Is winning more important than the spirit of the game?
ust before I logged into MekTek's servers for a few multiplayer sessions of MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries, I checked MekTek's forums and found a thread titled "Unwritten Rules in MechWarrior."
What, asked the author, goes against the spirit of a game that embraces a cynical, mechanized 31st century? Two answers emerged.
The first: all's fair even in pretend war, so any winning tactic may be used, including: "legging," or aiming exclusively for an enemy 'Mech's legs to disable it; "poptarting," or launching straight up on jets from behind an obstruction to fire all weapons before dropping down behind cover again; or the oddly malign "stripping and leaving," which consists of carefully disarming an opponent, possibly "legging" his armored vehicle, and then leaving the player to restlessly spectate.
The second answer: Mercenaries, a game, should be fun, and sportsmanship demands some dignity be shown to others with whom you really aren't engaging in hostilities.
In Counter-Strike, there is "bunny-hopping." In Halo there is — righteously, perhaps, used to be — the "Noob Combo." In Chromehounds there was the "Double-Double." Clever and icily pragmatic players capitalize on game mechanics to develop a single design or tactic intended to win at a game as simply and consistently as possible.
As it happens, players on the MechWarrior server I joined soon after didn't try any of these gambits. I haven't had so much fun in weeks.
And I think that repetitive, expedient victories are hollow. What about you?
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