Do you miss the hacking culture of PSO?

jaredchansen

jaredchansen

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This is a can of worms. I just remember during my few excursions online in the GC days you could very easily meet players with ridiculous gear and meseta that they were tossing around. Or there were even rumors of spiteful trolls who could kill your character or corrupt your save file.

I know that I don't really miss it at all. I'm glad that there is a separate game (a sandbox if you will) for players who want to circumvent the grind to play as they want. But I'm also glad that the online community feels a lot less toxic and more ethical. But what are your thoughts? Do you think there is anything wrong with hacking and cheating in a game like PSO?
 
I don't think there's anything morally wrong with cheating/hacking in a video game, I mean it's just a video game, but I do think people who play online games should be given the experience of being able to play in a legitimate community where people can't fuck up games / the economy, because those things do contribute to the overall experience more than some people realise.

But no I don't miss it really.
 
I dont mind modding and fun kinda hacks like that (think of the wraith superjump on halo 2) but like hard erase hacks and stuff like that are fucked up - people put a lotta time into these kinda games so thats some shitty stuff to pull on someone - even if you and the other person arent seeing eye to eye.
 
If you're playing a game in an unsanctioned manner that demotivates and demoralizes others from playing due to:

A. There's no challenge because you're super OP due to the cheating and it makes others enjoy the game less. Or...
B. You outright damage their experience by harming their game files / characters,

Then yes, you are doing something that's morally wrong.

Closed system like Sandbox Mode? Perfectly fine.

Inter-mingling cheating with people who don't want anything to do with it? Wrong.

I caught a lot of flack back in the day because my views on this were unique for the time, but now a lot more people think this way. I'm not saying I was the cause of this and I'm not trying to incite any sarcastic remarks from the usual suspects. It's just satisfying to see that I wasn't in the wrong.
 
so if I join a server where the admins allow cheating, and I don't want any cheaters in my games, they're all morally in the wrong? Would I not be damaging their experience by bitching that they aren't playing the "right way?"

I think you're basically trying to argue that going against the grain of a server (legit v anything goes) is morally wrong, which I don't have a problem with. Kind of a given when you phrase it that way.

The real question would involve a server where the admins stipulate nothing, and there are an equal number of cheaters/legit players. Would anyone be in the wrong there?
 
I don't agree with hacking the game. As Ade says, it's demoralizing when you're playing a game with a player who is literally one shotting everything, with your only chance of getting exp being if you're lucky enough to get a touch before the hacker wipes everything out.

There was a reason I had a character in the GameCube days called 2Legit2Quit
 
Depends.

1hko'ing everything, nah I don't miss that.

Pk'ing and FSODing in DC V1? You're gosh darn right I miss it. loool.

I'll forever remember the "ForestToRuin" games my neighbor/best friend would create, then palette-cast Grants on players going up to Pioneer 2 after the Dragon was killed causing them to FSOD. He caught me a few times and corrupted my character once, shit was hilarious. I'll never forget the "BRRRRRRRRR" sound Grants makes while charging up, lol.

Good times.
 
I personally hate playing with cheaters and hackers in any game which is why I play mostly offline or solo. They take the fun out of the game as they have a massive advantage which isn't fair to legit players. I've never seen a PSO hacker outside of YT videos and Sandbox mode thankfully.

I'm fine with things like Sandbox mode where cheaters are only allowed to play with other cheaters but if it's a hacker playing with normal players who are playing legitimately then I have an issue.
 
@Eva I mean sure, if the admins say "no rules" then it's fine. However, there were rules on vanilla PSO. Sega just did a bad job at enforcing them. It was still wrong to cheat there, though.

It would be like stealing from a poorly guarded store. It's still wrong.
 
Not at all. However because I got into online play relatively late (scht 07 sometime?) the only hacking I got to experience was on schtserv with PSOBB, and it was the game ruining type so my views might be biased. There's quite a few ways to enjoy pso, especially now with the option Ephinea gives you as a server, but I'll probably never condone cheating/fucking with others myself.
 
Basically it was pretty shit, and Sandbox covers any elements that weren’t.

Dreamcast: Getting your character Nol’d or fucked however. You could only play in locked rooms with people you trusted.

SegaBB: Mostly just a hugely inflated economy and a few dickheads with all the ubers.

I don’t really care too much about people that don’t want to hunt but want to play with all the gear, and are quiet about it. As I’ve gotten older and had less time to put into games I’ve appreciated cheating more as way to experience more of the game content in less time. But Sandbox does that nicely.
 
I remember painstakingly trying to create a method to dupe meseta on GC. Once I figured it out I was super excited, however its not very useful back then. It was neat actually "founding" a glitch on a game that you enjoyed. Other than that, I think cheating is wrong on any game if you have not fully experienced the game first, and in a multiplayer setting, exposing others to it unwillingly is too. I ruined my experience at around lv 120, maxing stats with no armor glitch, and never truly felt the grind. This is why I appreciate this server so much, I get to relive that opportunity.

Games are meant to be enjoyed, no matter which way is your preference. Just don't impose on others. Such is life.
 
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I guess I never gave an official answer: I don't miss it at all. I consider Ephinea to be the gold standard of the PSO experience. The way it always should have been :)
 
I only miss some of the people involved with it.

Can't lie that some of the more nefarous things resulted in some really funny times, though. Rob Zombie couldn't play EP3 whenever Sodaboy was on to expose him lol
 
this falls into two categories for me:

GC hacking: lv 1309 (or w/e) mags, 9000% dark BKBs, hacked max stat RR's etc, it was fun when i was 12. literally, i was like 12 when i played GC online, good times man.

Schthack PSOBB stuff: tbh i used to thrive on the drama of that place. the toxicity of the community provided me with endless hours of entertainment. playing he said/she said, chasing down bad guys (i was GM there for like a year or two), watching the TA community launch nuclear weapons at each other, enjoying the toxic meta sarcasm of the forums, hearing whispers of the latest broomop attack. don't get me wrong, i love how pure this community is, but that was what really kept me on that server for my combined 6-7000 hours or so.
 
This server is the gold standard for PSO that should have been on Sega.

In that while the server does stuff like randomly gift ubers sometimes and hands out a few 40-60 hit Guardiannas, Tyrell's Parasols, Frozen Shooters, Snow Queens, and Black King Bars while also making several 50 pd items cheaper light heart rock that is by far better than what was on Sega even for the ones who were playing legit.

Sega's point was to make money, MMOs were just the early mode F2P business models before companies figured out you could make more money by giving the option to buy shit instead of having to spend 300 hours grinding for it.
 
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No don't miss it at all lol.

Back in sega psobb server, you couldn't really trade anything(excal/ds/pwand etc) unless you had a picture of the tekked item. A guilty before proven innocent type of vibe. It's much easier to trade and less of a hassle for that reason. Duped spheres just about destroyed the pd market let alone all the other ubers that were duped. I do remember one jackass that would join full parties, then mid free run, he would just drop everyone from room(lagging out? I can't remember how) therefore ruining the game. I do remember a neat hack someone had that let us skip the rappy quest mini game shenanigans and go straight to the actual quest with the many hildelts with a birds eye view.

There are times that I would like to get a tjs/df the easy way but surprisingly I found/traded for just about all the old weps I used to have the last few months + more and just missing my old 75h df(the sword that I traded for probably was duped on scht). Another note is everyone seems to be a lot more knowledgeable here. Learned so much about pso and still learning. Back on scht it felt like everyone just wanted RR or PGF, thus encouraging cheating as you find one of those then you create a thread asking for multiple ubers for one thing.
 
Absolutely not, I don't miss getting NOL'd, CK'd, PK'd, or having uninvited guests invade a passworded room....

Most players learned to avoid Oberon 1, the hard way, but the plague affected all the ships eventually...
 
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