Scripting

[old.Kardell]

Thats the problem with being a (moderate) newbie. You never know if the really interesting topic you just thought up and wanted to discuss has been done to death or not

Well so long as they are generally acceptable I'll keep cluttering up my display with any and all HUD's I can find

 

[old.Kardell]

How far can you go with tribes scripting before it becomes cheating?
The biggest problem I think is defining what cheating is. My take is that cheating is anything that is either

1) unsportsmanlike
2) not in the spirit of the game
3) contrary to the design wishes of the game author

Not exactly an exact definition, but its the best I can come up with. In his column Bigfoot suggests we should all use 'vanilla' tribes - no scripts at all. Perosnally I don't agree with this. Most scripts are no different from, say, a comm bind in TF (say 'incoming to flag'). Not part of the original game, but certainly not to the extent of being unsportsmanlike or against the designers wishes (why else does tf have say_team?).
However from looking around at the available options some scripts are a LOT more dubious. Bigfoot mentions one that help your aiming, which I think anyone would agree is an out and out cheat.
The problem I'm finding is the 'grey area' scripts. Ones that let you see while using an Inv station, ones that give you a radar HUD on the normal display (when previously you had to go to the commander screen and be 'blind' to you immediate surroundings).
While these scripts, and ones like them, may not be cheating they are certainly not part of the designers original intent.
How far can scripting go before it becomes cheating? If someone makes a script that confers a definite advantage (say a radar HUD) and doesn't make the script publically available is that cheating?
If the script is made public, giving everyone free access to it, is it then ok as no one gets an advantage over anyone else ('cept total newbies)?
What rules do the UKTL place on scripts (if any) and should they? Maybe all clan games should be 'vanilla' tribes to make sure the playing field is level. Assuming that is unpopular

how is it possible to regulate client side scripting at all? and should we?
Discuss

 

[old.[EM]vaggabond]

This discussion has been had around the world. Quake players, used to no help of enhancements at all, wonder about the ammount of things you can do.

There is no aim helper for tribes. The mHUD has reticles, which indeed help. The dev team left is possible to change the reticles for a reason. These do make life easier, but as everyone uses them, and they are available freely its a level playing field.

Fact is, and this is THE reason, is that dynamix put a scripting engine in the game for a reason. They have said this. It gives the game longevity for hardcore gamers. All scripting does really is automate stuff, beyond automation I think it is cheating, my opinion only tho.

Now with regards to the UKTL, there is very little you can do, as far as I know, to stop people using huds and scripts bar haveing 2 admins, one looking at each team.

I agree some scripts are bending the rules, the 'DeathDance' for example is not an automation of anything a player could do, yet it is lethal in maps like slowblind, in the flag room, if a heavy gets in there fires a couple of mortars, and presses the death dance key - everyone in the room is dead - no matter what.

I am not a huge fan of the script to throw all the mines and grenades one after another tto be honest.

But the dev team say scripting is OK, and people should script away. All the cheats in tribes have been taken out as they have been discovered, like the mortor bug and so on.

 

[old.suds]

Crunchy did a nice interview on Scripting a while ago http://www.tribesplayers.co.uk/cgi-bin/news/search.pl?keyword=crunchy

Have a look

 

[old.Ewan]

I think if you check out the 'Configs' thread on this board youll notice that most of the top players, from BL, EM, BR, etc, use very little in the way of scripts.

Presto pak is used almost 100% of the time, as well as communication binds scripts, but other than that theres very little useful ingame stuff.

The fact is most of the stuff from qw/q2 that caused the most problems are not possible in tribes. If you can put up with the fps sucking of the huds which put a map/zoomed area on your screen then go ahead, but there really isnt much use for them.

Ewan

 

[old.Plantpot]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Quake players, used to no help of enhancements at all, wonder about the ammount of things you can do.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Shoty script...cough

 

[old.Ewan]

*cough* aim-bot *cough*

 

[old.Crunchy]

I know Ewan was joking but the question of aim-bots has been cropping up time and time again. I can say this: it is impossible to make a client-side aim-bot script. If it was possible the scene would be awash with such scripts. Take the mortar bug (now squished) as an example, as soon as someone found out there was a bug someone else released a script for it.

Dynamix have done a very good job at ensuring that cheating using scripts is impossible. I know some ppl consider some scripts a grey area but these give you very little advantage. Scripters will tell you that Dynamix have done too good a job, you can't even find out the team scores!