Likewise, during a match of Quake II sometime in the late %26lsquo;90s, I allegedly sniped my friend with a rail gun during the battle of Q2DM1. And, like the poor Sgt. Grace in his fictionalized story, I was immediately fragged by an opposing marksman.
Above: An 1864 wood engraving depicting Civil War sharpshooters
Since the maps of Quake II and the like were generally cramped, these front-of-the-line skirmishes were the general way of things.Some camped,but even more jumped around like Moon Shoes never went out of style and fired rail gun slugs with considerable leads, hoping to prove dominance by being the first on target. The same goes for Quake 1,in whichwe learned to %26ldquo;circle strafe%26rdquo; with the nailgun.
Mods and the devious quick scope
In the late %26lsquo;90s and early 2000s, Quake and Half-Life mods like Action Quake II, Day of Defeat, and Counter-Strike introduced proper scoped rifles to online shooters,as well aslarger, more open maps. Still, a lot of action remained at medium range, and a whole lot of jerks learned the art of %26ldquo;quick scoping.%26rdquo; Quick scoping is the act of raising a rifle%26rsquo;s scope and firing at precisely the moment the crosshairs appear over a close-range target. It takes some practice, but when used well it%26rsquo;s painfully effective.
Above: Sniping from a bell tower in the original Day of Defeat mod, which was no good for quick scopingdue to itsslow transition to the scoped view
I%26rsquo;m not a fan of all that. Every multiplayer game will have exploitable mechanics, but I%26rsquo;m in it for the suspension of disbelief, not just to achieve more kills than the next guy. I like sniping because I like being a sniper. I like hiding in the brush, I like waiting, and I like scoring hard-fought kills from great range. Running around all exposed-like would have gotten you killed awful fast in the trenches of World War I...
