The only thing that will destroy planetside 2.

[I SandRock]

Hacking and the following paranoia (every skilled player is considered a hacker) can ruin the game and it's community completely. And it's my n.1 fear for PS2.

[Antivide]

It doesn't help that this is a F2P game.

One gigantormous disadvantage in a F2P game is that there is literally no consequence for hacking.

Banned? New account. Hur hur. IP Banned? Change ISP.

[Greenthy]

Originally Posted by Antivide

It doesn't help that this is a F2P game.

One gigantormous disadvantage in a F2P game is that there is literally no consequence for hacking.

Banned? New account. Hur hur. IP Banned? Change ISP.

Losing all your gains sounds like a big loss to me.
IP banned: most ppl find this enough to not try cheating.

Fact is, you shouldn't be worried about the awesome hackers.
You should be worried about it being easily accessible to the masses, where penalties like this do help.

I'm not too worried about hackers. I'm sure SOE will find a way to deal with them reasonably. That won't mean you won't see one occasionaly however.
I'm also sure that the majority of the community won't hack.

[Malorn]

I maintain that the only thing that can destroy PS2 is SOE, either by adding stupid shit to the game, like BFRs or trying to make it an e-sport, or by neglect (to stop hackers). It's really in their hands on whether the game lives many years of awesomeness or is just a bright candle that burns out quickly due to mismanagement.

[Xyntech]

Originally Posted by Malorn

I maintain that the only thing that can destroy PS2 is SOE, either by adding stupid shit to the game, like BFRs or trying to make it an e-sport, or by neglect (to stop hackers). It's really in their hands on whether the game lives many years of awesomeness or is just a bright candle that burns out quickly due to mismanagement.

I agree, although I'm sure we disagree strongly on a lot of what would or wouldn't be good or bad for the game.

But dealing with hacking is just one more facet where SOE can succeed or screw it up. As much of a problem as hacking is in a lot of F2P games, a lot of it is caused by shitty exploitable code. Also, hackers are a problem in games with box prices and even games with subscriptions, which proves that even that barrier isn't any kind of guarantee. So F2P isn't a problem, as long as SOE manages to keep a tight lid on it as much as possible.

They will have to do a really good job though, just to counteract the F2P stigma.

[Shogun]

hackers fuck with us, so soe should fuck with them!

don´t permaban them immediately. do something they will not notice on the spot!

like reducing their damageoutput slowly until it hits zero.
depends on what kind of gamebreaking cheat they use i guess.
someone who has a nuke button that kills everybody around in a second has to be stopped immediately, but someone who uses a unlimited ammo cheat may still serve as an unarmed target for others until he notices that his guns were castrated

18 years ago i played a game that used something similar against pirated copys. the game would still be playable as a copy, but it was getting very unfair quite soon and the player would lose every time against a big fleet of policeships that would not be in the game if it was bought legally. this also was a multiplayergame and only the pirate was affected, so the other players actually could take advantage from this. there was also something in the game against cheaters. if the server detected irregular client changes, it would inform all other players but not the cheater and also launch policeships against him.

[stordito]

require credit card verification...
plain and simple.

shogun's idea is good too. reminds me of FADE, the arma2 non intrusive DRM system.

[bjorntju1]

Originally Posted by stordito

require credit card verification...
plain and simple.

So what about people who don't have credit cards? Not so simple as it sounds.

[I SandRock]

Originally Posted by Xyntech

Also, hackers are a problem in games with box prices and even games with subscriptions, which proves that even that barrier isn't any kind of guarantee. So F2P isn't a problem, as long as SOE manages to keep a tight lid on it as much as possible.

That argument is flawed. That's like saying, even though we have laws and a police force enforcing them, people still get murdered. So we might as well get rid of the laws and police all together.

Hacking in paid-for-games is less than in free games and in turn hacking in subscription-based games is less than just paid-for-games. It helps.

What hackers will do:
They won't risk their account they played fair on. They will make a separate hacking account to use their hacks on so they won't risk losing the stuff they gained in a fair way.

Ip Bans:
They won't be used by SoE because there are tons of situations where this would ban other potential customers. Think dorm rooms, brothers/sisters, internet cafes, etc.

Credit Card bans:
Wont happen because this forces people to enter a creditcard for a game that has no subscription. People are always paranoid about having to enter payment information (RIGHTFULLY SO!). SoE won't enforce this because they'll create a barrier against people (especially younger gamers with no CC) to join.

[UKSwiFT]

Yeah, It's very unlikely they'll share much information about their anti-hacking plan, considering that would only help hackers. No matter how they go about it though, they should try delaying their bans like VAC2 does so that hackers can't directly pinpoint any tells of the cheat detection system.

[PrISM]

Originally Posted by Pella

The only thing that will destroy planetside 2.

The Chinese.

[Pyreal]

Bans are useless in a F2P game like this; they'll just make a new acct.

They need to buy the hacking software and plug the holes.

[CidHighwind]

Originally Posted by Shogun

hackers fuck with us, so soe should fuck with them!

don´t permaban them immediately. do something they will not notice on the spot!

like reducing their damageoutput slowly until it hits zero.
depends on what kind of gamebreaking cheat they use i guess.
someone who has a nuke button that kills everybody around in a second has to be stopped immediately, but someone who uses a unlimited ammo cheat may still serve as an unarmed target for others until he notices that his guns were castrated

18 years ago i played a game that used something similar against pirated copys. the game would still be playable as a copy, but it was getting very unfair quite soon and the player would lose every time against a big fleet of policeships that would not be in the game if it was bought legally. this also was a multiplayergame and only the pirate was affected, so the other players actually could take advantage from this. there was also something in the game against cheaters. if the server detected irregular client changes, it would inform all other players but not the cheater and also launch policeships against him.

I am ALL for this --- hackers use cheats to gain an advantage and feel better about their own ineptitude by 'proving' their own abilities through hacks. In the end, it's just about grabbing attention and holding it. When a cheater is caught, instead of permabanning them, just have the server spawn a bunch of spitfires around them that ONLY fire on them, or as Shogun suggests (I really like this idea) slowly nerf them down to size. This would be quite hilarious to see the people who rage, get cheats, only to rage that their cheats aren't giving them what they want.

[Serotriptomine]

Originally Posted by Neurotoxin

Report, report, report. They will supposedly have a 24/7 ninja crew that is going to be booting hackers and cheaters rapidly.

Wonder if they're hiring, i'm sure a ton of players from way back when will want to play their part above and beyond reporting.

[Shogun]

i really hope the dev team is watching the paid cheats scene closely.

and when someone offers a subscription based ps2 cheat, the devs should be the first ones to buy it just before they sue the cheatsite to hell and back.
after all it´s sony. they don´t hesitate to sue everybody who violates their copyrights, so they should be able to take legal actions against people making money by destroying their games.