are more acidic and juicier than apples. I have just listed two criteria for evaluating these two fruits. My covering value for the comparison is comprised
of these two things. Based solely on the criteria I have set out to make the comparison—acidity and juiciness—I am correct that oranges are better than apples.
Two different things might occur to you at this point: 1. acidity and juiciness are not the only things good about a fruit, or 2. acidity and juiciness are not relevant to how good a fruit is at all. If either of these things are your objection to my assessment of the orange and apple, then you’re objecting to my use of the covering value that evaluates based on those criteria. You are not actually objecting to the aptness of my evaluation. In other words, you haven’t objected to whether or not I was correct in describing the orange as juicier or more acidic. The important thing to learn from this is that you can agree with how I applied my evaluation, but disagree that my evaluation accurately captured what it means to be a better fruit in those circumstances.
How does all this matter for spawn camping? Well, deciding whether or not spawn camping is something that someone should or should not do in a game depends on how we evaluate it compared to the alternatives. In other words, when we choose to spawn camp over playing the game in another way, we have essentially evaluated spawn camping as better than the alternative. To make this sort of evaluation, we need a covering value. The question now is: What covering value are people using when they make that choice, and is that the covering value that ought to be used?
From the outset, when we talked about types of camping we did so with regard to the strategic advantage that camping provided. And if camping didn’t provide any advantage, then it wasn’t worth doing. In that context, we assumed that the criteria for what made camping good was whether or not it led to winning the match. Although we weren’t being explicit about it from the start, it turns out that the covering value we employed was one that measured how well a particular action in an online match helped us win. Hence, when camping caused the game to fall apart because all the players camped and no one came out of hiding, we decided camping was bad because the consequences were that no one could win. Similarly, spawn camping will be evaluated based on the results it produces.
Well, what are the results of spawn camping? It’s an easy way to rack up kills, and if you’re playing slayer or team slayer, then that’s certainly the path to victory. In other game types, spawn camping is advantageous because it keeps your opponents busy and away from their goal, in which case, spawn camping again puts you on the path to victory. So by all accounts, spawn camping is an effective strategy for winning matches. It might even be the most effective strategy, in which case, it is the smartest way to play. Rather than disparaging the spawn camper, we should do our best to be more like him.
At this point, you may be experiencing a bit of discomfort.
ResPwn
Can this be right? We agreed from the outset that spawn camping was unfair and we agreed—for those of us who understood the argument—that the problem with camping in general was that it led to unfair situations in which some players were forced to take risks simply so that the game could be played. Doesn’t the same argument apply to spawn camping? It would be nice if it did, because then we would have a good argument against spawn camping. Unfortunately, there’s an important difference between camping somewhere on the map, and camping at an opposing team’s spawn point. Care to hazard a guess as to what that difference is?
Our covering value evaluates based on how effective a particular strategy is for winning a game. If everyone camps in a generic way—with no spawn camping—then no one actually goes out in to battle and no one wins. Since this proves a very ineffective strategy for winning, we had to conclude according to our covering value that this is a bad thing. On the other hand, if everyone tries to spawn camp, then players being victimized don’t actually get to play. They spawn into the game and are immediately fragged. In which case, regardless of the type of game you are playing, the first team to successfully spawn camp has rendered the other team impotent to do anything, and so, game over. Spawn campers win, and the only game in town from here until the end of time is spawn camping. Notice the difference? Spawn camping, regardless of the situation, actually has a winner. It does not undermine our achieving of the goal, which is to win the game.
What we can conclude from this is that if your goal is to win and it doesn’t matter to you how you achieve that goal, then you’re actually being foolish if you don’t spawn camp. According to our covering value, which is the same covering value we used before to evaluate camping in general, spawn camping is the best thing to do.
Turnabout’s Fair Play
So you might have thought from the introduction that this was a chapter on the evils of spawn camping, but now you’ve stumbled over my conclusion in support of spawn camping. You might say that I’ve been doing a little camping of my own, and while I’ve been waiting, since it took you so long to get here, I thought of some counter-objections to the objections you’re only just starting to form. So let me start by telling you what you’re about to say to me in rejection of my analysis, and I’ll conclude by telling you how right you are, so that I can frag you in the back at the end.
I think there are two major lines of argument to be used here. The first is that winning by any means necessary is not an appropriate way to win, and the second is that the act of spawn camping really undermines the type of game that is supposed to be played.
I’ll start with the second objection first, since I think it is the better of the two objections to spawn camping. If I sit down to play a game of capture the flag, domination, or king of the hill, then I have done so with certain expectations about how those games are played. The rules that guide those games have been constructed—at least they were intended—so that I am forced to think about more than simply fragging my opponent as many times as possible, and I have chosen to play them, because I did not want to play slayer or team slayer. Call me weird, but I like a little diversity. The problem with spawn camping is that it can completely eliminate the elements of the game I enjoy. While one team is effectively pinned down by spawn campers, the team that has successfully spawn camped may proceed to complete any other goals of the match unobstructed. The game strategy shifts back to the same old slayer strategy, and camping is the only game in town. If this is your objection to spawn camping, then we are in agreement.
Oh no, wait, we aren’t actually in agreement. The game type hasn’t changed just because one team uses a stregy that is so effective that the other team can’t retaliate. The rules are still the same, and one team followed those rules to victory. Just because your team fell victim to the strategy doesn’t mean it wasn’t a good way to win. Nor does it mean you were playing a different game. It just means one type of strategy works for a variety of game types.
As for the first objection, which I have for the sake of confusion dealt with second, the fact that someone does not like the way in which another person played the game—provided they played within the rules and did not force a shift in game type—does not appear to be anything more than saying, “I don’t like that. It’s not the way I do things.” This is a variation of, “you should win by being good at aiming and shooting, and spawn camping is a cheap way to win.”
It’s difficult to know quite how to reason with a person like this, since they’re being totally unreasonable. This game is a game like any other, because it has rules that lead to having a winner. If you’re not breaking the rules, then what is the difference in terms of fairness between your dying after I move my reticule over your character and your dying because your character was moved into my reticule? It’s true that one may take more skill than the other, but just because skill is involved doesn’t mean things are suddenly more fair. Skills take time to develop, time that appears to be wasted on middle-schoolers, high-schoolers, and socially awkward college students. How is it fair that they have all that time to develop their skills? It isn’t really.
The idea that these games should be won or lost based on skills is almost always argued for by people with those
skills, and the notion that camping or spawn camping is a perfectly legitimate way to win is often argued for by those smart enough not to waste their time developing those skills. As for fairness, that’s a concept trotted out primarily by the losers.78
Legendary
13
Sandbox Confrontations
SHANE FLIGER
At the heart of every Halo game and every player’s experience is warfare. It takes different forms, to be sure—the boots-on-theground First Person Shooter (FPS), the command-tent-presence Real Time Strategy (RTS) game—but it lies at the core of every experience crafted in Bungie’s gameworld.
Humanity launches latter-day spears and explosives, and in return the Covenant lets loose with bolts of energy from more starkly advanced plasma-based weaponry. While the series has expanded into table-top strategy games and numerous other genres of gaming it remains, at its heart, a series based on the immersion that only First Person Shooter gaming can provide. With the gun raised from the bottom of the screen and the HUD laid over the television screen, the player steps into a futuristic battlefield and fights for the salvation of humankind.
In the four FPS games within the Halo library, the player takes on the role of two vastly different human protagonists. The main protagonist, the Master Chief John-117, is a Spartan-II super-soldier clad in powered armor. He appears as the central figure in the main trilogy—Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, and Halo 3—as such, most of the plot is witnessed through his golden visor. The second human protagonist is the Rookie, an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper (ODST) who recently survived the near-annihilation of his unit and got assigned to another squad just prior to the game’s opening. Appearing in Halo 3: ODST, the Rookie’s story takes place simultaneously as the Chief’s during the time frame of Halo 2.