Word: To tweak or not to tweak...
This is yet another edition of Word: an editorial from the brilliant CoD combatant and outstanding wordsmith, MorphineFiend. Mr. MorphineFiend has agreed to share his thoughts on CoD4 with the BASH...the blog readership.
All the opinions in Word are MorphineFiend's. So, if you have any issues or comments, please direct your fire to him. Lol. Please post any comments below, or email him directly at: morphinefiend@devil-dogz.com.
- Jock Yitch, BASH
Word: To tweak, or not to tweak...
May 22, 2007 Edition
by MorphineFiend
BASH Guest Editorial
Today I take issue with Stock or Modded, or as I like to call it…To Tweak, Or Not To Tweak. There are those who believe that Call of Duty 2 should only be played as packaged, and others who feel that you should be able to “tweak” any of the cfg files that come along with the game. I will try to remain as neutral as my beer allows me to be. We must try to look at both sides of the issue.
First off, we’ll start with the COD Purists. There is a consensus that the game was meant to be played and enjoyed as is. That is to say, that the game that Infinity Ward and Activision produced is the end all-be all game. There is no room for interpretation or improvement. A common argument seems to stem from the fact that no official expansion pack will be released from Infinity Ward and Activision. (For future references we will just call them IW/A.) These Purists have the same view as any writer has about literature: that any alteration of a work should only be able to modified by the author of such work, in this case, IW/A. There are numerous ways, of course, to modify the game, and Jock Yitch has covered some of the ways (through altering different lines in the various .cfg files.)
On the other hand, there are those gamers who believe that games can, and quite possibly, should be modified to gain the maximum fulfillment of the product. These gamers take the stance that the .cfg files belong to the game, a game in which they paid money for to begin with. That the game, is in fact, their property. Being such property, gamers have almost a right to alter any aspect of the game that they feel compelled to do.
So we have the basics covered. Now, we move on to possible moral and ethical implications involved. Through “tweaking” .cfg files, one is able to increase frames per second, greater sensitivity, control assignments, personalized binds, and such. But, where do these tweaks cross the line? When does adapting the game to fit a gamer’s style cross the proverbial mine field of morality? By tweaking the scripting and configs, gamers are actually giving themselves an edge over their less tech-savvy opponents.
After all, isn’t the game on a very fundamental and rudimentary level, merely a series of 0’s and 1’s? One would think so, but the answer to this issue is rarely clear cut black and white. Consumers buy products for many different reasons. One of the main reasons that someone decides and chooses to purchase an item is entertainment—their personal or family entertainment and amusement. That being said, the consumer has every right to enjoy their product in any way that will produce said entertainment and amusement.
While opening the door for a gamer’s personal amusement and enjoyment, we also open the door to public enemies. These public cancers are hackers: those who have manipulated code to enjoy and amuse themselves through the unethical equivalent of getting a leg up on the clean players.
So, the question still exists…to tweak or not to tweak. The way that I personally see it is this: it’s up to the gamer. There’s been a lot in the past few years of professional athletes “juicing.” Let’s, for a minute or two, look at Major League Baseball. Does the alleged juicing make the sport more interesting, or does it taint its history? In recent years, there has been an almost rejuvenated excitement around home run races. Surely, there is an increased interest in such things. However, there are those who believe that Roger Maris’ record should still stand. He was a purist. He didn’t need performance enhancing drugs to achieve the record. Clearly, there are two sides to that issue.
My point is this. Gaming is akin to sports. The issue is between what the masses like. Is it to play a pure sport, or to play an extreme sport? Sure, there needs to be some kind of basic set of guidelines of what is and what isn’t acceptable. For Call of Duty 2, that guideline is PunkBuster. Love it or hate it, PB does help, in its own way, of leveling the tweaked side of the field.
In conclusion, there is no definitive right or wrong answer. There are always at least two different sides to any issue, if not more. There are gamers that insist that bolt action rifles are the only way to play (no scopes might I add), while others think any weapon is fair play. When I sit down to play, I choose what server that I connect to. I know that if I connect to a pure server, what the game play will be like, what weapons I will be able to select, and so on and so on. It’s not a free world, but thankfully, it is a free cyberspace: a cyberspace that allows its users to come and go as they please, wherever he or she pleases. IW/A, to my knowledge, has not released any official position on the way their product should be played. That tells this humble gamer that it’s a matter of choice, a matter of preference, and a matter of self-governed integrity.
Word.
- Jock Yitch, BASH
Word: To tweak, or not to tweak...
May 22, 2007 Edition
by MorphineFiend
BASH Guest Editorial
Today I take issue with Stock or Modded, or as I like to call it…To Tweak, Or Not To Tweak. There are those who believe that Call of Duty 2 should only be played as packaged, and others who feel that you should be able to “tweak” any of the cfg files that come along with the game. I will try to remain as neutral as my beer allows me to be. We must try to look at both sides of the issue.
First off, we’ll start with the COD Purists. There is a consensus that the game was meant to be played and enjoyed as is. That is to say, that the game that Infinity Ward and Activision produced is the end all-be all game. There is no room for interpretation or improvement. A common argument seems to stem from the fact that no official expansion pack will be released from Infinity Ward and Activision. (For future references we will just call them IW/A.) These Purists have the same view as any writer has about literature: that any alteration of a work should only be able to modified by the author of such work, in this case, IW/A. There are numerous ways, of course, to modify the game, and Jock Yitch has covered some of the ways (through altering different lines in the various .cfg files.)
On the other hand, there are those gamers who believe that games can, and quite possibly, should be modified to gain the maximum fulfillment of the product. These gamers take the stance that the .cfg files belong to the game, a game in which they paid money for to begin with. That the game, is in fact, their property. Being such property, gamers have almost a right to alter any aspect of the game that they feel compelled to do.
So we have the basics covered. Now, we move on to possible moral and ethical implications involved. Through “tweaking” .cfg files, one is able to increase frames per second, greater sensitivity, control assignments, personalized binds, and such. But, where do these tweaks cross the line? When does adapting the game to fit a gamer’s style cross the proverbial mine field of morality? By tweaking the scripting and configs, gamers are actually giving themselves an edge over their less tech-savvy opponents.
After all, isn’t the game on a very fundamental and rudimentary level, merely a series of 0’s and 1’s? One would think so, but the answer to this issue is rarely clear cut black and white. Consumers buy products for many different reasons. One of the main reasons that someone decides and chooses to purchase an item is entertainment—their personal or family entertainment and amusement. That being said, the consumer has every right to enjoy their product in any way that will produce said entertainment and amusement.
While opening the door for a gamer’s personal amusement and enjoyment, we also open the door to public enemies. These public cancers are hackers: those who have manipulated code to enjoy and amuse themselves through the unethical equivalent of getting a leg up on the clean players.
So, the question still exists…to tweak or not to tweak. The way that I personally see it is this: it’s up to the gamer. There’s been a lot in the past few years of professional athletes “juicing.” Let’s, for a minute or two, look at Major League Baseball. Does the alleged juicing make the sport more interesting, or does it taint its history? In recent years, there has been an almost rejuvenated excitement around home run races. Surely, there is an increased interest in such things. However, there are those who believe that Roger Maris’ record should still stand. He was a purist. He didn’t need performance enhancing drugs to achieve the record. Clearly, there are two sides to that issue.
My point is this. Gaming is akin to sports. The issue is between what the masses like. Is it to play a pure sport, or to play an extreme sport? Sure, there needs to be some kind of basic set of guidelines of what is and what isn’t acceptable. For Call of Duty 2, that guideline is PunkBuster. Love it or hate it, PB does help, in its own way, of leveling the tweaked side of the field.
In conclusion, there is no definitive right or wrong answer. There are always at least two different sides to any issue, if not more. There are gamers that insist that bolt action rifles are the only way to play (no scopes might I add), while others think any weapon is fair play. When I sit down to play, I choose what server that I connect to. I know that if I connect to a pure server, what the game play will be like, what weapons I will be able to select, and so on and so on. It’s not a free world, but thankfully, it is a free cyberspace: a cyberspace that allows its users to come and go as they please, wherever he or she pleases. IW/A, to my knowledge, has not released any official position on the way their product should be played. That tells this humble gamer that it’s a matter of choice, a matter of preference, and a matter of self-governed integrity.
Word.
