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Hi all, i used to play pso on sylverant and i believe some in the dc talk comunity might know me since i m a pretty active online player. I just wanted to say that unfortunately the server admins decided to unregister me, therefore i m forced to stick with shthack from now on. : (
I just felt like giving the info for all those who might be looking to play with me on sylverant.

Honestly, I didn't want to do something like that, but unfortunately, we have had a bunch of people coming on with your guildcard number (so your serial/access key) and doing things that are against the rules. Aleron Ives said that he was going to inform you of that (and told me that he thought you were pretty much inactive anyway). If he did not inform you of this (or let you know to come to me if you wanted to discuss matters further), I apologize for the misunderstanding.

Banning the people who were violating the rules would have essentially caused you to be banned as well (since it was more than one IP address, an IP ban would have been ineffective, so I would have had to ban the guildcard itself, since that was always constant).

The only thing I can think of to solve the problem is to force some sort of password protection (i.e, you have to use /login with a certain period of time or the server will boot you, sort of like NickServ protection on various IRC networks) or for you to get a different serial number/access key. If you'd like to do either option, let me know and I'll rig something up. The latter option would be the easiest, in all likelihood since it was on PSOPC IIRC. I'd hate to lose someone who actively wants to play on Sylverant due to something this silly.

Yes ives politely told me, there was no misunderstanding, unfortunately i doubt i can think to a better solution... I ll just have to accept the fact i guess...
Mayby you dont remember but i m the guy that Fishy asked you to accept before the server went public a few years ago because i had no way to change the serial so switching serial aint an option for me as for the other idea i m not sure i understood what you mean but if theres somthin i could do just tell me.

Yes i was starting to play quite often again, since im a teacher i dont have to work much on summer.

Saffo doesn't want to use the serial changer, since he has so many characters it would take a long time to convert all of them.

BlueCrab's other idea was that if you have an account at sylverant.net, it's possible to use type /login <username> <password> in a chat bubble in PSO to log in with your website credentials. I think he was offering to add your shared serials again with a restriction that would require you to use the /login command after you signed on, so all the "imposters" would get kicked when they didn't supply your unique account information.

One other thing I've wondered about is that Tethealla has hardware-banning abilities for BB, so if PC supplies a similar unique hardware ID, Saffo's serials could be linked with that to block the imposters and forego the need to use commands. Since DC seems to supply one, maybe PC does, too.

Aleron Ives wrote:Saffo doesn't want to use the serial changer, since he has so many characters it would take a long time to convert all of them.

Ah. I was wondering why that was not an option here...

BlueCrab's other idea was that if you have an account at sylverant.net, it's possible to use type /login <username> <password> in a chat bubble in PSO to log in with your website credentials. I think he was offering to add your shared serials again with a restriction that would require you to use the /login command after you signed on, so all the "imposters" would get kicked when they didn't supply your unique account information.

That's pretty much the idea. I'd have to add a bunch of backend code to do it, but it would have its use, so it may well be worthwhile. Also, as he has a PSOPC account, he has to have an account on the website.

One other thing I've wondered about is that Tethealla has hardware-banning abilities for BB, so if PC supplies a similar unique hardware ID, Saffo's serials could be linked with that to block the imposters and forego the need to use commands. Since DC seems to supply one, maybe PC does, too.

Unfortunately, PC does not supply such information. That would indeed make this much easier, but sadly it will not work here. PSOPC simply duplicates the serial number in the field that is used for the Dreamcast Hardware ID in the login packets, rather than sending a real hardware ID for the PC. That's why I required registration for PC to begin with.

Aleron Ives wrote:Saffo doesn't want to use the serial changer, since he has so many characters it would take a long time to convert all of them.

Yes, they are over 70 (didnt count em exactly) with storage chars and c mode mules. Among em around 20 are in ultimate...

That's pretty much the idea. I'd have to add a bunch of backend code to do it, but it would have its use, so it may well be worthwhile. Also, as he has a PSOPC account, he has to have an account on the website.

ok i think i understood and it sound great, i just hope it's not too unpractical on your end.

Well, I've written all the code for the feature, now I just have to wait for all the ships to be updated to the latest SVN revision of the ship server.

In the mean time, Saffo, please PM me your serial number/access key so that once that is done (hopefully within the next few days), I can reinstate your guildcard and enable the protection feature.

Basically, how it works in the end is as follows. Once you enable the protection feature (by using /gcprotect while logged in with /login), it sets a flag at the shipgate to protect your guildcard. When you have that flag set, you will get a message when you first join any block/ship to login. If you do not login within 60 seconds (with the /login command), you will automatically be kicked from the ship. Also, various features are disabled before you login (like joining games, sending mails, talking in the lobby, etc). Once you use /login successfully, all of those restrictions are lifted and everything should work nicely from there.

Its not the prettiest solution, but it should work. I don't recommend anyone use /gcprotect unless they're either really paranoid or there is actually an issue (like there is in Saffo's case).

In other words, every time you go online with a specific character, you'll have to type (or set a chat shortcut) with /login <user> <pass> using the same credentials you supply to access your account on sylverant.net. Until you do that, you can't do anything except walk around in the lobby (not even chat), and if you don't log in, you get kicked. As such, all of your clones won't be able to do anything except lurk in the lobby for 60 seconds, because they don't have the username and password from your website account, even though they have your serials.

I have one question, since i have no clue about coding and computers generaly:

I had a burned copy of pso v2 before I got my retail, so my serial number is one i found on the web somewhere! Will this affect me in any way?

ps: sorry for borrowing your topic, saffo:)

Saffo wrote:
ok i think i understood and it sound great,

(^u^)