Disclaimer: This is not me speaking for the entire PR team but rather trying to paraphrase what has been discussed in previous conversations around the forums and what not. Though I do admit I have woven my own opinion on the subject into it a bit. But that tends to happen with walls of text like these...
camo_jnr_jnr wrote:Sylent, just so you know i'm not a fan of putting the suicide vest in the game, i don't think it would work well or add anything but a few of your points don't really give reason for it not to be implemented and can be contradicted.
No.1 If people are against it for religious, social and personal reasons why is the bombcar and truck in the game? Pretty much the same thing.
No.2 If Project Reality doesn't endorse certain forms of warefare then why is napalm and landmines/ieds in the game?
No.3 Legal issues? In this aspect how is this different from the bombcar?
I also don't see how a suicide vest is more immoral than anything else humans have invented to kill.
Just to say again i don't want the vest in the game but better reasons are going to be needed to stop people asking over and over again.
Whilst I understand the points you are making I don't particularly feel like going into detail about the exact reasons that this will offend many people.
As you most likely do not remember the old posts about this being implemented and I'm too lazy to go and find them I will save you the trouble and just say that it will most likely offend a lot of people.
A better example is the flack that the team received from a few Argentinian players because of the representation of the Falklands minimod. And while, yes, this is a method of warfare that is similar to the bomb cars/trucks that are currently in game, it is just that. Similar, but by no means that same.
You have to remember that we tread a line where, because PR is such a diverse community, we have to try our best to please most people. Much like with the Falklands mod and the Argentinian community I am sure that there will be many people who would get offended by the implementation of this. For example, Rabbit says he is against it on personal reasons and knowing that he has been deployed before (correct me if I'm wrong) I have no doubt that he has had experience with something like this.
I shall address your points quickly here:
1. Though the bombcar and truck are in-game there is a perceived difference between the way a situation like that is handled. In real life bomb cars are inevitable in guerilla warfare areas however from what I have heard from people in the military, you mostly know that it's a bomb car when it's accelerating towards you and disobeying all orders to stop. In which case it is usually fired upon (eventually.) And though in game it has an avatar driving it, the bomb car is undoubtedly an inanimate object.
On the flip side, a suicide bomber could be someone that members of the military have befriended, it is usually undetectable and even though I have not experienced it first hand I am sure that nothing comes close to the trauma of having someone who you can clearly see, a human no less, deliberately explode themselves to kill people. Which brings me to my point again about this community having a large group of ex-military members. Many of them I know suffer from different ranges of PTSD.
2. Napalm and landmines/ied are in game because they are forms of warfare that have been widely accepted. Again as I've stated they are inanimate objects and do add significant levels of gameplay mechanics to the game. Napalm is also historical and a defining feature of the vietnam war. I'm sure if this game had smell-o-vision it would not be implemented because of the fact that no one would want to smell burning flesh. I apologize for the images I may be painting in peoples heads. There are things that do not come across in a game properly and the affects of napalm is one of them. When you see napalm in PR you don't see the damage it actually does to the human, hell you barely see the effects of it because it dissipates and is back to normal.
3. Legality and morality is something that I probably should have mentioned a bit more. But as I said, there are many things behind the scenes that the PR development team has to do to keep people happy. Bringing the idea of the Argentinian community (not all but a few) again, there were threats of legal action against the development team. Remember we aren't funded by any individual entity and should something actually be deemed legally plausible and reason for action then how are we supposed to fight it? All it takes is there to be a complaint from the land in which the community servers are located against the hosting company to land us in hot water. It has the potential to bring down the community as a whole.
Think of it this way. If this was a WW2 mod, I'm sure there would be some suggestions by people to put in the realism of making a Death camp map or something along those lines. Could you imagine the outrage that something depicting the holocaust as "good" or "okay" would create for us? Same idea with this. It touches people's memories where they want to rather forget it. I am speculating fully here, but nothing prepares you for the intimacy of going through something like a suicide bomber attack.
My apologies for the long response, but as you can see there are many things that get in the way of something like this. All it takes is a few people to get utterly offended and we have a delicate situation on our hands that requires it to be handled properly.
This is mainly why I think it won't be implemented.
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EDIT: In response to Epoch's post, I was completely unaware that PR:ARMA II had suicide vests and that they will be implemented in PR:ARMA III. Regardless, I am merely paraphrasing the discussions that they old threads had (or at least ones that I remember). @Epoch, how did you come to the decision to implement stuff like that? I am genuinely curious. As for the team directive I wasn't on the team at that time anyways so I wouldn't know if there is a directive per-se but I do remember a lot of backlash from the community for it. However we did have a larger and more active one back then..
I should also mention that it's a little harder for the refractor engine to simulate something like this should it actually be implemented. Because the way child objects work and weapons work. AFAIK you need to have an entity in which the player controls (not the avatar) to create a self-destroying effect. In other words we can't attach an explosive object to a human body. Though I suppose there could be a work around of having a weapon that looks like a detonator that is really just a powerful explosive that instantly goes off. I digress my wall of text is huge now... :S
Like I said I'm only a R-CON la da dee..