Earning Trophies on 3rd Party, Independently Revived PSN Game Servers

[Sergen]

20 minutes ago, kuuhaku said:

I'm agreeing with MMDE in thinking that this is going to far and should be labeled cheating. It's not a simple DNS switch. It's more similar to the packet-intercepts that were used with Street Fighter V.

 

This is sly's official response to that one:

 

 

 

18 minutes ago, MMDE said:

 

 

That is exactly what I was looking when I said the following:

 

 

 

And if you looked at the response Sly gave there, he said people were using exploits like that to "cheat the trophies", but what I have suggested and re-iterated and suggested rules for is legitimately performing requirements that unlock the trophies in the way that the game intended for. What I want is a clear rule that indicates whether people can be flagged for playing a game legitimately on a revived server. What people do to restore servers isn't cutting off a connection to a server and changing it, they are bringing back the online to the best of their ability so people can play it. I have said many times and I still stand by it and more people agree than disagree with it and that is: if the person can prove they have legitimately earned those trophies in the way the game intended, they should not be flagged. But anyone who does earn trophies late should prove that they did the trophies legit. Nobody is waiting for an excuse to hack the trophies with a later time stamp, CFW hackers pick random time stamps and normally before the servers were shut down. It's much better to discuss the potential for servers being restored independently rather than waiting for it to happen and people go online on those games then get flagged regardless of how much they argue against their flag, especially when no rule against it currently exists. 

 

Many trophy hunters have actually waited for this so they can legitimately earn the trophies and to many people, this is what they feel is the solution. 

Edited March 15, 2018 by Sergen

[DaivRules]

15 minutes ago, B1rvine said:

Well, I'm pretty sure nobody will see this post as it's about to turn into a flame war, and we're already on page three...

 

Anyway, I do NOT think private servers should be allowed.  Otherwise, anyone with the know how could write up their own custom server and make whatever modifications they wanted to make trophies super easy for themselves. This wouldn't always be the case, but people taking advantage of the situation could get the trophies illegitimately on their own private server (with modifications) and just say, "I did it legit on the custom server."

 

 

 

How many games with private servers can we possibly be talking about as of today? How hard is it to start a thread which lists said servers and outright lists the ones that mod as flaggable and lists the ones that do not mod as not flaggable only for the date?

 

Isn’t this a bit over-reactive on stuff that “could” happen versus a whole lot of nothing that has happened yet?

 

Also, for the sake of extrapolating your point, wouldn’t someone who’s going to put that much effort into making a private server just for their own trophies just going to go the CFW route and change time stamps on their own trophies instead? Seems much easier and less detectable with all the instructions available out on the internet for that right now.

[B1rvine]

1 minute ago, ProfBambam55 said:

we'll never be able to detect on our leaderboards to consider them "legit" anyhow...

You'd be surprised. Obviously I can't be certain, but I'm willing to bet there's a supermajority that get caught. Like 80-90%+ of all cheaters.

 

Back on topic. Even if the server is an exact replica of the server that went down, it's still a bad idea. Eventually, even 3rd party servers will go down, and a game's online life will just die. At that point, we'd basically be giving unobtainable trophies to exclusive people who can setup their own server for a day, then close it. That's too close to the gray area for me.

 

Don't get me wrong, it's awesome that people can play all of these games content again because of these projects, there's online games I'd like to be able to experience again and can't. But for TROPHY tracking's legitimacy, no.

[demonviper666]

1 hour ago, Sergen said:

 

That's why I believe the regulation should be for people to provide some evidence showing that they could get online and do some trophies for the game, if they could get on the server once then they can do it again. You are currently arguing against people playing a game in the way it was intended because one person has to use a various means to allow other people to connect. People also wrote xLinkKai as a software that does something that wasn't intended by your console, play a LAN mode with people who are across the world. You actually MUST run the xLinkKai software on your own PC as you are playing the game and the other person must do that and anyone playing in your lobby also needs to do that, it is manipulating external software to play online, while this website still considers that as a legitimate means of earning trophies. 

 

I'd also like to mention that some people also used patch blockers for various online games to play an older version of the online, sometimes to use glitches that were patched, like people who wanted to grind XP quickly for Crysis 2 would all use a patch blocker to play online. But although people did that, I have yet to see a single person get flagged for using a patch blocker to exploit an online glitch. 

To bad crysis 2  xp don't work no more.  

[ProfBambam55]

3 minutes ago, B1rvine said:

I'm willing to bet there's a supermajority that get caught. Like 80-90%+ of all cheaters. 

for some games, yes...for others, no...trust me on this...i'd be willing to bet against you...

[MMDE]

12 minutes ago, Sergen said:

 

 

And if you looked at the response Sly gave there, he said people were using exploits like that to "cheat the trophies", but what I have suggested and re-iterated and suggested rules for is legitimately performing requirements that unlock the trophies in the way that the game intended for. What I want is a clear rule that indicates whether people can be flagged for playing a game legitimately on a revived server. What people do to restore servers isn't cutting off a connection to a server and changing it, they are bringing back the online to the best of their ability so people can play it. I have said many times and I still stand by it and more people agree than disagree with it and that is: if the person can prove they have legitimately earned those trophies in the way the game intended, they should not be flagged. But anyone who does earn trophies late should prove that they did the trophies legit. Nobody is waiting for an excuse to hack the trophies with a later time stamp, CFW hackers pick random time stamps and normally before the servers were shut down. It's much better to discuss the potential for servers being restored independently rather than waiting for it to happen and people go online on those games then get flagged regardless of how much they argue against their flag, especially when no rule against it currently exists. 

 

Many trophy hunters have actually waited for this so they can legitimately earn the trophies and to many people, this is what people feel is the solution. 

 

Could you please edit the opening post to reflect the topic you wanted to discuss and not talk about DNS servers and whatnot.

 

No, it's not a "revived" server, or servers being "restored", so please don't use that wording. It's a fan written piece of software intended to be used to emulate the old servers.

 

I've never been against people playing on custom servers and whatnot. Have fun, enjoy! We are talking about people earning trophies using software like this and expect to be ranked alongside others who don't do this kind of thing. They are not earned the way it was intended, which was using the official servers, not some emulated fan written servers years later.

 

And while you think this project is nice, and it might be rather innocent in what it is capable of. Maybe this game is "okay" to do it with. You're opening up for it being okay with any game, and in a lot of cases this will not be okay. This is more the thing you'd want to discuss in a thread like this.

Edited March 15, 2018 by MMDE

[diskdocx]

2 hours ago, SnowxSakura said:

The only problem I can see with this is it would be hard to differentiate with people that actually boost it and people that use CFW to achieve the same desired outcome 

 

How is that any different from the present situation with a legit functioning online server? I mean, anyone with CFW could pop the desired trophies and as long as the time stamps are done properly, there would be absolutely no way to differentiate that from someone who has done it legit.

 

i think there is a massive underestimation of the number of people with hacked trophies. Obviously those who have hacked dozens of games and have crazy time stamps are easy to flag. But smart hacking where a few trophies are unlocked via CFW are probably much more common and completely undetectable.

[MMDE]

2 minutes ago, diskdocx said:

 

How is that any different from the present situation with a legit functioning online server? I mean, anyone with CFW could pop the desired trophies and as long as the time stamps are done properly, there would be absolutely no way to differentiate that from someone who has done it legit.

 

i think there is a massive underestimation of the number of people with hacked trophies. Obviously those who have hacked dozens of games and have crazy time stamps are easy to flag. But smart hacking where a few trophies are unlocked via CFW are probably much more common and completely undetectable.

 

So it's okay because you presented some other problem?  

 

Anyway, your other problem, you're correct. I'm actively focusing on removing more and more of these every day. There's some few repeat returners I'm waiting a bit to remove until they've wasted enough time and effort, before I remove them again.

Edited March 15, 2018 by MMDE

[Sergen]

11 minutes ago, MMDE said:

 

Could you please edit the opening post to reflect the topic you wanted to discuss and not talk about DNS servers and whatnot.

 

No, it's not a "revived" server, or servers being "restored", so please don't use that wording. It's a fan written piece of software intended to be used to emulate the old servers.

 

I've never been against people playing on custom servers and whatnot. Have fun, enjoy! We are talking about people earning trophies using software like this. They are not earned the way it was intended, which was using the official servers, not some emulated fan written servers years later.

 

And while you think this project is nice, and it might be rather innocent in what it is capable of. Maybe this game is "okay" to do it with. You're opening up for it being okay with any game, and in a lot of cases this will not be okay. This is more the thing you'd want to discuss in a thread like this.

 

If people want to know the details of the actual server, they can click the URL that was linked and see exactly what the intention of the guy who restored the server was. People don't have to perform any mods or hacks to their console to get back on the servers and nothing in the ToS for PSN prohibits server emulation, restoration or using DNS codes to connect to a server in any way. If the trophies unlock by performing the requirements that trigger the trophy within the game, they were earned the way the game intended for it to be. You also don't even need to be in the same lobby as a modder or meet the person who did it, you can really find a publicly available DNS code that allows you to play the game online just by signing into PSN with it. It only requires someone to do what the developers did a long time ago and that is: make the game playable. Also, remember that you never know which servers out there are custom and which ones are not, so maybe it's safe to flag anyone who has played online on PSN in-case the servers for those games are custom servers, considering you can't exactly prove that they are the official server or custom servers unless their website clearly indicates that the servers are up and running. 

 

People reported problems about Endwar to Ubisoft many times when the servers were still working and their response many times was "unfortunately we closed the servers for that game", but people could get online on the game with their originally purchased copy of the game without any changes to network settings and so on, who's to say that wasn't a custom server ran behind their back? The game also stopped working for months at a time then spontaneously returned plenty of times. 

 

Also, 2016 saw plenty of games that got server closure announcements from the developers, while the servers actually work to this day, who's to say that someone who liked the games didn't just make a custom server and find a way to make it publicly available to people who still wanted to play the game? 

Edited March 15, 2018 by Sergen

[Lordguwa]

i think it should be allowed, long as they do the achievements legitimately as it would be for online trophy's.

[diskdocx]

9 minutes ago, MMDE said:

 

So it's okay because you presented some other problem?  

 

Anyway, your other problem, you're correct. I'm actively focusing on removing more and more of these every day. There's some few repeat returners I'm waiting a bit to remove until they've wasted enough time and effort, before I remove them again.

 

Not at all - I think you missed the reference in the post I was quoting. I fully understand the potential problem this creates. What I was pointing out is that the issue is not that these revived servers would make it difficult to detect CFW users - as that problem already exists. I don't think these would be any more or less problematic in that regard.

 

on topic - I think this is an evolving area and should be watched. Personally I would be in favour of allowing this if the process can be verified and if there is evidence that the revived server is emulating the original, and not introducing mods/hacks. Probably going to need to be a game by game decision, but I hope that this site will at least keep an open mind and see how this plays out, how many games it would effect, etc.

[NathanielJohn]

1 hour ago, B1rvine said:

Anyway, I do NOT think private servers should be allowed.  Otherwise, anyone with the know how could write up their own custom server and make whatever modifications they wanted to make trophies super easy for themselves. This wouldn't always be the case, but people taking advantage of the situation could get the trophies illegitimately on their own private server (with modifications) and just say, "I did it legit on the custom server."

 

How is "but someone could cheat and pretend to be legitimate!" an argument here? People can already do this. If someone wants to set up a private server to unlock trophies for them illegitimately in a game that is still online, they can do that. And they can do it in a way that looks completely legit. And there's not a rule or a website in the world that can stop them.

 

But suddenly that shouldn't be allowed for old games, because "oh no what if they cheat old games too"?

[Froopy the Temmie]

Just throwing my two cents in:

 

If the game's trophies were earned legitimately, it should be fine.  The core issue is determining legitimacy.  Sure, there's CFW that can edit trophies, but that's never really stopped being an issue, whether or not people put out this custom server.  Or someone just simply popping it whenever and saying they did the work.  Honestly, this, like the CFW issue, always existed, as are any other exploits that make trophies pop.  This isn't something new, and it's a problem that will never go away.

 

That shouldn't be the guiding reason behind banhammering "fan" servers.

 

Instead of outright shutting it down, I think if a server is available, and the trophies are obtained in a possible time as the original game, there should be zero issues.  If they weren't, then swing the cheat hammer.  If hacks/mods/etc are used, I'm sure it will be detectable by a seasoned player of the game.

 

 

[Sergen]

4 minutes ago, NathanielJohn said:

 

How is "but someone could cheat and pretend to be legitimate!" an argument here? People can already do this. If someone wants to set up a private server to unlock trophies for them illegitimately in a game that is still online, they can do that. And they can do it in a way that looks completely legit. And there's not a rule or a website in the world that can stop them.

 

But suddenly that shouldn't be allowed for old games, because "oh no what if they cheat old games too"?

 

Let's be honest, nobody is going to go through the trouble of fully restoring a server for a game that got shut down simply to mod the game and unlock trophies through the server incredibly quickly. It's like saying someone fixed an aeroplane so they could see how quickly they could destroy the controls with an axe. People seem to forget one thing and that is: for someone to take matters into their own hands and restore a game server independently, it requires incredibly great knowledge of IT and networking, you need to spend many hours with trial and error to get it to work and all your effort may not even work to begin with. Anyone who wants to cheat would really just CFW it and hope for the best, not try to bring a game online entirely just to hack their stats. There's a reason it has taken this many years for a trophy hunter to find a way to get back on a server and legitimately unlock the trophies. 

Edited March 15, 2018 by Sergen

[PSXtreme_]

The ONLY thing I could see being noted would be the date the independent server came online...so those that "earned" trophies between the dates that the original server went down and the "new" server were established would be flagged, stomped, banned and mutilated with the proper gusto. 

 

BTW: if anyone with some extra cash is looking to revive an awesome game in this fashion...may I recommend Ghostbusters: The Game for the PS3...maybe they could do right what the original company couldn't and give us a stable server...

[DARKB1KE]

Cool.  Would be awesome to have custom servers for old games.  Seems like a complicated process but this would be a huge step towards trophy boosting. 

[Sir-Syzygy]

Absolutely nothing wrong with doing that, and this is coming from someone who finds the method of "boosting" a questionable way to earn trophies. Utilising fan-revived servers is a perfectly fine, acceptable and clean way to unlock online based trophies.

[MMDE]

8 minutes ago, Sergen said:

 

If people want to know the details of the actual server, they can click the URL that was linked and see exactly what the intention of the guy who restored the server was. People don't have to perform any mods or hacks to their console to get back on the servers and nothing in the ToS for PSN prohibits server emulation, restoration or using DNS codes to connect to a server in any way. If the trophies unlock by performing the requirements that trigger the trophy within the game, they were earned the way the game intended for it to be. You also don't even need to be in the same lobby as a modder or meet the person who did it, you can really find a publicly available DNS code that allows you to play the game online just by signing into PSN with it. It only requires someone to do what the developers did a long time ago and that is: make the game playable. Also, remember that you never know which servers out there are custom and which ones are not, so maybe it's safe to flag anyone who has played online on PSN in-case the servers for those games are custom servers, considering you can't exactly prove that they are the official server or custom servers unless their website clearly indicates that the servers are up and running. 

 

People reported problems about Endwar to Ubisoft many times when the servers were still working and their response many times was "unfortunately we closed the servers for that game", but people could get online on the game with their originally purchased copy of the game without any changes to network settings and so on, who's to say that wasn't a custom server ran behind their back? The game also stopped working for months at a time then spontaneously returned plenty of times. 

 

Also, 2016 saw plenty of games that got server closure announcements from the developers, while the servers actually work to this day, who's to say that someone who liked the games didn't just make a custom server and find a way to make it publicly available to people who still wanted to play the game? 

 

In the opening post you talk about someone being able to restore the online servers for Bulletstorm. This is simply not true, and people shouldn't need to click a link and do independent research to understand that what you say is incorrect. I'm just asking you to change it  to not keep misinforming people.

 

Then you start talking about DNS servers. What the guy at pst talked about DNS servers for isn't to talk about what the emulated server software he links to does. What he's saying is that you can run the emulated server software on a PC, open the ports for it etc so people can connect to it. Then you must also provide a custom DNS server that when contacted for the address to the game servers tells them to connect to this PC running the emulated server software. Okay? Got it?

 

Then you call it "revived servers". They are not revived. It's some code you can build, then run to emulated the servers, then fool the PS3 to connect to and communicate with the game in a way it knows how to handle. This is not revived servers. It would have been one thing if the official servers had been revived and the company had lost the domain the old servers ran on, so they had to ask people to use their DNS server to connect to their official servers. That could have been called revived servers, but it's not. So please don't say this.

 

Then you talk about looking at the PSN ToS, to see if it says anything about DNS address etc. Of course it doesn't. You can set your DNS server to be whatever you want, all it does is tell your PS3 an address to a domain name. Like looking up in an address book for someone's address or whatever. Your ISP usually gives you one auto that your main router gives you if you don't specify some other. If this service doesn't work as properly, you can't type in "psnprofiles.com" and expect to go to this site. You can set it to be whatever IP you want, but usually you get a good list from your ISP. I think google's own actually gives you the closest address of the domain you're looking for. In fact, I think chrome always use this, and so they can in theory (and they may do in practice too) keep track of all web pages you try to access. I just don't get your point here.

 

Then you say you don't think people should be flagged if they play a game in any way they want, and that their trophies should be considered legitimate. Really???

 

You say there's only a rule against joining hacked MP lobbies that auto-unlock trophies. I already told you this in PM. It really goes under the use of CFW and impossible timestamps. The rules aren't exhaustive.

 

Then you bring up modded lobbies that auto-pop your trophies and how you think those should be white listed. This too is not what we're discussing here.  You also again call it "revived servers", they're not. Again, it's not a new "public server". It's a piece of software you can run on your own computer to emulate the server, and if someone ended up wanting to pay for a "public server", who's to say how this would be run? Some people might be excluded. What if it's private and they don't share the code? Should we support it? Should we get an "okay" from the developers and Sony? etc

 

You bring up the DNS stuff for Aliens vs Predator, which if it is what I explained earlier, has nothing to do with DNS servers. It has to do with proxy servers, another perfectly legit thing, and some require it to even communicate online. I don't wanna bore you with all the details, but it's about sending your network traffic through another computer, usually a remote computer. Basically, a proxy server just forwards packets back and forth. If it's anonymous, it won't tell what you communicate with that you're using a proxy server, and will emulate not being one. Somehow this allowed you to skip needing to download a patch and still play online, which allowed you to abuse an exploit that was patched.

 

Then you start talking about people making it so their packet frames are larger to increase latency in DFFNT, which is something I think Square might actually step hard down on if it becomes a trend and people complain. I'd call it cheating, but no way for us to keep track of.

 

Then you talk about Google's DNS, really not sure why. Maybe conflate this with running an emulated server?

 

Then you talk about a LAN option some games provide, which can be extended with VPNs etc. Not sure why you compare it to this? This is what the LAN feature is intended for... Of course it's okay. And you bring it up as if Sly has said custom servers are okay, because he has said LAN options in games are okay.

 

Okay, you wanna talk about this so lots of people won't get flagged. Everyone who has wondered about this, and asked about it etc, which has been a few, I've told the same thing. You risk getting flagged for it. Ask Sly as I'm not the one deciding this, but I think it would fall under modded software/hacks etc. Have fun, play with it all you want etc, but don't earn trophies in a way you can't when the official servers are down. And you personally Sergen, I told you I'd ask the other staff, and I told you I did, and I told you that you were conflating things, and really most of what you said in your post is wrong. But you didn't listen and still posted this. All I ask is that you don't make this thread be about things it's not about.

[MMDE]

 

40 minutes ago, diskdocx said:

on topic - I think this is an evolving area and should be watched. Personally I would be in favour of allowing this if the process can be verified and if there is evidence that the revived server is emulating the original, and not introducing mods/hacks. Probably going to need to be a game by game decision, but I hope that this site will at least keep an open mind and see how this plays out, how many games it would effect, etc.

 

There may be servers that could be found "okay"'d, but in which case there would probably need to be some requirements for this. We're not just talking about what the servers do, but what they can potentially do, how accessible it is to everyone and perhaps what they do. May also need an "okay" from Sony or devs etc.

 

 

Please don't call it revived servers, because they're not revived, they're emulated.

[DARKB1KE]

3 minutes ago, MMDE said:

Please don't call it revived servers, because they're not revived, they're emulated.

Oh well, people know what it means, they were dead, and now they're alive. 

"revived"

 

Same thing is when people call it "hacking" when it's really not, but you get the picture

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/nzegyx/the-failed-attempt-to-rebrand-the-word-hacker

Edited March 15, 2018 by DARKB1KE

[MMDE]

11 minutes ago, DARKB1KE said:

Oh well, people know what it means, they were dead, and now they're alive. 

"revived"

 

 

That's the problem, they're not alive...

 

1. Person 1 dies.
2. Person 2 pretends to be Person 1.

 

Have we revived Person 1? Is Person 1 alive? Maybe in some poetic sense.

 

Why did I even care? Well, if you say it's "alive" again, it makes it sound like the servers are back up. They're not. It's some custom emulated server.

Edited March 15, 2018 by MMDE

[Sergen]

26 minutes ago, MMDE said:

 

In the opening post you talk about someone being able to restore the online servers for Bulletstorm. This is simply not true, and people shouldn't need to click a link and do independent research to understand that what you say is incorrect. I'm just asking you to change it  to not keep misinforming people.

 

Then you start talking about DNS servers. What the guy at pst talked about DNS servers for isn't to talk about what the emulated server software he links to does. What he's saying is that you can run the emulated server software on a PC, open the ports for it etc so people can connect to it. Then you must also provide a custom DNS server that when contacted for the address to the game servers tells them to connect to this PC running the emulated server software. Okay? Got it?

 

Then you call it "revived servers". They are not revived. It's some code you can build, then run to emulated the servers, then fool the PS3 to connect to and communicate with the game in a way it knows how to handle. This is not revived servers. It would have been one thing if the official servers had been revived and the company had lost the domain the old servers ran on, so they had to ask people to use their DNS server to connect to their official servers. That could have been called revived servers, but it's not. So please don't say this.

 

Then you talk about looking at the PSN ToS, to see if it says anything about DNS address etc. Of course it doesn't. You can set your DNS server to be whatever you want, all it does is tell your PS3 an address to a domain name. Like looking up in an address book for someone's address or whatever. Your ISP usually gives you one auto that your main router gives you if you don't specify some other. If this service doesn't work as properly, you can't type in "psnprofiles.com" and expect to go to this site. You can set it to be whatever IP you want, but usually you get a good list from your ISP. I think google's own actually gives you the closest address of the domain you're looking for. In fact, I think chrome always use this, and so they can in theory (and they may do in practice too) keep track of all web pages you try to access. I just don't get your point here.

 

Then you say you don't think people should be flagged if they play a game in any way they want, and that their trophies should be considered legitimate. Really???

 

You say there's only a rule against joining hacked MP lobbies that auto-unlock trophies. I already told you this in PM. It really goes under the use of CFW and impossible timestamps. The rules aren't exhaustive.

 

Then you bring up modded lobbies that auto-pop your trophies and how you think those should be white listed. This too is not what we're discussing here.  You also again call it "revived servers", they're not. Again, it's not a new "public server". It's a piece of software you can run on your own computer to emulate the server, and if someone ended up wanting to pay for a "public server", who's to say how this would be run? Some people might be excluded. What if it's private and they don't share the code? Should we support it? Should we get an "okay" from the developers and Sony? etc

 

You bring up the DNS stuff for Aliens vs Predator, which if it is what I explained earlier, has nothing to do with DNS servers. It has to do with proxy servers, another perfectly legit thing, and some require it to even communicate online. I don't wanna bore you with all the details, but it's about sending your network traffic through another computer, usually a remote computer. Basically, a proxy server just forwards packets back and forth. If it's anonymous, it won't tell what you communicate with that you're using a proxy server, and will emulate not being one. Somehow this allowed you to skip needing to download a patch and still play online, which allowed you to abuse an exploit that was patched.

 

Then you start talking about people making it so their packet frames are larger to increase latency in DFFNT, which is something I think Square might actually step hard down on if it becomes a trend and people complain. I'd call it cheating, but no way for us to keep track of.

 

Then you talk about Google's DNS, really not sure why. Maybe conflate this with running an emulated server?

 

Then you talk about a LAN option some games provide, which can be extended with VPNs etc. Not sure why you compare it to this? This is what the LAN feature is intended for... Of course it's okay. And you bring it up as if Sly has said custom servers are okay, because he has said LAN options in games are okay.

 

Okay, you wanna talk about this so lots of people won't get flagged. Everyone who has wondered about this, and asked about it etc, which has been a few, I've told the same thing. You risk getting flagged for it. Ask Sly as I'm not the one deciding this, but I think it would fall under modded software/hacks etc. Have fun, play with it all you want etc, but don't earn trophies in a way you can't when the official servers are down. And you personally Sergen, I told you I'd ask the other staff, and I told you I did, and I told you that you were conflating things, and really most of what you said in your post is wrong. But you didn't listen and still posted this. All I ask is that you don't make this thread be about things it's not about.

 

I went by what was being said within that thread. The person who took the trouble to even fix Bulletstorm in the first place responded to a question regarding using a DNS code that someone else has provided on the PS3, here's the response: 

On the basis of that screenshot, someone could simply input a DNS code after another person does the work and brings back the server. 

 

To revive something means to bring it back, restore it and whatever, it is the correct meaning regardless, people can play on the server because it was revived. 

 

I used some examples to explain that various network exploits have always been allowed on this website in the past. Unless it is discussed, how would someone know that they'd be flagged for playing on the server by simply inputting a DNS server that was once made publicly available? Every other network related exploit regarding DNS servers was not flaggable before. There's also not a clear rule to indicate that the details of the opening post are flaggable. There's no specific rule on this website that says "You are prohibited from earning trophies on emulated servers that a third party has provided" and if a trophy can be earned in the way that the game can trigger it from performing the actions necessary to unlock that trophy, it should not be considered as "impossible", it was very much possible. People use the ToS of PSN as a basis of knowing what is right or wrong in regards to the rules on this website, nothing in the ToS of PSN explains that using any means of emulating a server or connecting to an emulated server is breaking the rules. 

 

I've also said this could and maybe should be treated as a "guilty until proven innocent" situation, where the person does have to prove their trophies were earned legitimately by performing actions within the game that would trigger the trophy legitimately without any hacking. There simply needs to be an established rule, as servers will likely return some day and people might jump right in without knowing it was wrong on this website because there's no particular rule against it and every other network exploit to earn trophies is allowed on the website currently. 

 

5 minutes ago, MMDE said:

 

That's the problem, they're not alive...

 

1. Person 1 dies.
2. Person 2 pretends to be Person 1.

 

Have we revived Person 1? Is Person 1 alive? Maybe in some poetic sense.

 

How would person 2 have the same cell structure, looks and characteristics as person 1? Nobody would be able to tell the difference between the two people, but what if the police came around and arrested everyone associated with them by making them guilty by association? 

Edited March 15, 2018 by Sergen

[MMDE]

9 minutes ago, Sergen said:

 

I went by what was being said within that thread. The person who took the trouble to even fix Bulletstorm in the first place responded to a question regarding using a DNS code that someone else has provided on the PS3, here's the response: 

On the basis of that screenshot, someone could simply input a DNS code after another person does the work and brings back the server. 

 

To revive something means to bring it back, restore it and whatever, it is the correct meaning regardless, people can play on the server because it was revived. 

 

I used some examples to explain that various network exploits have always been allowed on this website in the past. Unless it is discussed, how would someone know that they'd be flagged for playing on the server by simply inputting a DNS server that was once made publicly available? Every other network related exploit regarding DNS servers was not flaggable before. There's also not a clear rule to indicate that the details of the opening post are flaggable. There's no specific rule on this website that says "You are prohibited from earning trophies on emulated servers that a third party has provided" and if a trophy can be earned in the way that the game can trigger it from performing the actions necessary to unlock that trophy, it should not be considered as "impossible", it was very much possible. People use the ToS of PSN as a basis of knowing what is write or wrong in regards to the rules on this website, nothing in the ToS of PSN explains that using any means of emulating a server or connecting to an emulated server is breaking the rules. 

 

I've also said this could and maybe should be treated as a "guilty until proven innocent" situation, where the person does have to prove their trophies were earned legitimately by performing actions within the game that would trigger the trophy legitimately without any hacking. There simply needs to be an established rule, as servers will likely return some day and people might jump right in without knowing it was wrong on this website because there's no particular rule against it and every other network exploit to earn trophies is allowed on the website currently. 

 

What you talk about has been "okay"'d in the past is normal network features. Running independent software to earn trophies and network exploits has never (maybe some rare exception, not anything you brought up is this btw) been allowed in the past. kuuhaku provided an actual example of this, and it was not allowed, and yes, that is pretty much exactly the kind of stuff we're talking about allowing here.

 

They're proven guilty if they earn the online trophies after the servers are down. Not sure where the issue in this is?  You using some software you wrote to earn the trophies after they became unobtainable doesn't change this, even if you mask it by calling it "revived servers" and you say you play it "legit".

Edited March 15, 2018 by MMDE

[ExHaseo]

This thread went a weird direction. If someone is going to hack the trophies, they aren't going to go through the trouble of creating a server to hack trophies. They're just going to hack the trophies and be done with it.

 

And really, if the site is going to use the logic of people using fan made servers to get trophies for games that have had their official servers taken down are cheaters, then shouldn't anyone who gets trophies in a delisted game be considered a cheater too? The game is no longer officially supported, and isn't supposed to be played anymore. And that's the same argument I've seen against fan servers. 

 

Ultimately, the whole point of someone making a server after the game's official servers went down, is to be able to play the game again. Labeling people as cheaters for playing a game they enjoy, or to get trophies that they didn't think they could get anymore, seems really insane and way too far. I'm not saying the games should be whitelisted or anything. If the timestamps look off then they should be reported. Just like any other game. I just don't see how getting the trophies in the correct order, in the correct amount of time, should get someone flagged.

[Sergen]

15 minutes ago, MMDE said:

 

What you talk about has been "okay"'d in the past is normal network features. Running independent software to earn trophies and network exploits has never (maybe some rare exception, not anything you brought up is this btw) been allowed in the past. kuuhaku provided an actual example of this, and it was not allowed, and yes, that is pretty much exactly the kind of stuff we're talking about allowing here.

 

They're proven guilty if they earn the online trophies after the servers are down. Not sure where the issue in this is?  You using some software you wrote to earn the trophies after they became unobtainable doesn't change this, even if you mask it by calling it "revived servers" and you say you play it "legit".

 

What I have been saying and what 99% of people who have posted on this thread have been saying is that if the person can legitimately perform the actions that trigger the trophy to unlock, that means they did legitimately fulfil that requirement. The SFV example was editing values on the game to drastically increase in-game currency and more likely than not it would have been in the ToS for Street Fighter V/PSN and Fight Money for that game is also used to purchase the new DLC so of course the developers would want to crack down on it and create rules within the game about exploiting it. What's funny is that I've not actually seen anyone get flagged for Street Fighter V although people were using that exploit. 

 

There's a reason the thread title begins with "legitimately", I personally would not support people getting a server back online then editing it for personal gain by making the game award the XP 100x faster and unlocking trophies instantly. What I support and what nearly everyone else supports is people being allowed to go online with that game and earn the trophies the legitimate way, grinding the game, boosting the game and not doing anything that wasn't possible to do on the game before the servers closed. 

 

I would like to ask @grimydawg, @BlindMango & @Sly Ripper what they think about this. I feel like if anything is going to go ahead in regards to servers being brought back in any capacity, a rule needs to be established and what I've frequently suggested is people providing evidence that their trophies are legitimately earned without CFW, considering the work can still be done on an unmodded OFW PS3 while you can actually get online with a publicly available DNS server. It really does not affect anyone or put them at an unfair advantage compared to others, because the games would still take the same time as they did before, they'd just be possible and people would just need to provide evidence that shows they were not giving themselves unfair advantages within the game. If anything, it helps developers because people buy the game and buy the DLC and it's not costing them anything for someone else to run the server for them. 

Edited March 15, 2018 by Sergen