Atleast if this idea was ever done.. abiet though tis to much work but here it is none the less.

Remove all purchasable hacking programs (or just spread them out across the net.. sorta like what your starting to do now). Instead force us to program/script them ourselves. Either using a type of scripting language (Probably end up similar to BASIC) or a type of Asm based language, which imho while funner might be above some peoples heads, especially if you add in something as basic as stack emulation or memory pages.

Honestly though, I wouldn't know where to begin making it so its fun and not requiring someone to either write just 5 lines (high-level) or 200 lines (low-level), 20 lines would be good.

Servers.hack("Introversion Internal Services Machine");

In fairness though, it sounds like a great idea - but what's stopping skilled programmers from writing bypassers at the start of the game and hacking banks straightaway?

Not sure if external links are allowed, but HackWars seems to have a pretty good concept - you can write code, but you'll have to pay money per function used. It sounds weird, but it stops beginner players who are skilled coders from just hacking into high level servers straightaway.

Despite the fact that it just doesn't make any sense .

Actually the idea isn't all that bad however there's a big catch. What would stop a skilled coder from coding an internal Game AI that would do missions and transfer money from loading bank accounts to the player all by itself? I mean I have seen what my fully-automated universe trader script did to X² after a few days of playing around with the ingame script interpreter ...

I think the system is good as it is ... with one exception: The list is terribly organised especially with all those fancy new things introduced by the Onlink dudes.

I think the problem with this is, it's too much of a jump from a beefed out Uplink hollywood style hacking, to an actual hacking program. I wouldn't know where to start, nor do I have to time or need to learn how to code. Instant alienation for at least 50%.

Another way you could do this is to have the programs left lying on fileservers et cetera. The harder to hack the fileserver, the greater the posibility phat lewt lies therein. Heck make a few of the better ones encrypted and compressed for giggles. Just my 2 credits...

ergo my, "or just spread them out across the net.. sorta like what your starting to do now"