Squirreli

Yeah, it's not all black and white. Seemingly harmless hacks and exploits can have consequences though: Consider the current dupe-item-wave. Everyone and their mother seems to be sporting NVGs, rangefinders and AS50 since the tent/vehicle dupe bug showed up a few patches ago. Now it is increasingly easy to get a lot of super-rare items within the first hour or two of playing a new character, and thus gearing up is way too easy. Also, the dupe items can only be avoided by refusing to take anything from tents or dead players, which is often impractical. So, most players have something in their inventory that has been duped by someone. Since duping is so prevalent, people suspect all people who have geared up and instead of thinking "wow, thats a good player with good gear" are more likely to accuse them of duping. Same goes for hacks; good players get blamed for hacking, because hacking is so easy and there is relatively much of it... Oh, and you can explore the map on unpopulated servers or single player or private servers, can you not? tl;dr: In the long run, even relatively harmless hacks can lead indirectly to unwanted consequences.

My loadout is - at least I think so - perfect for my play style. When we are moving, I tend to be the point man / scout. When we raid stuff, I usually am on overwatch, and when our prey tries to escape, I'm usually hot on their heels. I try and rely on superior spotting and often direct squad mates to do the actual killing... thus: L85A2 AWS, DMR, M9, Ghillie, Coyote backpack, good medical kit, some food and water, rangefinder, NVG, all tools.

Btw. I changed a few lines before your answers were visible for me, didn't change them after your posts. Anyway... Sure they're your reasons. I just thought I'd argue for some other reasons for not cheating that I find more important than your reasons. I respect your right to your opinion even while I'm trying to persuade you to accept my opinions on the matter ;)

Couldn't let this pass. Sorry... But seriously, what the fuck? You think its just ok to hack, if the game is alpha? Also, no hacking because it disrespects the game and the developers? What happened to the real reasons of not hacking? Let me summarize them for you: In a multiplayer game, hacking spoils the gaming experience for other players and also usually for the hacker too. Hacking makes for frustrating and unfair encounters for other players. Of course some hacks are mostly amusing and harmless, but on the whole, hacking makes the game less fun and damages the community in the long run. Just see all the whine about hackers to see how many people it has really annoyed. Also keep in mind, that many experienced players are used to encountering hackers for years in different games and can't be bothered to make much noise about it. Exploits, while not really hacks as such, are also damaging to other players experience and to the community. This includes all sort of alt-f4 exploits as well as item duping, to name a few. Personally I would hand out bans to any player caught disconnecting from PvP. Maybe shorter than to "real" hackers but bans nonetheless. For me the assholes with quick alt-f4 are the worst thing about the game. In the last 15 hours playing the game, I've encountered 4 hostile players. Each and every one of them disconnected from PvP. Now, I do of course realize your post was about how you wouldn't cheat. I just thought your reasons revolved around self-centric views and thoughts. Your most important reasons seemed to be about "my experience might be less fun if I cheated" as opposed to "cheating makes game less fun for others and I have no right to cheat". There is a difference, although, of course, main thing is you oppose hacking ;) tl;dr: OP opposes hacking, a cunt (namely me) thinks the reasons OP opposes hacking for aren't the best ones around. Rant ensues.

Please check http://picacid.com/arma2/loot_en.html. You will notice that there is a 0.11% chance of item named PipeBomb spawning in the Barracks. That is, I believe, what is also known as a satchel charge.

Back when makarovs were standard issue, maybe 10-15 seconds. Spawn in the middle of a free-for-all, end up staying alive. After that, must be several minutes. The beach wars aren't that fun anyhow.

* When moving, have a designated point man that others follow. This makes identifying threats on the move much easier, as the point man can treat anything forward of him hostile. * Never unnecessarily engage when you do not have the upper hand. When in a bad position, do not hesitate to run. Retreat, regroup, re-asses and re-engage if possible. * Know distances to key spots even before you are in combat. This allows you to open fire quickly and accurately. * When you have the element of surprise, wait for a good moment and make first shots count. Try and have your squad open fire at the same time. * Realize, that every time you make noise, the clock starts ticking and some players might start heading your way. * Try and keep track of your squad at all times. If you are in a vulnerable position, keep making sure you know where your team is. This allows you to identify targets as hostile quicker and may give you the upper hand in a sudden engagement. * Stock up on medical items. I usually carry 4 bandages, 2 morphines, 1-2 blood packs and 1 epipen. Make sure your squad has a nice spread of medical items. This way you can put wounded and unconscious players back into the fight quickly. * The +1 rule: There is always at least one more hostile than you thought. Be prepared.

My regular server sometimes restarts again out of schedule, after the admins find out none of the vehicles and tents have loaded. Could be a buggy server restart... Oh, and once you get a helicopter up in the air, the hidden vehicles are much easier to find!

The game is best played with friends. I'd recommend getting a microphone and a VoIP software and playing with people you know are trustworthy. Teaming up on the field without any other ties outside Direct Chat/Voice doesn't really work well. When I recommend the game to my friends I also usually guide them through the installation, "babysit" them for a while and teach them the ropes. Just last night I guided 2 relative newbies. They got to log off with much better gear (heli crash -> L85A2 AWS and M249 SAW) and much better understanding of the game (raids, overwatches, gear, orienteering etc.). tl;dr: Team up with friends and use VoIP. Don't have friends? Make some on forums or elsewhere!

Must be something wrong with the servers you play on or something very right with the ones I play on... I've played the game for maybe 250+ hours and I've died twice to actual hackers. I don't think I've been successfully combat logged behind all that many times either, maybe 5. Item duping is hard to prove but it seems to be rampant, so possibly I've encountered tens of item dupers in combat. All in all, I haven't had much trouble from hackers or exploits. Not enough to spoil my fun at least.

Oh, I may indeed have put words in your mouth. After all, I've lately read quite a few posts where people tell other people how to play in this particular sandbox. Might be I read into your message something that wasn't there. If so, sorry for that :( Regarding Alt+F4: I've understood that several games keep characters in the game after disconnect (EVE comes to mind, and I believe there is some such functionality in WoT too). Such a mechanism would thwart disconnect-escapes. I'm hoping something like this gets implemented some time soon, and not just for measly 5 seconds after disconnect... Regarding "the game is about survival": So everyone should go up north, drink from ponds and occasionally feed their tamagotchi with cooked meat? ;) ... The survival is not a challenge, so as survival game, the current alpha build fails. If I was somehow magically forced to treat the game just as a survival game, I'd change to another game :( Personally, I consider the game a good PvP with nice survival/zombie flavour, but since the survival aspect of the game is so easy, the said survival aspect fails to entertain me. Playing PvP with a good squad on the other hand is often really nice, so that is how I play it. Killing fresh spawns doesn’t add to my experience, so I don’t go looking for unarmed players, but that doesn’t mean I don’t consider any player a legit target. Of course I do understand there is a certain disparity here. I and others like me can impose my kill-on-sight play style on others, while others haven't been given proper tools for having a properly rewarding more-roleplay-approach to the game. That is bound to make me called an asshole from time to time. Not that I mind, really, though I don’t consider myself an asshole for playing the game the way I do.

When you are shooting at people on the beach and going through their shopping bags for beans.

This game doesn't come with enough tools for roleplaying a robbery. Had the sniper given away his position, he would have been open to a lucky full auto burst or more likely an Alt+F4. Disconnecting when caught in a bad position happens really really much. He had no way of knowing you were in the one percent of roleplaying players who wants to use the engine for something it clearly isn't meant for... Also, who are you to tell that sniper (or any other type of players) how they should play the game? If you want to roleplay, does it mean everyone else must play your game with you, whether they like it or not? At least for me, PvP is the most interesting aspect of the game, and being based on a tactical simulator, the game offers pretty good tools for PvP. Roleplaying? No thank you, I'll rather have my roleplaying experiences on the tabletop with pen and paper. Btw. I wouldn't mind at all to see better roleplaying interaction tools and maybe sub-mod-servers that allow for more roleplay interaction. I don't know if splitting the sandbox into several differently flavoured ones would be a good thing in the long run, but right now at least a lot of the whine regarding the game comes from the collision of different playing styles. EDIT: I would also like to see military grade weapons become rarer and surviving zombies much more difficult. Right now the survival in the game is laughably easy and the only danger the zombies present is that of being an advance warning system for players. Without the threat of other players the survival would be guaranteed. But hey, it is alpha and will get better ;)

I figure the term bandit comes from the games Survivor/Bandit mechanic and is generally applied to most active PvP players. I'd be willing to call the noob slaying, griefing subset of bandits "assholes", but in my mind, they're still bandits in the context of this game. I don't know how you came up with all the characteristics for your groups though. To my mind being an asshole in this game means active griefing ie. wiring/tanktrapping coast city buildings, actively hunting for unequipped noobs, exploiting alt+F4 and or combat logging etc...

You play a sandbox game and come to conclusions on how to play it. This is acceptable. Then you go on to tell everyone else how they should behave in said sandbox, according to your view of it. I hope you do realize that your conclusions are just that, and not some kind of higher truth. Bandit -term comes from the survivor/bandit mechanic, and is not completely accurate. However, in the context of this game it is a suitable umbrella term for most active PvP playstyles, including OP:s killing spree. I see no problem with him being called a bandit just because he doesn't do things the way you prefer in your black-and-white corner of the sandbox.