Why I may not get the BBA

[AlbertSiegel]

I love the idea of online games. I had my first go at it with the Dreamcast and loved it from the start. Then, Phantasy Star Online came and I spent much more time then I should have on the game. Either way, I have never had so much fun with a game. I made many news friends. All was great.

But eventually, people started to use game shark. The cheating went wild. Not only on PSO, but on all games online. It became more and more difficult to have fun untill the day that I finally decided to can my dial-up ISP because I just could not see spending $12 a month to play games online when I no longer was able to enjoy it. Everyone with a game shark had killed any fun I could have had online. There was no way I could ever win at Alien Front Online. Everyone had some anti death code. It was to the point that nobody could kill eachother. They only thing that was killed was my love of online games.

After all this, and knowing that game shark is still around... I wonder how long before people will use it with the PS2 online.... I'm sorry, but I just will not play online with a bunch of cheaters who destroy any fun I can have with a game. If one of the three next-gen systems can go online without people being able to use a game shark, then I may consider online play.

What is your opinion?

[Overlord]

Cheating is a big issue with online games. That?s why Square is hiring(and paying them) GM's. What the gamemasters does, is they play the game, like they might work at a shop or something. And make sure people don't cheat. If they do, they get banned or lose some privileges or something. And leveling up will be hard. So it will be obvious on who is cheating, for the most part.

...I'm guessing other games will also follow this suite.

But of course this only one game. And you shouldn?t buy the BBA just for this.

[Dog]

I'm interested in finding out how these GM will *prove* that someone is cheating - especially when cheats like those found in FPS (such as can see through walls) can only be seen on the cheaters machine.