Yes, Agnino, ALL mmorpg\'s CAN in fact be hacked. You are just plain ignorant if you believe this to be otherwise. It may take a year of effort on the part of the hacker to finally break the system.. but once the information hits the net.. it\'s all over. With a GS, Codebreaker, Xploder.. litterally anyone can copy-paste codes and do all the tricks the real hackers do with almost no effort involved. Every single time someone has called a system hacker proof, "permentantly" patched a code, or made a game pirate proof.. they have been proven wrong. I think you seriously underestimate the hackers that are out there who are BY FAR more knowlageable about these methods than either you or I.
Case in Point, once again look at PSO. When v.2 came out, the GameShark was the most common cheating device used on it. So Sega designed v.2 to block every memory access point in which the GS uses to store it\'s game altering code. Less than 4 months after the launch of v.2 however.. people ARE using GS online and off with PSOv.2. As soon as I have access to a CD burner.. so will I. Even those short months before the method of gettin the GS to work on v.2 were no time to relax, since Sega overlooked other cheat devices that work differently. Codes for those devices were out within days of v.2\'s release.
I also don\'t think you understand just HOW the hacking is taking place. Yes, FFOnline will only be playable online. Big deal. Every code you can use to modify a character in PSO offline you can use Online as well. You will still have a data disk containing the textures and data for Square\'s online world. You\'re simply modifying the data that\'s comming in and out of your PS2, and all server side character saving is going to do is make it harder for you to modify your character back to normal in case your data does get corrupted by another code user.
Mark my words, Playonline WILL NOT be hack free, and you will still end up contending with the same problems that Sega is now facing. The only thing Square can do is set up a team of employees to moniter the game and write patches on the server when the time comes, something Sega has been very lax with. Even then, there will always be hackers ready to break the latest patch, and come up with the newest destructive code.
"Any use of changeing your character online is by definition hacking PlayOnline. And thats a federal offence." ~Caspian~
That won\'t make any difference. People have used their cheat devices to crash servers on PSO before, and one of the newest methods of keeping from gettin banned on v.2 involves having a code that bans several other users as well when you get banned. Their hope is that the collateral damage caused to the legits will be too much for Sega to risk. They are using cheat devices to damage private property of Sega. Even if Square were to take legal action and make an example of a few code users.. the sheer volume of players using cheat devices online would make it a near impossible and EXTREEMLY costly task for Square to hunt them all down and prosocute them. I really do not see it happening.