I can't help but think we're all being diverted away from the real argument here if we only discuss the pro's and con's of the Sound Mod in terms of whether any form of online cheating occurs...
The bigger picture is that the vast majority of IL2 play is offline rather than online (Oleg is quoted as saying approximately 95% of players are Offline players...which would fit well with industry estimates for the typical Online/Offline ratio of gameplayers) and of the people that do play online...only a proportion of them will play on Hyperlobby - with the rest playing on their own dedicated or squadron servers or through peer to peer connections...
So even if there is any cheating it is not something which will affect the vast majority of IL2 players.
Besides cheating has always been possible in IL2 - its not a new subject for discussion...Prnt Sreen, disconnecting, lag manipulation have existed for a long time...as has gamesmanship such as flaps on a slider, trim abuse, altering the gamma on your monitor so you can see through the G blackout etc etc...so to imply that before the existance of the Sound Mod everything was great, following its release everything is appalling is a complete misrepresentation of the situation...I can quote from threads about Online cheating that were posted back in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 etc etc...
Besides...how prevelent is it really? Even if it is possible to manipulate the game on closed servers...is it really occuring with any regularity? For all the ping pong arguments in this thread...there are no examples of genuine online cheating refered to here...merely examples of people showing it is possible...I can only assume that rather than servers being full of 1000 KPH Cr42s with Rayguns that in actuality life is continuing exactly as it was before the release of the Sound Mod.
And even if it did occur, surely its the responsibility of the Server Admins and players populating a server to identify and ban any offenders...If you choose to fly in an environment that allows and encourages cheating (IE: an open access serverwhere you are flying with random, anonymous people...in a competitive, stat-driven, win at all costs environment) surely you should take responsibility for making it a fair and enjoyable environment to fly in...rather than throwing that responsibility back onto the wider IL2 community who have no interest or stake in it whatsoever.
So in summary...Cheating doesn't affect most people, its not a new thing anyway, it doesn't seem to occur that often and perhaps stopping it is the concern of the hyperlobby players and server admins rather than a concern for the bulk of the IL2 community who are neither interested nor affected!
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