Fallout 3 review copy leaks

By Draken
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Grand Master

Kushan

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I hate to break it to some of you guys, but nobody's going to get banned for having Fallout 3 achievements. Why?

Think about it, you can transfer your profile to any 360 at any time. You don't even have to be online to do it, you can just plug your hard drive in another 360 and off you go. Who's to say that the pirates didn't just plug their hard drive into a moded 360 to play the game, but uploaded their score via a clean, safe 360? It might have even been their friend's 360, which could own a perfectly legit console - should they ban him just to try to get the pirate?

Sure, the achievement details might also state which console they were earned on, but that's unlikely and more to the point - unproven.

Plus, if ONE "review" copy has been sent out, then chances are SEVERAL review copies have been sent out and Microsoft can't just ban them all, nor can they keep track of the reviewers' IPs or whatever, it's just not possible.

So when it comes down to it, Microsoft has a choice - do a lot of guess work and attempt to ban anything "suspicious" and almost-certainly instigate a PR nightmare (And really, do they want to risk banning actual journalists who are likely going to mention it in some high-profile magazine?), or try to use their tried-and-tested methods of backup detection and only ban the ones they KNOW are pirating the game for sure.

I'm guessing they'll be going for the latter, as plenty of people have escaped the banhammer thus far, despite playing games ridiculously early.

There's another point I'd like to make, though - nobody is actually sure if this is a "review" copy or a retail leak, or both (i.e. it's the final code, but it's been sent out to review) and what's interesting is that it does actually work on retail consoles. Often, reviewers (at least the ones that review games before they come out in retail) have to use a special 360 that'll play backup disks and, more importantly, unsigned code. If this were unsigned, it wouldn't work on retail 360's at all and although it's a hell of a leak, it's still not so early that it couldn't be from a pressed, final disk (I believe it takes 2 weeks from Gold to print all the disks needed for the launch of a game - factor in that they'll likely have some leeway here and there, plus it's a hugely anticipated release and it comes together quite well).

Microsoft hasn't banned anyone in nearly a year now, either they'll given up (or simply can't) detecting them, or they're getting ready for a big-ol banfest right before Christmas. I'm going for the latter, but I still wouldn't expect many people to get banned because of this game alone and I'd still expect only the "stupid" pirates to get banned.

Grand Master

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Christmas ban-fest to boost console sales :p

You're right but, so much guess work involved with playing copies/modded firmware.

A bad CRC will get you banned for sure (bad rip), but no one can really explain claims of people getting banned where they say all their games check out.

That's the risk involved with piracy and I doubt MS will ever make their methods of detection fully clear.

Grand Master

DrunknMunky Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
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I hate to break it to some of you guys, but nobody's going to get banned for having Fallout 3 achievements. Why?

Think about it, you can transfer your profile to any 360 at any time. You don't even have to be online to do it, you can just plug your hard drive in another 360 and off you go. Who's to say that the pirates didn't just plug their hard drive into a moded 360 to play the game, but uploaded their score via a clean, safe 360? It might have even been their friend's 360, which could own a perfectly legit console - should they ban him just to try to get the pirate?

Sure, the achievement details might also state which console they were earned on, but that's unlikely and more to the point - unproven.

Plus, if ONE "review" copy has been sent out, then chances are SEVERAL review copies have been sent out and Microsoft can't just ban them all, nor can they keep track of the reviewers' IPs or whatever, it's just not possible.

So when it comes down to it, Microsoft has a choice - do a lot of guess work and attempt to ban anything "suspicious" and almost-certainly instigate a PR nightmare (And really, do they want to risk banning actual journalists who are likely going to mention it in some high-profile magazine?), or try to use their tried-and-tested methods of backup detection and only ban the ones they KNOW are pirating the game for sure.

I'm guessing they'll be going for the latter, as plenty of people have escaped the banhammer thus far, despite playing games ridiculously early.

There's another point I'd like to make, though - nobody is actually sure if this is a "review" copy or a retail leak, or both (i.e. it's the final code, but it's been sent out to review) and what's interesting is that it does actually work on retail consoles. Often, reviewers (at least the ones that review games before they come out in retail) have to use a special 360 that'll play backup disks and, more importantly, unsigned code. If this were unsigned, it wouldn't work on retail 360's at all and although it's a hell of a leak, it's still not so early that it couldn't be from a pressed, final disk (I believe it takes 2 weeks from Gold to print all the disks needed for the launch of a game - factor in that they'll likely have some leeway here and there, plus it's a hugely anticipated release and it comes together quite well).

Microsoft hasn't banned anyone in nearly a year now, either they'll given up (or simply can't) detecting them, or they're getting ready for a big-ol banfest right before Christmas. I'm going for the latter, but I still wouldn't expect many people to get banned because of this game alone and I'd still expect only the "stupid" pirates to get banned.

Thank you!, what I've been saying the past few days now :yes:

Grand Master

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The only way I see bans coming out are if the review copy is watermarked and can be traced.

They won't ban for achievements, many people play games early through owning a game store/knowing friends/etc.

I legitimately played MGS4 about a week before it was out. It's just too much of a guessing game for MS with achievements.

Unless of course the achievements are somehow not final :p

Grand Master

Kushan

Posted
Posted
Christmas ban-fest to boost console sales :p

You're right but, so much guess work involved with playing copies/modded firmware.

A bad CRC will get you banned for sure (bad rip), but no one can really explain claims of people getting banned where they say all their games check out.

That's the risk involved with piracy and I doubt MS will ever make their methods of detection fully clear.

I don't actually know how they do it, but the "experts" in the "scene" monitor XBL communications and are usually able to pinpoint what information is being sent back to Microsoft. After the last banning, they discovered a bug in their ripping process that could give off a weird result (I don't know the full details and I want to keep this post on the side of "Lets not ban Kushykins for discussing piracy in too much detail") in some cases, but not others. It was a bug, but not one that always appeared and even after a backup had been burned, didn't always appear, but when it did, Microsoft could detect it (Which is why a lot of people were confused after the last time, since it would appear that SOME people got banned, but others got away with it). A few weeks later, a new firmware appears that fixed this tiny little bug and nobody's been banned since (apparently).

What's interesting to me, however, is that NOBODY has been banned since last Year. Could the pirates have really "won?"? I find it hard to believe that nobody has been using bad rips in all this time, but you have to ask why Microsoft is waiting. It's possible they're waiting until Christmas so they can boost sales a little, but it's also possible they really can't detect the "safe" pirates and are holding off so they get lazy and slip up.

Oh well, we'll see what happens.

Grand Master

+Audioboxer Subscriber²

Posted
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I don't actually know how they do it, but the "experts" in the "scene" monitor XBL communications and are usually able to pinpoint what information is being sent back to Microsoft. After the last banning, they discovered a bug in their ripping process that could give off a weird result (I don't know the full details and I want to keep this post on the side of "Lets not ban Kushykins for discussing piracy in too much detail") in some cases, but not others. It was a bug, but not one that always appeared and even after a backup had been burned, didn't always appear, but when it did, Microsoft could detect it (Which is why a lot of people were confused after the last time, since it would appear that SOME people got banned, but others got away with it). A few weeks later, a new firmware appears that fixed this tiny little bug and nobody's been banned since (apparently).

What's interesting to me, however, is that NOBODY has been banned since last Year. Could the pirates have really "won?"? I find it hard to believe that nobody has been using bad rips in all this time, but you have to ask why Microsoft is waiting. It's possible they're waiting until Christmas so they can boost sales a little, but it's also possible they really can't detect the "safe" pirates and are holding off so they get lazy and slip up.

Oh well, we'll see what happens.

They always ban in waves anyway, it's strange it's been as long as a year, but we'll see what happens around the time of NXE/GoW2.

Grand Master

Smigit

Posted
Posted
Well MS could just ban anyone who has the achievements, and clean up the mess after.

Didn't play the game pirated game? unmodified 360 you say? well we'll have a look and if it's true we'll unban it.

That'd potentially hurt a lot of reviewers if they were logged in when playing and would maybe even make some think twice about running pre release MS games. I assume reviewers can play on their own accounts, maybe thats not the case.

From a PR perspective that'd likely do more damage than just copping the fact copies leak would...especially given it's the press you would be hurting most here and they are the ones that will make you look good or bad and influence millions of other customers out there.

Perhaps they should just design review copies in a manner that you MUST be online in order to play them. Just have a little toggle somewhere, a single bit thats on or off depending if it's a retail copy or not. If you try and play a review copy offline you get booted back to the dashboard.

Grand Master

Groovedude

Posted
Posted
I don't see the point of this topic? Games get leaked all the time, what makes this any different. Game is out soon anyway so looking forward to it :)

i have to agree with you on this one, even be it a Review copy, this is nothing new, in the last two months there have been REVIEW copys of other games.

and no-one really knows if you will be banned or not playing a Review copy, even states this in the .nfo....

price you pay for being inpatient, or just get two xbox's :p

Experienced

Qumahlin

Posted
Posted

MS has pretty much stopped banning as of late and people are wondering when they will do a massive ban, or just plain start up again.

The market for actual "mod chips" that have external switches to enable players to turn them on and off to avoid detection has dropped significantly and more and more people are simply modding their firmware which is riskier since other then not going on live you have no way to truly hide the fact that your running modified firmware.

The above wouldn't have happened if not for the long lull in bans.

Grand Master

Groovedude

Posted
Posted
I don't think the 360 has ever had a mod chip with a switch to deactivate it?

.. yeah i dont think there was on you could actually turn off, there was a chip called NME that had a fair bunch of features.

- one chip for all drives: Samsung ms25 and ms28, Hitachi/LG 46,47,58,59, 78 FL/FK, 79 FL/FK, all BenQ drives!!!

- Added logic to support possible future Hitachi/LG versions as well

- 100% Auto detection of Backup or Original on Samsung and Hitachi drives (BenQ requires manual switching)

- boots stealth and non-stealth backups - optional: Power Led will turn off when a Backup is detected

- optional: disables the network when playing backups

- optional: disables the rear USB connection when playing backups (for disabling USB Wlan)

- no DVD writer model issues. Works with all DVD writers

- now working with pioneer 111d and Pioneer based burners as well as all LG burners.

- 100% Firmware Stealth, when MS tries to read the Firmware then it replies as 100% original unmodified. No error code E66.

- optional: 100% Live secure when playing Backups

- the result of 1000s of hours of research and programming

- based on Actel Logic for most possibly stability

- manufactured with highest quality Logic, PCB and components. Made in Europe.

- complies with RoHS directive (lead free). Gold plated solder pads, for easy soldering.

Grand Master

Kushan

Posted
Posted (edited)

I don't think Microsoft CAN read the firmware anyway, a lot of the drives have a sort of "lock" on them that prevents this without some jiggery-pokery. The Hitatchi 79's are a prime example of this.

There was some routine within the drive's firmware that gave a checksum of the firmware, but that was found pretty early on.

It's well known that Microsoft cannot detect a modified drive (unless it's spoofed, but that's an ENTIRELY different matter), but rather it's bad copies they detect. I believe the purpose of that NME chip was to allow you to play bad copies without running the risk of getting banned (because it automagically disables the network adapter) but the scene is now mature enough that "bad" rips are pretty rare.

EDIT: In saying that, though, with the NXE update, it's very possible they'll be doing some firmware checking since they've reported that the installation will take a good while - plenty of time to do what's needed, while knowing the user isn't just going to power off any time soon.

Edited by Kushan
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