The only thing that will destroy planetside 2.

[Crator]

No doubt, fo sho...

[ikon]

hacking games has become so big these days, i would personally love to find each and everyone and deliver a sledgehammer to their faces.

luckily the game isn't severed off into instances or anything so at least it wont be hard to find the hackers.

as long as they have plenty of dedicated admins, I don't see this being too big a problem.

[Troscus]

I might not have a popular opinion, but I trust SOE. I mean, they own DCUO, and that game was fairly unique.

Even after it went F2P, hackers were VERY rare, and harshly dealt with once they got found out. This (PS2) isn't just a way for another company to make money that SOE jumped on, either, it's practically their baby.

If this takes off, this game'll launch them into the limelight with Blizzard and EA (even though I hate EA and they don't make MMOs, only other big name company I know).

[LightningDriver]

I'm sure the stats tracking will go a long way to spot cheating. If someone gets 10 headshots with 10 bullets, alarms will go off. I bet they are keeping track of a lot of stats they aren't publishing. If something is really off the mark, there will be an investigation, and ban if needed.

I have faith that the reputable outfits for all factions will do thier best to not allow cheaters to flourish. Many of us, including me, have been waiting for this game for a long time. I'm not going to allow a 30 year old living in mama's basement to destroy this game because he gets a kick out of hacking.

[Gonefshn]

Not worried about hackers, I'm too oblivious playing the game to notice them in BF3. Can't see it being much different here except PS2 will have admins so that's a plus.

The only game I thought hacking honestly broke was a very old game called Delta Force 2. That game you had speed hackers, jump hackers, infinite ammo hackers, grenade spam never ending ammo clip hackers. It was so crazy hacking was almost a part of the gameplay.

[SoNaR]

Agreed, Cheaters (aimboters don't really know how or deserve to be called hackers) AND the Noobs that call others "Hackers" with no proof.

[Drakkonan]

While not technically 'hacking', stat-padding will also be a problem, and I wasn't very encouraged by his answer. It's great to have a team on the look-out for this kind of stuff, but it's really going to be the responsibility of the community. We're all going to have to report any suspicious activity we see, and it's their responsibility to ban these people. If they don't (see: Blizzard), or hesitate before banning players, the game's going to get really bad, really fast.

They should also be looking into automated solutions. One player should not get points for killing the same player a second or third time until a timer expires. Granted it'll be frustrating to legitimately kill the same person three times in a short amount of time in a small skirmish and not get any points, but there are other ways to approach this (i.e. a fixed number of kills allowed on one person per hour/day).

[Electrofreak]

Honestly, the reason PS2 will have so many hackers will be twofold;

1) It's free to play and another account can be made easily (unless SoE requires a credit card attached to the account or something similar which will drive some away). It'll also attract casual players that don't care if they get banned for cheating or griefing.

2) The easy availability of stats. I'm not a fan of the stats, because it's going to encourage kill whoring. Think about it. A new player will join the game, and not do so hot. His score will be crap, and he'll get upset about it. These are the kind of people who are the most willing to do a little bit of Googling for hacking tools. He'll start using hacker tools and his score will come up. Maybe he'll even start to do very well; and stats-whoring will become an addiction. He will be afraid to stop hacking because his scores would dip and he would be reminded how well he's doing is due to his cheating.

[bpostal]

That's right, the Admins and CSRs will hopefully be on the lookout for those damned hacking hackers but it's up to us to report them while not going absolutely crazy about it.
Some sort of hardware/perma IP mega ban seems appropriate if someone is confirmed cheating since we all know that anyone who's banned is just gonna try to create a new free account and keep on hacking.

[Saintlycow]

I wish someone would hack the hack selling sites and infect all their computers... or at least make it possible to successfully sue them

[BigBossMonkey]

Originally Posted by Gonefshn

Not worried about hackers, I'm too oblivious playing the game to notice them in BF3. Can't see it being much different here except PS2 will have admins so that's a plus.

The only game I thought hacking honestly broke was a very old game called Delta Force 2. That game you had speed hackers, jump hackers, infinite ammo hackers, grenade spam never ending ammo clip hackers. It was so crazy hacking was almost a part of the gameplay.

Hah. That was the only online game I ever cheated in. I always played on a server with the same group (everyone was cheating)

It was hilariously fun.

[Bags]

What's the point of a thread on a 100% known issue by the community and the devs?

[Electrofreak]

Originally Posted by Bags

What's the point of a thread on a 100% known issue by the community and the devs?

Highlighting the community's concern so a lack of discussion doesn't cause a presumption of lack of concern?

[SGTalon]

IS this the 50th or 51st thread about hacking? I can't remember.

[Jikkan]

Hacking is extremely strong in a small controlled environment. 5v5 Counterstrike matches are a good example. The hacking player can easily influence the outcome of the match singlehandedly through making good (and not obviously suspicious) decisions. The ability of each player in aiming and moving also has a much bigger impact on the outcome of a match with fewer players.

Planetside 2 has a much larger and chaotic environment. Battles involve a large number of infantry and vehicles. Customization adds even more complexity (and thus difficulty in making good predictions). And that all takes place on a large open ended map without a limiting victory condition (amount of kills, score, tickets, time, etc), just a persistent world.

Hacking allows you to make better decisions based on superior information, or to shoot slightly above your ability. But that will have much less of an impact overall in Ps2.

Success depends more on teamwork and coordination and less on the strength of an individual or a small group.

Because the game is not played in rounds and there are no victory conditions, a hack will not help you win.

A small caveat: The scale of the game lessening the effect of hacking only holds true if hacking occurs in small numbers. If there are enough players using sufficiently sophisticated hacks then it will have a major impact on the game.

My second argument against hacking in Ps2 is the value of your account.

If you get banned, making a new account may be free. But any microtrans items you may have on your account isn't. And you lose all of the time investment required to unlock certs and acquire resources. And any social relationships that you have built up on your account.

The last one especially perhaps being more crucial for success than omniscient knowledge of the map. Or slightly too accurate aim.