it isn't for boosting, grifball is supposed to be fun. sometimes the games are quick yes, but that just means your team either really sucked or really owned. the ball is for planting, so it esplodes
So if I'm holding the ball, dancing around mid court while my teammates kill you, you're able to tell that I'm doing it for credits, instead of for kills or commendations or to be a douchebag? Hm.. you should talk to some network producers about getting your own Psychic talk show.
I could care less why someone is being a douche. It's all based on ruining the game for personal profit, so why go any deeper? I really don't know what you think we would accomplish by analyzing, or even caring about, something that trivial.
I don't know why you'd make the assumption that I (or we) care. And because I like analyzing things, just for the heck of it. I just wanted hypothetical-you to think before you called someone a douchebag for farming credits when you don't know why they're being a douchebag. It's a life lesson, really. Don't make presumptuous judgments.
*Sigh* Someone comes up to you, punches you in the face repeatedly and walks off without explanation. Do you sit there thinking "I could call that person a douchebag, but I don't know why they did that. They could have some personal problem with me, they could just enjoy hurting people for no reason, or maybe they had a bad day and simply took it out on me as someone nearby?" What we are saying is that none of us care why they're being a douchebag, the simple fact is that they are, and so without even going in to why, we are safe in coming to the conclusion that they are, without a shadow of a doubt, acting like a doucebag, and move on with our lives. I know there are certain holes in the above parallel like small possibilities of other reasons, a mental incapacity or some such, which would arguably make that action excusable in terms of moral judgement. But in terms of the possible reasons I listed above there is no such opening for excusing the action, which serves as a parallel to this discussion because the same is true here. tl;dr: everyone in this discussion (except you apparently) couldn't care less why they are doing what they're doing, the fact is that they unquestionably are for their own enjoyment/benefit at the cost of the same in others. Knowing why someone performed an action that can have no excusable motive is not a pre-requisite to condemning them for it. Now that is a life lesson. Is there something to be gained in principle from understanding why people do the things they do, even without excuse in any possible answer? Yes, a furthered personal understanding of human nature. Even aside from the fact that the different reasons yield little in terms of insight in to the human mind, since they are all pretty much equal in motive and train of reasoning, I appreciate the tiny but notable point you are making that saying 'they are a douche for farming credits' is a premature assumption even if 'they are just a douche' isn't. However, let's journey back to the beginning of this discussion. No one except pyro even arguably stated that they conclusively knew the reasoning for bomb holding. Neoshadow mentioned two possible motives, thus arguably allowing for the potential for more and even if not he didn't specifically state them as lone possibilities. Megapwn even went so far as to include a varied list of possibilities, which you yourself did not dispute as being pretty all encompassing. Even pyro's post, the most questionable in terms of definitively specifying the motive for bomb holding past strategic means, doesn't go so far as to state that it was the only reason, and I at least take from it a simple implication that this is just the most common or likely reason for it, since I credit pyro with more than enough intelligence to realise that there are other motives like high multikill medals, commendations, challenges or sheer sadistic enjoyment. Whilst it does remain the most questionable post in this sense, when considered in light of your first post in this thread, I think even that question is pretty much negated too: Firstly, you yourself do not account for the other possibilities in inexcusable motive aside from credit farming, only presenting a set of two alternatives in terms of either A) doing it for inexcusable reasons (with the sole example of credit farming, thus putting you on a level with pyro's response and meaning you can't question the nature and implication of his post without hypocrisy) or B) doing it for excusable, even logical reasons in terms of strategic decision making whilst still aiming to plant. Which is funny, because thereafter in the discussion (after I point out that there are as close to definitive ways as possible to rule out strategic reasons) you change angle completely and start to argue that what you originally said about not being able to tell and "assumptions" was based on the difference between inexcusable reasons. I originally credited you with a simple misunderstanding when we were discussing this, but on reflection I think that was a mistake. At the risk of, rather ironically, coming off as presumptuous, I'd say that it is at least safe to assume that you made a point in a rather brash and unconsidered manner, realised the flaw in said point shortly after, and have spent the remainder of the discussion since trying to backpedal so you can avoid just putting your hand up and saying 'I was wrong.' So, let me leave you with one final life lesson, though perhaps more specific to yourself than a general comment on how to approach discussions: you don't know squat about being pedantic. I suggest you brush up before trying it again with such a condescending attitude.
Well excuse me for not being so specific in my first post. I was generalizing Neoshadow's post about "commendations or credits" by saying "credits." Excuse me for not typing out "commendations or." Would that have satisfied your need for utter specification? I think we're all smart enough here to make implications. What I've been saying this whole time- as in, not changing my story- is that you can't call someone out for one reason in particular (credit farming, commendation farming, etc) when there are any number of "reasons" they might be holding the bomb. None of which are excusable, except for "waiting for a wall to run behind," which would be holding the bomb for strategy. When it's obvious that they're holding the ball, call them a douchebag. I would. But don't call them a "farmer" or a "selfish jerk" (for those just being a jerk and killing you with no other aim), because you don't know which it is. I'm not trying to excuse holding the bomb, I'm not trying to say that they're not being a douchebag, and I'm not trying to say that you need to know why they're doing it. I'm saying you can't reasonably conclude why they're doing it. But it doesn't matter why- if they're doing it, call them a douchebag. You've got plenty of reason, of which you don't need any more. It's like saying "he killed her!" You're right, he did kill her. But you can't say "he killed her with a lead pipe in the Billiards Room!" with that same level of evidence that you had to first make the "he killed her!" claim. You'd first have to do more research and investigating before making those claims. But in this case, nobody cares (or should care) to do that research and investigation. It can be left as simple as "he's just a douchebag." But when you go further and say "he's being a douchebag by credit farming.." that's when you're making baseless claims, just the same as "he killed her with a lead pipe in the billiards room." So call me pedantic, whatever. I just don't like seeing people make baseless claims like they're omniscient or some crap. Analyzing things is fun, anyways. Edit: Excuse me, I meant "a challenge or credits" not "commendations or credits" in my first paragraph.
I wasn't criticising your post, just like I wasn't criticising pyros which I directly paralleled it with. I was merely pre-empting the only possible counter to my point that no one actually said they could tell why people were holding the bomb, they merely said that you could that someone was holding the bomb. Read your first post again, particularly this sentence: There is no possible way that could be interpreted as discussing varying inexcusable reasons. It can be summarised as "sometimes people hold the bomb because it's the smart thing to do when trying to score, rather than rushing forwards straight away." That is an excusable reason, which was your original and sole point with that post. Only after I pointed out that it was often possible to tell the difference between this and holding for credits/kills/any other inexcusable reason did you start to talk about telling the difference between these inexcusable reasons. You're saying that now. But again, I'll point out that the only reason that deciding what motive they have for being a douche came up is because you brought it up, in response to your point about holding strategically/holding to be an ass being countered. Again, no one claimed to know why specifically they were doing it, past the fact that it often isn't for strategic/fair game reasons, until you started telling people they couldn't tell for sure. I know this has gone pretty far, I just don't take particularly well to people coming in and trying to call me or others out as naysayers when we're having a perfectly legitimate discussion, only to change tack after the point is debunked. In principle I agree that analysing things is indeed pretty fun, probably why I took this discussion so far .
I'm glad we have similar motivations. You don't have to claim you know why someone is doing it. My initial response was aimed at Neoshadow and pyro who both mentioned that players were "playing for credits." To which I reply, "You don't know if they're playing for credits." That's basically what started this whole thing. I read their replies and I thought to myself, "man, these dudes must be psychics." So.. here we are, on a forum for a game discussing the merit of considering the motivation behind holding a virtual bomb in a game. I'm more of a "don't judge a book by its cover" kind of guy. The bomb holders are all in the douchebag section of the library, basically, because that's what genre they are. But, to me, there's no further classification than "douchebag"- there are no "credit farmers" or "commendation farmers" or "douchebag douchebag" sections, because I wouldn't know how to classify each book. Then I see guys in this library, basically putting on a blindfold and shelving the douchebag books in particular sections. So I'm all, "whoo-oo-oa, Nessy."
What? ^ What this guy said. If I have moldy bread, should I hold off on throwing it away untill I know why it's moldy?
Nice try! You left out "for farming credits" on the green text. So that's "think before you called someone a douchebag for farming credits when you don't know why they're being a douchebag." No, I've said it already. You don't need to know why they're being a douchebag in order to call them a douchebag. You just need to know that they're being a douchebag, and holding the bomb fits that well. But, you don't know why they're holding the bomb, so calling them a douchebag for a particular reason isn't warranted. So, for moldy bread, you would just throw it out. In this case, it's reasonable to assume that the bread molded for one of two reasons- if it was out of date or if you left it sitting out. So that's not really a good example. I still like my example of murder. You can say with some small amount, X, of evidence that Johnny killed Sally. But with that same amount of X evidence, you can't go on to say that Johnny killed Sally with a lead pipe in the billiards room. That's when you're overstepping your evidence and stabbing in the dark. Not that it matters at all, mind you. It's more of a "just because" thing that I'm bringing it up. Maybe I'm trolling, and if I am, I'm doing a darn good job at it. But I'm not, I just like to argue.