Topic: But was it cheating?

[PyroJockey]

  Back in a time when Descent was new my oldest son and I would spend countless hours stalking one another through the mines. I had my workstation in a home office upstairs while my son would use the family PC downstairs. We would take turns dialing in and selecting our favorite levels.

  Most of the time I would prevail, I must admit a wicked satisfaction when I could hear him cursing after I ambushed him, again, and I would tolerate his triumphant victory dance up the stairs, hooting all the way, when he would turn the tables.

  At some point I noticed a change in his patterns. Sometimes he would find me when I thought I was well hidden and other times he could not be found. I think it was my wife who clued me in as to what was happening. I had an infant daughter who’s bedroom was nearby and he was listening to me play over the infant monitor. Sneaky little bugger. He could hear the game sounds when I picked up an invul, and more important when it wore off, pick up a cloak, pass near the reactor, skim the lava, enter an energy center, and most important when I could hear him opening doors, picking up power-ups etc.

  So what to do with this knowledge? Turn off the monitor? Hell no! I used DTX to extract some of the sounds and assigned them to different keys, such as the flare would play the invul powering up, etc… Well the game play changed after that. I could be chased down a tunnel into a dead end room with 1% shields, fire a flare and he would turn tail and run. This worked for quite some time until one day he was playing single player on my machine and fired a flare and heard the invul power up.  Oh my God the look on his face when he put it all together and said “YOU CHEATED”! 

What do you think? 

[D2Disciple]

Cool story, Pyro. I think it needs to be "Soupeified" if it's alright with you.

I don't think it's cheating. It's exploitation, for sure, but it's not cheating. 

[PyroJockey]

Soup would be fine 

[Ronin RedFox]

Ahahahahaha, that story is amazing. 

[Scyphi]

I say the son cheated first, so this is perfectly fair. Give him a taste of his own medicine.

[Foil]

I just find it hilarious. 

[NUMBERZero]

Golden tactics! Switch it up every week or so... 

Is there a way to make a sound play a COMPLETELY different sound, not even from the game? Like D3 where you drop in a sound file with the name of the original sound?

[-<WillyP>-]

LOL... Great story. I would certainly not call that cheating under the circumstance. I play in the same room, right next to the kid's machine. It's hard not to look! But that would be cheating.

[Planet Orange [phx13]]

Definitely NOT cheating. As a competitor myself, you gotta do what you can to win.

[PyroJockey]

Is there a way to make a sound play a COMPLETELY different sound, not even from the game? Like D3 where you drop in a sound file with the name of the original sound?

If I recall correctly DTX will let you import sound files too, but that wouldn't have helped in this case. 

[-<WillyP>-]

It's more likely he cheated, then you let him hang himself, so to speak...

It's a fine line though, cheating, or just taking advantage of a situation. Would it be cheating in a tournament to listen for the sound coming out of the back of an opponents headphones?

[Scyphi]

I think that'd depend on how close you are to said person, and how loud that person has his sound turned up.

[-<WillyP>-]

In the context of a tournament, or even, say, a lan party, someone should say "hey, man, everyone can hear". But I would not fault an opponent for using information gleaned in this manner. Now, using a baby monitor to spy... that would be another matter altogether.

Although in PyroJockey's story, it's not like his son planted the eavesdropping monitor, he simply availed himself of an opportunity that presented itself. Actually I think 'unfair advantage' is the term I would use, and nullify any results from those games.

[NUMBERZero]

Revive.

Now that I look back at this, I think it is cheating on the son's part. That would be what most people would call "unfair advantages." If they can hear me and I can't hear them equally, I'd get ticked and do something about it. Technically, switching the sounds is legal because it is something that he could have done too. In my book, i say that "if we can both do it, it is not cheating (unless it's something really low)." For all you know, you could have been tinkering with the sounds one day, have him say you cheated, and have no clue what he was talking about.

Did you ever set one to sound like the Earthshaker? Try the vulcan or omega!

I should probably make a new topic, but...
I can't get the sound editor to install. I think it said that it can't find the correct files for something, but that might have been for something else. It was awhile ago. I'll find out tomorrow if you are reading this now. This will be edited out when I get the correct info.

[-<WillyP>-]

Cheating means breaking the rules. But some rules are 'unwritten', they are just understood to be there. This leaves a big grey area as to cheating or just taking advantage of a situation. I guess it depends on whether the participants had an understanding as to the unwritten rules, or, maybe, whether there was a reasonable expectation that certain unwritten rules would be followed.