Server Has Now Closed

[ResiGamer_28]

Shutdown 1016 gmt+1, thanks to everyone who helped with trophies. Botzone remains playable but doubtful you can unlock trophies. Aces High is definitely now unobtainable 

[DynoDux]

Great fun while it lasted! Never tried for the 'Aces High' trophy until recently... ended up with a Queen of Hearts... oh well.

[PlushyPants49]

R.I.P Killzone Mercenary.

 

You were a real one. ?

[tnaires]

1 hour ago, ResiGamer_28 said:

Shutdown 1016 gmt+1, thanks to everyone who helped with trophies. Botzone remains playable but doubtful you can unlock trophies. Aces High is definitely now unobtainable 

 

How do you know the exact time servers were shut down?

[Juandres99]

I can't believe I managed to get Aced High at 7am GMT. Thank you Guerilla for updating the leaderboards one last time ?

[DIEHARD2015]

They didn’t update for me one last time and I would have got Ace for sure???

Edited August 12, 2022 by DIEHARD2015

[ResiGamer_28]

4 hours ago, DIEHARD2015 said:

They didn’t update for me one last time and I would have got Ace for sure

Check it again, people seem to be getting issued aces even after server closure 

[Geridian]

As to be expected, very much confusion in the Killzone Mercenary sub forum, because people writing many different things about "Aces High obtained after server shutdown [12. August 2022 around 12:00 PM (GMT+1)]".

Maybe I can help to bring some light into the darkness...

 

At first some basics, to make everyone aware how it was shown to players which achieved Aces High before the server shutdown:

Spoiler

 

1) As I wrote here to its fullest, I achieved the Aces High trophy on 06 August 2022 in the morning. Got an Ace of Hearts.

But you will notice in this screenshot, that "Current" VLR (Top right) and PEAK VLR (Right) and the card symbol to the left of my PSN Account name are not the same.

Reason: I was farming money during the server`s calculation of the sum needed for getting the Ace rank.

From my PoV: This means the savefile is not synched with the server and is only synched with the server used for awarding Aces High trophy when the game starts. 

 

2) So I quit the game and started it again. And the Aces High trophy popped at the Sony Computer Entertainment Logo (Which in itself is totally normal, like other achievers wrote).

 

3)  Afterwards I checked the Leaderboard again: "Current" VLR (Top right) and PEAK VLR (Right) and the card symbol to the left of my PSN Account name are the same.

From my PoV: This means that the savefile is now synched with server information.

 

 

This is what happens when the game is started now with the same savefile used in the screenshots above:

Spoiler

 

1) Game starts: Warning screen -> Same as before the server shutdown

 

2) Game starts: Savefile is accessed -> Same as before the server shutdown

 

3) Game starts: Loading before and after the ToS screen (ToS screen is not shown when Auto Connect was selected before) -> Same as before the server shutdown

 

4) Game starts: No server connection available -> Compared to my screenshots from the above section, at this point the game tries to connect to the server to get the current information regarding the needed sum for the Aces High trophy. But since the server is down, no connection possible.

 

5) Game starts: SCE Logo appears -> Same as before the server shutdown.

As written in above section, at this point you would have been awarded with the Aces High trophy.

 

6) Game starts: G Cambridge logo -> Same as before the server shutdown

 

7) Game starts: Killzone Mercenary logo -> Same as before the server shutdown

 

8) Game starts: The valor information, which is stored in the savefile, is accessed.

 

9) Game starts: The highest valor rank which was achieved in the used savefile is shown -> For me, the highest value rank ever achieved on the savefile was Ace of Hearts.

 

10) This happens when I try to access the leaderboard: Login failed because of the server shutdown.

 

11) This happens when I open the career stats: The savefiles information is shown, again including the the highest value rank ever achieved on the savefile.

 

12) This happens when I try to start a public MP round: Login failed because of the server shutdown.

 

 

Conclusion:

• Players seeing an Ace as the current valor rank after the Accessing Valor screen are seeing an Ace here, because the highest valor rank ever achieved on the savefile was an Ace.
• Since the server shutdown, the sum needed for Aces High can no longer be calculated from the server.
• Servers for leaderboard and MP are 100% down.
• The chance is very high, that everybody who achieved Aces High after the server shutdown is a cheater.

 

Needs verification: What also could happen:
Since the savefile can no longer be synched to the servers, maybe everybody now is shown an Ace rank

- after the Accessing Valor screen (This screen is now shown at every start of the game, normally it was only shown the first time of the day the game was started and had the first connection to the servers)

- and in the career screen

even if the player itself never got an Ace rank, but this is just speculation and should not result in the trophy being earned.

 

The latest achievers of Aces High and Centurion look legit.

 

Server shutdown for Shadowfall, Mercenary and RIGS happend 12. August 2022 around 12:00 PM (GMT+1). Also the Shadowfall DLCs are all delisted.

Edited August 13, 2022 by Geridian
Added information about the shutdown time

[ChristianHenares]

I managed to get everything on Mercenary, didn't even try Shadowfall for many reasons.

 

One friend of mine just got the Aces but he didn't managed for the 100 Multiplayer matches cuz has to work. Now he won't have the platinum trophy, ever.

 

Thing is, I managed to do Ace 2 weeks ago by playing just 5 times JUSTICE FOR ALL / DEMOLITION / VETERAN and 3 more missions on Veteran without contract, I was about 180.000$. This friend tried for 5 days making each day 250.000$ and he finally got this trophy with more than 700.000$. It seems to be many people were trying by the same method and the system actually was calculating the total amount of money from all players, which is something it was never specify in the first place.

 

I was lucky and he sadly didn't make the one last trophy needed, that's a shame and I'll try to contact Guerrilla by myself and see if they can patch it up and just make it possible for Bots zone without playing 1 final match on Multiplayer. Shame on these kind of trophies and servers.

 

Servers are NOT EXPENSIVE at all for a multinational and billionare company, there is really no need to shut them down on any game, specially making billions on Horizon franchise now. But Sony is always closing servers from succesful games for no reason.

[Geridian]

36 minutes ago, ChristianHenares said:

Thing is, I managed to do Ace 2 weeks ago by playing just 5 times JUSTICE FOR ALL / DEMOLITION / VETERAN and 3 more missions on Veteran without contract, I was about 180.000$. This friend tried for 5 days making each day 250.000$ and he finally got this trophy with more than 700.000$. It seems to be many people were trying by the same method and the system actually was calculating the total amount of money from all players, which is something it was never specify in the first place.

 

Sorry to say, but what you wrote is just how it worked:

• All players are compared which never got an Ace rank before.
  • If the total net sum of past and present achievers was used, then nobody would have got an Ace rank with a sum of 500000 to 700000 Vektan dollars.
• What the servers used for calculation was the total net sum of current Vektan dollars earned in 24 hours for anybody which had no Ace rank.
• If somebody had gone nuts and farmed 1 million Vektan dollars in 24 hours for the trophy, then this type of "total amount" was the gatekeeper or at least had set the entry point for others very high. 

 

Quote

Servers are NOT EXPENSIVE at all for a multinational and billionare company, there is really no need to shut them down on any game, specially making billions on Horizon franchise now. But Sony is always closing servers from succesful games for no reason.

 

You know, that Killzone Mercenary and RIGS where developed by Guerrilla Cambridge (formerly SCE Studio Cambridge). And this studio was shut down in 2017.

So: Guerrilla Games and Sony had just pulled the plug for servers from 2 legacy games developed from a studio which was shut down 5 years ago.

This is just logical.

And not only Sony is to blame.  

 

But I can see, that everybody who is now angry at Guerrilla Games buys the next Horizon game day 1. ? 

Also everybody had 9 years to get the MP trophies of Killzone Mercenary done, while others achieved all of them in 5 days or less. 

So, who is to blame?

But yes, all these people really need extra awareness and a patch to get something done, for which they never cared for in 9 years .. definitely not!

Edited August 13, 2022 by Geridian
Added some facts

[ChristianHenares]

2 minutes ago, Geridian said:

 

Sorry to say, but what you wrote is just how it worked:

• All players are compared which never got an Ace rank before.
  • If the total net sum of past and present achievers was used, then nobody would have got an Ace rank with a sum of 500000 to 700000 Vektan dollars.
• What the servers used for calculation was the total net sum of current Vektan dollars earned in 24 hours for anybody which had no Ace rank.
• If somebody had gone nuts and farmed 1 million Vektan dollars in 24 hours for the trophy, then this type of "total amount" was the gatekeeper or at least had set the entry point for others very high. 

 

 

You know, that Killzone Mercenary and RIGS where developed by Guerrilla Cambridge (formerly SCE Studio Cambridge). And this studio was shut down in 2017.

So: Guerrilla Games had just pulled the plug for servers from 2 legacy games developed from a studio which was shut down 5 years ago.

This is just logical.

And not only Sony is to blame.  

 

But I can see, that everybody who is now angry at Guerrilla Games buys the next Horizon game day 1.  

Also everybody had 9 years to get the MP trophies of Killzone Mercenary done, while others achieved all of them in 5 days or less. 

So, who is to blame?

Many games servers are not owned by studios like Guerrilla Cambridge, but by main console servers. For instance, Disney Infinity 1, 2 and 3 shutted down servers 3 years ago, but guess what? You can still invite people on your party matches and still get some coop trophies/achievements because they're using PlayStation/Xbox servers.

 

See online coop trophies from Disney Infinity reference here

 

Either was Sony closing servers, or Guerrilla. In any case, speaking to devs directly sometimes helped me in the past. They repaired Rock Band series servers after some of us give the call, so, nothing is impossible (sometimes).

Also on Xbox at least they "kinda repaired" one achievement for Marvel's Avengers. On PS4 and PS5 you can do the trick by playing offline with a physical copy, but that cannot be done on Xbox.

 

Last but not least, on PS4 it was repaired as well the LVL 50 trophy for Star Wars: Battlefront II after many months.

[Fubuki]

Never played this Killzone because I never owned a Vita. But regardless, RIP.

[Geridian]

42 minutes ago, ChristianHenares said:

Many games servers are not owned by studios like Guerrilla Cambridge, but by main console servers. For instance, Disney Infinity 1, 2 and 3 shutted down servers 3 years ago, but guess what? You can still invite people on your party matches and still get some coop trophies/achievements because they're using PlayStation/Xbox servers.

 

See online coop trophies from Disney Infinity reference here

 

Some games are using no server for online play, they use peer to peer. And a server shutdown does not remove peer to peer functionality in a game.

 

Quote

 

Either was Sony closing servers, or Guerrilla. In any case, speaking to devs directly sometimes helped me in the past. They repaired Rock Band series servers after some of us give the call, so, nothing is impossible (sometimes).

Also on Xbox at least they "kinda repaired" one achievement for Marvel's Avengers. On PS4 and PS5 you can do the trick by playing offline with a physical copy, but that cannot be done on Xbox.

 

Last but not least, on PS4 it was repaired as well the LVL 50 trophy for Star Wars: Battlefront II after many months.

 

 

Yes, nothing is impossible. But the devs must be willing to help, what Guerrilla Games was not (Staying silent = Not offering something).

But as you know: When the next installment in the Horizon series of games arrive, all angry people buy it day 1.

 

Also I want to add something to the false argument "Servers are NOT EXPENSIVE at all":

• A server must be maintained. 
• Somebody on maintenance job costs the company money.
• The infrastructure the server needs to perform the tasks costs money
• Also servers and subsystems in the environment around them needs to be patched.
  • Killzone Mercenary is based on the Killzone 3`s engine (Link - Development)
    • So there is a high chance, that the servers Killzone Mercenary used are also based on the same code as Killzone 3's servers.
    • KIllzone 3 itself was in development since 2010 or some time before, so the server code is also that old.
  • And sometimes you can not guarantee that old servers can be patched to match current security standards, either because it is technically not possible or costs so much money (Programming work and workers themselves) that it is just not cost efficient. 
  • And unsafe servers are always a entry point for hackers.

So, again: Normal that this server shutdown happened and more server shutdowns happen.

Edited August 13, 2022 by Geridian
Wording

[ChristianHenares]

I forgot to tell something about "People is buying first day Horizon 3" sentence. Not all of them, I'm not buying second and future games for instance, for other reasons.

What you said about Killzone's 3 Engine and Killzone: Mercenary it might have sense from your perspective but not from mine. There are standards for security terms to publish something on PlayStation systems, also, Guerrilla being a first party studio would most probably fulfill this checklist without hesitation or any problem. PSVITA is already too old and they're still providing patches time to time (and ruining some functions, let it be said). I'm pretty sure if that was the case Killzone: mercenary would probably died in 2015 or so, not 11 years later. But this is only speculation and my point of view just like the one you're offering.

 

You're right on the Peer to Peer connection about Disney Infinity, I wish many other games uses it. In theory even Sony closing servers wouldn't forbid making a peer to peer conection in a game, although you're required to log in and that must use Sony servers.

 

I agree as well on the fact we had 11 years to work on this game on these trophies, but still it's unfair for many games to have these kind of online trophies without solution.

 

About servers being expensive. No, they're not, you don't need 300 employees nor super servers. Let's say they need like 200€ per month due to the size of those servers, but normal tiny servers can be bought to 12€ per month. That's not expensive at all, I'm sure if companies gives the chance to players to pay for it, they will not only get servers for free, but also make real money because they will have their needs totally cover.

[Geridian]

36 minutes ago, ChristianHenares said:

I agree as well on the fact we had 11 years to work on this game on these trophies, but still it's unfair for many games to have these kind of online trophies without solution.

 

Nice to know that we agree on some points.

 

Still: Keep in mind that console gamers are not the core gamers. Also "digital achievement hunters" itself are a very small player base of console gamers, so it is normal that companies do not care. 

And "caring" for us console gamer "digital achievement hunters" costs time and money. 

And time and money lost on a game which generates nearly 0 income is wasted.

 

Quote

About servers being expensive. No, they're not, you don't need 300 employees nor super servers. Let's say they need like 200€ per month due to the size of those servers, but normal tiny servers can be bought to 12€ per month. That's not expensive at all, I'm sure if companies gives the chance to players to pay for it, they will not only get servers for free, but also make real money because they will have their needs totally cover.

 

See above:

Even the 200$ per month are wasted. 

When a bureaucrat sees money wasted on a dead horse, the first priority is to stop waste money.

 

Also a server needs an operating system (OS) to work with, like your smartphone and your PC/Laptop.

And sometimes some OS are not suported anymore and some things cannot be migrated to other OS.

Then workarounds must be found, if the service should prevail. 

.. But yes, it costs no money, roger that ?

 

Stopping discussion also know.

Because only thing I wanted to share was this.

Edited August 13, 2022 by Geridian
Wording

[Apocasy]

RIP Killzone Mercenary. One of my first platinums. Enjoyed every minute 8-9 years ago when I last played it.