PC only? Uh oh...

[Corey Blue]

PSOBB PC was still going strong only because it is Japan. However, everywhere else in the world, they would have to work just as hard if not harder. Lack of updates (which has been true for every single Phantasy Star Online game in the non-Japanese locales), is the biggest issue waiting for them. They have to step up (everywhere else) to at least Japanese standards or better. Preferably better since the competition on the PC is fierce. Steady updates have become a very very important thing.

However, maybe PC only might just be the kind of lower workload that might have them actually keep at a decent pace with the rest of the world. And yes, I know it didn't help back when PSO was Dreamcast only, but we can dream can't we?

If they were smart they would keep us together.Fast updates,big community,good times,what else could we ask for? (Praying that they keep us together,I refuse to be treated badly.)

[Chaoman3]

No one knows yet for certain, but there is almost zero chance of them making it Mac and/or Linux compatible.

You'll have to use emulation or use a Windows platform. They've even listed Windows XP as a compatible platform (which isn't even supported by Microsoft at this point) so you have quite a bit of leeway...

Thanks.

I suppose with XP it could be possible. It's sort of irritating but in the end I'm not the one who makes the decisions.

[MOHFL]

"uh oh" is right
it definitely needs to be on PS3
PS3 is the least vulnerable console to hacks (even now after Geohotz)

[Ffuzzy-Logik]

Errrr, no?


Anyway, we've been over this a thousand times. Hacking needs to be prevented server-side; the client has nothing to do with hacking vulnerability.

[Kaziel]

"uh oh" is right
it definitely needs to be on PS3
PS3 is the least vulnerable console to hacks (even now after Geohotz)

It's not the least vulnerable, it's just the least popular.

[Kent]

"uh oh" is right
it definitely needs to be on PS3
PS3 is the least vulnerable console to hacks (even now after Geohotz)

You're confusing "least" and "most," actually.

Besides, proper security server-side would prevent a lot of the potential for any hacking to take place, but it obviously can't prevent everything. Having secured hardware on which the client runs certainly would help, but the PlayStation 3 is the exact opposite of secured.

[Jinketsu]

No system is safe from being hacked or anything of the sort. Where there's a will, there is always a way.

[Ffuzzy-Logik]

Besides, proper security server-side would prevent a lot of the potential for any hacking to take place, but it obviously can't prevent everything.

If it is coded with sufficient forethought, then it can prevent everything but the most ingenious efforts. Really, just do not let the server trust anything from the client apart from controller input, and you will prevent 99.9% of what has passed as hacking in previous PS games.

[Randomness]

No system is safe from being hacked or anything of the sort. Where there's a will, there is always a way.

Any system that you have physical access to may as well be completely unsecured. Thus, the only machine that can be trusted is the server.

As long as SEGA follows that logic, it should make hacking very, very hard. But of course, I find it likely that they'll put something client-side they shouldn't.

As I recall though, the whole meseta dupe issue on PSU wasn't a hack, it was an exploit, so the problem was more them not immediately bringing down the servers, doing a rollback, and then turning on double xp double droprates to make up for it.

If it is coded with sufficient forethought, then it can prevent everything but the most ingenious efforts. Really, just do not let the server trust anything from the client apart from controller input, and you will prevent 99.9% of what has passed as hacking in previous PS games.

Well, you prevent everything that's not a felony offense, anyways. (Because actually breaking into SEGA's servers is the only form of hacking left then, and that would lead to some jail time) Again, this is assuming bug-free code, so I hope they make sure their inventory handling code sections are airtight so we don't get some glitch in shop code that lets people dupe meseta and/or items. I also hope that meseta drops don't grow quite as exponentially as they did in PSU, to where it was eventually trivialized as a currency because the sinks eventually became insufficient (not that the haxeta problem didn't seriously accelerate the issue, but Bruce's would have started inflation anyways with its disproportionate rewards). I mean, back at PSU's launch, 10k was a lot of meseta, and 20k could get you just about anything.

[Ffuzzy-Logik]

It was a bit of both, really.

People would sell a single Scape Doll to the NPC, intercept the packet, and change it to selling 99 Scape Dolls. The server saw nothing wrong with this, despite the fact that it is impossible to even carry that many Scape Dolls, and paid out 99 times the correct amount of Meseta.

Pretty much every single instance of hacking on PSU relied on similar packet tampering methods.

The room thefts, for example, were done by changing a packet so that the server thought you were the owner of the room, even though you obviously were not. This was possible because the server let the client tell it which user was in the room, instead of the server naturally already knowing this based on what character was being used.