Cheating The Downside to PlanetSide 2

From the beginning, Sony Online Entertainment tried to develop a cheat-proof game. The physics engine includes kinetic friction and gravity effects that render most aimbots ineffective. Instead of giving up, sites like TMCheats have spent their efforts building better aimbots. Players seen using aimbots in-game have been banned, TMCheats has countered by developing an aimbot that moves like a real person. Depending on which third-party site they use, and what features they choose, cheaters can look obvious or just extremely skilled.

Cheating in PlanetSide 2 is on the rise, and Sony Online Entertainment has made an effort to reassure their fans by loudly and publicly condemning cheaters. Patching hacks and eliminating cheats is a top priority for the company. President John Smedley has even gone so far as to use social media to publicly call out those banned for cheating. Tweets naming these “scumbag” cheaters are intended to discourage others from following their example. The company claims this sort of vitriol will be reserved for those who make a sell cheats, while the average cheater will be quietly banned.

Honest players will find this a refreshing view on cheating, many turn a blind eye to most hacks and some even go so far as suppress information about the extent of their problems. The War Z has been particularly hard-hit, losing nearly half its players within weeks of release due to the rampant cheating problem. Sergey Titov has actively silenced those who complain about the game's issues, deleting posts from the official War Z forums and forbidding players from complaining publicly.

Whether Sony Online Entertainment manages to save PlanetSide 2 from the cheaters remains to be seen. The superpowers offered by sites like TMCheats are attractive to many players, and the more common they get in the game, the more people will be tempted to try cheating. PlanetSide 2 offers a unique experience, with 2,000 players per server. This is a complex first-person shooter that requires skill to stay alive, if they are not stopped the cheaters could ruin the game for everyone. Fans of the original game are thrilled to see it re-imagined. Perhaps the futuristic world of Auraxis is in the grasp of three factions, the Terran Republic, the New Conglomerate, the Vanu Sovereignty, and the Cheaters. Sony Online Entertainment has vowed to stamp out cheating wherever they find it, and only time will tell who is winning the battle. Will PlanetSide 2 become a haven for cheaters? A bastion of honest, skilled gameplay? Most likely it will be caught in the perpetual struggle between developers and hackers for as long as it remains online.