DeCamper: The Democratic Camping Deterrent

The camping debate has raged for years. It will no doubt be opened up again by the re-release of this mod. But let's face the facts:

A significant percentage of people hate camping
A significant percentage of people like camping
A significant percentage of people don't mind camping
At any time on a Deathmatch server, the group of players may overall like, hate, or not mind camping.

To balance the concerns of the first group of people with the contrary wishes of the second and third groups, SteQve and the rest of Two Pole Software have brought DeCamper back to life, due in part to consistent requests over the past 11 months since its initial release.

Configuration Options

DeCamper 1.0 allows the entire group of players on a Deathmatch server to vote on whether or not to "punish" an accused camper. The server operator can configure options like:

How easy (or how hard) it is to vote someone a Camper
What sorts of "punishments" to inflict on someone who is voted a Camper
How often a vote can take place

When a player is DeCamped, the server operator can configure the server to do one or more of the following:

Set options to limit potential abuse of the voting system
Color the camper bright yellow
Deduct a number of frags from the Camper's score
Limit the amount of damage a Camper can inflict on others
Prevent the Camper from picking up powerups, weapons, armor, or ammo
Immediately replace any item picked up by a Camper
After a period of time, the camper is UnDeCamped and is treated like a normal player

The server operator can configure penalties to be as mild as possible (just coloring the Camper yellow) or as harsh as possible (deducting a large number of frags and preventing them from picking anything up). It is up to the current set of players on the server to determine if penalties are too harsh.

Limiting Potential Abuse of DeCamper Voting

After DeCamper's initial release, several people, including legion in his review of DeCamper at http://www.inside3d.com, expressed valid concerns that DeCamper could be abused in order to decamp people who aren't camping, e.g. the best players; or, in team situations, there is a concern that one team could "decamp" an entire other team to gain advantage. Legion correctly observed that DeCamper has a large potential for abuse. However, that can only occur with extremely improper settings by the server operator.

DeCamper has several capabilities which try to limit abuse of the voting system. In addition, its high configurability can allow server operators to punish campers mildly or severely. This is alluded to in the DeCamper.txt README file and the DeCamper.ini initialization, but it appears that a more complete explanation is necessary.

DeCamper provides several options which, if set correctly, can limit or eliminate the abuse of the voting system:

The minimum number or percentage of yes votes can be set to a high number. If the server operator defines a yes-vote percentage of 75% or higher, then it would require more than 75% of the voting community to be "whiners" or "cheaters" to vote to DeCamp someone who shouldn't be DeCamped. It's probably safe to say that less than 75% of the Quake player community falls into this category.
Immune time for campers. If someone is DeCamped, once they are UnDeCamped (i.e. a regular player again), they are immune from being nominated again for a period of time. The server operator can make this "immune" time as long or as short as deemed appropriate.
Immune time for failed nominees. If someone is nominated to be a camper but the vote fails, that nominee is immune from being nominated again for a period of time. Presently this is the same amount of immune time as for campers, but this will be made a separate option in the next version.
Forced delays between votes. A "mass-decamping" activity is not really feasible in DeCamper because only one vote can occur at a time. Also, the server operator can configure a delay between successive votes. Thus the "mass clan decamping" scenario outlined by legion is not feasible with reasonable delays between votes.
Other restrictions in future releases. Other restrictions are planned for future releases. For example, a person who nominates a camper won't be allowed to make another nomination for a server-defined period of time. There may also be an absolute limit on the number of active campers at any one time.

The best settings will likely evolve over time, and will depend on server operator preferences.

One other thing to consider is that it is my opinion that most Quake 2 players are "honest" players who wouldn't vote to DeCamp somebody they didn't believe (or didn't know) was camping. Perhaps this is incorrect, but the truth will reveal itself in servers that use DeCamper.

For Those With Concerns About Punishing the Camper Too Much

The server operator can configure DeCamper to punish a camper severely, or to punish a camper extremely mildly. On the mild end, the camper glows yellow, but that's it - they can still pick up powerups, they do the same amount of damage, etc. On the extreme end, they can be made to do 0% damage, lose 100 frags, unable to use powerups, etc. The thing to remember is that the camper is punished according to a policy as defined by the server operator. This policy effectively defines the "rules" that the server operator has about camping.

DeCamper can be configured so that the *only* punishment for a camper is to make them yellow.
DeCamper can be disabled entirely by the server operator, by setting the minimum percentage of yes votes to a number greater than 100. This would make any vote fail.
The server operator can decide how many frags to deduct. The operator can choose not to deduct any frags at all.
The server operator can allow the camper to pick up powerups.
The server operator can allow the camper to do normal damage, just like everybody else.
The server operator doesn't have to automatically replace powerups, weapons, etc. taken by campers.

Pro Campers

Check out CampQuake for an interesting pro-camper site.

Source Code Release

This is the first and only official release DeCamper source code. If an established mod author wishes to take over maintenance of this code, please contact SteQve.

Downloads

Automatic vs. Democratic DeCamping

There have been ideas and suggestions about automatically punishing campers. One of the potential problems with automatic "decamping" is that it may be imprecise as well; campers may learn how to move around "just enough" to slip past automatic detection. The automatic detection could also incorrectly identify or punish someone as a camper. In addition, if the people playing on that server at that time don't WANT to punish any campers, they don't necessarily have control over that.

A hybrid approach to decamping may be the proper solution. Automatic detection could be used to "nominate" campers, and the player community decides whether the nomination is valid or not. Thus "good players" will never be automatically "detected" and so could never be nominated.

Hopefully, future releases of DeCamper will further attempt to limit improper DeCamping, while giving the players a formal "voice" in the game regarding whether camping will be tolerated or not.

An old response from the initial release of DeCamper

Unfortunately but predictably, the release of DeCamper fueled the camping debate. We didn't want to enter or challenge the camping debate, and in fact we're not particularly pro- or anti-camper ourselves. People expressed a desire for such a tool and we provided one. The camping debate will rage on regardless of the success or failure of any anti-camping mods.

DeCamper 1.0 (or its successors, or any anti-camping mod) is available to server owners to use IF they want to. Server operators have the freedom to run DeCamper, or not. They have an option to punish a camper severely, or not. Players have the freedom to join a server that runs DeCamper, or not. The players on that server can decide whether to allow camping, or not. While DeCamper has its limitations, it is still an open question as to whether or not such a tool should be used even if it eliminates abuse. We think it is up to the individuals' freedom of choice whether or not to use this or similar tools.

In some sense, going to an anti-camping server is similar to going to a CTF or Team Fortress server, or one with a weapons mod. If you want a particular style of game play, you go to a server that offers it. Like these other mods, DeCamper changes the game play.

Go back to SteQve's No Frills Quake Mods Page

This page has been accessed times. It was last updated 12/16/98.