Since most of these hackers and cheaters use an external program to hack PS2, I would like to propose a suggestion that if PS2 detects a program that modifies PS2 in any way, it will immediately close and will not start until said program is closed.
inb4 deleted or merged, but what's done is done. And what's done is SOE's credibility- either they're too incompetent to stop these flying turret/disc hacks, or they flat out have given up. Either way, credibility is gone forever.
SOE didn't implement a hack-detection software (like most games have) into PS2 to save on the server-costs, maybe they will change their mind now that so many people have left because of hackers. However the problem is more complex, the primary question shouldn't be how to prevent hacks but why do people hack? I think that most of the hackers are realy realy bad players, the kind of bad that runs against walls, so it might be worth thinking about a tutorial that is so basic that even the COD-generation could understand it.
Even with an in-game tutorial, people will still hack because most of them don't want their death count to be higher than their kills, as well as just for the sake of ruining the fun for the fair players...
I'm starting to not buy SOE's explanation of porting everything onto the client to make the game run faster. If that's the case, isn't the server just an elaborate lookup table with map and player data? It can afford to toss in at least one program in the packet-in and packet-out pipline that looks at what the packet is saying the user did and asking "does this even make sense?" If it doesn't, retroactively correct the user, then, if it continues, call shenanigans and penalize the account. You could easily kill speed hacks like this, at least.
