John Smedley Talks Planetside 2 Cheaters
Sony Online Entertainment President John Smedley took to Reddit to clear-up some facts after a recent round of bannings in its MMO-Shooter Planetside 2 aimed at taking out cheaters. He wants to clarify some misconceptions that are out there regarding the process of banning cheaters, and assure players that SOE is doing its best to make Planetside 2 cheater free.
Smedley begins by discussing the process of banning Planetside 2 cheaters. Basically, if the team has clear evidence that a player is hacking the system to obtain any sort of advantage, that player is banned and any other accounts that players has are also banned. Sometimes the team will suspend a player for 7-days for breaking a rule that does not necessarily call for an account ban, and will at times suspend players for rules violations but who are also suspected of cheating. The devs will then closely monitor those players when they return from their suspensions and watch for evidence of cheating, which the GM’s can do as the returning players actively play the game to verify whether or not a banning is warranted.
The dev team also work to distinguish between cheaters and really good players. The difference may not be obvious to most players, but the devs can tell who is legit and who is aimbotting.
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.” -John Smedley
The devs don’t just ban players because someone reported them as a hacker or aimobotter. The Planetside 2 team works to make sure which players are cheating and which ones are highly skilled. It’s a process that takes time and effort, but in the end it is worth it because it generates the best results for each situation.
Smedley goes on to clarify that the fight against hackers is a never-ending battle, and that now one solution will ever see the devs “win” against cheaters. It is a constant effort to create new cheat detecting tools, then tweak and create even better tools as cheaters find work-around for the existing systems. Sometimes punishment for cheating may come as swift as players might like, but the way bannings are handled also helps make sure innocent players are not wrongfully banned.
The SOE President also hinted that lawyers were getting involved in a crackdown on the highly sophisticated sites out there that profit from selling cheating and hacking software to players. Smedley says that SOE does have the resources to combat these sites, and plan to do so to their fullest extent.
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