Yeah, I don't think there will be any TERRIBLE CONSEQUENCES of this except that maybe PSN users will get a free game to placate our collective rage. Personally, I think a free month of PSN+ would placate me quite well.
I would be much happier that they took the time to add in a massive update that finally has the equivalent of party chat plus universal custom soundtracks for every game, among other long-needed tweaks.
I would absolutely love a party chat, but I'm not holding my breath on them adding it while the service is down. I would also be shocked if it made it onto the free service. Happy, but shocked.
Transdimensional Whale on
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
Having multiple people in different games/applications able to talk to each other. It's actually a huge usage of the Xbox Live coding, and it's a really well designed system.
I can't shake this idea that beyond some level of abstraction, PSN is this horrible massive spaghetti code basement of incompatible server processes bridged by hacks and quick-fixes piled on top of each other over several years that no one ever bothered to document, and they had a cascading failure this week that they're still trying to understand.
SCE knows hardware well, but it's the little things that make me worry about their online infrastructure: Why does it take 30 seconds to sync trophies? What is the point of limiting a status message to exactly 21 characters? In an age where Internet companies give away gigabytes of storage for free, what has them so concerned about their server resources that they limit premium accounts to an anachronistic 250MB?
PSN has improved vastly since its inception, but I hope it's built on a more solid foundation than it seems to be.
I've had this feeling ever since they unveiled the whole "clear-text credit card and account information passed through HTTPS query strings" thing a while back. Not that it's a real security threat (unlike launch where they apparently did it with plain HTTP), just that it's stupid to send anything like that clear-text.
That said, its a lot more likely to just be lost data; might be caused by poor coding, might not. Enterprise level backups can take a very long time to get up and running again, and with 70 million records of account data it's not too far-fetched to assume a week-long restore process if something gets royally screwed. Plus, if we're assuming their network code isn't optimized, we can probably say the same about their database optimization, too. In fact, that would probably help to explain the 30 second trophy sync process, too.
Real men have synced redundant copies of everything so that if one goes down, they simply switch the tracks over and we can choo choo on with the second copies. It's entirely transparent and I believe it's been done a few times with gmail and there's no problems at all.
For an entire network to be down for more than a few hours, it can't be DDoS. And it can't be something so simple as lost data. Maybe it's literally a hardware fault and some big data centre had a fire or something. That shit happens.
Data corruption. If you have an active/active failover plan, you have up to the second data sync. That sync will fail if one site DIES, but if it simply say, alter table's an entire record set wrong, that gets synced everywhere and .. *whoops*
It's one of the reasons most high availability sites do the whole "no manual changes ever touch Prod, everything lives on staging and is pushed from there via automation" thing. But the only thing that can knock out a solid production system with good DR is invalid data getting into the system. And living there long enough before someone notices that the snapshots on your san all have the bad information and you're forced to revert to slow assed tape. Even worse if you have to revert to off site tape.
This is why gmail lost a shitload of data for a bit once: a code bug deleted some stuff, deletion is a valid operation, so the clones all took that and ran with it. By the time anyone noticed, it was too late and tape restore time. I have this conversation with people frequently on "what a DR site does and does not protect against. Does protect against service outages. Does not protect against fat fingers."
Sounds neat, but I don't use voice chat, so it's no big deal to me.
You don't play games online with friends you know? All my friends are across the country now so playing games online is a godsend for us. It's like basically a phone call.
TheSonicRetard on
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Johnny ChopsockyScootaloo! We have to cook!Grillin' HaysenburgersRegistered Userregular
And IF tons of credit cards were stolen, this doesn't just hurt Sony and its customers, digital distribution as a whole stands to lose a lot. How many parents will refuse to get their kid stuff on Wiiware or Steam after hearing about the PSN hacks? How many fewer people will decide it's just not worth the risk at all with smaller storefronts like green man gaming and the like? Won't this make it all the harder for indie devs whose only chance to get their game out there is digital distribution?
It's a bit worrying, although I don't think it'll kill PC digidistro; as said earlier, consumers are a bit smarter than that, and will realize that Valve, for example, has a better security history than Sony. And, of course, in the PC space there's far more options than the monopoly on each console.
Uh, are you forgetting when someone stole HL2 because the security password was "password"?
Data corruption. If you have an active/active failover plan, you have up to the second data sync. That sync will fail if one site DIES, but if it simply say, alter table's an entire record set wrong, that gets synced everywhere and .. *whoops*
It's one of the reasons most high availability sites do the whole "no manual changes ever touch Prod, everything lives on staging and is pushed from there via automation" thing. But the only thing that can knock out a solid production system with good DR is invalid data getting into the system. And living there long enough before someone notices that the snapshots on your san all have the bad information and you're forced to revert to slow assed tape. Even worse if you have to revert to off site tape.
This is why gmail lost a shitload of data for a bit once: a code bug deleted some stuff, deletion is a valid operation, so the clones all took that and ran with it. By the time anyone noticed, it was too late and tape restore time. I have this conversation with people frequently on "what a DR site does and does not protect against. Does protect against service outages. Does not protect against fat fingers."
Yes, that's the "might not" I was referring to. Thank goodness that only happens to large corporations with experienced professionals that know exactly what to do in those situations, and said professionals don't have a direct line to the customers who are directly affected by such things!
Hahahaha!
Hahaha.
Ah.
naengwen on
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
Sounds neat, but I don't use voice chat, so it's no big deal to me.
You don't play games online with friends you know? All my friends are across the country now so playing games online is a godsend for us. It's like basically a phone call.
Yeah, I don't think there will be any TERRIBLE CONSEQUENCES of this except that maybe PSN users will get a free game to placate our collective rage. Personally, I think a free month of PSN+ would placate me quite well.
I would be much happier that they took the time to add in a massive update that finally has the equivalent of party chat plus universal custom soundtracks for every game, among other long-needed tweaks.
I would absolutely love a party chat, but I'm not holding my breath on them adding it while the service is down. I would also be shocked if it made it onto the free service. Happy, but shocked.
But...but...you wouldn't be forced into listening to the developer's carefully-selected soundtrack! And think of the RAM it would take!
I say this in jest--a while back, I mentioned how I wished Sony would adopt MS' requirement of allowing games to feature custom soundtrack support for games that, after a while, leave me wanting to stick a pen in my ear, and these were the two counter-arguments.
Oh my god, how come I have never heard about this show?
You sir, are in for a treat.
I'm kinda glad I'm at work while this is going down because the primary game I've been sinking my spare time into these days is Shift 2, specifically auto-log leaderboard chasing.
Without that it just turns back into a fairly good single player racing game, and I've already played that a bunch of times so no thank you.
LewieP is currently upset about the Portal 2 situation, but he's putting the blame on Valve rather than Sony.
That's not really accurate. I said I was surprised that Valve haven't done anything to solve the problem PSN being down has caused for their customers, not that it was their fault.
I would have not been surprised at all to get an email from them saying that anyone who has been unable to register the free PC version that comes with the PS3 version can do X to get it without requiring PSN.
LewieP is currently upset about the Portal 2 situation, but he's putting the blame on Valve rather than Sony.
That's not really accurate. I said I was surprised that Valve haven't done anything to solve the problem PSN being down has caused for their customers, not that it was their fault.
I would have not been surprised at all to get an email from them saying that anyone who has been unable to register the free PC version that comes with the PS3 version can do X to get it without requiring PSN.
It's obviously Sony's fault.
Oh, I misunderstood the tone of the Twitter stuff then. Sorry Lewie.
They should've just included a CD Key for the PC version inside the PS3 case.
The reason they didn't do that is to stop people buying the PS3 version, taking the serial out, and trading it back in for only slightly less than they paid for it (the best trade in price for Portal 2 is currently £29. I paid £27 for it). This way, you are required to own a PS3 (so in theory, PC only gamers will still have to get the relatively more expensive PC version) and the process takes a bit of time, delaying the avalanche of preowned copies that will be flooding the market shortly.
21stCenturyCall me Pixel, or Pix for short![They/Them]Registered Userregular
edited April 2011
I'm not sure if I want a free game for my trouble. I remember the last time they offered a free PSN game. The game was flOw and I still wanted my money back for it. That game got me flailing around more in an afternoon than all the Wii games I've played.
I'd much rather prefer a month of free PSN+... Heck, that'd be a good move on Sony's behalf since it might give people a taste of the thing and they might sign up for it.
If the feature was brought to the PS3 than it would work great for future games that supported it, but for any games released previously it would be as much of a pain in the ass to work with as it is on the 360 while you're playing an Xbox game - you have to find the audio menu and turn the in-game music off, and then deal with a horrible cacophony of clashing music that is the soundtrack of my nightmares whenever a cutscene starts.
I can't remember where I read it, but I heard that at one point Sony had universal custom soundtracks ready via a patch, but EA demanded they not included as it was incompatible with one of their Harry Potter games. They went so far as to threaten making games for the PS3, period. Make of that what you will.
I'd be upset if I was a an RPG developer or something and I took the time and effort to hire someone who crafted a beautiful, epic soundtrack that took months of hard work and absolutely captures the essence of the moment in gameplay where it was being heard, only to have some dumbshit kid disable it and play Lil Wayne instead.
Not to knock RPG soundtracks, but sometimes playing the right song can be really encouraging, whether on the first playthrough or the next.
I played the following during a pivotal boss fight in Lost Odyssey...
I'm glad I registered my ps3 copy of portal 2 before psn went down. I've been happily playing my valve game on pc as god intended, and didn't even realize psn was down till I read about it on this forum.
I do hope its up soon though since my kids like watching me play and that would be nicer to do on the big TV with the ps3.
I’ll tell you what happens in Demon’s Souls when you die. You come back as a ghost with your health capped at half. And when you keep on dying, the alignment of the world turns black and the enemies get harder. That’s right, when you fail in this game, it gets harder. Why? Because fuck you is why.
I'd be upset if I was a an RPG developer or something and I took the time and effort to hire someone who crafted a beautiful, epic soundtrack that took months of hard work and absolutely captures the essence of the moment in gameplay where it was being heard, only to have some dumbshit kid disable it and play Lil Wayne instead.
Not to knock RPG soundtracks, but sometimes playing the right song can be really encouraging, whether on the first playthrough or the next.
Funny, because while I can appreciate that RPG developers might be upset about that, I'm pretty sure someone will appreciate their beautiful, epic soundtrack that took months of hard work and absolutely et cetera et cetera.
Too bad not everyone is going to think it's beautiful, just like not everyone is going to like your RPG story. Funny how that works. And in the meantime, I'm pretty confident those developers are outnumbered by whoever came up with the droning menu music or uninspired tunes at Namco or elsewhere. If your music is great, custom soundtrack support is not going to undo it anymore than everyone is going to universally celebrate it. It will, however, allow gamers to expand on an experience with a music they think is better and even improve upon it, or, on occasion, avoid the crummy music that came with it.
We sincerely regret that PlayStation Network and Qriocity services have been suspended, and we are working around the clock to bring them both back online. Our efforts to resolve this matter involve re-building our system to further strengthen our network infrastructure. Though this task is time-consuming, we decided it was worth the time necessary to provide the system with additional security.
We thank you for your patience to date and ask for a little more while we move towards completion of this project. We will continue to give you updates as they become available.
V Faction on
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"Did ya hear the one about the mussel that wanted to purchase Valve? Seems like the bivalve had a juicy offer on the table but the company flat-out refused and decided to immediately clam up!"
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SteevLWhat can I do for you?Registered Userregular
If the feature was brought to the PS3 than it would work great for future games that supported it, but for any games released previously it would be as much of a pain in the ass to work with as it is on the 360 while you're playing an Xbox game - you have to find the audio menu and turn the in-game music off, and then deal with a horrible cacophony of clashing music that is the soundtrack of my nightmares whenever a cutscene starts.
I can't remember where I read it, but I heard that at one point Sony had universal custom soundtracks ready via a patch, but EA demanded they not included as it was incompatible with one of their Harry Potter games. They went so far as to threaten making games for the PS3, period. Make of that what you will.
Daaaaaaamn. I would back down too if EA threatened to make games for my system. Scary thought.
If the feature was brought to the PS3 than it would work great for future games that supported it, but for any games released previously it would be as much of a pain in the ass to work with as it is on the 360 while you're playing an Xbox game - you have to find the audio menu and turn the in-game music off, and then deal with a horrible cacophony of clashing music that is the soundtrack of my nightmares whenever a cutscene starts.
I can't remember where I read it, but I heard that at one point Sony had universal custom soundtracks ready via a patch, but EA demanded they not included as it was incompatible with one of their Harry Potter games. They went so far as to threaten making games for the PS3, period. Make of that what you will.
Daaaaaaamn. I would back down too if EA threatened to make games for my system. Scary thought.
We sincerely regret that PlayStation Network and Qriocity services have been suspended, and we are working around the clock to bring them both back online. Our efforts to resolve this matter involve re-building our system to further strengthen our network infrastructure. Though this task is time-consuming, we decided it was worth the time necessary to provide the system with additional security.
We thank you for your patience to date and ask for a little more while we move towards completion of this project. We will continue to give you updates as they become available.
Not encouraging. That sounds like the fix won't come for days at the least.
We sincerely regret that PlayStation Network and Qriocity services have been suspended, and we are working around the clock to bring them both back online. Our efforts to resolve this matter involve re-building our system to further strengthen our network infrastructure. Though this task is time-consuming, we decided it was worth the time necessary to provide the system with additional security.
We thank you for your patience to date and ask for a little more while we move towards completion of this project. We will continue to give you updates as they become available.
Not encouraging. That sounds like the fix won't come for days at the least.
Isn't this the sort of thing that comes with an announcement in advance, though? Was there any warning before Wednesday?
It sucks, but it's given me time to finish the story mode in MK, and now I'm working my way through challenge tower and the ladder, unlocking as many finishers and costumes as possible. I will be thoroughly prepped to do some murderating when the system comes back on.
Plus you can still get trophies.
Ceno on
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Casually HardcoreOnce an Asshole. Trying to be better.Registered Userregular
edited April 2011
Man, whoever says that they want a free month of PSN+....take that back!
PSN+ is crap. Utter fucking crap. The best thing I gotten from PSN+ are free copies of Sonic the Hedgehog 1 and 2.
Casually Hardcore on
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anoffdayTo be changed whenever Anoffday gets around to it.Registered Userregular
We sincerely regret that PlayStation Network and Qriocity services have been suspended, and we are working around the clock to bring them both back online. Our efforts to resolve this matter involve re-building our system to further strengthen our network infrastructure. Though this task is time-consuming, we decided it was worth the time necessary to provide the system with additional security.
We thank you for your patience to date and ask for a little more while we move towards completion of this project. We will continue to give you updates as they become available.
Yeah, I'm beginning to lean toward all of this being a smokescreen for something like this scenario:
I can't shake this idea that beyond some level of abstraction, PSN is this horrible massive spaghetti code basement of incompatible server processes bridged by hacks and quick-fixes piled on top of each other over several years that no one ever bothered to document, and they had a cascading failure this week that they're still trying to understand.
SCE knows hardware well, but it's the little things that make me worry about their online infrastructure: Why does it take 30 seconds to sync trophies? What is the point of limiting a status message to exactly 21 characters? In an age where Internet companies give away gigabytes of storage for free, what has them so concerned about their server resources that they limit premium accounts to an anachronistic 250MB?
PSN has improved vastly since its inception, but I hope it's built on a more solid foundation than it seems to be.
A single enterprising hacker probably found their way into secure parts of PSN and managed to cause such a massive cascading failure that it requires rebuilding the network from the ground up.
If they're rebuilding things, especially what with it being Easter, we may not see PSN back up until later next week. That's rather staggering.
SpaceDrake on
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
We sincerely regret that PlayStation Network and Qriocity services have been suspended, and we are working around the clock to bring them both back online. Our efforts to resolve this matter involve re-building our system to further strengthen our network infrastructure. Though this task is time-consuming, we decided it was worth the time necessary to provide the system with additional security.
We thank you for your patience to date and ask for a little more while we move towards completion of this project. We will continue to give you updates as they become available.
Not encouraging. That sounds like the fix won't come for days at the least.
Isn't this the sort of thing that comes with an announcement in advance, though? Was there any warning before Wednesday?
Yeah. I'm convinced now that someone deleted something they weren't suppose to. Get ready for the next announcement, "Due to the nature of our system upgrade, some user data was lost."
Posts
I would absolutely love a party chat, but I'm not holding my breath on them adding it while the service is down. I would also be shocked if it made it onto the free service. Happy, but shocked.
Having multiple people in different games/applications able to talk to each other. It's actually a huge usage of the Xbox Live coding, and it's a really well designed system.
Data corruption. If you have an active/active failover plan, you have up to the second data sync. That sync will fail if one site DIES, but if it simply say, alter table's an entire record set wrong, that gets synced everywhere and .. *whoops*
It's one of the reasons most high availability sites do the whole "no manual changes ever touch Prod, everything lives on staging and is pushed from there via automation" thing. But the only thing that can knock out a solid production system with good DR is invalid data getting into the system. And living there long enough before someone notices that the snapshots on your san all have the bad information and you're forced to revert to slow assed tape. Even worse if you have to revert to off site tape.
This is why gmail lost a shitload of data for a bit once: a code bug deleted some stuff, deletion is a valid operation, so the clones all took that and ran with it. By the time anyone noticed, it was too late and tape restore time. I have this conversation with people frequently on "what a DR site does and does not protect against. Does protect against service outages. Does not protect against fat fingers."
You don't play games online with friends you know? All my friends are across the country now so playing games online is a godsend for us. It's like basically a phone call.
That's almost as pad as 'guest'
Steam ID XBL: JohnnyChopsocky PSN:Stud_Beefpile WiiU:JohnnyChopsocky
Yes, that's the "might not" I was referring to. Thank goodness that only happens to large corporations with experienced professionals that know exactly what to do in those situations, and said professionals don't have a direct line to the customers who are directly affected by such things!
Hahahaha!
Hahaha.
Ah.
Not really, everyone I know on PSN is from here.
Oh my god, how come I have never heard about this show?
But...but...you wouldn't be forced into listening to the developer's carefully-selected soundtrack! And think of the RAM it would take!
You sir, are in for a treat.
I'm kinda glad I'm at work while this is going down because the primary game I've been sinking my spare time into these days is Shift 2, specifically auto-log leaderboard chasing.
Without that it just turns back into a fairly good single player racing game, and I've already played that a bunch of times so no thank you.
That's not really accurate. I said I was surprised that Valve haven't done anything to solve the problem PSN being down has caused for their customers, not that it was their fault.
I would have not been surprised at all to get an email from them saying that anyone who has been unable to register the free PC version that comes with the PS3 version can do X to get it without requiring PSN.
It's obviously Sony's fault.
And it's the first time Valve has done cross-platform play and Steam integration on PS3. Ugh, so annoying.
My Backloggery
Twitter
Oh, I misunderstood the tone of the Twitter stuff then. Sorry Lewie.
Then again I've been laughing at Sony's misfortunes since the PS3 price was announced.
I forgive you. No big deal really, 140 characters isn't always enough to get your point across properly.
The reason they didn't do that is to stop people buying the PS3 version, taking the serial out, and trading it back in for only slightly less than they paid for it (the best trade in price for Portal 2 is currently £29. I paid £27 for it). This way, you are required to own a PS3 (so in theory, PC only gamers will still have to get the relatively more expensive PC version) and the process takes a bit of time, delaying the avalanche of preowned copies that will be flooding the market shortly.
I'd much rather prefer a month of free PSN+... Heck, that'd be a good move on Sony's behalf since it might give people a taste of the thing and they might sign up for it.
Check out my site, the Bismuth Heart | My Twitter
I can't remember where I read it, but I heard that at one point Sony had universal custom soundtracks ready via a patch, but EA demanded they not included as it was incompatible with one of their Harry Potter games. They went so far as to threaten making games for the PS3, period. Make of that what you will.
Not to knock RPG soundtracks, but sometimes playing the right song can be really encouraging, whether on the first playthrough or the next.
I played the following during a pivotal boss fight in Lost Odyssey...
Couldn't find a non-AMV version
It was epic.
And whenever you're using an airship or airship-alternative, you simply must play this song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYifiRF8r5E
Lastly, my fondest memories of Gears of War (the first one) involve playing multiplayer in Fuel Depot while using this song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mr_lp_bBVo
Between this and PSN being down, I think I'm finally ready to decide on getting it for 360.
I can't stand the thought of being unable to play gems like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKAtUeWCfrE
Blog||Tumblr|Steam|Twitter|FFXIV|Twitch|YouTube|Podcast|PSN|XBL|DarkZero
Gabe Newell has undoubtedly made several irate calls to the Sony higher ups.
I do hope its up soon though since my kids like watching me play and that would be nicer to do on the big TV with the ps3.
Let me tell you about Demon's Souls....
Funny, because while I can appreciate that RPG developers might be upset about that, I'm pretty sure someone will appreciate their beautiful, epic soundtrack that took months of hard work and absolutely et cetera et cetera.
Too bad not everyone is going to think it's beautiful, just like not everyone is going to like your RPG story. Funny how that works. And in the meantime, I'm pretty confident those developers are outnumbered by whoever came up with the droning menu music or uninspired tunes at Namco or elsewhere. If your music is great, custom soundtrack support is not going to undo it anymore than everyone is going to universally celebrate it. It will, however, allow gamers to expand on an experience with a music they think is better and even improve upon it, or, on occasion, avoid the crummy music that came with it.
Then again, I'm a gamer, not a developer.
Pokemon White Friend Code: 0046-2121-0723/White 2 Friend Code: 0519-5126-2990
"Did ya hear the one about the mussel that wanted to purchase Valve? Seems like the bivalve had a juicy offer on the table but the company flat-out refused and decided to immediately clam up!"
The big question is...does Sony serve the Newell?
My Backloggery
Daaaaaaamn. I would back down too if EA threatened to make games for my system. Scary thought.
^5
Whatever happened to them anyway?
:?
Not encouraging. That sounds like the fix won't come for days at the least.
Isn't this the sort of thing that comes with an announcement in advance, though? Was there any warning before Wednesday?
Plus you can still get trophies.
PSN+ is crap. Utter fucking crap. The best thing I gotten from PSN+ are free copies of Sonic the Hedgehog 1 and 2.
Yeah, I'm beginning to lean toward all of this being a smokescreen for something like this scenario:
A single enterprising hacker probably found their way into secure parts of PSN and managed to cause such a massive cascading failure that it requires rebuilding the network from the ground up.
If they're rebuilding things, especially what with it being Easter, we may not see PSN back up until later next week. That's rather staggering.
Yeah. I'm convinced now that someone deleted something they weren't suppose to. Get ready for the next announcement, "Due to the nature of our system upgrade, some user data was lost."