Warning about Xbox PSO

[Barubary6]

I'm writing to notify you that Xbox PSO is in very serious danger of being the worst-cheated PSO version yet.

The Xbox console has been thoroughly destroyed, at least in terms of technological protection mechanisms. On the Gamecube and Dreamcast, the closed-off nature of the system made it difficult for anyone but the best to get inside it. I can't myself get into the Gamecube yet (partly because I don't have one). There is no RAM editor or debugger for retail Dreamcasts or Gamecubes, at least one that is easy to find. But for the Xbox, you can find the files necessary to turn your modded retail into a full development Xbox with RAM editing and debugger support on any Xbox warez site.

In addition, x86 assembly language is known by *many* more reverse engineers than the SH4 (Dreamcast) or PowerPC (Macintrash, Gamecube) assembly languages. The people who have been cheating Diablo and CounterStrike for years will all flock to Xbox PSO (at least the ones who like the game).

On the other hand, it is mathematically unlikely that a commercial developer will ever develop a cheat program for Xbox, because of the system's probably unbreakable digital signature system. However, this does not stop people from making cheat programs that run on modded Xboxes.

This is a serious warning for those of you who are trying to make a decision as to whether to get Gamecube PSO or wait for Xbox PSO.

BTW, it's rather unlikely that Xbox PSO will support the keyboard... Someone tells me that the development kits, even now, only support the keyboard on development Xboxes.

-- Barubary

[Spy]

Duh.

[Barubary6]

On 2002-09-23 22:54, Spy wrote:
Duh.


Yeah, it's obvious to anyone involved with...non-standard uses of the Xbox, but why should it be assumed that everyone knows that the Xbox security has been broken so severely?

-- Barubary

[RUNE_WALSH]

Barubary, don't you think MS engineers know about hackers trying to hack the XBox with modded chips already?

Gamespot has a new article you might wanna read. MS is currently manufacturing new Xboxes with the internal hardware restructured.

This is to cut cost in manufacturing, while it's bigger purpose is to thwart hackers. These new Xboxes currently will not allow your Xbox to be modded with any mod chip in the market - er, black market I might add.

Not only that, the BIOS software is upgraded as well, to prevent hackers.

So, in closing, yeah you can hack in the current 'Boxes' but not for long. If your 'profession' (I think I can say that, no) thinks of other ways, MS will find another way to defeat that as well.

Peace out.

[MORB]

On 2002-09-23 22:49, Barubary6 wrote:
I'm writing to notify you that Xbox PSO is in very serious danger of being the worst-cheated PSO version yet.


While I agree that xbox PSO will probably cheated as other versions have been, I disagree that it will be the worst cheated one. The DC version already has set the bar to the highest, since the most annoying kind of nuisance has been already done there.
I say it again, if they designed their server achitecture properly, the only possible thing will be artificially boosted chars, forged items and dupes (which are enough anyway to destroy game balance)



On the Gamecube and Dreamcast, the closed-off nature of the system made it difficult for anyone but the best to get inside it.


It's not being the best as much as to have access to the proper tools... Or make your own, but then it's more a problem of time and motivation.


I can't myself get into the Gamecube yet (partly because I don't have one). There is no RAM editor or debugger for retail Dreamcasts or Gamecubes, at least one that is easy to find.

Yes... Just whay I said.


But for the Xbox, you can find the files necessary to turn your modded retail into a full development Xbox with RAM editing and debugger support on any Xbox warez site.

Since it's based on a pc, it's not surprising.


In addition, x86 assembly language is known by *many* more reverse engineers than the SH4 (Dreamcast) or PowerPC (Macintrash, Gamecube) assembly languages. The people who have been cheating Diablo and CounterStrike for years will all flock to Xbox PSO (at least the ones who like the game).

Yes. But on the other hand, SH4 is the easiest to read and understand assembler I've seen since the 68000. Anyway, when you're used enough to assembler... You can almost understand any kind of assembler intuitively, because the opcodes usually have similar names for similar functions from one assembler to another. Additionnaly, you get used to the ways things are usually done, and can recognize it quickly... Like the various bizarre ways most risc processors loads constants of size equal or superior than an instruction in the registers, and such.

I give you that the powerpc is a bit different... Mainly because the opcode names aren't very intuitive (you can't really guess that rwlinm stands for "rotate word left immediate and mask" if you don't have read the doc).



BTW, it's rather unlikely that Xbox PSO will support the keyboard... Someone tells me that the development kits, even now, only support the keyboard on development Xboxes.


That's only a marketing problem... Maybe there's no API beside the debugging APIs on the devkits that support keyboard, but it's only a matter for them of providing one to the developers.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: MORB on 2002-09-24 04:49 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: MORB on 2002-09-24 04:50 ]</font>

[Spy]

On 2002-09-23 23:09, Barubary6 wrote:


On 2002-09-23 22:54, Spy wrote:
Duh.


Yeah, it's obvious to anyone involved with...non-standard uses of the Xbox, but why should it be assumed that everyone knows that the Xbox security has been broken so severely?

-- Barubary


Some kid out at MIT already loaded Linux onto an Xbox. That was tech-headline news months ago.

[Agent_Reav]

This is MS we're talking about... I'm sure they'll be able to handle hackers fairly easily. It seems like you are trying to get people to purchase the Gamecube version and I know the real Barubary isn't some console pushing fanboy... go back to your cave.

[Wewt]

On 2002-09-25 19:13, Agent_Reav wrote:
This is MS we're talking about... I'm sure they'll be able to handle hackers fairly easily. It seems like you are trying to get people to purchase the Gamecube version and I know the real Barubary isn't some console pushing fanboy... go back to your cave.



I enjoy using my pirated copies of Office 97, 2000 and various versions of Windows. http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_razz.gif

[Agent_Reav]

Lol.. Piracy is so easy nowadays it's not even funny (wonders why he laughed in the first place :/). I'm saying when it comes to running hack-free game servers MS definetly knows what they are doing. The Zone (MS' online gaming network) has been a flawless experience since it's inception.

[MORB]

It's not because they are MS that they can protect their game better. If it still has offline mode, it will still be cheated.

[THEMASTER_G1]

Ya but not much people are gonna get the x box version so I don't care.

[Agent_Reav]

On 2002-10-01 12:05, THEMASTER_G1 wrote:
Ya but not much people are gonna get the x box version so I don't care.



Seeing as how the Xbox is outselling the Gamecube in the US I predict we'll see a fair amount of players on PSO Xbox... The only reason I don't think there will be more players on PSO Xbox than GC is that PSO is the Gamecubes ONLY online game in teh forseeable future while Xbox will get 20+ just this year :/ nuff said.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Agent_Reav on 2002-10-02 11:58 ]</font>

[CoVaH]

Well not everyone has bba and you need that to play pso for xbox. So I am expecting more users on the GC version of pso.

[RellikTakahashi]

CoVaH is right. Most players don't use BroadBand so they will remain on GC. Then again some people probably would play on Gamecube over Xbox because of the controllers. Gamecube was wireless ones ^_^() and Xbox's are hard to use for some players.

[Beeach]

k........ if people cheat, it will be patched, MS has Controller S as the default which IMO is way better then GC controller... and if the patch is bypassed and people cheat again.. guess what? antoher patch will be placed, plus MS knows what they are doign they can log IPs and ban people if ST allows it. Also I think ST should let MS handle the servers, because ST does a lousy job at preventing cheating. They got everyone hyped up abotu no cheating on GC.. 3 days later peopel are duping... wtf??

[MORB]

On 2002-10-20 19:58, Beeach wrote:
k........ if people cheat, it will be patched, MS has Controller S as the default which IMO is way better then GC controller...


Yes, I'm pretty convinced that controllers plays a large part in cheating security. BTW, arguments about controllers is the part of gaming console wars I love the most.
Controller rule #1: Any controller on any console is good when you're used to it.
Controller rule #2: Any controller is bad when you decided you don't like the console placed at the end of the wire.


and if the patch is bypassed and people cheat again.. guess what? antoher patch will be placed,

And guess what ? Another hack will be placed, and so on forever as long as offline character datas, saved in a machine under complete physical and software access by the user (given the proper cheating software/hardware), can be used to play online.


plus MS knows what they are doign they can log IPs and ban people if ST allows it.

Yes, MS are more uber than every other company. No one else is able to log IPs and ban people.


Also I think ST should let MS handle the servers, because ST does a lousy job at preventing cheating.

The lousy job of ST is to have left that offline mode in the game (or not to have separated offline and online, allowing only server-side saved characters play in online games)

And also, it is to have kept the peer-to-peer protocol of DC pso if they did so.

But MS are so uber leet that if they handle the servers themselves, they can overcome the inherent limitation of the design of the game to prevent them to be exploited by cheaters.


They got everyone hyped up abotu no cheating on GC.. 3 days later peopel are duping... wtf??

On the other hand, thankfully no one seems hyped about no cheating on xbox.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: MORB on 2002-10-21 15:02 ]</font>

[CoVaH]

Heh, no cheating is just a lie for a game. They just want you to buy the game and they will try there best for no cheating. Not possible for a game to be cheat free when there are people who want to cheat the game and hackers who want to make codes for the game.

[MORB]

On 2002-10-25 15:42, CoVaH wrote:
Heh, no cheating is just a lie for a game. They just want you to buy the game and they will try there best for no cheating. Not possible for a game to be cheat free when there are people who want to cheat the game and hackers who want to make codes for the game.


Hmmm... Try playing Anarchy Online, Neocron, Earth and Beyond or DAoC. You'd be surprised by the number of online games which actually manage to be cheat free.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: MORB on 2002-10-27 04:38 ]</font>

[CoVaH]

hmm just because the cheat never went public doesnt mean there is no cheat for the game. And yes , I have played Anarchy Online , I actually own it. Have you ever heard of shrink code me and my friend made that one. Also there was a cheat to gain more exp from low lvl monster and various others its called packet sending.

Those other games I have never played but if your a good coder or hacker, you can usually find an exploit in a game, the best non hacked game I seen was EQ.




<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: CoVaH on 2002-10-27 05:46 ]</font>

[MORB]

On 2002-10-27 05:36, CoVaH wrote:
hmm just because the cheat never went public doesnt mean there is no cheat for the game. And yes , I have played Anarchy Online , I actually own it. Have you ever heard of shrink code me and my friend made that one. Also there was a cheat to gain more exp from low lvl monster and various others its called packet sending.

All those exploits have been fixed since quite a long time. Of course, there's new bugs allowing new forms of cheating, but since they're usually fixed quickly, people never get to massively exploit them.
An exception to that is the exploit that allowed guild leaders to create huge amounts of money, that has been only recently discovered. But, as it's a server-centered game, they have detailed logs, and so they have been able to track down the extraneous money, and remove it from the game, as well as banning the people who used the exploits.



Those other games I have never played but if your a good coder or hacker, you can usually find an exploit in a game, the best non hacked game I seen was EQ.

Yes, but the main difference with PSO, is that in PSO you can modify you char stats and inventory, because they're stored in the player machine.
In mmorpgs like AO, EQ and the likes, they're stored server side. And the game mechanics are handled server-side. So, the only cheats you can pull are exploitation of server bugs, which are usually fixed quickly, and efficiently.
Compared to PSO, those games are cheat-free. You don't see people wandering around with every weapon known to mankind, enough money to buy 3 planets, outrageously inflated stats. Neither you see people able to crash servers, delete other people characters, make other people crash, and so on, in those games.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: MORB on 2002-10-27 09:17 ]</font>

[ThresholdRPG]

What about those of us who plan to play offline 100% of the time and don't want to have to play 500-1000 hours just to find a couple of the cool rare items?

[IceBlink]

On 2002-11-01 11:55, ThresholdRPG wrote:
What about those of us who plan to play offline 100% of the time and don't want to have to play 500-1000 hours just to find a couple of the cool rare items?

I believe the original PSO wasn't like that, and neither would GC PSO be like that.

Unless you play in normal forest 100% of the time, you should be finding rares quicker than that by far...

[MORB]

On 2002-11-01 11:55, ThresholdRPG wrote:
What about those of us who plan to play offline 100% of the time and don't want to have to play 500-1000 hours just to find a couple of the cool rare items?


Well, you could play a game designed to be played offline only, with an interesting plot and everything...

[LM]

I play the GC PSO, and I well most likely not switch to the XboX PSO for many reasons(mainly lack of funds = ). But, I must say that one major difference between how the online versions well be run is that MS is a huge, and very knowledgable company.

What do I mean by this? I mean that if people find a way to cheat, much like the findings that are happening to people on GC now, MS will fix the problem overnight saving their servers from mass destruction.

And also, I've heard that instead of keyboards, they're going to have microphones(much like in Counter Strike). Now, I'm not saying that its deffinate, it's just a rumor, but you never know.

[DjDragoon]

I belive that the Xbox version will be safe enough to go online with. If everyone could handle the DC version of the game then I'm sure you could handle the XB version even if there are hackers on there. Also, didn't the Japanese version of PSO have a bug in it? With the Xbox you can patch up the problem with no problem at all. Also, please don't discourage people to not be buying a version. Both the gamecube version and the Xbox version have their own speacial qualities. For instance the gamecube version was released first and it allows both Broadband and dial-up users to play online. The Xbox has a voice chat feature and it doesn't come with a PSO fee because the fee's are paid through Xbox Live. Also don't say that the Gamecube version is cheaper to buy because in the long run, it's not. This thread I think gives too much of a hypothosis and it shouldn't be posted unless proven true.

*Excuse my spelling, I'm in a rush.

[MuRaKi]

Hey,if ur so worried bout hacks for the xbox then dont buy it. But... Dont You Think that pso personell has thses sort of questions from theit bosses and such. All xbox would have to do is have u download a patch to the hard dtrive and if theires tamporing wiht the consol then u wont beable to play online or it would get fixed.

Think Hmmmmm.

[MORB]

DC v2 also had a patch system, where patches were silently downloaded and stored in the flash ram.

Tell me, geniuses, how that could prevent people to make weapons and alter the stats of their character offline, then playing these online ? And how microsoft being a big company would ?

Don't get hyped, damnit. Remember the hype about th GC version, then take a look at the topics on this forum now...

[MPLe]

The only arguments that I've seen aren't even arguments... Stuff like "Microsoft handles their server's better" isn't an arguement. Microsoft can handle their servers better but what does that have to do with gamesaves? Keep in mind that as long as the character saves are on the memory card, people will be able to modify information through means other than packet modding. XBox has alot of "security problems." There are hacked OSes that allow you to rip an entire game onto the hard drive (which you can just replace if you run out of space). There are also other programs that I'm sure will allow you to edit your saves...

[Mag_Launcher]

Fanboyism at it's finest, ladies and gentlemen.

(BTW, the button placement on the S type SUCKS. ASS. I'll use my "dinner plate" controller any day.)

[GimpyBoy]

I was told to check this thread to see why the Xbox would be the worst hacked of the bunch, however I see no reason to declare it so.

1)Modded Xboxes do not work on Xbox Live. This has been proven to be a fairly true statement, and in general MS has done a fine job permanently banning hackboxes.

2)In order to hack on Xbox Live a hacker would need to edit his characters offline on a hackbox, then port his characters using a mem card to the clean Xbox. Then he would be able to go online. This would allow duping. But not PKing or FSODing. Plus it's an expensive hobby just to dupe. (Sad that I know some people will do it)

3)Microsoft can also ban people permanently for hacking using GameMasters. MMORPG fans should know about these guys as they are generally online customer support, guys paid to play. Report a hacker to a GameMaster, they get banned from the server. That's all it will take.

4)Patches can be downloaded from the Xbox Live Servers. If games like Splinter Cell and Toe Jam and Earl for Chrissakes can have downloadable content, so can an RPG like PSO 1&2.

Potentially IMO the Xbox has the greatest chance against hacking. You just have to look at it right. Oh, and the S-type rules.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: GimpyBoy on 2002-12-12 13:46 ]</font>

[Wewt]

On 2002-12-12 13:42, GimpyBoy wrote:
Potentially IMO the Xbox has the greatest chance against hacking. You just have to look at it right. Oh, and the S-type rules.

This is very true. BUT, it also has the greatest chance of being cheated to death. Simply because of its hardware.

Modified Xboxes with mod-chips do get banned when logged onto the Live! network, but what happens when somebody makes a method that Microsoft doesn't detect? Cheating comes back. It's too early to say if it's going to get cheated to hell and back. Just wait and see what kind of other cheats, and methods, people attempt on the Xbox first.

[GimpyBoy]

Oh I agree, there are many ways to hack and no one can determine what will come next. But MS is actively pursuing the banning of modded users. Some will slip through for sure, but I doubt you'll see the widespread hacking of PSO (DC)

[Blenjar]

xbox rulz, they aint going to be hacked! I got mech,ghost, and nba 2k3, never seen someone cheat except if they quit.

[GimpyBoy]

On 2002-12-12 17:28, Blenjar wrote:
they aint going to be hacked!

Careful. Never can know what hasn't happined yet. lol

[milk]

I don't know what anyone is complaining about. I haven't seen any hacks on the GCN in over 70 hours of play.

XBox can be hacked or it can't. Predicting anything is pointless so lets just stop, please.

[GimpyBoy]

Well you haven't seen hacks because the Action Replay isn't out yet... lol Give it time. They'll come.

[Maverynthia]

I'd have to say the rason XBox would be hack/n00b free in the case of online mods is that M$ has TONS of money to throw at anti cheating while ST relies only on the money from it's games and online fees.

Also people tend to forget that XBox has an internal memory and built-in BBA.... So you can buy one and never need a memory card...Thus patches. While I'm not certain how much memory the GC has onboard to store patches...

[MalambisBZ]

PSO could've been easily CHEAT free by seperating online and offline modes and having online mode saves be SERVER SIDE.

Now i'm sure Microsoft could easily handle server side saving, but I know sonic team wont bother to program all this in.

[MORB]

2)In order to hack on Xbox Live a hacker would need to edit his characters offline on a hackbox, then port his characters using a mem card to the clean Xbox. Then he would be able to go online. This would allow duping. But not PKing or FSODing. Plus it's an expensive hobby just to dupe. (Sad that I know some people will do it)

Or he could simply disassemble the game code, find out the encryption algorithm, then use a pc as a bridge between his xbox and the net, and then hack the network packets as they passes through the pc. Of course, that's a lot of work just to cheat, but you never know what hackers are willing to do to express their uberness in an online game. Of course, depending on the networking achitecture of the game, what can be done this way can be very limited.



3)Microsoft can also ban people permanently for hacking using GameMasters. MMORPG fans should know about these guys as they are generally online customer support, guys paid to play. Report a hacker to a GameMaster, they get banned from the server. That's all it will take.

That's the theory, and it's very nice.
Actuallty, when you report a hacker, the GM have to investigate to verify that he really hacked. Depending on the amount of data the server logs, and whether they have the tools to parse the logs to find out what they need to know, they may be unable to get the proof that the guy has cheated.

Furthermore, in PSO, where the ability to play offline is obviously such an important marketing feature of the game that they don't drop it to prevent cheating, if someone dupe or create items by messing around with the gamesave, all the logs of the world on the servers will never show it.

There's numerous examples of exploiting that has never been banned, or banned ages after it took place, in MMORPGs. In some of them, the GMs don't even care. By the way, one of the MMORPGs which has the worst reputation of being exploited as hell is Asheron's Call (the first of the name), which is published by Microsoft.


4)Patches can be downloaded from the Xbox Live Servers. If games like Splinter Cell and Toe Jam and Earl for Chrissakes can have downloadable content, so can an RPG like PSO 1&2.

Once again, for the 100th time, the dreamcast has also an area in flashram where PSOv2 downloaded and stored patches. It has let ST fix some bug that could be exploited to instakill any enemy even when playing offline in the early japanese version, but they have never been able to block cheaters this way.

And as for modded xbox unable to work on xbox live, I'm also a bit sceptical. If the info come from an official press release, it's worth nothing, anyway.
And if it has been proved, I'd like to know how.

[GimpyBoy]

The main disabler of the XBox Live system is that it reboots your Bios when you log in causing the mods to either not work or crash. Most hackers are currently working around this problem, but MS will throw another bomb their way soon, I'm sure.

Xbox-scene.com is a famous hacker site and they've managed to crack the Live disablers, but it costs a lot. And it's really really rare to see a hacker on the Xbox Live service. I've been playing since November and I have yet to meet one.

[Castoth]

If it meant either having a completely dupe free environment but no offline mode or an offline mode but tons of dupes, I'd have to choose the latter still. I mean, online mode is fun and all but it would suck royally to have to *always* compete for rares with other players online. Episode II is neigh impossible to play online just because multiple people are needed to stand on switches in most stages from what I hear. I mean, really, if a Mil Lilly drops a Psycho Wand and another player grabs it before you (using a Force let's say), would that not make you pissed? Granted, that scenario always has a chance of happening online but at least you could still search for the item offline without having to compete with other players for the possible drop. This is also not to mention that 56k users would not be able to play online all the time so playing time for them would be greatly diminished.

*shrugs*

[BigDaddy]

Probably 70% of the rares in PSO can only be found online.

Server-side saves and 99% of cheating gone or client saves and 99% of cheating in full effect, the answer is not a difficult one to see.

Removing the offline portion of the game would have little to no effect. PSO is a very niche title, most casual gamers only know it as the "first online RPG for consoles and you can talk to other people from other countries." That's about it.

The best way to alleviate this problem (as suggested many times in this thread) is to separate the offline characters from the server-side save characters. Sonic Team is cheap and stupid, this will most likely not happen in this gen.

XBL not allowing and banning modded XBoxes at log on was never officially confirmed by Microsoft, it is however officially confirmed by hackers. Microsoft has already stated that they will continuosly change and update the BIOS for newer XBoxes, as they had reported and done this year. That means the very expensive current by-pass disabler for XBL will not work on new XBoxes "x" months from now... not just because Microsoft will probably be able to detect the disablers by then, but also because Microsoft is not reporting any longer when they will make updates to the BIOS, that way they can surprise attack hackers at any time. The only way people will find out is when they purchase the mods and then log on with their new XBox on XBL only to have their XBL and XBox banned.

It is interesting how everyone assumes that XBox will be the easiest to hack, because I have yet to see a single hacker on it. Compare that to GC PSO which had been hacked since the trial version. Whatever happened to all the people that just hated Microsoft so much and just wanted to ruin the launch of XBL? Most likely they are all banned because they all had modded XBoxes.

In theory, XBox is easy to hack. Theory however, is no match for the mess of reality. Microsoft has done a superb job of XBL thusfar. Hacking the XBox is not only costly, it also actually requires some technical know-how... intelligence basically. Something that a majority of PSO "wannabe hackers" don't have. This isn't, "Let's guess a bunch of numbers and see what happens!"

I would not be surprised if XBox PSO was indeed the least hacked.

[ALPHAM0F0]

very very nicely put, i to would think that the xbox version of pso will be the least hacked (sure there will be some bad seeds but meh what can be done) but i do beleive that noone can determine if it will be or not..... hmmmm very interesting

[Gandalf]

A question on why they would hack:

If it is so "easy" to hack the box, why would they? If there is absolutely no challenge like you say, wouldn't it be better to cheat on a more challenging console, like the cube?

[BonusKun]

On 2002-12-13 07:34, GimpyBoy wrote:
they aint going to be hacked!

mmmm I bet those wet dreams are really nice arn't they?

[Vantamiath]

These are all just blind hopes/theorys...all we can do is wait.

[BlackFoxRaven]

First of all, if you think the XBox version will remain be cheat free, let me laugh in your face and be done with you. Hackers will cheat, one way or another. No one ever thought the GCN version would be riddled with dupes, but it was.

The way I see it, while the XBox version has the greatest potential to be free of cheats, it ALSO has the greatest potential to be the worst hacked version. But no one is going to know until (if?) it comes out.

[Webapprentice]

This is still an arms race. MS can modify future Xboxes to strengthen the security, but given enough dedicated tinkerers, that security would probably be defeated again. In then end, MS continues to gain knowledge on how to make more secure hardware, and we will see the results in a Palladium system.

[MORB]

Paladium system.... Or fascism applied to computers.
Bleh.

There's no need to go that far to secure PSO... But it's more a problem of marketing: maybe the console market isn't ready for fully online games. Or it's just th current PSO community which isn't.

[Sol-Invictus]

On 2002-09-24 09:19, Spy wrote:

Some kid out at MIT already loaded Linux onto an Xbox. That was tech-headline news months ago.


Lies. Nobody has put linux on the Xbox yet. Lindows chief exec Michael Robertson stepped out as the mystery backer of the famous "win $200,000 for putting linux on the Xbox" contest and announced he was extending the deadline because nobody had accomplished it yet.

Also, Barubary, I just recently got into the PSO community and I'm finding lots of people really hate you cause 'Barubary ruined PSO' all I see you doing is proving what a lackluster product Sonic Team came out with and the weaknessess they should have fixed before the game came out.

Edit: I just noticed a lot of ignorance flying around in this thread. Microsoft is taking extensive measures to see that any modded Xbox is banned permanantly from the Xbox live service. They detect the bios version the Xbox is using and if it's not the right one, that machine can never connect to Xbox live again. This is mainly to prevent people from playing pirated versions of games on xbox live.

The big catch, and it's a big one, is that you can set it up so your bios changes at the flip of a switch. Flip it to mod mode and play all the pirate games/cheat all you want. Flip it back and suddenly as far as Xbox live is concerned you've got a perfectly legit machine.

The way this effects PSO is that PSO uses client side saves. You don't have to be online to cheat. You can cheat and dupe up a storm offline then once you get online there's no way Sonic Team or anyone else can truly prove it.

I'm not sure how the Xbox servers will deal with things or if they'll do a similar process as Xbox live but either way it doesn't matter. As long as they're doing nothing but altering items and a character's stats within the bounds of the game, there's no possible way to ever catch them. You can't kick someone just because they have 30 Double Cannons in the bank, did they dupe them? Almost definately, is it possible that they could get that many legit? Technically yes.

Cheating will keep going on as there are client side saves. They'll never make it impossible but the least they could do is to make it so cheating and duping is very very difficult.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Sol-Invictus on 2003-01-05 00:40 ]</font>

[Darcon]

Lies. Nobody has put linux on the Xbox yet. Lindows chief exec Michael Robertson stepped out as the mystery backer of the famous "win $200,000 for putting linux on the Xbox" contest and announced he was extending the deadline because nobody had accomplished it yet.


Actually they did put Linux on an Xbox. There was 2 parts to the contest. Part 1 was to get Linux running on the Xbox. Part 2 was to do it without any hardware modifications. The deadline was only extended for Part 2 as Part 1 is finished and the person received half of the prize.

Read it here:
http://xbox-linux.sourceforge.net/articles.php?aid=2002364145010

As for Xbox PSO, if you haven't actually sat down and modded an Xbox and hacked it, just let me assure you that it's very easy (Seeing as I've done 6 for the company I work for). And as Sol-Invictus said, disabling the Modchip is as easy as flipping a switch. Turn it off to go on Xbox Live, turn it on to play Backups/Homebrew.

What some people don't realize is what you can do with the Modchip. You actually can FTP into the Xbox and access all of the Save Files which are all in Hexidecimal. Any good HEX/ASM hacker should be able to crack any PSO save and start tinkering with items and attributes they're not supposed to.

[Zero21XX]

Sorry ta say but the xbox ver is hacked before it even hits stores with a modded xbox u can rip the game into the hard drive and edit any file u want then tranfer it to a mem card then use it on a legit unmodded xbox ive seen it done with many games do to the fact that u cant use xbox live with a modded xbox ppl now have 2 one for live and one for mods so say good buy to the xbox ver cuz a gameshark,code breaker or action replay will not be need to hack that ver :< so i would say stick with the GameCube ver

[Zero21XX]

Lies. Nobody has put linux on the Xbox yet. Lindows chief exec Michael Robertson stepped out as the mystery backer of the famous "win $200,000 for putting linux on the Xbox" contest and announced he was extending the deadline because nobody had


LMFAO u wanna see Linux on xbox want some vids i can make some LMFAO i have a matrix no soder modchip in my xbox and it way to ez to install linux on xbox want to do it urself go on MIRC efnet chan #xbins they do so much crazy stuff to xbox its not even funny anymore ex- play divx right off ur xbox run ftp server run irc bot scripts and 1000s more want a little more proof try http://www.xbox-scene.com/ lol

[DSCCSHOGUN]

Yo, I checked the site you listed and you can't get the xbox Linux instructions (they are still working the problem of putting linux on xbox) there, and the information you provided only backs up those in your opposition.

Don't just read the headlines on these sites, try to actually dig a little deaper. There is nothing there. BTW, everyone knows you can put mod chips in xbox. Bragging that yours is modding is like saying you've got thumbs.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: DSCCSHOGUN on 2003-01-10 07:27 ]</font>

[Sol-Invictus]

On 2003-01-10 01:45, Zero21XX wrote:


Lies. Nobody has put linux on the Xbox yet. Lindows chief exec Michael Robertson stepped out as the mystery backer of the famous "win $200,000 for putting linux on the Xbox" contest and announced he was extending the deadline because nobody had


LMFAO u wanna see Linux on xbox want some vids i can make some LMFAO i have a matrix no soder modchip in my xbox and it way to ez to install linux on xbox want to do it urself go on MIRC efnet chan #xbins they do so much crazy stuff to xbox its not even funny anymore ex- play divx right off ur xbox run ftp server run irc bot scripts and 1000s more want a little more proof try http://www.xbox-scene.com/ lol




As the guy said earlier, without a hardware mod. Put linux on that bad boy without the mod-chip and you're in business.

[faceless]

just wanted to point out that

1) someone has indeed gotten linux running on unmodded xboxes due to s bug in 007 Agent Under Fire

2) Xbox PSO is almost as hacked as PC PSO

3) Lakers LOST!!!

[MonoxideChild]

I honestly could care less about the cheating on Xbox PSO. It costs more, and takes more knowledge to cheat on Xbox PSO than it does on GC PSO. All I need is a USB memory card, and I can dupe whatever I feel like in GC PSO. Also, I wouldn't get too cocky now. Yes PSO probably has locked out the Action Replay, but the AR can always make a code to reverse that lockout. Or, just wait for the Xploder for GC. Than your royally screwed.

I'm not favoring one system over another. Both versions are going to be cheated on. I think people saying that the Xbox PSO is going to be cheated to "death" are just mad fanboys. If Sonic Team and Microsoft wanted to take the extreme measure, all they need to do is hire one of the hackers to help patch the game online and off. How do you think cable companies help fight against cable pirates? It's just a matter if they want to or not. And yes, a brand new Xbox model will be coming out soon. That means the hackers will have a new job to do soon. Just wait for E3. http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_wink.gif

Also, there's a way to solve all this. Just use a setup like Diablo 2. Have it where there's closed servers where the characters are stored on their servers. Than have the offline mode where you can do whatever you feel, than take your character online on an open-realm, which would be a P2P matchmaker where they can cheat all they want. This would make cheating extrememly hard for closed-server games.