Confirmed, Hackers banned for 3-10 days. [Statement from Smed]

[Roy Awesome]

Updated OP:

I wanted to briefly explain how we approach banning and clear up some misconceptions out there.

First off. If we have clear evidence of a person cheating we ban them. We search for any other accounts they have and we ban those too. We have very good hacking detection algorithms. They aren't perfect though. There are some things that are very hard to detect. There is no "7 day ban". That's a myth. Sometimes we suspend someone for 7 days. This is typically someone who is breaking a rule but it doesn't warrant banning. Sometimes we suspend people for something while we actually suspect them of cheating. We'll watch them when they come back and the GM's are able to watch people while they play to make sure we're satisfied they are cheating.

Sometimes people say "But this guy is an obvious aimbotter". That may be true. It may not be. There are a lot of really good people in this game. There are also aimbotting scumbags. Telling the difference can be tough for our players sometimes but it's not for us. However we are careful about who we ban. We don't just ban because some player reports and says person X is an aimbotter. We actually put in the time to confirm this.

Also please don't use the new player site as "proof" that someone is cheating. I said when we launched it that it's still beta and we're still working out some data issues.

Also please realize the fight against cheaters is not a war we will ever be finished with. We make new detection and anti-hack code, they spend time and try and work around it. It's a constant effort. We just want you to know we hate them just as much as you do and we're busting our asses to get them out of the game. Do we do it as fast as you might like? Not all the time no. But we also don't want to falsely accuse people without solid proof.

I hope this helps clear this up at least a little. I'm sure there will be people that don't think we're doing enough. After having personally viewed some of the major cheat sites I can tell you I'm blown away by how sophisticated some of these operations are. They are making money on this. We're working on that from another angle too that I'm not going to go into just yet (hint. it involves lawyers) . But we have the resources to fight this fight and we will keep doing it.
Smed

http://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/comments/1986in/short_explanation_of_our_banningsuspension/

*******************
This is a cross post from Reddit, posted by ArcFault (who doesn't have an account here). The original thread is here: http://redd.it/194qqy

We don't need to cross reference anything. Use it.. we'll find you. we'll find your family. we'll hunt you down.
-John Smedley on Hackers via Twitter


So this post is about SOE's policy regarding hackers, not technical aspects of it which is a different issue and not one we're going to address here.

I think it's completely unacceptable that hackers are given a free pass like this in this game. I understand there is a business aspect to this, I do, and if someone who was hacking decides they want to play legit then great! But they should start over with a new character. Their old character should have it stats reset and that character should be explicitly labeled "Hacker" on their stats in huge, red, comic sans letters.

If I had it my way, the person who reported them for hacking with proof would get the hacker's character name mounted on their in-game profile like a taxidermed moose-head. Players who follow the rules and support the game should have the ability to know if the person that beats them consistently is the real deal or not.

The hacker paranoia has taken hold within the community. I've seen hackers that I am 100% sure about make it all the way to ~BR30. I have a list of people whom I suspect, but am not sure about, whose BRs are well into 50+ and beyond. It must be really nice to be able to give yourself a little handicap over legitimate players without fear of repercussions. Also, since money=station cash=weapons=certs it must be nice to steal your way through the game.

How do I know this and where's my proof?

Well funny enough, I got to talk to someone who made a hacker account to counter-hack (LOL) one of Mattherson's more well-known long term and ridiculously obvious hackers - VanuSerpentor(BR29) (And heshe's TR alt LordSerpentor). Here's a sample of LordSerpentor in a mossie: here . I have multiple videos of this scumbag who was reported multiple times by multiple people. Anyways, the hacker named their character VenuSerpentor and then proceeded to counter-hack the shit out of VanuSerpentor in some attempt to bring cosmic balance to Auraxis. It was pretty funny. Now VenuSerpentor also hacked everyone else ridiculous amounts and got a stern 7 day ban. That's it.

Here's the email and here's their stats prior to having the ban lifted:

E-mail: http://i.imgur.com/uCozY6n.png

Stats: http://imgur.com/I1layDq,qfjk0pF#1

Here's their stat page after the ban is lifted:

Post ban stats: http://imgur.com/I1layDq,qfjk0pF#0

Yep, everything is still there on the character, the hacker confirmed that all his unlocks were available, and he got some nice passive cert gain!

This is not a one-time thing. I have multiple confirmations from different hackers at different BR levels (one at BR40). I'm keeping some of it to myself for now because I want to see what happens to these people. I wouldn't be surprised if nothing does.

This sure as hell isn't the hard-line against cheaters Smedley was proclaiming a few months ago. You may never be able to completely rid online games of cheaters but when your policy is to just give them a free pass - that's completely unacceptable to me and probably a lot of you in the community. If I ever stop playing this game, as one of the paying customers, it will be for shit like this. Apologies for making this a public ordeal but this discussion has been private long enough with very little change in direction.

[Stardouser]

I think this is a VERY weak approach to hacking but I want to focus on another thing. Hacking is a much more serious transgression than exploiting, would you not agree? They have permabanned EQ and other MMORPG accounts with 200 DAYS of play time for the first offense over the years, for exploits, sometimes even minor. I think we all agree it's not as big a deal to start over in PS2 compared to an MMORPG, right? Yet it makes sense to permaban MMORPG accounts where it really hurts a player to start over, but go easy on PS2 accounts where starting over wouldn't be so bad, relatively?

And also, when EQ Next comes, are they going to continue going easy on PS2 hackers while having no mercy on mere exploiters in EQ Next?

[Tatwi]

Thank you for proving why this game is not worth my money. When my SC dries up, I'll not be purchasing any more, unless by that time SOE gets some balls.

Cheat once, life time ban. Period. Too fucking bad for you.

[OCNSethy]

Given Smedly's quote, I am dissappointed.

[camycamera]

as a first warning for hacking, they should remove any certs they have gained, and do not allow any more gaining of certs. also they should lock weapons, and do not allow any use of vehicles, abilities, etc, for say, a month. and any attempt to leave the warpgate will result in an insta-death and will spawn back in the warpgate. a second offence should remove their account permanently.


oh, oh, even better; there should be a jail area in the warpgate to put griefers and hackers in :D

[Hamma]

I honestly don't think this is a blanket thing. Though I have no doubt this is happening for some people.

[Rumblepit]

i would like to know which genius at SOE came up with this policy, hes just as bad as the hackers in my book. i wouldnt even pisss on these people if they were on fire.

sorry for being so vulgar but this just makes me rage,this is fing pathetic.

[Assist]

Considering how some people took a week long disappearance from Waterson and then showed back up playing on a completely different level skill wise, can't say I'm surprised.
I run into a hacker at least once a day still, although usually they're low rank(10-20)

[Sturmhardt]

Wow... I'm speechless. I hope RadarX (as community manager) can comment on this.

.sent via phone.

[Rothnang]

Hackers come in two varieties.
There are the guys who just want to see how far they can push it, and what can be done. These are the guys who make flying tank hacks or something like that that's blatantly obvious. They just do it for the luls, and they most likely made a disposable account in the first place to try it out. The thing about these types of hackers is, they don't play day after day, week after week with a flying tank. They do it once, they have their laughs, they move on to some other mischief.
Then you have the guys who aren't so much hackers as they are cheaters. They really want to win, they want an unfair edge over their opponents, but they actually care about their character. They use hacks to get those accomplishments, and they will go for hacks that they think can't be detected. Something that just slightly tweaks the game in their favor. There are probably a lot more of these guys than the first kind.

The first kind of hacker really can't be stopped, if something is popular someone is going to want to leech some fame by sabotaging it, and honestly, as long as it isn't done maliciously or too often it doesn't really hurt anything too badly. There aren't a lot of people with the technical knowhow or time to mess with a game just for a few laughs.
On the other hand, if you're a cheater and you do it all because you want to win and have a high battle rank and lots of certs you are actually attached to those things. If you get caught, but they say "stop what you're doing and you can keep your character", you know that you're under observation, you know that you can be caught, but they have also given you a reason to stop hacking. If they ban the cheater for life all they do is force him to make another account, and most likely cheat again to regain his old status more quickly.

It may seem like a slap on the wrist, but in the long run it has a better chance of turning a cheater into a regular player than knocking them back down to BR1.

[Spiritbeast]

Hackers should be punished severely. They negatively effect the gaming experience for every person they kill. I dont care how fun it is for them. Get your rocks off on somone elses face. Stop blowing your load on mine ; P

Except for the guys hacking just to pay em back. That's awesome. like RobinHood with a machinegun hehe. I dont like to get picked on. I dont put up with it in RL, the only difference is in the game i cant fight back cause i dont know how. So i disagree. Punish them 100 times over for acting against me, and 1000 times over for everyone else ; P LVL 1 With a Special PINK Camo that glows in the dark. If they hack again ban em.

[Rothnang]

What's better? Some attempt at "revenge" or pursuing a course that might actually curb some hackers, even if that means their punishment is less severe?

[Sprintfox]

Well, while I am someone who thinks that every person should get a second chance, I've to say also, that...

... on first caught, they should get their character resetted to 0. I mean, there are a lot of hackers currently playing on a smart way or whatever, while they've also spent money on station cash. This means, do not lock their weapons and / or block the purchased stuff. When it comes to a false/positive this could throw a bad light on SOE. BR should be resetted to 1, which includes that certs are set to 0.

... on second caught, obviously permaban. I mean, if they got a second chance to increase their reputation, then they should use her. People which isn't thankful doesn't deserve to continue playing the game.

[Sifer2]

Yeah it's stupid. What is this "maybe they will reform" crap? They should be permanently banned in every way possible. Account closed, IP ban, and CC ban which btw a CC should have been required to play this game from the start. But no I guess it's ok for SOE's actual paying customers to get shot through the floors, and know the guy they reported for farming thousands of kills, and ruining the game for hundreds of other players will be back in a week. And even get to keep his certs lol what a god damn joke.

[Sturmhardt]

If the GM is sure about the hacking the guy should be banned forever right away. He then can appeal to SOE support if he feels something went wrong and they decide if the ban was just or not. Temporary bans as a "warning shot" for cheaters are ridiculous.

.sent via phone.

[Baneblade]

I want to see Asterisks next to anything related to a hacking player's stats. Just so people know that player didn't earn those numbers.

[Phreec]

Unacceptable. If the player is caught red handed he should be perm-banned.

[Babyfark McGeez]

If this is true our SOE friends will so get the piss for this by their playerbase, and i must say totally rightful so.

Just makes you wonder once more how these guys are actually running their business, and what their priorities are.

[Ironside]

i remember the run up to beta smedley saying they had robust measures for cheaters,
to be honest i don't think they have jack shit and just use other players to police the game and highlight cheats..
My opinion of smedley has been low from day one

[Wahooo]

I don't think that is every case, and there are straight away bans. However SOE has been pretty bad as far as consistency in their bans for a long time.
I've known people that were banned from PS1 for trying out the hacks for vigilante justice and were banned for life, no appeal possible no coming back.
Then I've seen accounts of people posting on hacker forums about 1-2 week bans over and over again.

Credit Card: it is simply not something SOE does. It is a shame, if a CC and valid email was required to create an account it would go SOOOOO much further in being able to perma ban people and keep them from coming back with alt accounts.

Players in this large a game just can't be GM's. There are too many who fly off the handle and hackusate. In order to ban you need tools to watch players that I'm not comfortable giving to players. GMs just need more control and ability to temporary ban while the Devs look into the case to permaban.

Yes, there are multiple types of hackers, but there is also cross-over. The troll types or those who like to push and just see how far and what they can do? Well in PS1 there were a few who TRULY hacked the game and as far as I know never really did anything to upset the game or peoples play time. There were many other script writers who came back day after day after day completely breaking the game, and distributing their cheats to the bads wanting an edge. There is a cross-over and as far as i'm concerned they can both be instantly perma-banned at first offense.

I'm not a fan of name and shame. there are just to many or get their rocks off on that.. being able to say see that was me look at how much they hate ME! I just want bans.

I still don't see many as far as I know. But I do see a lot of hackusations.

[Thunderhawk]

meh, ranting about it now isn't going to make much difference, I just play my game and if I run into a hacker move onto somewhere else to fight. (after reporting them)

I don't get too wound up about it, as it serves no goal.

Also, occasionally, both empires fighting tend to actually cooperate and either kill or TK the cheater so thats actually pretty cool

[Babyfark McGeez]

...

Credit Card: it is simply not something SOE does. It is a shame, if a CC and valid email was required to create an account it would go SOOOOO much further in being able to perma ban people and keep them from coming back with alt accounts.

...


If this game (or any other SOE game for that matter) would require credit card info i wouldn't be playing it (and not only because i don't have a credit card). I am fairly certain that would apply to MANY eu players. That's a bad idea.

[Sturmhardt]

If this game (or any other SOE game for that matter) would require credit card info i wouldn't be playing it (and not only because i don't have a credit card). I am fairly certain that would apply to MANY eu players. That's a bad idea.

Agreed, but it would be no problem if they tied an account to a mobile phone. Everyone has a mobile phone. Of course you have other people's phones around that you could borrow if your account gets banned, but it's work and after 2 or 3 accounts you are out of phone numbers. I don't get why they don't do this. The Russian SOE counterparts do it like that.

.sent via phone.

[Babyfark McGeez]

Now that's a good idea. Phone numbers are harder to come by than throwaway email addresses.

Also even though it's not irony, but i like that you sent that idea via phone. Ha.

[psijaka]

3-10 day ban and they don't lose anything? PATHETIC.

Proven hackers should be banned for life; simple. There should be rock solid evidence and an appeals process though; mistakes can happen.

[Blynd]

The wall of shame is a great idea for those who report cheeters and may encourage more people to report cheeters

[Baneblade]

Id like to point out that the OP has not supplied evidence that SOE rewards hacking with anything other than a permaban.

[luvthesnapper]

I'm on mattherson as well, and have recently started recording around cap points, simply standing and waiting for maxes to fly in through walls, pop up through the floor, etc. Got some great footage last weekend. The funny thing is, not only are they bad PS2 players, they are bad at using the hacking software as well. Just failure all around.

[DirtyBird]

If this is happening now then they have changed it recently imo.
I've not seen any of the cheats I've reported back in January.
Mind you I've also not seen about 75% of my outfit or other allied outfits since then either.

IF the policy has changed then I cant see the point in reporting them and probably wont bother any more.

I'd be disappointed if Smeds has softened his stance on cheats.
He was very adamant that he would hunt them all down and challenged the cheats to test him.

He doesn't seem to say as much these days but maybe he'll come out and clarify it for us.

[ShadoViper]

meh, ranting about it now isn't going to make much difference, I just play my game and if I run into a hacker move onto somewhere else to fight. (after reporting them)

I don't get too wound up about it, as it serves no goal.

Also, occasionally, both empires fighting tend to actually cooperate and either kill or TK the cheater so thats actually pretty cool

That apathy and submission sure sounds fun to me. I should definatly have to go out of my way in-game to play. I sure feel like my time as a customer is valued in that scenario.

[Mox]

After reading this i think Smed should get a lifetime ban.

[VGCS]

I notice SOE is denying it all pretty heavily now, but I feel like they're missing the entire point either way.

The "Hackers" (script kiddies... very few of these people wrote their own code) who got caught in the first place, had to be doing something so blatant that the average player noticed. Yet the Average player is so oblivious to subtle cheating that you can (and I actually HAVE) record yourself using the cheats and show them it several times, and they still won't figure it out. Even some Admins are almost that obvlivious and the only reason I know that is because I've worked with Dozens of admins in the past. I'm not naming names because they all "meant-well". But the point stands: The vast majority of cheaters get away with it because most developers are too afraid to challenge Convention.

The saddest part is that the most "effective" hack in the game isn't a Bot at all. And this goes back to what Hamma's often brought the most attention to.... The way that bases are designed and how the meta flows, and how XP is gained. Information hacks & "tracer warnings" are where it's really at and I personally guarantee that their GM's have no procedures or multicrew efforts for catching the sometimes 40% of the playerbase using them on the Weekends. But that's not the sad part, the sad part is that they continue to outright REFUSE to change their Server Client Architecture in a sensible way that would completely eliminate this "Gateway Drug". They HAVE the power to do this, (the technology has existed since Quake2/3 modders first experimented with BSP scripts), and put a stop finally to the increasing Arms-Race that even normal people are able to spot these days.

[Hamma]

https://twitter.com/j_smedley/status/306190049945452544

Click the date link in the Tweet for the full convo.

[Stardouser]

So is Smedley saying that all the claims of non-bans are hoaxes? He has to be, since he seems pretty sure they ban for hacking.

I have no doubt that there will be people intentionally using blatant hacks to see what happens to put this to a test.

[Hamma]

I wanted to briefly explain how we approach banning and clear up some misconceptions out there.

First off. If we have clear evidence of a person cheating we ban them. We search for any other accounts they have and we ban those too. We have very good hacking detection algorithms. They aren't perfect though. There are some things that are very hard to detect. There is no "7 day ban". That's a myth. Sometimes we suspend someone for 7 days. This is typically someone who is breaking a rule but it doesn't warrant banning. Sometimes we suspend people for something while we actually suspect them of cheating. We'll watch them when they come back and the GM's are able to watch people while they play to make sure we're satisfied they are cheating.

Sometimes people say "But this guy is an obvious aimbotter". That may be true. It may not be. There are a lot of really good people in this game. There are also aimbotting scumbags. Telling the difference can be tough for our players sometimes but it's not for us. However we are careful about who we ban. We don't just ban because some player reports and says person X is an aimbotter. We actually put in the time to confirm this.

Also please don't use the new player site as "proof" that someone is cheating. I said when we launched it that it's still beta and we're still working out some data issues.

Also please realize the fight against cheaters is not a war we will ever be finished with. We make new detection and anti-hack code, they spend time and try and work around it. It's a constant effort. We just want you to know we hate them just as much as you do and we're busting our asses to get them out of the game. Do we do it as fast as you might like? Not all the time no. But we also don't want to falsely accuse people without solid proof.

I hope this helps clear this up at least a little. I'm sure there will be people that don't think we're doing enough. After having personally viewed some of the major cheat sites I can tell you I'm blown away by how sophisticated some of these operations are. They are making money on this. We're working on that from another angle too that I'm not going to go into just yet (hint. it involves lawyers) . But we have the resources to fight this fight and we will keep doing it.
Smed

http://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/comments/1986in/short_explanation_of_our_banningsuspension/

[Snowfake]

pay me the money you are paying those lawyers and I would happily rid you of these people

[Assist]

http://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/comments/1986in/short_explanation_of_our_banningsuspension/

I don't get it.
He says they don't ban people for 7 days. But sometimes when they suspect someone of cheating they suspend them for 7 days. He also says they're very good at detecting cheaters, the problem is they're not preventing cheaters. With their current way of detecting the legit players pay the price and the fun is therefore ruined for those players. Sure that player gets banned, but it appears that they find their way back quite quickly. It's annoying when an aimbotter, who was banned on one account, sends you a message on his new account to let you know that he's still around.

As much as I'd like to believe everything he says, his first statement alone contradicts what he was saying. It's not a misconception that you temp. ban people for 7 days, when you state yourself that you do indeed temp. ban people for 7 days who are suspected of cheating. You may as well have said you slap them on the wrist with a warning so they get a chance to stop cheating, which is completely the opposite of your stated stance against hackers.

[Higby]

I don't get it.
He says they don't ban people for 7 days. But sometimes when they suspect someone of cheating they suspend them for 7 days. He also says they're very good at detecting cheaters, the problem is they're not preventing cheaters. With their current way of detecting the legit players pay the price and the fun is therefore ruined for those players. Sure that player gets banned, but it appears that they find their way back quite quickly. It's annoying when an aimbotter, who was banned on one account, sends you a message on his new account to let you know that he's still around.

As much as I'd like to believe everything he says, his first statement alone contradicts what he was saying. It's not a misconception that you temp. ban people for 7 days, when you state yourself that you do indeed temp. ban people for 7 days who are suspected of cheating. You may as well have said you slap them on the wrist with a warning so they get a chance to stop cheating, which is completely the opposite of your stated stance against hackers.

Cheater in some sense could mean a guy boosting, or spawning in a wall with someone's glitched sunderer, or flipping people in the warpgate, some would say TKing or using mines to blow up stationary sunderers is cheating. shades of grey in there, but not with aim botting, or otherwise 'hacking' the game. There's no tolerance for someone using an aimbot, zero. If you spawned in a wall a few times because of a glitched sunderer and got caught, we might give you a suspension instead of a ban for a first time offense.

[Assist]

Cheater in some sense could mean a guy boosting, or spawning in a wall with someone's glitched sunderer, or flipping people in the warpgate, some would say cheating is using mines to blow up sunderers is cheating. shades of grey in there, but not with aim botting, or otherwise 'hacking' the game. There's no tolerance for someone using an aimbot, zero. If you spawned in a wall a few times because of a glitched sunderer and got caught, we might give you a suspension instead of a ban for a first time offense.

Ah, it didn't read like that. If that's the case then ok. The context the response post was in most people would consider him to be talking about hackers not 'cheaters'. I'd consider some of those acts griefing, not cheating but to each their own.


OT: You mean using mines on allied Sunderers? Or mines on stationary Sunderers?

[Koadster]

What about as been suggested many times.. require a Credit Card at registration, that would cut down on some hackers. Although ive been noticing alot more higher BR guys with cosmetics spinning around and near insta killing me even against a TRV with softpoint ammo, so there will always be hackers.

But a CC would cut down on alot of the wanna be hackers.

[Cantona]

I think it`s maybe a quick shame on PSU. The title of this forum post is VERY misleading and NOT what Smedley said at all and the horde seen the headline, skimped over the actual statement and went on the warpath. Shame PSU.
He said - if you care caught hacking you are banned. End of. What is the problem?

[Tatwi]

I think it`s maybe a quick shame on PSU. The title of this forum post is VERY misleading and NOT what Smedley said at all and the horde seen the headline, skimped over the actual statement and went on the warpath. Shame PSU.
He said - if you care caught hacking you are banned. End of. What is the problem?

The problem is in the time between the hacking and banning, the cheaters are ruining the game.

Absolutely no point at all in caring about your stats or "being competitive" when the fact of the matter is that cheaters are allowed to play for hours on end, negatively effecting everyone they encounter. The best part? When they are suspended, they come right back on another account.

I give up. The cheaters won, SOE lost. Take care.

[Wahooo]

I'm not seeing these guys... The only thing i've found game breaking is Indarside.

[Wahooo]

I hope this helps clear this up at least a little. I'm sure there will be people that don't think we're doing enough. After having personally viewed some of the major cheat sites I can tell you I'm blown away by how sophisticated some of these operations are. They are making money on this. We're working on that from another angle too that I'm not going to go into just yet (hint. it involves lawyers) . But we have the resources to fight this fight and we will keep doing it.
Smed


This actually kinda pisses me off. If we are to take this seriously where the hell was this response 4-5 years ago when a couple of these pay to cheat sites took off and started making money and at the same time KILLING PS1???

From ~Jan - June of 2009 the population drop in PS1 was friggen staggering due to the rampant cheating and SLOW response. Many of the worst granted were writing the scripts themselves and sharing free to others who included many of the 'subtle' hackers we all knew about and were reported with video evidence time and time again. BUT... the pay to cheat sites were there then. The pay to cheat sites were stealing SOE's money by killing the playerbase then. PS1 was an alive game that had 1, 2 sometimes 3 pop-locked continents daily to the constant 3-way cyssorside it remained for the last 3 years of its life. That probably represents a couple thousand players actually that quit over a period of 6 months MOSTLY due to hacking.

Remember in June of 2009? They started responding to tickets in minutes, 24/7 hackers were being banned, coming back and being banned sometimes 3-4 times and the banning and GM response was better than i've seen in almost any game... but it was too little and too late the damage had been done. I know the outfit I was in at that time lost 75% of its palyers between april and may, and the next outfit I was in went from platoons to 1/2 squads during that period and neither ever recovered. GM's actually doing GM stuff in a timely manner in June? Just not enough.

SO SMED,
If these sites are some new revelation to you and you feel NOW it is time to act? FUCK YOU! This threat and action is about 5 years to late in my book.

[Smed]

Ah, it didn't read like that. If that's the case then ok. The context the response post was in most people would consider him to be talking about hackers not 'cheaters'. I'd consider some of those acts griefing, not cheating but to each their own.


OT: You mean using mines on allied Sunderers? Or mines on stationary Sunderers?

Specifically what I was saying is sometimes we have decent evidence against a person but not enough to say for sure. We might suspend (that is different then ban) and use some tracking software to watch them when they come back. The suspension would be for something legitimate (along the lines of what Matt said) on it's own though.

Why is a suspension different than a ban? We suspend an account. We ban a person. Very different things.

Smed
(and yes it's been a while since i posted here)

[Smed]

Ah, it didn't read like that. If that's the case then ok. The context the response post was in most people would consider him to be talking about hackers not 'cheaters'. I'd consider some of those acts griefing, not cheating but to each their own.


OT: You mean using mines on allied Sunderers? Or mines on stationary Sunderers?

This actually kinda pisses me off. If we are to take this seriously where the hell was this response 4-5 years ago when a couple of these pay to cheat sites took off and started making money and at the same time KILLING PS1???

From ~Jan - June of 2009 the population drop in PS1 was friggen staggering due to the rampant cheating and SLOW response. Many of the worst granted were writing the scripts themselves and sharing free to others who included many of the 'subtle' hackers we all knew about and were reported with video evidence time and time again. BUT... the pay to cheat sites were there then. The pay to cheat sites were stealing SOE's money by killing the playerbase then. PS1 was an alive game that had 1, 2 sometimes 3 pop-locked continents daily to the constant 3-way cyssorside it remained for the last 3 years of its life. That probably represents a couple thousand players actually that quit over a period of 6 months MOSTLY due to hacking.

Remember in June of 2009? They started responding to tickets in minutes, 24/7 hackers were being banned, coming back and being banned sometimes 3-4 times and the banning and GM response was better than i've seen in almost any game... but it was too little and too late the damage had been done. I know the outfit I was in at that time lost 75% of its palyers between april and may, and the next outfit I was in went from platoons to 1/2 squads during that period and neither ever recovered. GM's actually doing GM stuff in a timely manner in June? Just not enough.

SO SMED,
If these sites are some new revelation to you and you feel NOW it is time to act? FUCK YOU! This threat and action is about 5 years to late in my book.

Ok. I guess I should consider myself fucked.

Seriously things change over time. Including the law and precedent.

PS2 is a different game at a different order of magnitude. Complain about the past or help us work on the future. If all you're going to do is bitch about the past you aren't moving things forward IMO.

Smed

[CrazEpharmacist]

Ok. I guess I should consider myself fucked.

Seriously things change over time. Including the law and precedent.

PS2 is a different game at a different order of magnitude. Complain about the past or help us work on the future. If all you're going to do is bitch about the past you aren't moving things forward IMO.

Smed

When PS1 goes free to play do you guys plan to have a couple GMs monitoring the game for hackers? Because even now, when the game is completely dead there are still a few hackers that sub regularly.

[Smed]

When PS1 goes free to play do you guys plan to have a couple GMs monitoring the game for hackers? Because even now, when the game is completely dead there are still a few hackers that sub regularly.

Here's the truth - when PS1 is F2P maybe 100 people will play it.

That's about 10x what we have right now.

No I'm not kidding.

PS1 is a ghost town and it's going to likely stay that way.

hard truth but there it is.

[Tatwi]

You really should go the cheaters homes, like you joked about. The trouble with this though is that cheating has become part of the North American culture, from Harvard to Halo, folks have no shame. The up hill battle here is convincing people that using "cheat mode" in a single player game is not the same thing as cheating in a multi-player game. There is a whole culture surrounding this issue and it's something the gaming industry as a whole in going to have to address.

In any event, I hope your lawyers improve the situation. Suing the PS3 Linux guy was wrong, because oh no, people could run Open Office in their livingroom (like they were allowed to do when they bought the original product...). But suing people who are actually hacking revenue generating programs, causing paying customers to leave, well, that's a genuine problem for Sony.

"Pick your battles" they say. This is one of them. Kindly win it.

[CrazEpharmacist]

Here's the truth - when PS1 is F2P maybe 100 people will play it.

That's about 10x what we have right now.

No I'm not kidding.

PS1 is a ghost town and it's going to likely stay that way.

hard truth but there it is.

I think you severely underestimate the demand for ps1. Your sequel is very taxing on even some high end pcs. Not every one has a good enough pc to play pS2, so for those players they can have ps1. Plus all the other people that straight out hate ps2 and want to come back to ps1. I think you will have a dedicated player base that can pop lock at least the one server you have up and running, when it goes free to play.

To clarify though, are you planning on implementing a cash store for free to play, or just switching the reserves system back on? (Edited because it seemed harsh.)

Also, if you truly think PS1 will remain a ghost town, why even bother making it free to play? Why not just shut the server down?

[Zulthus]

Here's the truth - when PS1 is F2P maybe 100 people will play it.

That's about 10x what we have right now.

No I'm not kidding.

PS1 is a ghost town and it's going to likely stay that way.

hard truth but there it is.

I respectfully disagree. There are tons of people who want to go back to PS1, even if just for a while. The main reason everyone left late in its life was because of all the hackers. They were rampant, and the game wasn't playable some days.


Also, edit. Out of curiosity, do you want PS1 to stay alive? You seem to have no faith in it anymore. I see no reason why PS1 and PS2 can't coexist like EQ1 and EQ2. I personally play EQ1 all the time because it's so much better than EQ2 IMO.

What I'm saying is there's room for the niche games. PS2/EQ2 are games for the masses and casuals, whereas EQ1/PS1 are more..."in depth" maybe? They just take a more focused gamer to have fun in them, there's no instant gratification. I'm probably making no sense, but eh. You could probably make some profit off of PS1 if you gave it a small dev team. Hell, you could even let the community create content.

[Ghodere]

Until it actually happens, everything is speculation. People and their motivations are complex; if you want to know how many people will play PS1 over the long term when it's made F2P, you have to make PS1 F2P and see. No way around it.

[CrazEpharmacist]

I disagree. There are tons of people who want to go back to PS1, even if just for a while. The main reason everyone left late in its life was because of all the hackers. They were rampant, and the game wasn't playable some days.

Also, the sub is still 15 dollars. That's a lot for a game that soe gave up supporting. It used to be 10 but they actually raised it to 15 even though support had been dropped by that point. Who knows why though? Almost like they want the game to be dead, and judging by smeds post above I think that is all but confirmed.

[Electrofreak]

Here's the truth - when PS1 is F2P maybe 100 people will play it.

That's about 10x what we have right now.

No I'm not kidding.

PS1 is a ghost town and it's going to likely stay that way.

hard truth but there it is.

Smed, first off, thanks for posting out here. A lot of rage in this thread but I do see the actions of the GM team paying off. It's rare I see a blatant cheater and those I suspect tend to disappear after a while.

As for PS1, I'll respectfully disagree. The reason it's a ghost town is because of the subscription and because it's a ghost town. Now, a lot of PS1 worked well, and we're seeing more and more of that come into PS2 (like the dynamic kill XP in GU2, which seemed to be come straight out of the post in my signature, sans dynamic capture XP) so I'm glad to see it. But a lot of PS1 was bad too. I think something that will help PS2 is for people, when they're in a rut and thinking about quitting the game, to play the original for a little bit and realize all the improvements that have been made. That said, some people just don't like change. They'll play PS1 no matter how good PS2 gets because it's PS1, or just for the nostalgia.

I know I'd log in and play PS1 occasionally myself. Gotta have my Rocklet Rifle fix now and then!

[Hamma]

Guys enough with the damn PS1 talk. This isn't about PS1..

[DirtyBird]

Thanks Higby and Smeds for clarifying it for me at least.
I've had success in the past with reporting various cheats and it looks like that will continue if needed.

[Hamma]

I think you severely underestimate the demand for ps1.

I really don't think he does.

[CrazEpharmacist]

Guys enough with the damn PS1 talk. This isn't about PS1..

Yeah sorry, I initiated the PS1 talk when my thread got merged into this one. It's been since restored so yeah we can stop with the PS1.

[SKYeXile]

The guy looks legit.

[Wahooo]

Guys enough with the damn PS1 talk. This isn't about PS1..

I used PS1 as an example of what a lack of attention can/will do to a game when it comes to cheaters.

A few things on this. First of all I still believe the hacking issue is being taken care of fairly well on PS2. I have seen only a few ACTUAL no doubt hackers. I have seen MANY very good players that a lot of people swear are cheaters. I have seen quite a few I'm suspicious of.

I am still obviously very pissed about the lack of attention this issue got in PS1. But as I said it is the past experience we have to go by with this company.
I do guess things do change, and I personally appreciate the effort they are making in this game. I THINK I personally see it. Of all the shooters i've played in the last several years I have seen fewer signs of blatant cheaters in PS2 than any other save for Global Agenda for the first ~5 months of that game.

I still think there is more that can be done, but as has been pointed out in this thread cheat PREVENTION is kind of a misnomer as they are always working to get around whatever blocks can be made and it means it is cheat RESPONSE and PS2 has been IMO better than PS1... BUT I stand by my anger over the lack of response PS1 had AND that this really does seem like SMED has only recently seen the reality of the pay to cheat sites... AND I also strongly disagree with his numbers estimate... but his estimation will be probably over the amount that will play if there is no GM support and PS1 becomes a hacker-fest.

[CrazEpharmacist]

AND I also strongly disagree with his numbers estimate... but his estimation will be probably over the amount that will play if there is no GM support and PS1 becomes a hacker-fest.

That's a really good point. Based on Smedly's post it seems like they are indeed half-assing the free to play transition for PS1. No GM support or even any support whatsoever. They are just going to make it free and let it run wild with hackers. I guess your estimate is right Smeds, if that. Why even bother going through the trouble? Just kill the game already if you're never going to properly support it.

[maradine]

There are 720 hours in a month. How many of those would you like covered by a GM, at what hourly rate, paid for with what? Harsh language?

Let PS1 rot.

Slightly more on topic, how about we pretend for a moment that SOE has more to lose in this than we do and is probably highly motivated to solve the hacker problem. That whole fiduciary duty thing.

[CrazEpharmacist]

There are 720 hours in a month. How many of those would you like covered by a GM, at what hourly rate, paid for with what? Harsh language?



If you're adding in PS1 access to PS2 subs and even further making the game free to play, I think it is completely reasonable to expect at least 1 or 2 GMs. They don't have to be on 24/7, that's insane. Just log on every now and again, maybe 10 hours a week or so to give off a presence and give priority to multiple reports of the same thing. To put all this effort into revitalizing a dead game and not give at least some support is asinine. For comparison sake, how much support does EQ1 have?

[maradine]

Dunno - how many Gold subscriptions do they have?

[Wahooo]

For several years the GM's that responded to support tickets for PS1 have had sigs like "May the Force Be With YOu" and "Happy Journeys in Azeroth" or whatever land EQ was set in. That was while there was only one planetside and we were paying subs.

They can either continue with that, or PS2 GMs or I'll take a few years of credit on what I paid.

[Babyfark McGeez]

Good to have some clearing up on the hacking matter.

Here's the truth - when PS1 is F2P maybe 100 people will play it.

That's about 10x what we have right now.

No I'm not kidding.

PS1 is a ghost town and it's going to likely stay that way.

hard truth but there it is.

Oh, you. ;)

As much as i would like to HIGHLY question your assumption here (for example, take a look at the numbers when sony handed out the free month back when the whole PSN thing happened), i'd like to point out something positive instead:

Regardless of me bitching about the shallowness that is PS2, i just gotta give you guys once more much credit: It has been ages since i saw game developers from an "AAA" studio communicating with the players like you are.
Props for that.
If you guys feel like upping one up, there are quite a lot of good threads with ideas for the game on here aswell that practically beg for dev input *hint* *hint*.

Now just put back some more planetside into planetside and we don't even need to discuss PS1. :p

[Maidere]

Based on what Smed did write on Reddit the only thing I can say - most likely SOE has bad anticheat system if they are resorted to suspend suspicious people.

[Thunderhawk]

OMFG why don't you guys just let Planetside 1 die ffs......

Why on earth would anybody want to play a game with those Graphics in 2013 is beyond me.....

Forget about all the other crap with the Metagame, thats not enough to keep 100-300 people happy (and I'm being generous with the numbers)

Of course I dont know how many would go back to PS1 but I call bullshit on it being wanted by many.

LET IT DIE

(Wish SOE would just shut down the server, so we stop hearing people talk about bringing PS1 into F2P model)

[Babyfark McGeez]

OMFG why don't you guys just let Planetside 1 die ffs......

Why on earth would anybody want to play a game with those Graphics in 2013 is beyond me.....

Forget about all the other crap with the Metagame, thats not enough to keep 100-300 people happy (and I'm being generous with the numbers)

Of course I dont know how many would go back to PS1 but I call bullshit on it being wanted by many.

LET IT DIE

(Wish SOE would just shut down the server, so we stop hearing people talk about bringing PS1 into F2P model)

Way to be a dick. I'm sure with that attitude you will make lots of friends on here.
Making Planetside 1 F2P doesn't exactly require the full workforce of the devs, so if you don't like it, why not just STFU and just play the sequel then?

[Baneblade]

OMFG why don't you guys just let Planetside 1 die ffs......

Why on earth would anybody want to play a game with those Graphics in 2013 is beyond me.....

Forget about all the other crap with the Metagame, thats not enough to keep 100-300 people happy (and I'm being generous with the numbers)

Of course I dont know how many would go back to PS1 but I call bullshit on it being wanted by many.

LET IT DIE

(Wish SOE would just shut down the server, so we stop hearing people talk about bringing PS1 into F2P model)

Graphics aren't why PS1 is dead.

[Thunderhawk]

Way to be a dick. I'm sure with that attitude you will make lots of friends on here.
Making Planetside 1 F2P doesn't exactly require the full workforce of the devs, so if you don't like it, why not just STFU and just play the sequel then?

No need to personally insult me for stating my opinion, and I'm not here to make friends, I am here to talk about Planetside 2 in the Planetside 2 section of the forum.

You seem to react like my opinion weighs a lot in the dev's eyes, when in fact it makes no difference what I think.

[Sturmhardt]

After all Thunderhawk is right, PS1 is dead and will never be alive again, there are just not enough people interested in it to keep this old old game alive. You can't have a 20v20 in ps1 after all, you need a critical mass of players for it to be fun, and that critical mass does not exist anymore.

Btw, @topic:
Smed's comment is politician talk, as always. He talks much but doesn't say much. I can't believe so many people are impressed by that. Of course he says that they fight cheaters like hell. Of course he says that it is soooo hard. Poor, poor Smed. Does not change the fact that some REALLY obvious rampant cheaters are only removed after many hours after they ruined the gamenight of a whole platoon, despite being reported hundreds of times.

.sent via phone.

[ShockFC]

This thread is pretty interesting. Really showing off the communities inability to listen and understand what Smed is saying here.

He's saying there's a gray area in certain cases. The algorithm they use to detect cheaters isn't perfect, because it can't be. The game has glitches, and he's aware of that. With glitches come players that accidentally stumble across them - people that spawn in a wall, or fall below the ground. Hell, I've fallen below the ground before in a prime spot to kill people, but I decided to make the ethical decision to fall to my death instead. Not all players will make that decision, trust me. Not sure if you all remember, but there were several high profile suspensions back in December/January that turned out to be just incredibly good players. After their suspension they streamed 100% of their game play and never saw a change in their stats from before the suspension.

He's also saying that obvious cheaters - like aimbotters, wall hackers, pull hackers, etc - are almost always banned for life. Again, you can have gray area with wall hacking, since an exploit may exist, and lag may be an issue.

I know you all hate hackers, so does SOE. They've made that very public since release. However, you need to lower your pitchforks and try to understand that cheating in a game like this is a complicated issue. It's not black and white like so many of you think it is, and that's what he's trying to say.

BTW, this is potentially the first and last time I will EVER back up SOE for anything. Especially Smed, who IMO is one of the least well spoken CEO's I've ever encountered. His twitter shouldn't exist.

[MrBloodworth]

OMFG why don't you guys just let Planetside 1 die ffs......

Why on earth would anybody want to play a game with those Graphics in 2013 is beyond me.....

Forget about all the other crap with the Metagame, thats not enough to keep 100-300 people happy (and I'm being generous with the numbers)

Of course I dont know how many would go back to PS1 but I call bullshit on it being wanted by many.

LET IT DIE

(Wish SOE would just shut down the server, so we stop hearing people talk about bringing PS1 into F2P model)

I'm currently playing system shock 2. What now?

http://leviathyn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/systemshock2.jpg

[Sturmhardt]

Of course there are grey areas and SOE needs to find the best possible way to deal with that. This is nothing new.
What people demand is that SOE bans everyone in the black corner (obvious aimbotters, warpers, speedhackers) right away and not let them play for hours or days and ruin everyone else's fun. Hell, I have seen a speedhacker called Netbat running around for weeks on Miller a while ago, nothing happened although everyone reported him. I don't know if he is still playing or if he finally got banned. This is why people are angry. The occasional guy sitting in a rock because of a bug that SOE programmed theirself is an annoyance, but not the big problem.

@bloodworth: that game doesn't need a constant population of 300+ players to be fun.

.sent via phone.

[MrBloodworth]

@bloodworth: that game doesn't need a constant population of 300+ players to be fun.

I didn't realize you needed 300 people to have good graphics.

[Sturmhardt]

I didn't realize you needed 300 people to have good graphics.

Hehe, but it would be cool if you could get that with 300 people ;)

What I wanted to say is that nostalgia games might be fun for the individual, but ps1 is very unlikely to be revived ever because it needs so many active players to be fun... And those potential players probably rather play ps2. It's a waste of SOEs resources if they put any effort in it. Just my opinion.

.sent via phone.

[MrBloodworth]

Hehe, but it would be cool if you could get that with 300 people ;)

What I wanted to say is that nostalgia games might be fun for the individual, but ps1 is very unlikely to be revived ever because it needs so many active players to be fun... And those potential players probably rather play ps2. It's a waste of SOEs resources if they put any effort in it. Just my opinion.

.sent via phone.

It plays with 3. But yes, I agree. They will likely toss it out as free because there is no loss there. But the gain is it becomes another bullet point in marketing.

[Sturmhardt]

BTW, vote this guy's reddit answer up, this is an answer worth supporting, not the deluded first answer right now, smiling over smeds lawyer talk... (Hint: many companies have tried to stop cheating/botting with lawyers and failed miserably)

http://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/comments/1986in/short_explanation_of_our_banningsuspension/c8lqjj1

.sent via phone.

[Crator]

<Removed comment responding to Hamma cause he moved it to another thread. See below>

[Hamma]

Moved to it's own threads so it's seen:
http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=53231

;)

[Chaff]

.
PS1 died - years ago. We never had official services for it.

I just wish the PS2 SOE Team had chosen to retain a few more game mechanics from PS1. I miss deployed AMS (cloaked), most of the old Engie abilities, & Implants. Stamina is something I'm borderline on.....PS1 Died for many reasons. It was not solely due to the hacking. I LOVED that game for a good two years. The repetitive game-play was what killed it for me.
.
.

[raw]

Here's the truth - when PS1 is F2P maybe 100 people will play it.

That's about 10x what we have right now.

No I'm not kidding.

PS1 is a ghost town and it's going to likely stay that way.

hard truth but there it is.

I know I won't be going back to PS1, allthough I miss gunner/driver separation of MBTs.

[Baneblade]

I think more than 100 will play, but it will never see poplocks again.

[Wahooo]

.

I just wish the PS2 SOE Team had chosen to retain a few more game mechanics from PS1.

That is really all a lot of us are saying. Obviously not everything, and there are many things about PS1 I would not want to see in another game, but there are still many game mechanics that would seem to fit into PS2 seamlessly and improve the game play.

[maradine]

Relevant to this thread's interest:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/comments/199qiu/specific_changes_we_are_making_as_a_result_of_the/

[Hamma]

Here's a short list. I'll add more later.

1) Our GMs are going to be doing a lot more broadcasting when they are on servers to make sure people know they are there and dealing with the hackers.

2) We will be implementing and TESTING a "batphone" system for larger outfits to call and report large scale issues. Who's going to have that #? Not a ton of people. It will be people we trust and have gotten it right in the past. We'll expand it if this works.

3) In the very near future (the second I get the final report) we will be announcing banned numbers.

4) We are going to be working on increasing the quality of our reporting system in game and specifically to make sure the right reports float to the top. This is going to take a bit of time but it's being moved up the list immediately (we already had a task for this but we're moving it near the top).

Smed
Interesting.

[CrazEpharmacist]

Here's the truth - when PS1 is F2P maybe 100 people will play it.

That's about 10x what we have right now.

No I'm not kidding.

PS1 is a ghost town and it's going to likely stay that way.

hard truth but there it is.

Sorry Hamma, something just came to mind and I couldn't help not posting it.

http://www.change.org/petitions/sony-online-entertainment-planetside-1-free-to-play-or-return-reserves-w-5-monthly-charge-2

Petition from a few months ago. Almost 300 people who signed want to come back to PS1. So right there your post loses credibility. I'm not sure where you pulled that 100 number from but clearly it is nonsense.

[Micro]

Interesting.

Indeed. Hope we get this stuff in the near future, not after 20 years of waiting...

. Sent from my phone

[Micro]

Sorry Hamma, something just came to mind and I couldn't help not posting it.

http://www.change.org/petitions/sony-online-entertainment-planetside-1-free-to-play-or-return-reserves-w-5-monthly-charge-2

Petition from a few months ago. Almost 300 people who signed want to come back to PS1. So right there your post is disproven. I'm not sure where you pulled that 100 number from but clearly it is nonsense.

Yes. We all know - including Smed and Hamma - that there are more than 100 people who want to play PS1, including me. And not everyone who wants this has seen that petition. I can guarantee that PS1 as F2P will work and be fun.
As long as you don't have more than one server (or two if the interest is really high).

[maradine]

Yes. We all know - including Smed and Hamma - that there are more than 100 people who want to play PS1, including me.

Every single one of those people can play, right now, this very second. They are not. And, if it's because the game's not worth $15 a month, then I think you have a pretty good metric for the relative value of the game at this point in time.

I can guarantee that PS1 as F2P will work and be fun.

You are simply not qualified to make that assertion, and have no standing from which to offer a guarantee.

Finally, there's a forum section for PS1, including a "hey, who would play if this went free?" post. It has 31 replies. I suggest you marshall your efforts there.

[T-Ray]

This actually kinda pisses me off. If we are to take this seriously where the hell was this response 4-5 years ago when a couple of these pay to cheat sites took off and started making money and at the same time KILLING PS1???

From ~Jan - June of 2009 the population drop in PS1 was friggen staggering due to the rampant cheating and SLOW response. Many of the worst granted were writing the scripts themselves and sharing free to others who included many of the 'subtle' hackers we all knew about and were reported with video evidence time and time again. BUT... the pay to cheat sites were there then. The pay to cheat sites were stealing SOE's money by killing the playerbase then. PS1 was an alive game that had 1, 2 sometimes 3 pop-locked continents daily to the constant 3-way cyssorside it remained for the last 3 years of its life. That probably represents a couple thousand players actually that quit over a period of 6 months MOSTLY due to hacking.

Remember in June of 2009? They started responding to tickets in minutes, 24/7 hackers were being banned, coming back and being banned sometimes 3-4 times and the banning and GM response was better than i've seen in almost any game... but it was too little and too late the damage had been done. I know the outfit I was in at that time lost 75% of its palyers between april and may, and the next outfit I was in went from platoons to 1/2 squads during that period and neither ever recovered. GM's actually doing GM stuff in a timely manner in June? Just not enough.

SO SMED,
If these sites are some new revelation to you and you feel NOW it is time to act? FUCK YOU! This threat and action is about 5 years to late in my book.


See this is the type of bulljive I'm talking about. You want this man to do what for you now? You just told the president of SOE "fuck you" and of course now you want some kind of positive action?? Really man, come on.

First and foremost let me remind you Smed is the ONLY CEO/President of a major company that will interact with people in this type of setting. I see why others don't want to do it. No human being deserves to be disrespected like that. He's just a dude like anyone else and if you dog people and disrespect them the natural human response is to not respond or to come back with the same level of disrespect. I'm assuming that you guys want us to continue to interact and visit with you on these forums, right? If that is the case, keep it civil.

[ChipMHazard]

And... Anyone wondering how PSU could ever become irrelevant, there you have it. I think this calls for a song to remind everyone what it's all about when it comes to communicating with others:p
Aretha Franklin - Respect [1967] (Original Version) - YouTube

[Maidere]

See this is the type of bulljive I'm talking about. You want this man to do what for you now? You just told the president of SOE "fuck you" and of course now you want some kind of positive action?? Really man, come on.

First and foremost let me remind you Smed is the ONLY CEO/President of a major company that will interact with people in this type of setting. I see why others don't want to do it. No human being deserves to be disrespected like that. He's just a dude like anyone else and if you dog people and disrespect them the natural human response is to not respond or to come back with the same level of disrespect. I'm assuming that you guys want us to continue to interact and visit with you on these forums, right? If that is the case, keep it civil.

I dont want to continie this off-topic, but I have to say that Hirez guys were so pissed off by reaction of those "Tribes vets" (including all kinds of offense) they stopped posting on forums for a while and the first post after this silence contented something like "other guys told me not to post here if you dont want to be offended realy hard.
I realy appreciate that SOE guys interact with community here, on reddit, on twitter - everywhere. But try to be more careful please. Even on PSU some statements can literally call a shitstorm.

[CrazEpharmacist]

See this is the type of bulljive I'm talking about. You want this man to do what for you now? You just told the president of SOE "fuck you" and of course now you want some kind of positive action?? Really man, come on.

First and foremost let me remind you Smed is the ONLY CEO/President of a major company that will interact with people in this type of setting. I see why others don't want to do it. No human being deserves to be disrespected like that. He's just a dude like anyone else and if you dog people and disrespect them the natural human response is to not respond or to come back with the same level of disrespect. I'm assuming that you guys want us to continue to interact and visit with you on these forums, right? If that is the case, keep it civil.

Smedly himself doesn't post on the official forums because of the level of censorship. He posts here and on reddit because people DO have the ability to say "fuck you". Only makes sense to expect the same freedom of expression be directed back at him. And that post you quoted seemed pretty damn reasonable/constructive to me. It highlights the path PS2 will likely take when it becomes even less populated than it is now, gets put on life support and becomes a hackers dream come true with no repercussion.

And please, get off your high horse. You guys are not special in any way. Plenty of developers interact on forums with their community.

[ChipMHazard]

Some people really need to learn some bloody manners...
Since when does lack of censorship equate to telling others "fuck you"?

[Wahooo]

See this is the type of bulljive I'm talking about. You want this man to do what for you now? You just told the president of SOE "fuck you" and of course now you want some kind of positive action?? Really man, come on.

First and foremost let me remind you Smed is the ONLY CEO/President of a major company that will interact with people in this type of setting. I see why others don't want to do it. No human being deserves to be disrespected like that. He's just a dude like anyone else and if you dog people and disrespect them the natural human response is to not respond or to come back with the same level of disrespect. I'm assuming that you guys want us to continue to interact and visit with you on these forums, right? If that is the case, keep it civil.

Well, there are idiots everywhere, and the internet has a way of bringing out the worst in everyone. oops: I really would hope a few jerks flying off the handle wouldn't color the opinion of, or set any kind of precedent for this site as a whole.

I appreciate immensely that Smedly came here an posted. I wouldn't have expected it. Probably a reason I was so "internet tough" in my post. I did write that PRIOR to Smed coming back on here to comment, so I wasn't really expecting the message to get to him directly. Not a real excuse for that type of attack but it wasn't a response to him directly on this forum.

I've been stewing on this for a few years, and the impression that the extent that these pay-2-cheat sites have gotten would be NEW news, IS very disheartening. Had the impression I got initially been, ~"we have NEW avenues to dealing with some of these websites that are making money from those hacks that weren't previously available". My reaction would have been 100% opposite, so after reading SMED's reply it would seem that is closer to the truth, and IF that is the case I apologize profusely. I really hope you can see the difference in what I thought I saw. I responded to what I took as ignorance and apathy in the past, rather than a hands tied non-profitable business decision.

I am still pissed, however, and do hold a general grudge about the failings of the past.
BUT,
I also appreciate where it IS going in the future. If you read my posts I've been critical but I also have been pretty happy with current response to cheaters. I like where it is going, and as I've said many times, I personally have not seen blatant hackers running amok.

[T-Ray]

Smedly himself doesn't post on the official forums because of the level of censorship. He posts here and on reddit because people DO have the ability to say "fuck you". Only makes sense to expect the same freedom of expression be directed back at him. And that post you quoted seemed pretty damn reasonable/constructive to me. It highlights the path PS2 will likely take when it becomes even less populated than it is now, gets put on life support and becomes a hackers dream come true with no repercussion.

And please, get off your high horse. You guys are not special in any way. Plenty of developers interact on forums with their community.

oh yeah, asking people to respect one another is me being on a high horse. What was I thinking???

[Wahooo]

Now is not the time to be civil. Now is the time to be bloody outraged!

Not really. The point of my original post was that Outrage was a long time ago. Smed's response was ~fine whatever hakunamatata what about the future.

I got it off my chest and I meant it. But I also feel the future is a lot brighter than the past.

[Bear]

Smedly himself doesn't post on the official forums because of the level of censorship. He posts here and on reddit because people DO have the ability to say "fuck you". Only makes sense to expect the same freedom of expression be directed back at him. And that post you quoted seemed pretty damn reasonable/constructive to me. It highlights the path PS2 will likely take when it becomes even less populated than it is now, gets put on life support and becomes a hackers dream come true with no repercussion.

And please, get off your high horse. You guys are not special in any way. Plenty of developers interact on forums with their community.

If you find the need during discourse to go to the "fuck you" card then you've either run out of productive things to say or you've realized you lost the argument.

[Shogun]

damn, i feel ashamed for some statements in here...

talking to devs in such a rude, unmannered and disrespectful way isn´t helpful in any way! i hope, that additional rude posts will inflict bans. you guys destroy the devs love for this community! scaring them away from psu is a bad idea if you want ps2 to get better!

[CrazEpharmacist]

damn, i feel ashamed for some statements in here...

talking to devs in such a rude, unmannered and disrespectful way isn´t helpful in any way! i hope, that additional rude posts will inflict bans. you guys destroy the devs love for this community! scaring them away from psu is a bad idea if you want ps2 to get better!

Ah, well I apologize if I offended anyone. Just had to get some stuff off my chest. But yeah T-ray I agree we could all benefit from being respectful to each other but sometimes that "FU" may be warranted and due to the nature of the internet and emotions, it is hard to hold back for some.

[Aaron]

You tell 'em T-Ray.

[Thunderhawk]

Well done guys..... we had a good thing going here with Devs popping in to air views and discuss issues with us as a community, and the posts in this thread have been totally ridiculous, rude, insulting and down right uncivilized.

I wouldn't hold it against them if they never came back here again - I hope they continue to do so, and realise that the views expressed in this thread is of a minority of the people on PSU - but I wouldnt hold it against them if we saw less and less of them on here.

Really well done, bravo.......

[Hamma]

This thread is just sad. These developers go out of their way to come here and interact with us and you act like a bunch of 2 year old children. Grow up, and get the hell out of this community if you can't be constructive. There is no other dev team that has interacted at the level SOE PlanetSide 2 developers have. People have said there has been but I can't find any other example of such involvement.

[Baneblade]

If you find the need during discourse to go to the "fuck you" card then you've either run out of productive things to say or you've realized you lost the argument.

Or you are Australian.

[T-Ray]

vote to close

[maradine]

vote for beers.

[ShockFC]

This thread is just sad. These developers go out of their way to come here and interact with us and you act like a bunch of 2 year old children. Grow up, and get the hell out of this community if you can't be constructive. There is no other dev team that has interacted at the level SOE PlanetSide 2 developers have. People have said there has been but I can't find any other example of such involvement.

You do realize the PSU community has been like this for a long time right?

These forums are one giant mob mentality, it's why sensible people or players don't post here very often. They get driven away. Every thread jumps on one bandwagon after the other, resulting in a full circle jerk. Any post going the opposite direction gets ignored or disrespected. This isn't new, you're just noticing now because devs are involved.

I'm glad I actually opened up these forums today to read this.

[Aurmanite]

You do realize the PSU community has been like this for a long time right?

These forums are one giant mob mentality, it's why sensible people or players don't post here very often. They get driven away. Every thread jumps on one bandwagon after the other, resulting in a full circle jerk. Any post going the opposite direction gets ignored or disrespected. This isn't new, you're just noticing now because devs are involved.

I'm glad I actually opened up these forums today to read this.

This evaluation of the PSU community is on point.

[Hamma]

I'm sure Shock, I wish I had asked you how to run this community sooner you obviously have it all locked up.

It couldn't be further off base. Welcome to the internet folks, we have cookies.

Let's continue here:
http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=53243

Well, on the actual topic..cheating.