What is camping in a first person shooter?

How do you define camping in a first person shooter?
Is it a different than holding a position for a time?
Or, is it only a matter of degree?

Solution 1:

Camping, in a first person shooter (or any other pvp genre, really) is the act of waiting in a particular area to take advantage of the same players repeatedly.

Spawn Camping means lying in wait just outside the area where players respawn, killing them as soon as they are alive again.

Camping might have some overlap with holding a position, but most places considered "camping" aren't areas that would necessarily benefit from being held in the first place.

It is, however, a pretty subjective definition that multiple players will disagree over.

Solution 2:

You've pretty much answered yourself. Technically, camping is staying in one particular (and usually advantageous) position for prolonged periods of time. This can sometime be legitimate (snipers are prone to camping, once they find a good position from which they can pick off enemies and not be too exposed to retaliation) and sometimes illegitimate (spawn camping, for instance, which is the act of laying siege on an enemy spawn point to pick off newly spawned enemies which are usually disoriented by your unexpected presence there).

Of course, the legitimacy of the above examples is ultimately subjective.

And finally, as always, there's wikipedia.

Solution 3:

I'd say camping is exactly how you'd use the word in ordinary context, when you go some place with a tent and a campfire:

Staying at the same place for a long period of time.

Of course, this is subjective in a FPS, but it's primarily used when that given player simply stay that without moving much (like a roof or a building, or a ledge above an entry point).

Solution 4:

A camper is a person that sits in a corner or place where it is easy to frag people, but being fragged is difficult.

For example, in Chemical Reaction for Quake 3/Quake Live, a decent camping spot is the alcove in the shotgun teleport room -- I'm not talking about the easter egg "door". People coming from the nearby passage will turn left and turn you the back, at which point they will become easy targets.

Solution 5:

A camper is a person that stays in the same place for a long period of time, fragging people or shooting people that come in to your "tent"