PS Rewired now has a custom server as well

[sepheroithisgod]

The stance on these server revivals really needs to be changed. It shouldn't matter if the servers are open source or not. If you can go in and verify the trophies are earnable in a legitimate manner, that's really all that should matter.

 

We live in an age where people are popping 30-second shovelware plats, yet god forbid someone tries to earn some older online trophies. These trophies are inconsequential to the leaderboards as long as they can be earned the way they were intended on a custom server or a normal server. I don't support people just getting a trophy hacked to pop like in GTA5 or CODBO2 on the PS3, so think moderation is important, but the way the CRT is approaching this is far too rigid.

[Lance_87]

Expect no boosting sessions for those games if they are whitelisted though, AFAIK they are banned at least on Warhawk.

[Wuthg21]

My suggestion is an site wide poll for revived servers, it's really easy to tell if it is malicious or not. 

 

Like for example if you need an CFW console to play on those servers, easily not allowed, but if it's only changing your dns,  and you earn the trophies same way as normal, why wouldn't it be allowed if the server isn't open source.

 

Also what happenend to the white list poll for some unobtainable games? I never saw something change.

[Floorkiller74]

This is all PSNP's fault for allowing fan servers to be considered "legit" in the 1st place. Now that they have allowed some, they should just allow all that don't require CFW. I'm not a fan. Should have been official servers only (Unpopular opinion here, I know...you don't need to tell me LOL)

[Lance_87]

I think at least the PSONE custom servers don't require CFW. I only used them for Resistance and MotorStorm (both trophy-less) and i only had to change the DNS. Actually, i was only interested in redownloading the game updates, as they used a very archaic system compared to 99% of the other PS3 games.

 

[Bumperklever]

3 hours ago, DaivRules said:

Im curious which Community Events required a leaderboard rank and/or no hidden trophies and what sense that made other than prejudice. 

 

 

Oh please, a lot of events do this! Hidden trophies not so much but atleast having a leaderboard rank (aka not being flagged).

 

For example on the winter 2022/2023 backlog challenge which I joined. It states in the OP.

 

 

"Eligible Participants: Anyone is eligible to participate, provided you are serious about completing the games you say will. However, if you have flagged games on your PSNProfile, you are banned from participating unless you hide the games, get unflagged, or use a different profile. No cheating!"

 

Most has some kind of rule into place... I thought a mod should know

 

[BlackWidowHunter]

On 2022-12-25 at 1:35 PM, demonviper666 said:

Unfortunately closed source so  u play it   u will get flagged    if u  unlock online trophies I ask someone in  

A small price to pay for getting trophies I couldn’t be arsed to unlock when the servers were active….

 

on second thought I likely still can’t be arsed. 

[DaivRules]

33 minutes ago, Bumperklever said:

Most has some kind of rule into place... I thought a mod should know

I don’t know that I’ve ever participated in more than one event and haven’t read any of the rules for the rest, why assume mods should know the details of all the events that have happened? 
 

Im still curious what the justification is besides prejudice. 
 

Also, all that is required is hiding. Participation is still possible. 

[Jimiboss98]

4 hours ago, pinkrobot_pb said:

 

You would also be regarded as very suspicious by a lot of other users of this website. You would very likely have a worse time on these forums or when trying to join gaming sessions. This already comes with having a blue H on your profile and is worse when you have been kicked off the leaderboards by the CRT.

 

It's a tradeoff that is personal and needs careful consideration.

Didn't know having an H (Hidden trophies) on your profile carried a stigma. Games i played and got trophies, but didn't like i just hide them. Maybe i was lucky but never faced any problems with interactions or sessions so far.

 

At this point leaderboards are meaningless. I do enjoy climbing them since my country doesn't have that big of a population but at this point 150/230 people ahead of me are shovelware platinum people so I've nearly reached my limit while not going for those pay for platinum games.

 

I've done my fair share of easy games but those are just not even games imo.

Edited January 29, 2023 by Jimiboss98

[Lance_87]

50 minutes ago, Jimiboss98 said:

Didn't know having an H (Hidden trophies) on your profile carried a stigma. Games i played and got trophies, but didn't like i just hide them. Maybe i was lucky but never faced any problems with interactions or sessions so far.

 

At this point leaderboards are meaningless. I do enjoy climbing them since my country doesn't have that big of a population but at this point 150/230 people ahead of me are shovelware platinum people so I've nearly reached my limit while not going for those pay for platinum games.

 

I've done my fair share of easy games but those are just not even games imo.

 

There was a time back in the PS3 days when having hidden trophies actually meant you owned easy Platinums like Terminator Salvation and Hannah Montana

Edited January 29, 2023 by Lance_87

[I-SilentEcho-I]

Is there any progress on this at all? its been over a month and there's not been a single word on whether these servers are even being verified by the staff or looked into at all. Just a lot of back and forth arguing over a topic that has been covered to death and will never be resolved. In the time spent rebutting the community's posts, it could've been spent contacting the people involved in bringing these servers back via the discord that was mentioned a few pages back.

And just in case the response is "we have been looking into it", then where's the communication with us? That hasn't been made clear at all, even a simple "we're looking into it, it's just going to take time" would at least be something.

[Lance_87]

I wouldn't expect a definitive answer anytime soon...

[Bumperklever]

 

13 hours ago, DaivRules said:

Im still curious what the justification is besides prejudice.

 

Dunno, in the spirit of this challenges as well as many others, I feel like it doesn't really make sense to put up legality in regards to cheated games. There is nothing to lose or win, its a fun event where you share your progress and experience. I can see rules into place where it is like an event with an actual price on the line..

 

to me all fun events shouldnt have a rule regarding this into place.. 

 

‐---------

 

Anyway this is also a good example of non-belongning, cuz you are a dirty cheater.

 

The problematic part comes into place due to 99% of the community not agreeing the rules the CRT (CRT includes sly), because the snippets we get from the CRT are very disputable on political and technical standpoint. 

 

1 may find a profile flagged for playing this rewired server while they dont find it illegal themselves. Though they will be in the same ballpark as any CFW wizard that popped any game illegitemately.

 

[EdinhoN]

55 minutes ago, Bumperklever said:

1 may find a profile flagged for playing this rewired server while they dont find it illegal themselves. Though they will be in the same ballpark as any CFW wizard that popped any game illegitemately.

I think that's a good rationale after all.

Particularly, if I was in control of defining rules for a trophy hunting website, I'd be completely strict about CFW and similar stuff. That's cheating that nobody would do by mistake. I wouldn't give a 3 strike policy for someone with clearly CFW manipulated timestamps. If a game has a weird popping bug, it will be wide-spread and known.

I dislike a bit the policy in PSNP where "if  randomshit happens, just hide your trophies to get unflagged". Unaware players could see news about these revived servers, grab some online trophies and be forced to hide the game later, losing the ability to track their games properly (the player itself will know that he played legit and that's what matters for him).

 

Recently we had the unending Army of Two mask server soap opera, where things were rushed to be approved and caused disagreements. Something like that again should not be approved again so I doubt those other close sourced revived servers ever will.

 

It's a bit weird because while I actually don't care for leaderboards here, I also care. I shouldn't care about having a ranking on leaderboards because I don't compete, so trading this off for the Pacific Rift plat in a legit way (in my own gaming standards, not PSNP's) should be a no-brainer for me. But for some reason that green text in my profile saying I'm 7248th place in the world gives me an extra dopamine hit I guess. Honestly, the ideal solution for me would be if PSNP could just "ban" some games from counting progress to you. For example, instead of either removing people from leaderboards of forcing them to hide Pacific Rift, it would be ideal for me if PSNP could simply flag this game as not to be counted for that player leaderboard. So if you accessed your PSNP profile, you'd see all your trophies for it (let's say it's your last and 50th platinum) but then if you look at your leaderboard position, it would say you have 49th plats because all of this game trophies are not counting. That would be a good solution in my eyes because the player who casually care for LBs wouldn't have negative impact in their accounts and the same for the global leaderboards.

[DaivRules]

2 minutes ago, EdinhoN said:

Honestly, the ideal solution for me would be if PSNP could just "ban" some games from counting progress to you.

Yeah, that’s the idea of the whitelist that practically everyone is in favor of. 
 

[EdinhoN]

2 minutes ago, DaivRules said:

Yeah, that’s the idea of the whitelist that practically everyone is in favor of. 
 

I'm not aware of many of these discussions because those BO2/GTA5 threads usually derailed quickly and I stopped looking at them some years ago haha.

Also, I think such a whitelist could be impractical due to a lot of back-end work to track in different contexts. Perhaps if some day something like the rarity leaderboard gets released, it will be easier to think in alternatives like that.

[GabrielMS13]

16 hours ago, Lance_87 said:

Actually, i was only interested in redownloading the game updates, as they used a very archaic system compared to 99% of the other PS3 games.

 

Wait is that possible now? I lost the MotorStorm updates after my fat PS3 got the YLOD. 

 

47 minutes ago, EdinhoN said:

Honestly, the ideal solution for me would be if PSNP could just "ban" some games from counting progress to you. For example, instead of either removing people from leaderboards of forcing them to hide Pacific Rift, it would be ideal for me if PSNP could simply flag this game as not to be counted for that player leaderboard.

 

I imagine the people that got trophies legitimately when the official servers were up would be upset. Maybe this solution would be better applied to single trophies instead of whole games. For instance, MotorStorm Pacific Rift online trophies earned after a certain date (in this case the day the servers were shutdown) do not count towards the leaderboards, everything earned before then is fair game.

[EdinhoN]

14 minutes ago, GabrielMS13 said:

 

Wait is that possible now? I lost the MotorStorm updates after my fat PS3 got the YLOD. 

 

 

I imagine the people that got trophies legitimately when the official servers were up would be upset. Maybe this solution would be better applied to single trophies instead of whole games. For instance, MotorStorm Pacific Rift online trophies earned after a certain date (in this case the day the servers were shutdown) do not count towards the leaderboards, everything earned before then is fair game.

Oh sure, I didnt explicitily told that, but people earning it on the official servers should/could remain the same of course. Covering this, I don't see how any user would be negatively impacted from such change

[FeelTheCosmos]

On 1/28/2023 at 10:55 PM, ChaoticFox9900 said:

I mean why are you doing this to yourselves? I'm not trying to make any enemies here but for who is all of this really for?

 

In short, it's for me.  I live in the "fastest to 100%" category of these leaderboards, and I put quite a bit of effort into making runs that top those lists.  I have a few alts that are known to the community and some that aren't, and I do these runs on YouTube on an account that I don't want to share lest it be termed advertising.  All told, I have top times in close to 50 games and I'm super proud of that.

 

There are others who grab games at launch with the goal of being the first achievers, more who wait until server shutdown trying to top the latest achievers, and others who just want to climb the overall ranks by stacking crappy games.  Whatever their particular enjoyment is, I know it's real and does require effort, and there are more of us out there than you might think. 

 

None of that works if the leaderboards aren't clean, and by doing it manually this site does a more thorough job than others that I've seen.  When people talk about "double standards," they're almost exclusively mischaracterizing the standards just because they don't like them.  I know nothing is ever 100%, but I do think these people are doing their best, and their best is pretty good.  The leaderboard rules are actually pretty straightforward, even if you don't agree with them, and as B1rvine said in his response they just try to keep the playing field fair for everyone.

 

In this particular case, I'm totally against using custom servers on the leaderboard, even the ones that are approved.  In one game, I finished a top time just a few hours before the servers closed, so my time "should" stand forever.  If those servers get resurrected, I guess that would be fine, but part of my run involved invading others' bases, and I had to weed through the thousands of accounts made over 10+ years of the game to find the easy ones.  It probably added 2 hours to my time, where a custom server with only a few accounts on it would allow me to stock the pool with 10 or 12 of my own before starting the run.  Just an example of how even with "original code" you can still manipulate custom servers to suit.

 

Don't get me wrong, I still play Mario 1 from time to time and I think reviving online play is awesome.  I might even try Motorstorm, I heard it was a great game back in the day and I wouldn't mind checking it out.  I'll do it on a different account though, I certainly don't want to risk my leaderboard status over it.  And that's really the crux of it, it's like using your foot wedge when you're playing a round of golf with your dad, versus trying to pull that at the Masters.  You might not think that's a good comparison because there's no money involved, but some of the people on top of these leaderboards DO get paid.   And that's definitely worth protecting.

 

Whatever it is, if you don't care about the leaderboards you shouldn't be voting about what rules apply to them AT ALL.  I get that having flagged games comes with a "cheater" tag and I'm down for anything that reduces this stigma, especially for people that do something like what we're talking about.  I just don't think changing the site rules is the way to go.

[Thrillhelm]

To be fair it is hard for the CRT to see what the majority of the community wants. Any poll is done by a fraction of the forum users, and those polls can be manipulated if you have multiple accounts.

 

I also see a dilemma about whitelisting games with rewired servers vs shovelware: right now a good argument is that there are so few trophies that can be earned with rewired servers that they do not matter, in times of shovelware games.

 

However, since there is still a debate about shovelware getting worth zero points (or outright banned) for the leaderboard there is the dilemma, since in that case those trophies earned with rewired servers do count a lot more, and it leads to another flamewar: trophies that are earned legit would not count but trophies that should have been unobtainable but are obtainable by outside means do count.

 

Under the condition the status quo of trophies doesn't get changed any further anytime soon, I would like to see more games with new servers running getting whitelisted, and a definite green light for them.

 

However, this is another problem the CRT lacks a definite decision on, and to me there are bigger problems than the rewired servers right now (mostly the moderation of the forum).

Edited January 30, 2023 by Thrillhelm

[EdinhoN]

3 minutes ago, FeelTheCosmos said:

 

In short, it's for me.  I live in the "fastest to 100%" category of these leaderboards, and I put quite a bit of effort into making runs that top those lists.  I have a few alts that are known to the community and some that aren't, and I do these runs on YouTube on an account that I don't want to share lest it be termed advertising.  All told, I have top times in close to 50 games and I'm super proud of that.

 

There are others who grab games at launch with the goal of being the first achievers, more who wait until server shutdown trying to top the latest achievers, and others who just want to climb the overall ranks by stacking crappy games.  Whatever their particular enjoyment is, I know it's real and does require effort, and there are more of us out there than you might think. 

 

None of that works if the leaderboards aren't clean, and by doing it manually this site does a more thorough job than others that I've seen.  When people talk about "double standards," they're almost exclusively mischaracterizing the standards just because they don't like them.  I know nothing is ever 100%, but I do think these people are doing their best, and their best is pretty good.  The leaderboard rules are actually pretty straightforward, even if you don't agree with them, and as B1rvine said in his response they just try to keep the playing field fair for everyone.

 

In this particular case, I'm totally against using custom servers on the leaderboard, even the ones that are approved.  In one game, I finished a top time just a few hours before the servers closed, so my time "should" stand forever.  If those servers get resurrected, I guess that would be fine, but part of my run involved invading others' bases, and I had to weed through the thousands of accounts made over 10+ years of the game to find the easy ones.  It probably added 2 hours to my time, where a custom server with only a few accounts on it would allow me to stock the pool with 10 or 12 of my own before starting the run.  Just an example of how even with "original code" you can still manipulate custom servers to suit.

 

Don't get me wrong, I still play Mario 1 from time to time and I think reviving online play is awesome.  I might even try Motorstorm, I heard it was a great game back in the day and I wouldn't mind checking it out.  I'll do it on a different account though, I certainly don't want to risk my leaderboard status over it.  And that's really the crux of it, it's like using your foot wedge when you're playing a round of golf with your dad, versus trying to pull that at the Masters.  You might not think that's a good comparison because there's no money involved, but some of the people on top of these leaderboards DO get paid.   And that's definitely worth protecting.

 

Whatever it is, if you don't care about the leaderboards you shouldn't be voting about what rules apply to them AT ALL.  I get that having flagged games comes with a "cheater" tag and I'm down for anything that reduces this stigma, especially for people that do something like what we're talking about.  I just don't think changing the site rules is the way to go.

That' a nice insight I never thought about it. You're probably talking about MGS5 and yeah I agree, a custom server (even if open source) could mess the speed running of this thing.

Honestly, with that in mind, no custom servers should be approved (even open-source which is currently ok), even though some emulate in a very similar fashion the original ones, some tiny changes will always exist and can lead to performatic differences like the ones you mentioned.

 

I'll always play by whatever rules PSNP define because it's currently the most relevant website out there, so in the end I won't bother with Pacific Rift plat. If the first Motorstorm gets a remaster or something, I might end up doing Pacific Rift afterwards and leave it a max obtainable percentage, but if it ever was possible to trade away my 600-ish legit points (and of course the ability to appear in fastest achievers leaderboards) for the shiny plat, I'd do it. It's just not worth it trading my whole ranking and "being labelled as a cheater" (as you said) to grab such plat currently.

 

 

3 minutes ago, Thrillhelm said:

To be fair it is hard for the CFW to see what the majority of the community wants. Any poll is done by a fraction of the forum users, and those polls can be manipulated if you have multiple accounts.

 

I also see a dilemma about whitelisting games with rewired servers vs shovelware: right now a good argument is that there are so few trophies that can be earned with rewired servers that they do not matter, in times of shovelware games.

 

However, since there is still a debate about shovelware getting worth zero points (or outright banned) for the leaderboard there is the dilemma, since in that case those trophies earned with rewired servers do count a lot more, and it leads to another flamewar: trophies that are earned legit would not count but trophies that should have been unobtainable but are obtainable by outside means do count.

 

Under the condition the status quo of trophies doesn't get changed any further anytime soon, I would like to see more games with new servers running getting whitelisted, and a definite green light for them.

 

However, this is another problem the CFW lacks a definite decision on, and to me there are bigger problems than the rewired servers right now (mostly the moderation of the forum).

I think it's too arbitrary to say "Oh if you want those custom servers plats, there's no issue because shovelware exists and so they end up being outweighted".

This messes a lot of the leaderboard integrity for sure.

 

And just a correction, you're using "CFW" but actually meant "CRT".

CRT is the Cheater Removal Team, CFW is the Custom FirmWare used on hacked consoles

[Thrillhelm]

10 minutes ago, EdinhoN said:

That' a nice insight I never thought about it. You're probably talking about MGS5 and yeah I agree, a custom server (even if open source) could mess the speed running of this thing.

Honestly, with that in mind, no custom servers should be approved (even open-source which is currently ok), even though some emulate in a very similar fashion the original ones, some tiny changes will always exist and can lead to performatic differences like the ones you mentioned.

 

I'll always play by whatever rules PSNP define because it's currently the most relevant website out there, so in the end I won't bother with Pacific Rift plat. If the first Motorstorm gets a remaster or something, I might end up doing Pacific Rift afterwards and leave it a max obtainable percentage, but if it ever was possible to trade away my 600-ish legit points (and of course the ability to appear in fastest achievers leaderboards) for the shiny plat, I'd do it. It's just not worth it trading my whole ranking and "being labelled as a cheater" (as you said) to grab such plat currently.

 

 

I think it's too arbitrary to say "Oh if you want those custom servers plats, there's no issue because shovelware exists and so they end up being outweighted".

This messes a lot of the leaderboard integrity for sure.

 

And just a correction, you're using "CFW" but actually meant "CRT".

CRT is the Cheater Removal Team, CFW is the Custom FirmWare used on hacked consoles

Shovelware is already blamed for everything bad about the leaderboards and compared to the possible trophies done with custom servers these outweigh them by a ton.  Integrity of the leaderboards is already gone when I see how much of a witch hunt takes place when it's against shovelware.

 

 

[Lance_87]

1 hour ago, GabrielMS13 said:

 

Wait is that possible now? I lost the MotorStorm updates after my fat PS3 got the YLOD. 

 

Yes. I lost the Resistance 1 updates due to YLOD, too, a few days before the servers closure. However, Sony made a "partial" fix by selling a fully updated digital copy on European PlayStation Store (they also sold R2). Very few early games used that silly system (game updates downloaded in-game and/or from entering multiplayer servers), these two, Gran Turismo 5 Prologue (however, the Platinum/Greatest Hits disc is already the Spec III version) and probably very few others.

Edited January 30, 2023 by Lance_87

[SeniorRicketts]

I don't see the issue with ppl "hacking" to earn trophies legit

[Helyx]

I hope the community can restore all dead servers on older generation consoles eventually, even for games without trophies.