Advertising is coming back to Wipeout

GrimReaper

A while ago there was a little furore over ads that were added to Wipeout HD that not only annoyed people but significantly increased the loading time.

Well, it looks as though Sony is sneaking them back in. I haven't played Wipeout in about a month, however supposedly this in-game advertising is now enabled in the latest update. I'll give it a try tonight and let people know, but this is not good news as it's being added to European PS3 owners.

Henroid

Eh, ads in games, whatever; as long as they have a spot.

But wait - they actually increase loading times in this game? That's kinda dumb. It actually gives reason to spite ads more than the usual.

GrimReaper

I've just been reading up on it, apparently there are other issues where the update has also hosed peoples saves. Essentially resetting their progress in the game, so ships unlocked etc are now back to being locked.

Fawst

Advertisements as in the old billboards from the original Wipeout? That wouldn't bother me. The load times are bad enough to begin with that extending them is a concern, but as long as they aren't like "Your race is about to begin, but first, a message from our sponsor! 'It's LOOOOOOooooog, it's LOOOOOOooooog, it's big, it's heavy, it's wood!'" it's not so bad.

Borking save data is a travesty, though. WTF?

Diarmuid

Pretty much every update of Wipeout has had some sort of issue.

As for the ads, there's like dozens of in game billboards that could be used ala Burnout Paradise, sticking them on the load screens seems designed just to irritate people.

Zxerol

In-game advertising has always struck me as incredibly tacky at the very best. I'm not even referring passive stuff like "ha, there's a Monster Energy drink can in this game," but the insidious kind where the game actively goes and downloads ads and, even worse, displays it inside the game itself. Wow, I paid money for this game so I can be a sink for advertisements in quasi-realtime, thanks publisher! I did not care for that sort of wankery in BF2141.

This opinion does not apply to games entirely supported by an advertising model, of course.

GrimReaper

Apparently there's a way of preventing the ads from being downloaded. It's not too clear but either you stay signed out of psn and only sign in after the game has loaded OR you literally disconnect the PS3 from the net (disconnect the cable) until the game has finished loading then connect it.

This isn't that good timing of news for me, I'm about to move. I was planning on packing up the PS3 this week. Already got other stuff packed up.

GrimReaper

Just had a quick test, I kinda remembered that if I logout I can't do anything.. So I had to take out the network cable. It seemed to do the trick but it's not something i'd want to do everytime I want to have a game of Wipeout.

Surely there are servers it downloads the video from that have some specific IP addresses and as such can be blocked at the firewall.

GnomeTank

GrimReaper wrote: »

Just had a quick test, I kinda remembered that if I logout I can't do anything.. So I had to take out the network cable. It seemed to do the trick but it's not something i'd want to do everytime I want to have a game of Wipeout.

Surely there are servers it downloads the video from that have some specific IP addresses and as such can be blocked at the firewall.

Not hard to figure out, just run a network traffic monitor next time you are playing wipeout. Have it start a snapshot just before you load up the game, then go stop the snapshot after it loads. A few minutes of parsing the log should show you exactly what you want.

GrimReaper

GnomeTank wrote: »

GrimReaper wrote: »

Just had a quick test, I kinda remembered that if I logout I can't do anything.. So I had to take out the network cable. It seemed to do the trick but it's not something i'd want to do everytime I want to have a game of Wipeout.

Surely there are servers it downloads the video from that have some specific IP addresses and as such can be blocked at the firewall.

Not hard to figure out, just run a network traffic monitor next time you are playing wipeout. Have it start a snapshot just before you load up the game, then go stop the snapshot after it loads. A few minutes of parsing the log should show you exactly what you want.

Would need to put the pc and PS3 on a hub, at the moment I don't have a hub to hand.. both the pc and ps3 are connected directly up to the router.

Henroid

Couldn't you do that through the router? I don't see how a hub is necessary.

GrimReaper

Henroid wrote: »

Couldn't you do that through the router? I don't see how a hub is necessary.

It's a possibility, i've been going through my router settings.. however, it's a more home centric type router.. as in minimal logging capability etc. It's no Astaro.

EDIT: I think work might have an old spare hub gathering dust in a cupboard, I'll check tomorrow.

EDIT2: Just googled for "wipeout hd advertising server ip addresses" and it gave me this so those may be the ip addresses to block.

SiliconStew

Henroid wrote: »

Couldn't you do that through the router? I don't see how a hub is necessary.

Most home routers are actually switches. A switch will not put traffic destined for a device on port X on port Y so some other device can see it (excluding the WAN port of course). Normally to see the traffic for other devices, the switch needs to support port mirroring. Without port mirroring, your PC cannot capture traffic for the PS3.

A hub actually broadcasts traffic to all ports at once, that's why you can use one for packet sniffing.

elliotw2

Having played Wipeout recently, if they do increase the load times, it's not noticeable. I even saw one of the ads get cut off by the loading ending

Henroid

SiliconStew wrote: »

Henroid wrote: »

Couldn't you do that through the router? I don't see how a hub is necessary.

Most home routers are actually switches. A switch will not put traffic destined for a device on port X on port Y so some other device can see it (excluding the WAN port of course). Normally to see the traffic for other devices, the switch needs to support port mirroring. Without port mirroring, your PC cannot capture traffic for the PS3.

A hub actually broadcasts traffic to all ports at once, that's why you can use one for packet sniffing.

Oh right, now I can see the sense behind this.

At least on the bright side my knowledge of networking equipment isn't as bad as I thought.

GrimReaper

Henroid wrote: »

SiliconStew wrote: »

Henroid wrote: »

Couldn't you do that through the router? I don't see how a hub is necessary.

Most home routers are actually switches. A switch will not put traffic destined for a device on port X on port Y so some other device can see it (excluding the WAN port of course). Normally to see the traffic for other devices, the switch needs to support port mirroring. Without port mirroring, your PC cannot capture traffic for the PS3.

A hub actually broadcasts traffic to all ports at once, that's why you can use one for packet sniffing.

Oh right, now I can see the sense behind this.

At least on the bright side my knowledge of networking equipment isn't as bad as I thought.

Yep, a hub is essentially just all the network wires connected together. Not good for large networks etc because of collisions etc but they're great for sniffing traffic. It's actually getting pretty hard to find the things new these days (ebay probably has loads) and i'm in no mood for doing a diy hub, in my youth, in my youth...



EDIT: Anyway, it looks like the post I mentioned above somebody has already beaten me to the punch of the advertising server ip address range.

TeeMan

What I think will annoy me more is having to wait another damn 10 minutes for another feature-less update to download and install. I swear every time I let a game sit there for a month or two then put it in, regardless of how old the game is, an update will be required.

GrimReaper

I just tested it, it appears that ip range is for the US. I think for European PS3 owners it downloads the advertising from a different ip address (I just tested it and got a really annoying PSP ad).

And yes, it most definitely increases the load time.

Guess that means I'll have to see if I can dig out a network hub and do it the old fashioned way.

TeeMan

I was so close to crossing off Fury from my backlog too! Goddamnit you already have my money, what more do you want?