The hacking was real. There were 3 hackers on the bank roof laying bombs that looked like sprite.png and throwing snowballs that killed people. After they went offline or were banned there were about 300 people online and the player count stayed like that for a few hours. Here are some screen shots I took.
http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/3084/img0062.png (Unsupported image host)
http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/2122/img0061v.png (Unsupported image host)
http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/2688/img0057o.png (Unsupported image host)