Psychology of a Hacker vs Exploiter vs Greifer

[heliman (DayZ) 26]

What does the community have a say on this? Are they all the same regardless if they play legitimately or not or are there subtle differences between them. Does it impair judgement of those kids whose brains haven't fully matured yet which in turn may affect their perception of reality? Discuss.

[gywidion@msn.com 80]

At its base?

It is the internet. When faceless and not guided by a peer group people can and will act out, as they have no guiding principals to follow.

In real life you will find them as completely different folks most of the time.

[Tyrtaeus 4]

No, I think there is most definitely a huge difference between hackers and griefers/bandits, whatever you want to call them.

Hackers are people who are too crap/have got to bored of DayZ to play it properly, and thus resort to hacking. They are scum, not legit, and should just go **** themselves.

Griefing, whether people like it or not, is a legit aspect of the game. Remember, Rocket wanted this to be a social experiment of sorts, and, although no game could TRULY simulate this kind of scenario, there would undoubtedly be people who would go around killing just because there was nobody to stop them. Granted, it would be a minority, but it would be there.

I have infinitely more respect for griefers than hackers, and that's saying something.

(FYI, I'm none of the things mentioned)

[I2ejected 25]

Hackers are script kiddies, 99% of them are prepubescent scrubs while the 1% is people who dress up as Jason and fuck with you, which is fine because they give you a chance to either log or kill them.

Exploiters come with every game, they ruin the game for themselves so it's fine.

Greifers are just people who are bored from the game and enjoy ruining the experience for others.

In the end the game is played for your enjoyment and it sucks people ruin your time for them to have fun, but it is what it is.

[HanoverFist 64]

In my opinion they are all pathetic and weak.

A waste of air and bandwidth.

They all share the anonymous "nothing can happen to me, I have no balls therefor I must overcompensate" psychology.

Edited August 28, 2012 by HanoverFist

[heliman (DayZ) 26]

bump

[Tersidre 168]

At its base?

It is the internet. When faceless and not guided by a peer group people can and will act out, as they have no guiding principals to follow.

In real life you will find them as completely different folks most of the time.

there is nothing left to say.. when people know someone wont reach across the table and slap them in the face like they probably deserve they will do whatever the hell they please, everyone else be damned they dont really care.

However put them into a position where the other person could indeed slap them in the face and they will behave like little angels.

[Darkwater (DayZ) 63]

In terms of a "Griefer", I cannot take moral high ground as I'm just barely better. The only difference between me and a "Griefer" is that I limit myself to three groups, Bandits, Hostile survivors or Camo/Ghillie wearing Survivors/Bandits. All these three I kill without remorse and would happily slaughter if they were fresh spawns or even toy with them if I could. Bandits deserve nothing better anyway. But I do love them with all my heart still, they are a crucial component to this game and it's setting. I definately wouldn't play if not for them. They're the Ying to my Yang, so to speak... but as I said, I don't claim to be much better than they are.

As for Exploiters and Hackers.. I've more than once died to them, with everything ranging from Day 0, unarmed/under equipped, to 14 days old characters armed with the sexiest armaments and tools. They can just burn in hell for not only ruining the time I put into the game, but for everyone else they ruin the game for. I find solice in the fact that it WILL become better and that nothing I work for will be brought on into the standalone anyway and would be deleted or moved on from when that time comes. But up til that day, they put severe strain onto me finding real joy in the game.

[Ordoo 3]

Hacker: Doesn't want to earn anything in the game, is typically lazy and typically mildly intelligent, hacking isn't exactly easy. Hackers vary person to person, some of them are actually very nice, some of them are assholes, you can normally tell what kind they are by how they act, do they teleport everyone on the server and kill them, or do they just spawn weapons they want and kill people legitimately without an aimbot or teleporting.

Exploiter: At his/her core, a typical gamer, does like however, to find loopholes in the system of a game to give them a tactical edge. Doesn't use any actual cheats, but takes advantages of problems within the game to either gain loot or kill players. Perhaps the most passive amount of illegal gameplay, typically less harmful than the other 2.

Griefer: Complete assholes. Goes out of his way to make everyone pissed off for his amusement. Can sometimes use certain hacks to complete these goals, such as teleporting individual people to somewhere they cannot escape without dying. Technically plays the game legitimately, but does so in a way to piss people off, and only to piss people off.

My personal opinions, results may vary.

[jblackrupert 308]

Edited September 9, 2012 by jblackrupert

[heliman (DayZ) 26]

I haven't talked much about my views on the above. But I believe the above posters comments tell a lot.

Looking at the second question I posed about children not fit to play this game. I do feel concerned about the very fact that they are playing this game. It feels like they have got themselves a new drug on the streets to have a go at. There is a reason why South Korea has implemented a ban on late night gaming. It is an addiction that the little kids don't really understand this as their brains are just developing. I strongly believe there needs to be a re-think on the whole ratings system such a way that only adults can have access to such content with an age card similar to when you have to prove yourself at the liquor store. For developers to say it's their parents to blame well this is true in some ways but i sense this is a very weak argument. I believe game developers have a lot more leverage than individual families trying to voice their opinion about matters concerning game ratings and suitable content appropriate for these ratings. Families come from all differnt backgrounds, some smart and some well, not so smart. It is astonishing to find a little child speak over the mic in this game and one must wonder what sort of families they come from. It in these cases that game developers must address rather than blame such families since this is your game and if you truly love what you create you need to care about who your target audience are and voice out your opinions just like how you made headlines with this game.

[gambles 234]

The only difference is the effort put into it. Many many many games I have seen people (even friends) go from boredom to exploitation then on to griefing others for enjoyment then they finally land at hacking because they are bored and don't care, it is...just a game after all.

People like to talk about which side is most likely to hack? bandits or survivors? neither. It's the ones who are getting bored with the game, and the griefers, the exploiters who already ruined the game and see no wrong in going one step further.

This is the truth for many online game and DayZ is no exception.

[nic0 14]

the term "griefer" has no meaning in this game. dayz is setup, from the start, to be a pure PvP game. there's no story content, no NPCs, no missions or quests. there are people who kill other players either regardless, or with some code of conduct known only to them - either way, they're not griefers.

every player i've ever come into contact with has tried to kill me, and hence i try and kill or avoid every player i meet. that's the game.

the game is also trying to survive and trying to avoid contact with other players. to try to play the game and never kill others. if that's your game, then more power to you - your way is harder.

but neither is more correct than the other. provided you are using the game mechanics legitimately, and not actually using a hack, then you are a player, never a griefer.

having said all that, alpha testing is there to remove game mechanics that are more "griefy" than others. i'd class barbed wire in that category, but maybe that's just me.

[resoula 23]

Hackers are script kiddies, 99% of them are prepubescent scrubs while the 1% is people who dress up as Jason and fuck with you, which is fine because they give you a chance to either log or kill them.

That's odd cause, most of my friends on this game hack, they're all over the age of 20, a good amount over 30, and they don't hack to harm anyone, and are completely nice people.

You may want to change this statistic.

[Angel Knight 427]

Hackers/Skiddies: Cheat at the game and don't care if you point it out.

Exploiters: Cheat at the game while yelling "I'm not hacking."

That's about it, really.

[sostronk 334]

there would undoubtedly be people who would go around killing just because there was nobody to stop them. Granted, it would be a minority, but it would be there.

It really scares me to think that not only do you believe that, but that it may well be true. Are you serious? Do you really think that people would go around killing each other if you removed the police force and military?

[nic0 14]

Exploiters: Cheat at the game while yelling "I'm not hacking."

agree with the rest of your post, except that we've a duty to exploit bugs in dayz, as we're playtesting an alpha!

beyond that, it's the duty of the devs to ensure that game mechanics aren't explotable. i feel quite strongly about that - in cases where players have been banned from exploiting loopholes in commercial games, i blame the devs, not the players. once i've paid for a game, it's up to the devs to test the thing, not me!

that said, i think exploiters are asshats.

[HowardTheDuck 27]

How do you grief someone in this game? I really hope you're not talking about people who just go around mindlessly killing people, as it is just a game afterall.

Did Rocket actually say "social experiment"? Or was he talking about the game itself being an experiment - to see if people would actually play it?

Bit odd to call a game a social experiment, you're not going to get any kind of results, except that most gamers are just that; gamers. Few people play this game to kill zombies, they're boring, predictable and if you really want to survive all you'd need to do is AFK in a forest - you've just won the game? No thanks, I like the thrill of hunting and being hunted in this game by people who you can't predict or get away from by simply running under a tree.

[nic0 14]

That's odd cause, most of my friends on this game hack, they're all over the age of 20, a good amount over 30, and they don't hack to harm anyone, and are completely nice people.

You may want to change this statistic.

you may want to add an apostrophe in front of "cause".

you may also want to find some new friends, or at least stop defending their asshat behaviour.

and, finally, did you really post that? really? i've read it three times and i can't detect the irony. you can't possibly be serious though?

[Steak and Potatoes 13480]

As the band journey kindly put it Anyway you want it thats the way you need it... to each their own

[nic0 14]

I like the thrill of hunting and being hunted in this game by people who you can't predict or get away from by simply running under a tree.

yes, this. very much this.

you cannot "grief" in this game. those people are just another part of the game. the most fun i have in the game is being shot at having just spawned in at the coast, maybe on my first weapon. nothing to lose, everything to play for. i love those happy idiots - they make even the first few minutes of the game an adventure!

[nic0 14]

As the band journey kindly put it Anyway you want it thats the way you need it... to each their own

exactly...although, to be fair, they were talking about oral sex. much the same thing tho.

[monkeyisland 1]

I have played legit and used hacks.

I played legit for a few months, did virtually everything possible as a solo player in the game. Personally I feel the end-game lacks some depth and let's be honest there is an inordinate amount of time spent in this game looking at loading screens and running through trees.

As this game has become more popular it's changed from a small but nice community of dedicated individuals to a screaming horde of jerks. This is an inevitable consequence of the game's popularity (small town -> large city analogy) now that it has over 1 million players.

With those new players came several hacks and given how much this game engine trusts client side information we were told it would be impossible to fix.

So my motivation was a combination of having exhausted most of the legit content in the game and sheer frustration at constantly (more than once per day) being script killed or tele killed by a hakcer and losing all my gear for no goddam reason.

So I did some homework and found out how to safely drop myself some guns and locate vehicles to try and inject some more fun and fairness back into the game experience. (It was that or sit around playing DotA2 waiting for standalone).

All I do is find vehicles, repair them and give them to or give rides to friendly players. Occasionally I will give them a M1911 if they are unarmed.

I try not to ruin anyone's game experience, if they are happy rumaging through the Empty Cans of Kamenka doing some PVE then cool. Most of the people I meet have been killed several times by hackers and are thankful for the help (spawning in Kamenka sucks until a bloke with a Motorbike turns up and gives you some beans).

The only players I've killed with hacks are other hackers who just like to tele/kill others because they are idiots.

Oh and I'm not a script kid. I am a 26 year old full-time coder/graphic artist and I don't live with my mum :P

So what does that make me? :huh:

(inb4 die scum I hope you get AIDs etc etc)

[GoodGrief 21]

As a full time griefer I take the opportunity to say I havent tried any hacks or even googled them up. Havent even looked on youtube for how to dupe gear. I'm 100% anti-hack, 100% grief

that said my griefing was a lot more fun before the hacking ruined the scale of the game. if the game was made totally secure i would pick my moments rather than picking on every person i encounter

[capitainedesolation@yahoo.fr 119]

It really scares me to think that not only do you believe that, but that it may well be true. Are you serious? Do you really think that people would go around killing each other if you removed the police force and military?

Of course, even with the police and military there are still serial killers, there will always be fcked up people.