Big Concern: Hackers

[cryosin]

After playing Blacklight: Retribution, i am deeply concerned about hackers.

That game uses punkbuster, the same anti-cheat system that planetside uses.

I was in a server where at least 3 people where blatantly hacking. Others might have been too, but these guys where completely obvious.

Speed hacks, instant headshots across the map(with a full auto rifle), teleportation.

One guy was literally invisible to other players.

I mean it was bad, real bad.


Punkbuster has never been a powerful tool. Even valve had to create their own anti-cheat because punk buster did not suffice.

With the ability to just register and create a new account, i am deeply concerned that hackers will run rampant and ruin the experience.

[HellsPanda]

As has been stated before Punkbuster is just one of a plethora of anti cheating tools SOE will be using, that and anyone caught cheating can get all their accounts deleted [With all the stuff they have earned, or paid for]

[PlaceboCyanide]

Another problem is that PS2 will be F2P, so any hackers that have their accounts terminated will just make another account. SOE could always ban IP addresses, but that's hurting business and doesn't work on dynamic IPs. Consistent updates and constant vigilance will be the only way :D

[Fenrod]

I don't see the point in discussing that. No matter how many anti-cheat obstacles will be used, there will always, always be cheaters who will manage to get around them.

[ringring]

Yes, it is a big concern and it has been raised by this community several times.

All I cab say is to repeat what SoE say, that they more than anyone know the disruption the hacker can cause; they will use punkbuster as only one of their tools and they fully understand the disruption that hackers can cause.

[PredatorFour]

Im concerned with legit players getting banned in the fracas which will happen with the hackers. There was times people would say i hacked on PS, cos they got lag killed and other people i knew got accusations thrown at them too. There`s gotta be a robust /report system and active devs to insta ban the hackers on every server.
I wonder if they want to employ any people to regulate the servers and ban hackers ??? hmmm;)

[Kran De Loy]

This is a topic that has be gone over a number of times. Malorn (I think it was him) made a point that there are two types of hackers, those that use in your face blatant bullshit methods and those that use very subtle ones.

The blatant m**********rs will get spotted, reported and hopefully banned quickly. These people will show up no matter what you do because they're a bunch of gelatinous puddles of knob snot that get their willys excited when pissing people off. There are methods to permanently get rid of them but most of those are outlawed in civilized society.

The subtle ones only slightly enhance their normal skill with computer aids that make each and every one of them top end competitive players, but nothing more.

The more problematic group is the second one as they skew the bell curve of the skill needed to compete in the game and no one can tell for sure who is just damned good and who has AIDS.

[EVILPIG]

Some prior and future discussion on this topic..

Daft Punk - Around The World - YouTube

[Immigrant]

Hackers are a concern I agree but I believe SOE will do their best to keep them away. Period. Also most hacking stories I know are anecdotal and have rarely faced real hackers myself. Nevertheless I have heard many players shouting hacker at each other and also I myself sometimes felt that someone was just a little bit too good. I was also once accused of cheating, and I'm really not that good to earn this kind of accusation to be honest. So back to my point - cheating is a problem, but it's usually blown out of proportions with cases of false accusation. So like in that story where boy cried wolf constantly I have grown deaf to most hacking accusations where there's no hard evidence (video) to back it up ...

[RNFB]

SOE could always ban IP addresses

Bad idea. People with dynamic IPs could potentially be assigned to an IP that was banned.

[PlaceboCyanide]

Bad idea. People with dynamic IPs could potentially be assigned to an IP that was banned.

Read the last half of that sentence :p

[psychobilly]

If you require existing players to have a valid credit card, you can ban off the credit data when someone is caught. It won't stop hacking, but will limit repeat offenders.

If they allow you to put in fake information and go, hacking will be rampant.

[CTheRain]

Do what Nexon does with the Korean versions of their games. Require you to call in or give them a valid SSN. That would halt hacking period.

[cryosin]

Do what Nexon does with the Korean versions of their games. Require you to call in or give them a valid SSN. That would halt hacking period.

Although I actually like this idea, there are two problems i can foresee with it:

1) Not everyone is willing to give their SSN to sony. I personally wouldn't care, but i know numerous people who would never do it.

2) How would this work for people outside of the US? They would call in and give what information?

[Tamas]

Some prior and future discussion on this topic..

Daft Punk - Around The World - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9MszVE7aR4)

That song is epic win, but so are all Daft Punk songs.

Hackers - it will happen, its just a question of how fast can the anti-cheat programs respond so it doesn't inconvenience many people.

While I personally haven't been kicked by Punbuster, there are legit concerns that it sometimes kicks normal players. Despite all your efforts, people will find ways to hack, especially since account banning wont affect them as much - its F2P after all. All you can do is hope that it's something along the lines - shows all enemies and not "auto kill" everything in sight - seen hackers in BF3 that don't even shoot their gun, but just sit in a corner and everyone dies.

However I do have faith that PS2 will have decent protection.

[CTheRain]

Although I actually like this idea, there are two problems i can foresee with it:

1) Not everyone is willing to give their SSN to sony. I personally wouldn't care, but i know numerous people who would never do it.

2) How would this work for people outside of the US? They would call in and give what information?

Yeah the SSN would be done automatically by a voice machine to the registered account. It would be a splendid idea. People outside the US though, I'm not really sure.

The call would work as setting up account information instead of signing up on the site via account. Also owning previous games would be great also. I'm not really sure how it would all work.

[psychobilly]

Yeah the SSN would be done automatically by a voice machine to the registered account. It would be a splendid idea. People outside the US though, I'm not really sure.

The call would work as setting up account information instead of signing up on the site via account. Also owning previous games would be great also. I'm not really sure how it would all work.

If you knew anything about data privacy regulations you would know this isn't going to happen.

They can ask for a credit card, but that's as far as it goes.

Imagine if steam or someone got hacked AND they had SSN info stored...

[HellsPanda]

It may be F2P, but there is also time spent to earn Certs, aswell as Cash/resources spent to earn stuff. It will smart, people will be less likely to hack than in normal shooters. And getting your account banned will smart, if you have actually bothered earning anything, if not your going to be at a disadvantage anyway.

[Lonehunter]

Although I agree Punkbuster is almost useless, this topic has been beat to death

[Baneblade]

Make everyone buy the game box.

[Shogun]

if hackers spoil the game and things get messy, force every player to verify by phone.
sms process for everybody with a cellphone, optional normal phone computervoice process for people without cellphone.

you have to provide a phone number to open an account. you get a password per sms or computervoice, provide it at lockin and you are set.

you cheat, you get banned and the phonenumber you used will get flagged as a cheaternumber and not work for any new accounts.
as with all solutions, there are ways to bypass this or to get disposable phonenumbers, but the majority of cheaters will not take the hassle to do this again and again. it would be annoying like hell to have to get new phonenumbers just to cheat again. and annoyance seems to be all you can do against cheaters.

and a phone number is not as sensible as a creditcard number or the other things that were suggested here. also almost everybody who wants to play planetside 2, will most certeinly have a phone number of some kind. and those who don´t have one, can ask a friend to help with the process. sure, cheaters can do this as well, but each number can only be abused once.

[Fenrod]

Make everyone buy the game box.

Hackers often buy several boxes of their games, in case they would be baned.
The cost doesn't stop them.

[RadarX]

Realistically there are folks who feel the need to cheat in every game. Fortunately we have more than a decade of experience dealing with it and systems (including experienced Customer Service reps) will go in place to mitigate it.

In short, it's been thought about considerably.

[Baneblade]

Hackers often buy several boxes of their games, in case they would be baned.
The cost doesn't stop them.

If they love the game that much...

[Shogun]

Realistically there are folks who feel the need to cheat in every game. Fortunately we have more than a decade of experience dealing with it and systems (including experienced Customer Service reps) will go in place to mitigate it.

In short, it's been thought about considerably.

thanks for dropping by and easing our minds ;)

we know, that soe and sony as a whole propably now have more experience than anybody else in dealing with hackers and cheaters. but the concerns will pop up again and again.
but it´s always good to hear that there are a lot of people working on the issue all the time. just keep reminding us that you are always aware of the problem and that you just cannot talk alot about it, because everything communicated will end up in the wrong hands and will help the hackers to find workarounds.

[Dir]

If you knew anything about data privacy regulations you would know this isn't going to happen.

They can ask for a credit card, but that's as far as it goes.

Imagine if steam or someone got hacked AND they had SSN info stored...

Unless someone can think of a reason why a credit card wouldn't work would love to hear the reason. I mean how many credit cards can a person have before raising red flags on some database watching cards being created and cancelled continuously. It's not a perfect answer but seems as soon as anything has gone free or trial on Planetside it was like knocking down an outside wall during a snow storm. It's one of the things I do not have any problem with on Planetside...I pay for it...one account, one credit card. Keeps the riffraff out...but then who is going to trust Sony with their credit card info?

[Furret]

If you require a credit card, you're going to lose a lot of players.

Requiring players to buy the game every time is a good idea though, even if you only charge $20 for the game, that's still a lot of money to pay just to be banned (hopefully) within a week.

It is IMPOSSIBLE to keep every single hacker out of the game. The point is only for damage control.

Something else that would help (that's out of the developer's control) would be if players reacted better to cheaters. The blatant cheaters don't cheat because its fun to have a computer play for them, they do it because it pisses people off. If everyone's reaction to a cheater was simply: '/report cheater' then less cheaters would come back. But there's always the morons who completely overreact with all caps rage tell arguments that go on for minutes, that's how the cheating trolls decide they've gotten their money's worth.

[Baneblade]

Unless someone can think of a reason why a credit card wouldn't work would love to hear the reason. I mean how many credit cards can a person have before raising red flags on some database watching cards being created and cancelled continuously. It's not a perfect answer but seems as soon as anything has gone free or trial on Planetside it was like knocking down an outside wall during a snow storm. It's one of the things I do not have any problem with on Planetside...I pay for it...one account, one credit card. Keeps the riffraff out...but then who is going to trust Sony with their credit card info?

Too many ways to dupe a credit card... moneycards for one, they are disposable and work like a credit card.

[Pollo Jack]

If you require a credit card, you're going to lose a lot of players.

Requiring players to buy the game every time is a good idea though, even if you only charge $20 for the game, that's still a lot of money to pay just to be banned (hopefully) within a week.

The idea behind a credit card is, like an IP, or phone number it takes effort to get another one to use. Having to change phone, CC, IP, Hardware every time just to cheat will separate the casual kiddies from the dedicated cheating enthusiasts. Hopefully with low enough numbers that our CSRs can handle in a timely manner.

The problem was never money, the cheating crowd we need to be worried about are the ones that do it as a hobby. Their fun is ruining others, blowing away 20 bucks on a game is still cheaper than just about every form of entertainment out there. Considering most of these people have no dependents they will have a much less finite money pool than us.

Credit cards wouldn't be the first line and certainly wouldn't deter a large player base since we had a large player base when you actually had to pay for the game. If you have to ask your parents to borrow their credit card and your mother doesn't want you playing a game she considers too violent it is her right.

Too many ways to dupe a credit card... moneycards for one, they are disposable and work like a credit card.

Just like some websites don't accept e-mails from tossaway websites SOE can decline tossaway cards.

[Thoreaux]

Realistically there are folks who feel the need to cheat in every game. Fortunately we have more than a decade of experience dealing with it and systems (including experienced Customer Service reps) will go in place to mitigate it.

In short, it's been thought about considerably.

I keep hearing the party line on this, and as much as I want to believe you guys, lots of other companies/developers have made this claim. Not that I don't think you can succeed, but PS1 left me somewhat bitter about SOE's ability to deal with hackers.

So... I guess I'm reserving judgment until beta. I'm just hoping that nobody has to break out their white hats. You can expect, however, that with the concern about this, some people will be testing your anti-cheat systems, even in beta.

DISCLAIMERS: I have no idea what the term "white hat" even means. What's a hat, anyways? No that's not mine. It was an allegory. I was under a lot of stress at the time. Jesus has forgiven me. I've signed up for counseling. She told me she was 18!

ALSO: Seriously. I do not advocate any form of hacking by anyone, for any purpose.

[Shogun]

but ps1 was designed 10 years ago. and i guess the data they collected by failing so hard, will be very helpful to a game that is designed from scratch nowadays with all this knowledge that wasn´t available in 2002.

ps1 was a failure because it wasn´t designed to be very moddable even by the devs. now i am sure everything will be build modular and the devs can change everything they want without having to deal with too much hardcoded stuff. this applys to the anticheat system of the game, as well. i hope they will be able to react to new cheats and patch loopholes more or less on the fly.there just needs to be a good dedicated anticheat team at work all the time.
at least all devs have stated, that anticheat has a very high priority, and they know that cheaters can kill a game very fast. so i relax and wait, till i spot the first assheads, to see how the devs can handle it. and i will be looking for exploits during beta to find and report every exploitable bug before release.
that´s all we can do about it.

[Metalsheep]

No matter how much Anti-Cheat you place in a game, Hackers will find ways around it. Usually hackers don't hack to win, they hack to beat the anti-cheat systems. to prove they can. Hackers will always be one step ahead of Anti-Cheats. Anti-Cheats will change to beat the new hacks, then the hackers will make hacks to beat the anti-cheats. Its the nature of the beast.

As long as SoE keeps GMs online to ban hackers that do slip through the system, things should be fine.

That was the big problem with Planetside. It had Anti-Cheat systems, but those who slipped past them were then unopposed by the lack of GMs and proceeded to wreck the game.

[Kran De Loy]

No matter how much Anti-Cheat you place in a game, Hackers will find ways around it. Usually hackers don't hack to win, they hack to beat the anti-cheat systems. to prove they can. Hackers will always be one step ahead of Anti-Cheats. Anti-Cheats will change to beat the new hacks, then the hackers will make hacks to beat the anti-cheats. Its the nature of the beast.
Imo those kinds of hackers are the minority. The ones that make the hacks and maybe the people that directly know them. The farther away you get from actually having the drive and knowledge to continually beat a gaming system from a major company that is actually trying to keep you out the less sophisticated the hacking you're using becomes.

Essentially the bulk of hackers are people that use programs and scripts written entirely by different people, as long as new stuff keeps getting shot down before it can get wide spread then I believe that the host company is doing about as well as anyone can ever expect. IE: Best Possible Outcome where actual cases of hacking are somewhat rare.

True it only takes that one guy to ruin everyone's day, but I doubt we'll have that happen more then once every few weeks, hopeing for once every 6-12 months but that's wishful thinking on my part.

[Destroyeron]

Read the last half of that sentence :p
See sig link.

Although I actually like this idea, there are two problems i can foresee with it:

1) Not everyone is willing to give their SSN to sony. I personally wouldn't care, but i know numerous people who would never do it.

2) How would this work for people outside of the US? They would call in and give what information?
I'm not willing to give SOE my SSN. I'd give them my credit card only because there's another company (the bank) that'll help me when SOE screws up and loses it.

Realistically there are folks who feel the need to cheat in every game. Fortunately we have more than a decade of experience dealing with it and systems (including experienced Customer Service reps) will go in place to mitigate it.

In short, it's been thought about considerably.
Except your decade of experience mostly consisted of getting owned?

[Xaine]

Anyone who has ever played an online game knows Punkbuster is fucking awful.

It spends most of its time kicking honest players, and people who hack laugh at it.

If PS2 is honestly going to use PB, we're going to be in some serious trouble.

Its wank, its fucking terrible, please don't use it.

[Shogun]

getting banned without a reason would totally be a dealbreaker. hope they got this under control.

[ITOS]

I don't know much about anti-hacker software but wouldn't it be relatively easy to have the servers automatically kick/ban players who show unreasonable behavior? I mean, a newly registered player running around at the speed of an aircraft, getting nothing but long distance head shots with a machine gun should ring some alarms and be banned in less than a minute.

If the time to set up a new account >>> the time played on the account, it should do away with the most blatant hackers.

[Rumblepit]

i have voiced my op about punkbusters many times since i found out they mite be using it. i hate it,but this made me feel much better when i saw it.

r/PlanetSide Interview with Matt Higby and Tramell Isaac - Part 2 - YouTube

best part about ps2 is its in the hands of passionate gamers.....

we all " fucking hate hackers"......

[Stew]

After playing Blacklight: Retribution, i am deeply concerned about hackers.

That game uses punkbuster, the same anti-cheat system that planetside uses.

I was in a server where at least 3 people where blatantly hacking. Others might have been too, but these guys where completely obvious.

Speed hacks, instant headshots across the map(with a full auto rifle), teleportation.

One guy was literally invisible to other players.

I mean it was bad, real bad.





Punkbuster has never been a powerful tool. Even valve had to create their own anti-cheat because punk buster did not suffice.

With the ability to just register and create a new account, i am deeply concerned that hackers will run rampant and ruin the experience.

LOL Black light retribution have Cloakers Cloak bailitys so of course some people can be invisible !

For aimbo hack yeah there will always be a cats and mouse game on pc for hackers aim bot users But most of ur complain seams to be only LAG and misconception of the BLR game !

[Blackwolf]

Could some computer whiz answer something for me?

Would it be at all possible to encrypt whatever code SOE is using for programming, using a constantly shifting key?

Seems like the problem is that hackers learn the program code being used by the programmers, and can manipulate the game any way they want to with outside mods. Possible solution, as I see it, would be to make the base language something that changes easily based on a key, like a cipher.

[Tasorin]

If the hacking is as bad as APB then SOE is in real trouble. I personally don't think it will get that bad, but there is your data point on the epic fail barometer.

Punkbuster is beyond terribad and most gamers who have been around since Battlefield 1942 know the deal and why its bad. The point is, PB isn't going to be the only layer of security. Think of PB as the stale sprinkles on the triple layer cake of win. What PB will catch is blatant script kiddies who are trying to muck with the server side client or packet sniffers using latency. It's the obvious cheats that PB will mostly catch, and (fingers crossed) hope it's the other layers of SOE proprietary security, along with an active community that will police the rest down to a enjoyable level of game play.

@RadarX: I am going to recuse myself from directly trolling your post about more then 10 years of doing this and amazing community help. Some of us here have been playing with SOE for a long time and have been front row for the successful times and the utter fail times. SOE has the POTENTIAL to be what you expound upon, it all comes down to dollars and executing on your promises. The proof will be what happens in the first year of live launch.

[Kran De Loy]

So SOE knows the general view of Punk Buster and how well that works, but aren't about to go an annouce the other forms of anticheating methods they'll be using since it would likely compromise them. Safe to say then that everything that can be done about it on the community's end has already been done. At least we should wait until beta and launch before we start bringing it up a lot, imo.

LOL Black light retribution have Cloakers Cloak bailitys so of course some people can be invisible !

For aimbo hack yeah there will always be a cats and mouse game on pc for hackers aim bot users But most of ur complain seams to be only LAG and misconception of the BLR game !

I'm glad to see that you still haven't bothered to try and learn from the english posts you seem to be reading all over the place, Stew.

I still can't understand 80% of what you say.

[Baneblade]

if the packets are encrypted, it could reduce server performance by as much as 50%.

[Blackwolf]

I'm glad to see that you still haven't bothered to try and learn from the english posts you seem to be reading all over the place, Stew.

I still can't understand 80% of what you say.

He said that Blacklight: Retribution had a cloaker class that could be invisible, and that players could teleport or move at insane speeds due to lag, latency, or ping rate or whatever. And that aim bots were pretty much the only potentially legitimate "omg hax" claim made by the one he quoted.

Personally I think that he wasn't there, and therefore has no right or room to comment. Then again neither was I.

[Hamma]

Realistically it's IMPOSSIBLE to make cheating non existent. You guys need to realize SOE hates Hackers as much as we do and will do everything in their power to remove them and use whatever systems at their disposal to get rid of them.

But hackers are persistent and will always exist. We just have to hope they are mitigated.

[cryosin]

Realistically there are folks who feel the need to cheat in every game. Fortunately we have more than a decade of experience dealing with it and systems (including experienced Customer Service reps) will go in place to mitigate it.

In short, it's been thought about considerably.

Thanks for taking the time to post.

It's good to have more assurances that you take this seriously. I would ask what other tools you guys are using, but id rather deny the hackers the knowledge and watch them get banned =D.

[Red Beard]

No matter how much Anti-Cheat you place in a game, Hackers will find ways around it.

Why do people keep saying this? It's about mitigating the disturbance to legitimate customers.

Cheaters existing is not a reason to forsake mitigating the problem; and if they didn't even try to mitigate it; I wouldn't even waste my time downloading the game, much less pay for it. :doh:

[TerranTitan]

Could some computer whiz answer something for me?

Would it be at all possible to encrypt whatever code SOE is using for programming, using a constantly shifting key?

Seems like the problem is that hackers learn the program code being used by the programmers, and can manipulate the game any way they want to with outside mods. Possible solution, as I see it, would be to make the base language something that changes easily based on a key, like a cipher.

Hackers exploit processes running in RAM to make a majority of their hacks. They also exploit the DirectX in the game to make things such as bounding boxes, name tags, ect. One of the best things the PS2 dev's can do is to make a majority of the coding functions server side vs. client side. If client side, people will be able to use memory editing tools to find things such as ammo count, speed, recoil, and spread. By making these things server side, it will take a great deal away from those who would exploit and ruin the game.

Unfortunately, PS2 will be using Punkbuster. Let's just hope there will be really good server admins in game, and maybe a vote kick system.

[Stardouser]

I have often wondered why an MMO like this, or even non-MMO but online games like Battlefield, can't do a rolling weekly re-encryption of certain files that hacks have to use?

Either way, obvious hackers always get taken care of quickly, what I hate to see is the long term hackers who you know hack but no one can prove it. They use low sensitivity aimbots so that there is no "snap" for anyone to see.

[TerranTitan]

^^ I agree. The obvious 'ragers' will get dealt with swiftly. It's the closet hackers that I'm concerned with. The lowered sensitivity aimbots are called smooth aim, or have settings to make you look legit.

[Rabb]

I have often wondered why an MMO like this, or even non-MMO but online games like Battlefield, can't do a rolling weekly re-encryption of certain files that hacks have to use?


Not necessary if you set up the MD5 checks in punkbuster. I've said it before and I'll say it again punkbuster is a tool it needs configuring correctly to work. You don't just turn it on and forget about it. Servers that end up with hackers on, are in most instances running poorly setup loose configs.

[Stardouser]

Not necessary if you set up the MD5 checks in punkbuster. I've said it before and I'll say it again punkbuster is a tool it needs configuring correctly to work. You don't just turn it on and forget about it. Servers that end up with hackers on, are in most instances running poorly setup loose configs.

Well, I obviously don't know enough to know what that means, but I do know that people get past it; if both what you say could be done, and a weekly re-encryption of a few key files could be done, at least it would be an extra layer of defense. If nothing else, at least they'd have to break the encryption once per week.

[TerranTitan]

As long as there is money to be made off of a working hack, it'll be made. PB's only real effectiveness comes when somebody turns in a hack, and their team reverses it, and does a string-ban. Sadly, this is not always true. There are hack sites out there who have yet to be detected on BF3...

Being a F2P game, if cheaters are caught, they'll just make new accounts and keep going.

[Lokster]

From what I understand, Punkbuster is as effective as the support ($$) it receives from the game it is "protecting". Punkbuster works terribly on many titles because those titles are offering minimal compensation to Punkbuster for the protection. It's like buying anti-virus for your home computer. Typically there is a free or low price version and a full support, full protection service.

Developers pick the level of protection they desire weighing factors such as end-game performance impact, benefit/cost ratio, current needs, etc...

It's no wonder why AAA titles have PB updates daily and titles such as APB have PB updates once a month. Someone is clearly paying more for the service...

My point being, don't assume PB will be useless in PS2 because it's useless in a game like APB.

[Udnknome]

Another problem is that PS2 will be F2P, so any hackers that have their accounts terminated will just make another account. SOE could always ban IP addresses, but that's hurting business and doesn't work on dynamic IPs. Consistent updates and constant vigilance will be the only way :D

I've read this entire post and I really feel you guys are thinking too small. It's very easy to create a unique number for every computer using some very simple required items on the computer. Use something like the Mac address + Ascii equivalent Processor ID code + (whatever) windows product key. Put that value into a hash or AES algorithm, then send that info to sony. would create a very large unique id for each machine logged into the system.

Then you just ban this number. Depending on the components used, you could considerably increase the cost of being banned, and it will only affect their access to your software and services.

I know I'm not this smart, someone had to have thought of this before; with bandwidth as cheap (and required for this game), I'm unsure why it hasn't been done before.

[Pyreal]

Another problem is that PS2 will be F2P, so any hackers that have their accounts terminated will just make another account. SOE could always ban IP addresses, but that's hurting business and doesn't work on dynamic IPs. Consistent updates and constant vigilance will be the only way :D

Bold mine. I was under the impression that while this game will be F2P (meaning there are no subscription fees) a player is still required to Buy the game, either retail or digital, in order to play.

Is that inaccurate?
At launch can I simply go to planetside2.com and download the client and play?
I seriously doubt that. If a hacker gets banned he would have to go and buy a new copy and CD key in order to create a new account.

[Lokster]

Bold mine. I was under the impression that while this game will be F2P (meaning there are no subscription fees) a player is still required to Buy the game, either retail or digital, in order to play.

Is that inaccurate?
At launch can I simply go to planetside2.com and download the client and play?
I seriously doubt that. If a hacker gets banned he would have to go and buy a new copy and CD key in order to create a new account.

Wow, old thread is new again...

Yes, your statement is inaccurate. PS2 will be completely free to play with no "box" or digital purchase required.

[Baneblade]

Thread isn't even two weeks old...

[Goku]

I think that was the one Skitrel made that got locked due to a bunch of reasons. As long as this one remains civil there is no reason to close it.

[Bruttal]

I know everyones all hyped up about this Oh its F2P and hackers can just create another account yadda yadda yadda. but How many email accounts will they make till they just give up?. theres so many ways to combat an issue like that.

One being if recently ban email from * ip address attempts to make a new account then deny account. two orginal user name recently ban Yourmomma new account made 0min-24hrs latter with *Yourmomma*
(enter filter algorithm's here also for people who would try and do urmomma or whatever).
three Person from this isp with username yourmomma recently ban trys to create an account approve it but force client to repatch all files.

am sure there are other ways to enforce it but these are some simple ways.

[sylphaen]

So.... Did we get any confirmation that capitalized i and lower-case L will not look similar ?

They apparently have a similar issue in SC2:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=336151

PS1 was a visionary game !
^^

[Bluecewe]

I believe Red Orchestra 2 used both Valve Anti-Cheat and Punkbuster simultaneously. I'm unsure whether any benefits came of that decision, but I can see people taking a similar approach in future. Why restrict yourself to one method of detection?

Also, Battlefield are currently attempting to recruit what they call an "Anti Cheat Administrator"; someone whose role is to basically coordinate the investigation into supposed cheaters. As far as I'm aware they're the first to look for someone to fulfil this role, and I suspect many large-scale multiplayer developers will aim to establish similar roles as well.