PS Rewired now has a custom server as well

[beldc01]

Question? If a games original online source code isn’t open source most likely to deter hackers and grifters. Why would that be a requirement here? By keeping the source code secure wouldn’t it be safer for players here to use? 

[jayofmaya]

I guess guilty until proven innocent is going to be the case for these games. I plan on playing through Killzone 2 to Rank up legitimately. If I get removed from leaderboards, so be it.

[Ultraxian]

34 minutes ago, jayofmaya said:

I guess guilty until proven innocent is going to be the case for these games. I plan on playing through Killzone 2 to Rank up legitimately. If I get removed from leaderboards, so be it.

That's just asking to be banned seeing as killzone 2 servers shutdown in March 2018

[Gommes_]

To be honest, I wouldn't care if PSNP flagged me for a trophy I earned on servers like that. It is awesome that projects like this exist and it would be enough for me to know that I got these trophies legit. No matter how this is seen by PSN Profiles.

[GabrielMS13]

On 11/01/2023 at 10:17 PM, Lance_87 said:

I would only play online to unlock the remaining cars/skins tied to... guess what, online trophies. Nevermind. *facepalm*

 

This is by far the most stupid thing about this game. Trophies should never be tied to anything in game, they are and always have been extra objectives.

[ryuji_sakujo]

I'll have to agree with @mekktor and @diskdocx here.

 

The problem

First of all, the approach that CRT is going by is lackluster to say the least. From what I understand it relies on crowd sourcing reports of foul play in the leaderboards, which is probably very time consuming. That time could be spent in other ways.. say correcting stacks metadata, administration of series or reviewing pending trophy guides..

 

Aside from that, it's not even a watertight approach, there's tons of false negatives in the leaderboards, accounts that should be banned but aren't: team (shared) accounts pushing their way to the very top, pardoned accounts, people using save file modification/resign tools cleverly, etc.

 

It's just a battle that can't be won in the long run with the limited resources of manual review and flagging, not unless PSNProfiles deploys a state of the art neural net to process and classify all that data. ?

 

Not to mention that there is a single data point to go off, the trophy earned date timestamp. There is no information about HOW that timestamp was generated, whether the save file was modified, a custom server facilitated easier unlock conditions or whether someone got paid to work on unlocking trophies either singlehandedly or as a team (boosted accounts). Interestingly enough PSNProfiles DOES allow cheating, it just goes under a different name like "forming a boosting session", getting help through "share play" or using trophy guides to deploy or encourage techniques like downgrading application software version, using turbo controllers or in-game cheat codes. These are all considered "legal ways to cheat" by PSNProfiles standards, it's all about where the line is drawn. ?

Double standards.

 

Let's talk a bit about what open source is and isn't, and how it is in no way indicative of "fair play" when earning trophies. Open source simply means that the source code is accessible, viewable and forkable (you can copy the code, work on it, edit it and publish as your own variant if the original license allows it, or submit it to the original authors and ask them to "merge in" your changes) in a public code repository such as SourceForge or GitHub.

Open source is great.. but there's no way for a stakeholder like PSNProfiles to actually tell whether a trophy was unlocked running on a server that runs "as intended" or whether it has been tinkered with. It's a bit technical to explain but those that know will know, I'll try to break it down anyway.

Let's take Chromium browser for example, it's the "base" of the Chrome browser. Chromium is open source and anyone can use it as their "base template" for example Brave browser builds on top of Chromium if I'm not mistaken. But Chrome browser, the proprietary Google browser that you might be using is "closed source" with a bunch of Google stuff slapped on top of it. So you got a "open and public" recipe in Chromium browser, but then you can sprinkle on whatever the hell layers of spice and ingredients that you want on top of it.

 

The ONLY way for PSNProfiles to actually "know" that trophies were earned on "legit servers" is if PSNProfiles staff themselves did an extensive code review and upon approval compiled binaries from the source code and ran the servers themselves through this website, which not only requires an amount of effort and man hours but also dedicated hardware. Probably not that expensive in low scale but again it adds to the burden of upkeep that this site is already under.

 

There is literally no other way to verify the legitimacy of revived servers, you can mess around with checksums and image/video proof but all of that can be spoofed and circumvented easily.

It should be clear to everyone that under the guise of "verified open source" PSNProfiles is just casting a smokescreen or making up an excuse that doesn't hold ground, open source or not doesn't actually indicate fair play, any server that runs outside of PSNProfiles premises is potentially compromised.

Another funny thing to add that despite setting these custom servers to a very high standard in regards to transparency, PSNProfiles is itself very closed. It's a single developer working on the entire infrastructure, the code is closed off from public eyes. The only communication we get is in write-locked posts from the staff.

How about opening up PSNProfiles a bit more, make the code public with possibility of submitting issue reports and pull requests, make internal memos open to the public and open for review so that we can together as a community decide where things are heading.

Lead by the example you want to see around you.

 

Let's highlight another inconsistency: Compromised "official servers" and application patches that allow players to earn trophies in an easier manner. Examples of compromised official servers and lobbies would be Rockstar servers (GTA IV, RDR), LittleBigPlanet(?), Black Ops 2. I've heard about people earning trophies in those games and if too many were popped too quickly then unplug ethernet cable, format drive to wipe the local trophy cache and retry. These are OFFICIAL SERVERS yet they are in clear violation of PSNP principle of "don't take advantage of compromised servers to pop trophies with greater ease".

What about certain application versions? Fall Guys, Dead by Daylight, Destiny 2, probably many other games have had patches where you can enter custom lobbies and earn trophies WAY easier. In some games like Destiny 2 they even handed out trophies for just creating a new class of character, the same trophy would require a playthrough with said character in the first patches of the game.

But hey, that's all fine cause it's official servers so I guess all rules go out the window on that one. I'm not even advocating people getting flagged for that, just highlighting the inconsistency in judgement here from PSNP CRT..

 

The remedy

The flagging process is riddled with inconsistencies and unfortunately all the bugs don't get caught in the net.

I completely understand why people don't want to see the leaderboards riddled with 1 second clears, but I feel like there's an easier way around for this.

 

Currently the process is high-effort (manual work), high-ambition and in my opinion low-efficiency in the sense that there are probably a ton of false negatives and positives being flagged.

How about PSNP CRT takes a step back.

Is there a mission statement written down anywhere on this website or is effort and priorities just directed into whatever is the trend in any given time?

What are the expressed CORE VALUES of PSNProfiles actually, has anyone verbalized them and made them explicit?

 

I remember years ago in the early 2010s this used to be a website to assist trophy hunters in their journey of earning trophies, cooperating and sharing tips. But over time it has become more of a bigoted community (not only staff, regular users fueling the flame too) in which a certain type of games and content is preferred over other, and to the point of this thread, a community that doesn't incentives people to have fun with games but instead it's about regular users snooping around on others profiles and CRT acting as a supreme authority that polices and shuts people down with the current flag system.

Maybe it's just me but I don't really care what others do as long as everyone is enjoying it at their own pace and mind their own business.

 

On to the actual suggestions:

- dismantle CRT

- implement some simple heuristics to detect cheaters in leaderboards, it's very simple to program cutoff values

(eg. if game X was 100% in less than 30 min, raise a review flag)

(eg. if trophy X was earned before a certain date and it's known to take longer [example: Genshin Impact reach reputation 10], raise a review flag)

- keep everything to a bare minimum in terms of manpower and effort spent chasing down cheaters, I think most people here will be fine just boxing in the obvious cases. stop giving yourself a headache running after this wild goose hunt..

- leave people alone that are obviously not cheaters, either verify the code and host custom servers through PSNP or ASSUME THE BEST out of these amazing revival projects

 

It should ALWAYS be that someone is innocent unless proven guilty, sadly that isn't the case here but maybe it can change. I think it'd be great if we left trophy hunters alone, we're all just here to have fun and not be stressed out about these arbitrary rulings.

 

And I would say to those of you that want to enjoy these revived games again to either do it on an alt account or do it on your main account anyway. There's no reason to let a website that's supposedly IN YOUR INTEREST as a trophy hunter to hamper or alter your experience and what you want to enjoy.

I don't have any games right now that have been revived but speaking for myself I won't give a damn how I'm flagged or judged by PSNProfiles standards, they're flawed as they are right now.

There are other trophy hunting websites that people might turn to if they kept getting stressed out here, just saying.

 

Let's celebrate these custom servers, there's great talent out there brining back some beloved (and not so beloved) games back.

As game enjoyers and trophy hunters we should take full advantage, and anything that doesn't break PlayStation's PSN TOS should be fair game. ?

 

Thanks for letting me exercise my right to express myself freely, looking forward to all the hate and apologists. In regione caecorum rex est luscus. ??

Edited January 27 by ryuji_sakujo

[Lance_87]

47 minutes ago, GabrielMS13 said:

 

This is by far the most stupid thing about this game. Trophies should never be tied to anything in game, they are and always have been extra objectives.

 

Apocalypse is even worse. All customization was tied to ranks/levels, and ranks/levels could be gained exclusively by playing ONLINE (i did it in online splitscreen alone with two controllers and was even forced to use my old router, NEVER AGAIN lol)

 

In Pacific Rift there was even a special Monster Truck vehicled tied to the Platinum (the Atlas Earthquake), hopefully it is still obtainable due to glitches introduced by one of the DLC packs. For me, i think it was unlocked because i unlocked at least 49 singleplayer/offline trophies including some of the DLC ones. I purchased that game long after the closure, and played exclusively offline, just for fun.

Edited January 27 by Lance_87

[GabrielMS13]

42 minutes ago, Lance_87 said:

All customization was tied to ranks/levels, and ranks/levels could be gained exclusively by playing ONLINE

 

That kind of put off me from playing Apocalypse tbh. I might get into it if there's a workaround.

 

45 minutes ago, Lance_87 said:

In Pacific Rift there was even a special Monster Truck vehicled tied to the Platinum (the Atlas Earthquake), hopefully it is still obtainable due to glitches introduced by one of the DLC packs.

 

I remember I unlocked it halfway through the campaign and at the time I didn't even have the DLC packs. It's a bummer they introduced the save corruption bug, I could only play the DLC by earasing my save file and starting from scratch. Then I unlocked the Atlas Earthquake again lol.

[seblegamer]

Having a way to finally being able to 100% this game is great !

 

If you consider it not legit, how do you know people having trophies on games with still open servers... dont use custom server instead and unlock trophy that way .. ? ^^'

[jayofmaya]

15 hours ago, Ultraxian said:

That's just asking to be banned seeing as killzone 2 servers shutdown in March 2018

 

Hardly. I am really just going to play the game and complete my lists. If the site doesn't check into it, that's not my fault. A user has checked how it works and you have to earn your ranks legitimately to unlock this trophy and that seems to be more than any mod is doing. 
 

14 hours ago, GabrielMS13 said:

 

This is by far the most stupid thing about this game. Trophies should never be tied to anything in game, they are and always have been extra objectives.

 

When it comes to online trophies, sure. Get rid of them all together, I vote. However, I am happy to get trophies for 100% game stories/side missions and enjoy it when they are tied to such progression. 

 

@ryuji_sakujo Great post and insight. I agree with all you said. Another thing I thought of is just any of the Psnprofiles team reaching out and asking these servers about the issue. You can't guarantee honesty, but they don't have much reason to lie. If a simple relationship is built, we could have a section of trusted Private Servers right here on the site and then those private servers would see an influx of new players in and out more regularly. That's a win for everyone, from what I see. 
 

 

[Long-Ryde]

 

Love this thread! The site has me geeked.

 

Been doing research on and off into Motorstorm: Apocalypse servers for a while now because I really liked that game when I was in high school. If I didn't have so many games I wanted to play more from +Premium, I'd be in on that shit! This is all super exciting.

 

Good shit @ryuji_sakujo

 

18 hours ago, Gommes_ said:

To be honest, I wouldn't care if PSNP flagged me for a trophy I earned on servers like that. It is awesome that projects like this exist and it would be enough for me to know that I got these trophies legit. No matter how this is seen by PSN Profiles.

 

Totally Agree. If you don't care about leaderboard BS (who really does?), getting the trophies on servers isn't a question. Especially since Sony allegedly doesn't even give a shit if you do that.

 

---------------------------

 

Cheating trophies (and a lot of "legit" trophies, see Syphon Filter 3) should ultimately be treated like Celeste trophies dude. You have the option to "assist" through it, or do it legit. Regardless though, not a single person aside from you will know or give a shit (other than CRT ?) -- so don't be that dude complaining about assist mode taking away your bragging rights, take pride in your gaming accomplishment!!!!

 

Because the community legitimately doesn't care. Like we do, bc we're all here to give you props n support for all gaming endeavors, but like we don't care, y'know? Because I think most of us are only here for our own journey and those we meet along the way.

 

This site's data is already flooded with imbalances among accounts on the leaderboards to the point where it still doesn't even matter when you try to give it meaning. Not only is the leaderboard essentially pay to win (because you need money for shovelware -- I mean, GAMES), but when you look at the big picture, it's all in place to serve and please a minority.

 

TL;DR do what makes you happy.

 

IMO, If you really want to spend your time hacking meaningless trophies for a meaningless rank (on an amazing website might I add), be my guest, that's your choice & I'm definitely not losing sleep over your rank ya feel me? It don't get that deep when you play games for yourself.

[Richtoon]

[ConAir]

When will we know if this method is approved? So many Trophies became unobtainable after the server shutdown.

[DaivRules]

10 minutes ago, ConAir said:

When will we know if this method is approved? So many Trophies became unobtainable after the server shutdown.

When it meets the posted requirements of Custom Servers according to the Leaderboard rules and is posted there as an approved server. 
 

 

[kapomimo903]

3 hours ago, Richtoon said:

You forgot to add another meme:

''Using cfw to downgrade a game to another update, so you can make it easier to get trophies (example DOOM 1 and DOOM  2 nightmare trophies)'' 

PSNPROFILES:

AMAZING! GOOD JOB!

[EdinhoN]

3 hours ago, Richtoon said:

I understand your point, but custom servers can be messed up and people might have changed parameters. It would be unfair is someone revived Warhawk for example with a 5x XP permanent boost. The open source requirement is simply to have control if it's acting exactly like the original servers

Edited January 28 by EdinhoN

[DaivRules]

7 minutes ago, EdinhoN said:

I understand your point, but custom servers can be messed up and people might have changed parameters. It would be unfair is someone revived Warhawk for example with a 5x XP permanent boost. The open source requirement is simply to have control if it's acting exactly like the original servers

It’s really not worth trying to explain to someone hell bent on using misinformation and logical fallacies as the foundation of their argument. 
 

[janzor88]

2 hours ago, DaivRules said:

It’s really not worth trying to explain to someone hell bent on using misinformation and logical fallacies as the foundation of their argument. 
 

 

Lmao you talking about logical fallacies out of all people.

 

We had a similar discussion over a year ago here where your logical fallacies came into full display, even if you call yourself a "software developer by profession".

 

As Ryuji wrote earlier you have absolutely no clue how a server is compiled even if it's open source as code can be added later by the developers or anyone else.

Using "open source" as some kind of metric value is a logical fallacy which you and others still don't seem to comprehend.

 

The only way to fully verify integrity is if PSNProfiles were hosting their own servers, but that is not going to happen.

 

So the question is if people should be treated as guilty from the beginning, just because there is a hypothetical risk of malignant actions on custom servers.

Or if the doubt should favor players who are treated innocently until there is some suspicioun or evidence of foul play.

Edited January 28 by janzor88
typo

[DaivRules]

4 minutes ago, janzor88 said:

As Ryuji wrote earlier you have absolutely no clue how a server is compiled even if it's open source as code can be added later by the developers or anyone else.

Using "open source" as some kind of metric value is a logical fallacy which you and others still don't seem to comprehend.

Strawmanning what I said doesn’t invalidate what I actually said and there’s no point in rehashing the same conversation with you. 
 

 

[B1rvine]

On 1/27/2023 at 8:24 AM, ryuji_sakujo said:

First of all, the approach that CRT is going by is lackluster to say the least. From what I understand it relies on crowd sourcing reports of foul play in the leaderboards, which is probably very time consuming. That time could be spent in other ways.. say correcting stacks metadata, administration of series or reviewing pending trophy guides..

 

If you're saying the CRT should help with these other areas, I agree, but we're locked to the backend access we have access to. If you're saying the community is spending too much time hunting down cheaters, I'd disagree. I'd wager 99.9% of the community don't really care, and just come across them by happenstance while looking at stats, then file a report when they see something that's fishy.

 

Quote

Aside from that, it's not even a watertight approach, there's tons of false negatives in the leaderboards, accounts that should be banned but aren't: team (shared) accounts pushing their way to the very top, pardoned accounts, people using save file modification/resign tools cleverly, etc.

 

Well, I have solutions for clever cheating, but the I don't think the community actually wants an effective approach. Every time suggestions to improve efficiency have been made, the team gets booed, shamed, or worse. No account's gotten a pardon if malicious cheating is involved, so if there's a mistake let us know, but there may be a few cases when it comes to things that should be whitelisted due to something out of a players control (hacked against their will etc.) Shared accounts are a slippery slope. The team generally agrees permanent fast rank-up teams shouldn't be allowed, only the occasional spouse/family member who may earn a trophy by accident should be allowed, but that's hard to enforce. There are methods to determine the difference, however. Once again, the community seems to want to allow teams.

 

Quote

It's just a battle that can't be won in the long run with the limited resources of manual review and flagging, not unless PSNProfiles deploys a state of the art neural net to process and classify all that data. ?

 

Once someone knows how to game the system, no automatic process will ever work. Then it becomes and endless process of fixing the system. There are some automatic processes in place, and the team has built software to semi-automate things, but there will always be work to do no matter what.

 

Quote

 

Not to mention that there is a single data point to go off, the trophy earned date timestamp. There is no information about HOW that timestamp was generated, whether the save file was modified, a custom server facilitated easier unlock conditions or whether someone got paid to work on unlocking trophies either singlehandedly or as a team (boosted accounts). Interestingly enough PSNProfiles DOES allow cheating, it just goes under a different name like "forming a boosting session", getting help through "share play" or using trophy guides to deploy or encourage techniques like downgrading application software version, using turbo controllers or in-game cheat codes. These are all considered "legal ways to cheat" by PSNProfiles standards, it's all about where the line is drawn. 

Double standards.

 

 

There is information to check besides the timestamp, if you know what to look for, or have access to the data. As far as standards, there's simply no practical way to enforce certain things. For example, there's no way to know if someone never upgraded a game version, or in fact downgraded it. It's not that PSNP enforces these methods, we just recognize there's variables that don't have a real solution. As far as boosting sessions, technically they're about finding other gamers to play with. Once you're in that sessions, PSNP is in no way responsible for what you do. Some sessions are about coop. Some games require a "local" player, which is what shareplay is about, and regardless its a feature promoted by Sony.

 

On 1/26/2023 at 10:49 PM, beldc01 said:

Question?

 

Quote

 

Let's talk a bit about what open source is and isn't, and how it is in no way indicative of "fair play" when earning trophies. Open source simply means that the source code is accessible, viewable and forkable (you can copy the code, work on it, edit it and publish as your own variant if the original license allows it, or submit it to the original authors and ask them to "merge in" your changes) in a public code repository such as SourceForge or GitHub.

 

Open source is great.. but there's no way for a stakeholder like PSNProfiles to actually tell whether a trophy was unlocked running on a server that runs "as intended" or whether it has been tinkered with. It's a bit technical to explain but those that know will know, I'll try to break it down anyway.

 

Let's take Chromium browser for example, it's the "base" of the Chrome browser. Chromium is open source and anyone can use it as their "base template" for example Brave browser builds on top of Chromium if I'm not mistaken. But Chrome browser, the proprietary Google browser that you might be using is "closed source" with a bunch of Google stuff slapped on top of it. So you got a "open and public" recipe in Chromium browser, but then you can sprinkle on whatever the hell layers of spice and ingredients that you want on top of it.

 

The ONLY way for PSNProfiles to actually "know" that trophies were earned on "legit servers" is if PSNProfiles staff themselves did an extensive code review and upon approval compiled binaries from the source code and ran the servers themselves through this website, which not only requires an amount of effort and man hours but also dedicated hardware. Probably not that expensive in low scale but again it adds to the burden of upkeep that this site is already under.

 

There is literally no other way to verify the legitimacy of revived servers, you can mess around with checksums and image/video proof but all of that can be spoofed and circumvented easily. It should be clear to everyone that under the guise of "verified open source" PSNProfiles is just casting a smokescreen or making up an excuse that doesn't hold ground, open source or not doesn't actually indicate fair play, any server that runs outside of PSNProfiles premises is potentially compromised.

 

Another funny thing to add that despite setting these custom servers to a very high standard in regards to transparency, PSNProfiles is itself very closed. It's a single developer working on the entire infrastructure, the code is closed off from public eyes. The only communication we get is in write-locked posts from the staff.

 

 

The open source requirement is less about whether or not a server is compromised, and more about ensuring no one person or group has control over it, which is the entire premise of open source, as you point out. If someone makes a closed source but otherwise 1:1 clone to the original server, they can still turn it off. Open source allows the servers to be in the hands of the community to revive it again if necessary. The other concerns are of course important, which is why custom servers can be removed from fair play at any point. I do agree PSNP "official" custom servers are the best way to go, if someone's willing to do that and Sly gives the go ahead.

 

 

Quote

 

Let's highlight another inconsistency: Compromised "official servers" and application patches that allow players to earn trophies in an easier manner. Examples of compromised official servers and lobbies would be Rockstar servers (GTA IV, RDR), LittleBigPlanet(?), Black Ops 2. I've heard about people earning trophies in those games and if too many were popped too quickly then unplug ethernet cable, format drive to wipe the local trophy cache and retry. These are OFFICIAL SERVERS yet they are in clear violation of PSNP principle of "don't take advantage of compromised servers to pop trophies with greater ease".

What about certain application versions? Fall Guys, Dead by Daylight, Destiny 2, probably many other games have had patches where you can enter custom lobbies and earn trophies WAY easier. In some games like Destiny 2 they even handed out trophies for just creating a new class of character, the same trophy would require a playthrough with said character in the first patches of the game. But hey, that's all fine cause it's official servers so I guess all rules go out the window on that one. I'm not even advocating people getting flagged for that, just highlighting the inconsistency in judgement here from PSNP CRT.

 

 

RDR is a special case, because the hack happened before cheating standards were really in place, and because it used to be part of the official guide on PSNP. The in-game workaround has been removed from the guide as it's not endorsed by PSNP, but we don't flag it either. Every other instance of a compromised server is flaggable. In regards to application versions, I've touched on this already, but for online-only type games, its really just not fair to consider flagging for something that was once Sony/Dev official option.

 

Quote

Unfortunately all the bugs don't get caught in the net.

 

That's unfortunately always going to be the case with any system anywhere.

 

Quote

Currently the process is high-effort (manual work), high-ambition and in my opinion low-efficiency in the sense that there are probably a ton of false negatives and positives being flagged.

 

There are tools we have that do a lot of this automation you mention. A human eye should always still review each case though after software detects or doesn't detect anything. What would help are more staff. There's like 2000+ reports pending right now.

 

Quote

 

On to the actual suggestions:

- dismantle CRT

- implement some simple heuristics to detect cheaters in leaderboards, it's very simple to program cutoff values

(eg. if game X was 100% in less than 30 min, raise a review flag)

(eg. if trophy X was earned before a certain date and it's known to take longer [example: Genshin Impact reach reputation 10], raise a review flag)

 

 

A human element is always required, as previously stated, so dismantling the team isn't a viable option. As stated, there are some automated processes as you suggest. Could there be better ones? Certainly, but it should never be fully automated.

 

Quote

- keep everything to a bare minimum in terms of manpower and effort spent chasing down cheaters, I think most people here will be fine just boxing in the obvious cases. stop giving yourself a headache running after this wild goose hunt.

 

As you yourself note, It's the advanced cheaters that are potentially the problem, and those are the ones actual time is invested into finding.

 

Quote

 

- leave people alone that are obviously not cheaters, either verify the code and host custom servers through PSNP or ASSUME THE BEST out of these amazing revival projects

It should ALWAYS be that someone is innocent unless proven guilty, sadly that isn't the case here but maybe it can change. I think it'd be great if we left trophy hunters alone, we're all just here to have fun and not be stressed out about these arbitrary rulings.

 

 

It is innocent until proven guilty, as far as general removals. In the sense of custom server usage, it's not about trust, it's about being as fair as possible to ensure the tools are usable for everyone at a time of their choosing.

 

 

 

I do get what you're saying overall. There seems to be a lot of variances in what's allowed and isn't and it seems in conflict with each other and the validity of open source vs not seems to not make any real difference. 

 

The real issue is that "trophies are forever" once earned. So there's no way to revise rules as new complications arise, like a new season in sports. When a new patch is released, or something changes, it's hard to do anything that's fair to both those earning a trophy going forward as well as people who earned it already in the past.

 

Edited January 28 by B1rvine

[janzor88]

6 minutes ago, DaivRules said:

Strawmanning what I said doesn’t invalidate what I actually said and there’s no point in rehashing the same conversation with you. 
 

 

 

Edinhon is implying that custom servers can be messed up and that open source servers act as original servers, which you are agreeing on.

 

There is no logical conclusion between having a custom server or an open source server.

You can not verify anything on a compiled server whether it's option 1 or 2.

 

That you're not able to argue against any of these points is already known to me.

[Ghost-Zeus514]

5 hours ago, Richtoon said:

Nice meme

[Bumperklever]

I am sure that 99% of the community likes the idea of utilizing these alternative servers, wether or not they are closed or open source and in the hands of 1 person/group or open for anyone to initiate.

Edited January 28 by Bumperklever

[xXRathlosXx]

4 hours ago, EdinhoN said:

I understand your point, but custom servers can be messed up and people might have changed parameters. It would be unfair is someone revived Warhawk for example with a 5x XP permanent boost. The open source requirement is simply to have control if it's acting exactly like the original servers

 

1 hour ago, B1rvine said:

The open source requirement is less about whether or not a server is compromised, and more about ensuring no one person or group has control over it, which is the entire premise of open source, as you point out. If someone makes a closed source but otherwise 1:1 clone to the original server, they can still turn it off. Open source allows the servers to be in the hands of the community to revive it again if necessary. The other concerns are of course important, which is why custom servers can be removed from fair play at any point. I do agree PSNP "official" custom servers are the best way to go, if someone's willing to do that and Sly gives the go ahead.

 

Allow me to provide context for the discussion. Concerning the open-source nature of these servers, most of those revived games are client hosted. The game files are local, and each connected player could be the potential lobby host. Essentially, their (specifically these revival communities) server stack – SCE-RT Medius SDK (the official network engine SDK used by developers) – exists as a means to provide an alternate route to match players; it mimics the official network. The only way for something to go awry is if one of the connected players, who happens to be the host, runs unsigned code. This happened in older titles such as World at War, Modern Warfare 2, and many others. Understandably, there will be hesitancy for games that are server hosted – many of which were not during that time – as there may be variables that can affect end-user experience.

 

It should be noted that the backend these projects rely on is actually open-source and readily available on GitHub. I believe you would have to make necessary changes – respective to that specific title – to what is currently available to allow other games to work, which requires reversing whatever the target game is. But the SDK is there. My mindset tends to trend towards an old saying, "smoke 'em if you got 'em." If it is currently available, let people do as they please. Sounds archaic and comes off as a free-for-all, but it beats the alternative.

 

2 hours ago, B1rvine said:

The open source requirement is less about whether or not a server is compromised, and more about ensuring no one person or group has control over it, which is the entire premise of open source, as you point out. If someone makes a closed source but otherwise 1:1 clone to the original server, they can still turn it off.

 

Possibiliter ergo probabiliter. 

[ryuji_sakujo]

9 hours ago, DaivRules said:

When it meets the posted requirements of Custom Servers according to the Leaderboard rules and is posted there as an approved server. 
 

 

Care to elaborate on what the requirements are?

 

https://forum.psnprofiles.com/topic/52663-what-constitutes-a-flag/

 

Can't find any mention of "open source", maybe I'm looking in the wrong post..

 

A friend of mine has the following concern:

"Anyone who uses an unapproved server deserves to be flagged, even if it meets all the criteria and/or is approved later. That should be stated explicitly in the post, but it's not."