New GTS restrictions fall short of ideal: Difference between revisions

At first glance, this appears to be a victory for those against hacking. Players offering their legitimate Pokémon will no longer receive unwanted, hacked Pokémon in return. However, the "victory" is a double-edged sword, as hacked Pokémon may still be ''offered'' for trade. As the GTS does not give searchers the option of viewing the stats, capture locations and original trainers (OT), of hacked Pokémon, unless a trade seems obviously shady, it is near-impossible to tell if an offered Pokémon is legitimate. I was genuinely surprised when I attempted to trade a {{p|Palkia}} I received in a trade a few weeks ago; I received the roadblock message. According to the summary page, the Palkia has a non-suspicious OT and was captured at [[bp:Spear Pillar|Spear Pillar]] at Lv. 47. However, according to the GTS, the Palkia is hacked.

The retained ability to offer hacked Pokémon by depositing them in the GTS encourages hackers even more. Hackers now have a guarantee they will receive legitimate Pokémon in exchange for their bootlegs. Obvious hacks, such as the two shiny {{p|Mew}}s I saw offered on the system today, can now only be exchanged for legitimate Pokémon. Smart players who are against hacking will simply ignore these, effectively clogging the search function with Pokémon that won't be traded. Those with less knowledge of the GTS system and the prevalence of hacks will end up trading their often-rare, often-cherished, legitimate monsters for cheap knock-offs.

For Nintendo to ''truly'' curb the hacking epidemic, it must impose restrictions on the GTS for ''both'' methods of trading. Simply disallowing the trade of hacked Pokémon makes little difference if those same Pokémon can be deposited for offer without any obvious indicator of their bootleg status. In any case, Nintendo owes it customers an explanation or at the very least a practical set of guidelines for avoiding hacked Pokémon.