PSN is down! Was the old way better?

[Lindz]

PSN was screwed up for about 5-6 days before they completely took it down. I kept getting connection timed out errors when trying to get online with PS: Portable 2 since last friday. It got me thinking that I really miss the Dreamycast days. If one game had its servers down for one reason or another you could just play something else. These days with everything tied to the same service, if that goes down then ALL of your games network functions cease to work.

That stinks! Now I'm hardly into any multi-player games online or off so call me bias if ya want but I'm not seeing the benefits of such a system. Friendslists? What is my console an AIM machine now? Having a single username used across all of your games? But I never use the same name for my PKMN trainers, high score initials, etc! Hmmm uhhhm what was the other benefit of all games going through a single service? Achivements? Bwahahaha no I dun think so.

In conclusion the old way was better so there! In before PC master race blah blah, dun wanna hear it since even some PC stuff is tied to accounts/services!

[Talon87]

And this is why I'm not sold on Steam. :roll: :lol:

But at least with the PS3, my understanding is that most (>90%) of your games don't require online authentication before you can play them, right? So you're still able to at least play your games offline in either single player mode or in local ("couch") multiplayer mode.

Scroll down here (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/) to see Penny Arcade's intended comic for Monday, should the PSN service still not be restored by then. (They released the comic early in case it is restored and the comic would then cease to be funny to a lot of people. *shrug*)

[Lindz]

LOL thats a funny and timely comic (vgrats'll prolly pick up on it a year or 2 later)! VP of Hilarity is more like it!

And you are right that games can be played in single/offline multi-modes, heck I've been playing the heck outta PS:P2 offline! Buuuut there are times when even playing single player where PSN gets intrusive. Case in point: Yakuza 4

When I press start at the title screen it asks me if I want to sign in to PSN. I can't so thats 1 extra button press before moving into this so super obviously offline single-player only game. Now in this game are mini-games and some of them after you're done with them will upload your high score... if you're connected.

When even a leaderboard for a mini-game inside of an ultra niche game is forced ta go through this junk it just shows to me how stupid this system is @_@;

[Talon87]

It's this rewards system. I missed out on it since I didn't buy a Live account for my old XBox and I don't play any PS3 or Xbox 360 games, but it seems like from what I hear from others there has emerged this culture of Triumphs / Achievements-unlocking and people get so obsessed about them that the programmers then figure they'll shove as many triumphs / achievements into their games as possible. I imagine that the more achievements-focused a game is, then, the more devastated it is when the network is inaccessible.

Wouldn't be an issue if they had us gamers manually press a button or go into a menu to upload our achievement scores to the Internet and/or to download achievement stuff from the Internet to our games, but the programmers seem to have all of this stuff engineered to run dynamically, like a garbage disposal that is constantly running rather than only when you flip the switch on for like five seconds to deal with a big chunk of meat. =\

[Raptor Jesus]

I actually do like the friend list service and the ease of connection on Steam and XBox Live. I never really cared for achievements, but I know that I have gone into dickhat mode a few short moments in my life.

When I think back to old school gaming with random people or making a specific game room name and trying to coordinate with all my friends to join, it was a total pain in the ass. "Hey guys, I'm in Starcraft! Look for the room named "GET YOUR ASS IN HERE!"

10 seconds later... "All the rooms are named GET YOUR ASS IN HERE!"

Now it's a simple click of "Invite friend" and you've dodged a game of join roulette.

And most Steam games that don't run off an internet server usually lets you play without authentification after the initial setup and start up. Also, LAN gaming is so uncommon now that everyone has a fast connection. I'm still surprised when I walk past some random internet cafes that still exist. It's like you're paying to sit in a shop for a service you can get at home. On probably a lower quality computer too. And the fact that most of the computers still connect to the internet to play instead of LAN, it's pretty silly.

[Jerichi]

Dammit, PSN, I want to play Portal 2 co-op.

[Poke_Hunter]

I had the perfect opportunity for, like, HOURS of TF2.
And it's down. Damn.

[Talon87]

According to this article (http://gamrfeed.vgchartz.com/story/85787/psn-outage-get-worse-sony-issues-emergency-maintenance-to-devs/), PSN will probably be down for at least one week, possibly longer, given the deployment of a message to devs that one would not ordinarily deploy were one expecting a quick fix.

[Weebos]

Do we know if this is a hacker's or group of hackers' fault yet? I know Anonymous made a statement that they wouldn't take down the PSN because that would hurt the players the most, but that doesn't mean they or someone else didn't do it.

[Lindz]

Although we are still investigating the details of this incident, we believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following information that you provided: name, address (city, state, zip), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login, and handle/PSN online ID. It is also possible that your profile data, including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip), and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may have been obtained. If you have authorized a sub-account for your dependent, the same data with respect to your dependent may have been obtained. While there is no evidence at this time that credit card data was taken, we cannot rule out the possibility. If you have provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, out of an abundance of caution we are advising you that your credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may have been obtained.

Straight from the Playstation Blog. Oooo man Sony are fucked and potentially so is all of us PSN members. I don't want my identity stolen! Glad I never bought into the whole digital content facade since it means I never attached a debit/credit card to my account. But still... ughhhh. The olden days were totally better -_-

[Weebos]

Yay Xbox! Although now I should probably remove my card information.

[Talon87]

Although now I should probably remove my card information.
That's just it, though: even if you choose to remove the data, it's meaningless unless they also choose to remove it. And I don't mean from your active customer profile: I mean from every paper trail ever. Easier said than done.

[Poke_Hunter]

...Thank god I don't have any true aspects about me other than my name on PSN. And that I've not used a credit/debit card with it.

[Poke_Hunter]

Okay, this is bullcrap. We've had the network back for TWO DAYS, and it's down again. I'm not gonna boycott PSN, but Sony had really better start getting their act together.

[Talon87]

From what I understand, a lot of people are trying to sign in all at once and change their passwords and, for whatever reason, password resets are not something the servers were designed to handle en masse. It's kind of weird to me to imagine that resetting 1,000,000 passwords could possibly be more taxing on a server than, say, processing only 200 to 500 FF14 accounts' in-game activities, but I guess it is and that's all there is to it.

If misery loves company, then look at the bright side: in Japan, PSN isn't even trying to go back up yet because the Japanese government has firmly told Sony, "No. :|" (source) (http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/146085/20110516/sony-playstation-restoration-glitches-slow-server-password-japan-down-security-psn-outage.htm) You know the system probably isn't quite ready to run at full speed if the mother country's version is still completely offline.

[Weebos]

It only does: Identity Theft.
Report: Sony PlayStation Network Password Reset Page Exploited, Customer Accounts Potentially Compromised (http://kotaku.com/5803050/sony-playstation-network-password-reset-page-exploited-customer-accounts-potentially-compromised)

[Talon87]

Oh wow. That's remarkable. I love the PR spin Sony puts on it in Update #4. "Contrary to some reports, there was no hack involved. In the process of resetting of passwords there was a URL exploit that we have subsequently fixed." Had I read that first via CNN or BBC or some such and had I not read the rest of the Kotaku article first, I admit I'd probably have been lulled into believing that everything was fine and it was just a minor hiccup. LOL @ what a PR spin it is, then! "Don't panic! Nobody burgled your home by breaking and entering through the kitchen window! They just walked right in through the unlocked front door ... ¬_¬;"

[Lindz]

Weren't Sony warned a week ago their websites aren't secure? Lame! I still really wish online play wasn't held hostage behind Sony & MS's desire ta push people into their fake game stores. But hey at least I'm getting 4 free fake games outta this, thats great right? Right? *looks at game list* idk even know what some of these games are and the ones I do I'm pretty sure I wouldn't like... o.o;