I totally agree. "skiing" in tribes is another classic example. fun mechanics take priority over everything. after all, it's a game!
as an aside, strafe jumping is pretty similar to bunnyhopping in cs, probably because the source/goldsrc engine had its roots in quake code. I brought it up as a grey area. it's a fun mechanic, but timing is really important on cs maps, and it definitely breaks the balance on some of them. personally I think it was a mistake for valve to patch it out of the vanilla game (leagues, 3rd party servers, and matchmaking could have just disabled it through the svar), but that's all history now.
my main point is that the mere fact that games take place in virtual environments doesn't make whatever the client/server permits the ultimate law of the land. just like in real life, the rules of the game are the intersection of what's possible and what's fun.
as an aside, strafe jumping is pretty similar to bunnyhopping in cs, probably because the source/goldsrc engine had its roots in quake code. I brought it up as a grey area. it's a fun mechanic, but timing is really important on cs maps, and it definitely breaks the balance on some of them. personally I think it was a mistake for valve to patch it out of the vanilla game (leagues, 3rd party servers, and matchmaking could have just disabled it through the svar), but that's all history now.
my main point is that the mere fact that games take place in virtual environments doesn't make whatever the client/server permits the ultimate law of the land. just like in real life, the rules of the game are the intersection of what's possible and what's fun.