Vita CFW users should be banned?

[fisty123]

So we have 6 pages of going back and forth with no real result.

All this needs is the admins to make a decision, if yes for a ban then let the members who love flagging games (Yes they exist) go crazy on accounts. If the user can not prove they did not use CFW then throw the hammer of ban to them.

If no we will allow it as long as the trophies are earn legit then close this and move along.

My personal view I really don't care,

I always wanted to use CFW for a few digital vita games that my location never got... (Welcome to Australia)  but I never did as I never wanted to risk it and I like having legit consoles.

[B1rvine]

57 minutes ago, NathanielJohn said:

I'm sorry, but seriously? Gonespy is open source, so you can see exactly what is happening and whether or not it illegitimately unlocks any trophies. To use it, all the end-user needs to do is input some DNS settings *on their PS3*.

 

Yet, supporting that while not supporting Vita CFW is hypocritical in your mind? How are those two things *remotely* the same?

 

It’s how they present their argument that’s hypocritical.  I don’t care about the technical aspect of Gonespy vs CFW region unlocking.

 

Before the Gonespy thread, Gonespy-like-software was specifically prohibited, per the rules listed, and several people *were flagged* for it.  So when they say Gonespy should be allowed for “this reason” and “that reason” and “the other” reason, completely ignoring it’s already against the rules, but the come here and say “This is against the rules!!! NOO!” it’s very hypocritical.  That’s cherry picking based on their own moral compass.

[Bumperklever]

19 minutes ago, fisty123 said:

So we have 6 pages of going back and forth with no real result.

All this needs is the admins to make a decision, if yes for a ban then let the members who love flagging games (Yes they exist) go crazy on accounts. If the user can not prove they did not use CFW then throw the hammer of ban to them.

If no we will allow it as long as the trophies are earn legit then close this and move along.

My personal view I really don't care,

I always wanted to use CFW for a few digital vita games that my location never got... (Welcome to Australia)  but I never did as I never wanted to risk it and I like having legit consoles.

Well it was a discussion that was going nowhere anyways.

 

At 1 side: I don't mind people downloading and playing games on their CFW vita. If they earn them legit, then it's all good and which my opinion is more on par with.

 

However, playing it on CFW and allowing CFW games can let certain die hard trophy hunting people to just cheating the hardest games on the system. That the scary part of CFW, the reason why we normally dont allow it. Right?

 

But in my idea the second 1 is already happening if or if not the regionlocked digital games cfw users gets banned. 

 

Vita games should be reportable (I dont know if they already are), but I don't think CFW users should be banned. Cheaters should be banned, not gamers.

[MMDE]

33 minutes ago, Bumperklever said:

Well it was a discussion that was going nowhere anyways.

 

At 1 side: I don't mind people downloading and playing games on their CFW vita. If they earn them legit, then it's all good and which my opinion is more on par with.

 

However, playing it on CFW and allowing CFW games can let certain die hard trophy hunting people to just cheating the hardest games on the system. That the scary part of CFW, the reason why we normally dont allow it. Right?

 

But in my idea the second 1 is already happening if or if not the regionlocked digital games cfw users gets banned. 

 

Vita games should be reportable (I dont know if they already are), but I don't think CFW users should be banned. Cheaters should be banned, not gamers.

 

But is it used to earn trophies they otherwise wouldn't be able to earn? They are using CFW to earn the trophies. That is what they can be flagged for, and the rules are pretty clear about it. And stuff like, people are going to do it anyway, therefore it's okay, that sort of logic isn't sound. You'd be encouraging it, and it would be more like a requirement for those who are competitive.

Edited March 29, 2018 by MMDE

[joskeabzu]

13 minutes ago, B1rvine said:

 

It’s how they present their argument that’s hypocritical.  I don’t care about the technical aspect of Gonespy vs CFW region unlocking.

 

Before the Gonespy thread, Gonespy-like-software was specifically prohibited, per the rules listed, and several people *were flagged* for it.  So when they say Gonespy should be allowed for “this reason” and “that reason” and “the other” reason, completely ignoring it’s already against the rules, but the come here and say “This is against the rules!!! NOO!” it’s very hypocritical.  That’s cherry picking based on their own moral compass.

Let me guess, you don't know how Gonespy works nor understand its code cuz you kinda confirmed it by saying "I don't care about the technical aspect of it". Hence why you have prolly no clue what it does.. Therefore it's a bad way? I looked through the code quickly on Github and as expected this is just "a connection for online play", for simpletons it's just a way to mirror the online functionality so people can connect and play together like any other regular matchmaking game out there or serverbrowser. It lets you see the online and tells if the online is up or down if it is not up you simply cannot connect to the online part. However this gonespy isn't a 100% exact copy of the real one. As it's clearly missing a lot of gamespy features like matchmaking or leaderboard statistics and for games that require the servers software to run an actual gameserver on a another Server/PC/mainframe/whatever. The guide literally says "a collection of replacement Gamespy mini-services" it does not setup a game. By definition Gonespy is a Middleware tool. Look that up, as I'm not gonna explain it.

Privates matches(Peer To Peer aka P2P for noobs) are still hosted on the console itself so the only way to hack it is by modifying the game on the clientside, injecting code in the game itself... Gonespy doesn't setup a server on some PC since it doesn't run serverside, learn the difference in networking basics first.. Any1 saying anything otherwise has no clue in what they're saying. It's all mumbo jumbo talk.

I'm gonna say this: "No you can't compare CFW with Gonespy at all, those are 2 totally different things". Unless you're a clueless and have zero knowledge. And because it's open-source you can easily read what it is doing if you understand some basic code..

If people want to cheat they can and they always will how much we dislike it. Also not everyone on CFW will cheat so it will never be 100% clean. You'll never catch the smart ones tho and there are a lot of them out there I guess.

[B1rvine]

23 minutes ago, joskeabzu said:

Snip

 

Wow. What a statement from ignorance... 

 

The point is Gonespy used to be against the rules, and but nobody supporting it *cared* so the rules were changed. By that logic, can’t we change the rules again, based solely on popularity of a suggestion?

 

And yes, I absolutely understand how Gonespy works, and understand the previous rules established prohibited even the way Gonespy worked.  

 

So I’m merely pointing out — if we’re using existing rules as the *only* basis — of determining what should be allowed, then its hypocritical to consider changing rules for one but not the other, which some people are.

 

 

Edited March 29, 2018 by B1rvine

[MMDE]

26 minutes ago, joskeabzu said:

If people want to cheat they can and they always will how much we dislike it. Also not everyone on CFW will cheat so it will never be 100% clean. You'll never catch the smart ones tho and there are a lot of them out there I guess.

 

This is rather common faulty logic. People will do things that is considered to break the rules, therefore anything should go. I'm sorry, but using CFW to earn trophies is already against the rules, so if they earn trophies only obtainable for them through CFW AKA use CFW to earn trophies, that's breaking the rules. I've pointed out problems with the competitive aspect of this, and who normally would do this kind of stuff. Also, just the fact that we know it's pirating, is another issue. 

 

There has been one reply in this thread about being able to transfer earned trophies from one account to another as long as you don't sync them, using some exploit in the Vita though.

 

26 minutes ago, joskeabzu said:

Gonespy doesn't setup a server on some PC since it doesn't run serverside, learn the difference in networking basics first.. Any1 saying anything otherwise has no clue in what they're saying. It's all mumbo jumbo talk.

 

This is false though. Gonespy does set up a server on some PC, regardless of if games are hosted on server side or on client side, it's still software that provide a functionality to clients that connects to it and requests various shit. IIRC, some of what it does is authentication, and friends list listing etc, and allow you to create a connection.

26 minutes ago, joskeabzu said:

Privates matches(Peer To Peer aka P2P for noobs) are still hosted on the console itself so the only way to hack it is by modifying the game on the clientside, injecting code in the game itself... 

 

This is also false. Just because the game hosts a match client side, that doesn't mean the server can't have other functionality than match making or server to to connect two players etc. It depends on what the server is set to serve the clients, what the client is set to be able to handle of communication etc.

Edited March 29, 2018 by MMDE

[DaivRules]

1 hour ago, B1rvine said:

Before the Gonespy thread, Gonespy-like-software was specifically prohibited, per the rules listed, and several people *were flagged* for it.  So when they say Gonespy should be allowed for “this reason” and “that reason” and “the other” reason, completely ignoring it’s already against the rules, but the come here and say “This is against the rules!!! NOO!” it’s very hypocritical.  That’s cherry picking based on their own moral compass.

 

9 minutes ago, B1rvine said:

The point is Gonespy used to be against the rules, and but nobody supporting it *cared* so the rules were changed. By that logic, can’t we change the rules again, based solely on popularity of a suggestion?

 

 

Isn't that how rules are supposed to work in a community? General rules are established, then when the community itself decides that a rule should be adapted for something, it's challenged and the community presents it's case. A decision gets made by the owner of everything (Sly) and sometimes that's adapting rules for different things. Are you just arguing against changing any rules, ever?

[Azelais]

2 hours ago, MMDE said:

But is it used to earn trophies they otherwise wouldn't be able to earn? They are using CFW to earn the trophies.

 

I don't think that those 2 sentences necessarily compliment each other. How do I explain this? I'm really into this, so please (brown)bear with me. 

 

It was explained earlier that a person with a VITA running 3.67 (for the common man and woman, a 3.67 VITA can only run Sony's OFW at the moment) could buy the JP PSN VITA digital-only title Star Ocean 2 (remaster-something) and earn trophies (either by playing the game normally and meeting the trophy list's many requirements for unlocking trophies or unlocking trophies without playing the game). They could then get their SO2 trophies from the account that they legitimately bought the game on (as legit and grey-zoned as buying PS games, DLC, themes and whatnot from a not-your-region's PSN is, anyway) to another account. Let's say it's a NA (US PSN) SEN account. 

 

Another and certainly waaay more popular way to 'acquire' the JP PSN VITA digital-only title Star Ocean 2 would be to get the game off Sony's servers without purchasing it and play it on a VITA running Sony's 3.60 OFW to use 'CFW' (and either stick to 3.60 or jump onto the new 3.65 ship) on a non-JP SEN account. In short terms, pirate the game, either to play it and unlock trophies by playing normally and meeting the trophy list's requirements or by unlocking the trophies in another way of which there currently aren't exactly many. 

 

(Of course, there are other scenarios I haven't covered: namely that the 'CFW user' could also buy the SO2 from JP PSN and go about playing it and getting those trophies in an unnecessarily complicated fashion as if their VITA was running 3.67 OFW.) 

 

What I wanted to point out is: to get SO2 trophies from the VITA version of the game on a NA/US account, someone can use Henkaku and they might have. In that case, if there is a rule that trophies earned on/with/somehow related to CFW on a PS system are flag-able, they oughta be flagged regardless of how crazy many hours they put into SO2 to get the plat by playing the game normally. Private site, free and willing participation: it's the rules. 

 

The thing is, if that person isn't a 'CFW user', if they haven't pirated the game and haven't used anything but what is already possible thanks to Sony's OFW and some nifty smartthinking, they may still earn (edit: and then put) those very trophies on a NA/US account by use of another way. 

 

So, that's why I think that the question of whether it is possible to play a game & earn that game's trophies is possible (edit: without CFW) or not is difficult to use to explain or simply underline and strengthen a definite rule that CFWs are simply not very welcome on PSNP leaderboards. Like, you could have that rule and enforce it without using possible and impossible trophy + account combinations as an argument why there is that rule. (Could still use it as a means of detection, of course.)

 

(Will proofread this for funny spelling mistakes later. Pet's hungry and threatens to headbutt my electronics again. Edit: done.)

Edited March 29, 2018 by Azelais
wanting to edit (￣▽￣)

[B1rvine]

3 hours ago, DaivRules said:

 

 

Isn't that how rules are supposed to work in a community? General rules are established, then when the community itself decides that a rule should be adapted for something, it's challenged and the community presents it's case. A decision gets made by the owner of everything (Sly) and sometimes that's adapting rules for different things. Are you just arguing against changing any rules, ever?

 

Im merely saying it’s dishonest to say “the rules prohibit this” in one discussion, but say “Let’s change the rules” for another discussion, when that’s the only thing they’re going by. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 29, 2018 by B1rvine

[hBLOXs]

50 minutes ago, MMDE said:

 

But is it used to earn trophies they otherwise wouldn't be able to earn? They are using CFW to earn the trophies. That is what they can be flagged for, and the rules are pretty clear about it. And stuff like, people are going to do it anyway, therefore it's okay, that sort of logic isn't sound. You'd be encouraging it, and it would be more like a requirement for those who are competitive.

May I have a ruling on editing timestamps for already existing trophies, please?

 

I know I’m not the only one who ran into the problem of my vita resetting itself due to long non-use coupled with system update. So I earned the last 4 trophies of welcome Park with the dreaded ‘missing timestamps’ which in return threw all my milestones out of whack.

All I ever would consider tampering with my vita for would be to edit the real earned time into those trophies, then do a factory reset and never use it illegally again.

 

My Welcome Park sits on my profile in the exact spot where it belongs - August 2017 - yet the four final trophies are calculated as having been earned before 2011 when I first synced to PSN.

 

Now were I to correct these four timestamps with a jailbroken device, editing timestamps I would technically still be cheating. So I’m not currently risking being flagged, etc. because hiding the whole game would ruin my milestones even further. But generally, where would you draw the line? Should I be banned for correcting something that Sony kind of faultily implemented?

[joskeabzu]

46 minutes ago, MMDE said:

 

This is rather common faulty logic. People will do things that is considered to break the rules, therefore anything should go. I'm sorry, but using CFW to earn trophies is already against the rules, so if they earn trophies only obtainable for them through CFW AKA use CFW to earn trophies, that's breaking the rules. I've pointed out the competitive aspect of this, and who normally would do this kind of stuff. Also, just the fact that we know it's pirating, is another issue. 

 

There has been one reply in this thread about being able to transfer earned trophies from one account to another as long as you don't sync them, using some exploit in the Vita though.

 

 

This is false though. Gonespy does set up a server on some PC, regardless of if games are hosted on server side or on client side, it's still software that provide a functionality to clients that connects to it and requests various shit. IIRC, some of what it does is authentication, and friends list listing etc, and allow you to create a connection.

 

I'm not saying CFW is good or bad. It's how you perceive things how they are used and what allocates what is defined as bad/not wanted/etc. And I'm saying CFW doesn't always relate to cheating but yes sometime it does happen tho. Merely making a hypothetical question it's simple, lets say "you use CFW for bad things" -> ban which is obliviously easily noticed, no? But it's a guessing contest to who or who does not use CFW. Simply denying CFW all together does solve all the issues.

I think you don't understand what I'm saying gonespy doesn't setup the game as a server on a PC, yet you need a PC to enable and setup gonespy on it, 2 different things that work very differently. It request things that are prolly the same basic things for every other game out there. How it work doesn't seem to be a big issue. I think its safe to use as any other online game. But if you perhaps would say it isn't then you should prove it, because saying it not safe is a pretty much dead argument in any case.

But I guess you just don't know anything MMDE, saying "this is false" which is just speculation from your side but doesn't stave with the reality itself. Because there is no other functionality that changes anything between players "as is available" on the Gonespy github. Show me a line of code that does, please elaborate us more. Just my 2 cents btw.

Edited March 29, 2018 by joskeabzu

[Shadiochao]

12 minutes ago, hBLOXs said:

All I ever would consider tampering with my vita for would be to edit the real earned time into those trophies, then do a factory reset and never use it illegally again.

 

I don't believe it's possible to fix missing timestamps, even with CFW.

 

Once a timestamp has been synced to PSN, it'll only be updated if a timestamp with an earlier date is synced.  A trophy with a missing timestamp is considered to be earliest possible date, so even if you sync a timestamp it'll just be ignored, whether it was edited with CFW or not.

[Gommes_]

Let's just accept all the trophies from everybody out there and abandon the flagging system for good. Let people hack all their systems, stack dozens of games and get all defensive when people call them out. Let's just not care anymore, so no one feels offended. Can't wait until the ps4 is hacked and I can do whatever I want and tell everyone to shut up if they mention what I did is not cool.

 

Stupid me bought games. ? If I just knew that a cfw got me all games for free. I mean, stupid Sony restricting my freedom in owning every game I've ever heard of.

Edited March 29, 2018 by Gommes_

[Se7en]

2 hours ago, MMDE said:

They are using CFW to earn the trophies. That is what they can be flagged for, and the rules are pretty clear about it.

 

Please, don’t lie. They are playing games to earn trophies. If (and only if) you have evidence CFW was used to unlock trophies instead of playing within the game environment then it is flaggable according to the site rules.

[DaivRules]

On 3/28/2018 at 3:44 PM, ScooloV said:

But for Vita (and only for it), earning trophy in digital-only game never released in account's region - that's 100% proof of this user having a CFW.

 

What is YOUR opinion about this situation? Should they get banned, or flagged, or just let them be?

 

Appearance of CFW is still not evidence of circumventing gameplay to earn trophies. You're tying two things together that are not as directly related as you are proposing.

 

Why would it not follow the established guidelines the site owner already said:

This would easily be translatable (even in this scenario) to: "only flag if it's used to allow trophies to unlock without doing the requirements."

[B1rvine]

4 hours ago, DaivRules said:

Are you just arguing against changing any rules, ever?

 

Didn't have a lot of time for my previous response so missed this question.  Yes, essentially, that's my opinion on the matter. 

 

I gave my reasoning in the Gonespy thread, but I'll reiterate.  If rules are allowed to be changed, then you'll have the possibility of two rules being in conflict with each other. For the purposes of fair competition, that's not really right. The current rule is that any use of CFW that results in trophies being affected, in any way, is flaggable, contrary to what Se7en says. It's not specifically written that way, but thats the intended meaning, as explained in the past.  So... you can't have a rule that says "No CFW whatsoever" next to "CFW used to bypass region locks is okay" as they'd be contradictory to each other. 

 

Essentially, we could end up in a situation where changing rules would cause unflagged people to suddenly be in the realm of a flaggable position, or vice versa. 

 

Essentially, the disagreement here lies with how people view what trophies should reflect. Some people view them as a means of competition vs each other, while others view them as a personal challenge for themselves.  I will accept that the leaderboard isn't perfect, for purposes of competing against others, it should be as equal as possible. Giving some people CFW or other non Sony endorsed options takes away the fair play with a competition aspect, for basic players who just play their system as intended by Sony.  On the other hand, if you view them as your own personal challenge, and aren't competing, you shouldn't care if you're flagged anyway since you're trophies are still legitimate by your own standards.  In other words, if you don't care about the competition the rules were put in place for, don't try and change them for people who do...

 

But don't say "the rules don't prohibit CFW" and try to make your case about why certain CFW situations should be justified. That's just dishonest...

 

 

Edited March 29, 2018 by B1rvine

[ProfBambam55]

shall we just summarize this and put it up for some kind of vote...

 

red team : we believe that as long as people are earning trophies as per their requirements and within the content released by the devs they should be allowed on the leaderboards...exceptions for glitches and people unwillingly earning trophies (someone forcing them upon us) fall into categories to be considered and possibly exempt from leaderboard removal...

 

blue team : we believe that all (possibly just most here? - any exceptions?) trophies earned outside of having a console, copy of a said game, meeting their requirements and within the content released by the devs should be flagged/banned from leaderboards...

 

green team : don't you guys have anything better to do?...you guys know these are just trophies right?...just get rid of the leaderboards if they're such a hassle...

 

yellow team : i'm kinda confused...I can kind of see where the red, blue, and, green teams are coming from...can I not vote?...

 

yes, this post is a semi-joke but seems to be the root of this and the previous gonespy discussion...i don't really think there is a right or wrong answer and I think it's important to remember that we're dealing with a private web site here...in other words a business...that being the case, it can be tough to balance logic while also pleasing a majority of clients, staying consistent in terms of company standards, as well as trying to anticipate what the future may have in store...

 

so the question this really boils down to is "what do most people want from these leaderboards?" and not "how strongly can you voice your opinion?" ...it's really just that simple...the people against changes that are made will have to accept that well, they're against the changes that are made...although it would seem that psnp tries to favour the majority (can be a very wise business practice), it's worth noting that any debate we have could lead to a change veto'd by the site owner (also part of business)...

 

disclaimer : yes, the above teams are not perfectly defined but I think most of you get what the extreme opposite opinions are for this topic...

 

p.s. red team rules!...haha...not trying to start a war...just have a little fun...

[B1rvine]

5 minutes ago, ProfBambam55 said:

green team : don't you guys have anything better to do?...you guys know these are just trophies right?...just get rid of the leaderboards if they're such a hassle...

 

Honestly, I'd pick the green team. hahaha. 

[DaivRules]

2 hours ago, B1rvine said:

But don't say "the rules don't prohibit CFW" and try to make your case about why certain CFW situations should be justified. That's just dishonest...

 

Originally the rules didn’t explicitly forbid CFW. That didn’t happen until this whole Dispute Thread debacle. The original rule, as intended, forbid the use of CFW to edit timestamps and evidence of CFW to change timestamps was used to ban people.

 

Then people jumped the shark with this whole Dispute thread and re-interpreted the original rules into the perversion we have now.

 

I stand by the original intention of the rules that only forbid one of the use cases of CFW to change timestamps, not the use of CFW all together. 

[TheLakota]

8 hours ago, fisty123 said:

If the user can not prove they did not use CFW then throw the hammer of ban to them.

 

This line of reasoning has always perplexed me. Why should the onus be on one to prove their innocence? Shouldn't that responsibility rest with the accuser?

[ProfBambam55]

31 minutes ago, TheLakota said:

 

This line of reasoning has always perplexed me. Why should the onus be on one to prove their innocence? Shouldn't that responsibility rest with the accuser?

on the topic of reasoning that is perplexing...it's kind of perplexing that a private web site is treated like a house of commons or court of law and not just as a business...onus?...accuser?...haha...this is psnprofiles yo...it's leaderboards we're talking about...not fines, community service, jail time...and there's no government here...just an owner and group of possibly volunteers...(not sure if any of the staff are even paid for their efforts - if not then this is borderline soup kitchen stuff here...and yes, love all the staff and appreciate their dedication)... 

Edited March 30, 2018 by ProfBambam55

[DaivRules]

13 minutes ago, ProfBambam55 said:

on the topic of reasoning that is perplexing...it's kind of perplexing that a private web site is treated like a house of commons or court of law and not just as a business...onus?...accuser?...haha...this is psnprofiles yo...it's leaderboards we're talking about...not fines, community service, jail time...and there's no government here...just an owner and group of possibly volunteers...(not sure if any of the staff are even paid for their efforts - if not then this is borderline soup kitchen stuff here...and yes, love all the staff and appreciate their dedication)... 

 

Don’t forget the peanut gallery 

[MMDE]

7 hours ago, joskeabzu said:

 

I'm not saying CFW is good or bad. It's how you perceive things how they are used and what allocates what is defined as bad/not wanted/etc. And I'm saying CFW doesn't always relate to cheating but yes sometime it does happen tho. Merely making a hypothetical question it's simple, lets say "you use CFW for bad things" -> ban which is obliviously easily noticed, no? But it's a guessing contest to who or who does not use CFW. Simply denying CFW all together does solve all the issues.

I think you don't understand what I'm saying gonespy doesn't setup the game as a server on a PC, yet you need a PC to enable and setup gonespy on it, 2 different things that work very differently. It request things that are prolly the same basic things for every other game out there. How it work doesn't seem to be a big issue. I think its safe to use as any other online game. But if you perhaps would say it isn't then you should prove it, because saying it not safe is a pretty much dead argument in any case.

But I guess you just don't know anything MMDE, saying "this is false" which is just speculation from your side but doesn't stave with the reality itself. Because there is no other functionality that changes anything between players "as is available" on the Gonespy github. Show me a line of code that does, please elaborate us more. Just my 2 cents btw.

 

Oh, I get that what they with CFW is what is bad with it. The problem is just that if CFW is required to do this, you've already entered the problem zone and it's not wanted, as other people would have to do it to stay competitive. We also know how they must pirate the games to do this. Is this what we want the community encouraged to do? Nah, so this is not wanted.

 

I'm saying that your claim that it's not a server is just plain wrong, and same goes for your claim that servers for games with P2P can't possibly inject code to the clients are wrong. It's a server regardless of if the matches are hosted by the clients. Depending on what the game is programmed to handle, it may receive various data that can affect in-game stuff. There may always be exploits in the net-code.

 

And lastly, this is why Gonespy is approved as it currently is. It doesn't do any of this and it's freely available for anyone to use.

Edited March 30, 2018 by MMDE

[You]

N00b here, what is CWF?...

 

Google says

Canadian Wildlife Federation