Another towering controversy within the Arma community is: Is it the solo player who is just wasting armored vehicles? The official Arma Twitter account set the debate on fire with another cheeky tweet inquiring, “Do you REEEALLY need that armed vehicle to move from Laruns to Levie?” Players were urged to preserve the resources, maybe carpool, or just “borrow” a civilian car instead of hogging all that military-grade transport for themselves.
The so-called reply section… well, you can guess what happened.
So let’s have a look at the first tweet. The Arma developers or probably the Arma devs’ office social media team are softly giving a bit of ribbing to players over a very typical mil-sim sore point: players taking the best of the top-tier assets, whether it be an armored truck or a chopper, and just joyriding it solo. It has been done forever, and yet when resources are scarce, it keeps the team in logistical skeletons.
Some players do not see it this way, though. Armored vehicles have been called by some, such as @97Mun99512, necessary to keep an ambush at bay. Others such as @RasmusseN1337 declared players throw those vehicles in the middle of nowhere, defiantly wasting supplies and thus making the entire team of less use to get anything done. The exchange got so passionate that @ElmoisSteelRain declared free supply exhaustion might be on his agenda in some server, just out of spite. Wow.
Now there is the old classic lone wolf versus team. @Leonard7676 admits that he sometimes chucks the radio in order to avoid “childish chit chat & screaming nonsense,” and mostly works solo anyway. Meanwhile, @realCowboyDrew provided the example of how uncoordinated his teammates got his squad wiped out as they just could not resist opening fire at the first sight of enemies.
Then there are the absolute chaos of public servers. @bubbagumpfishco reinforces a tale about how somebody lifted his supply-laden chopper mid-mission, forcing him to shut it down remotely. @TuckedInTee brags about how he stole three Hueys in one night because the other players kept having them shot down without so much as using them.
So the real question is-with this happening, why? Arma’s been around for years, yet players haven’t been able to argue basic resource management. Some consider armored vehicles a must for protection; others consider it an atrocious waste of team assets. Some want tight mil-sim coordination; some want to do whatever they want.
And maybe trolls exist. Oh, the trolls. @ElmoisSteelRain’s comment about joining a server just to waste supplies is peak toxicity, yet it is also the symptom of a bigger issue-when players feel like their time has been disrespected, they will retaliate in the pettiest way possible.
So, possible solution: more server moderation? Punish asset wastage even more? Or just agree to disagree on how public servers will always be a mixture of snail-hards, lone wolves, and chaos gremlins?
Those arguments will definitely not be going anywhere anytime soon. Be it the hardcore mil-sim folks or just somebody wanting to go from point A to point B before someone wastes him, the Arma community can squeeze an argument out of anything. To be honest, the argument is actually part of the charm of the game.
Thus, until the break of dawn-I shall be “borrowing” a civilian car when the armored truck is taken by someone else.
