Are we REALLY helping the community?

[brentbizzle]

Ok, so I'll admit upfront that this topic is a bit of a rant... but for a reason. Some of you more knowledgeable members please chime in on this.

Much like many people on these forums, I have hacked consoles. Hacked xbox 1, hacked Wii, couple of hacked PSPs. And between those include hard mods and soft mods. So I think its safe to say although I don't have the coding knowledge to start reverse engineering some Sony code, I know at least enough to understand what I'm doing and get by safely.

Well, I like to share my knowledge because it's the only way I can really contribute to the scene. Because I can't sit down and code stuff or hack stuff myself, I help others benefit from the work the kind scene coders do. I write tutorials and answer questions. I've hacked friend's consoles and had strangers find me as well. Hell, one guy even mailed me his PSP from the Middle East and I hacked it and mailed it back.

But these days I'm starting to think we are helping TOO much. We are making things TOO easy for other people that now the whole homebrew scene is changing. This stuff started out as an adult thing. Older people were the ones hacking this stuff and spreading it around, and because of the complexity was only carried out by other adults. Now we've got a bunch of pre-teens scowering the internet looking for the quickest and easiest methods to do this 'cool stuff' on their psp's without any real knowledge of what exactly they're doing and the implications of it. And because of this, we've got even more kids all over the net trying to find directions on how to fix stuff because they didn't understand what they were doing and can't fix what went wrong.

So what do we do? Do we keep spoon feeding the community?

[crait]

We are.
People are just getting CFW like that, downloading ISO's, then not appreciating what people are doing.

Brent,

I think I understand what you are talking about. You can put out the best tutorial and someone will ignore it and add "(help please)" to the end of their post. I mean these boards are supposed to be the last resort for when all else has been tried and has failed. I am not the smartest guy out there and I can figure this stuff out. Sometimes in the help forum I will tell people that they are just as capable of using Google as I am. It seems few people want to put forth the effort to read and figure things out on their own. They just want instant gratification and never mind the journey getting there. Almost like people are becoming mentally impotent.

Another thing that bothers me is the whole P2P thing. I liked it better when it was a power user secret. Now these networks are so well known that they are in jeopardy of being lost forever due to legal actions and outright abuse by users.

Sometimes I wonder if I had reverse engineered anything if I would go ahead and make it public or not. On the one hand I would want to share it, to let people know my name, but on the other hand I wouldn't want anyone to feel like the are entitled to my work. I mean has anyone noticed that sooner or later someone will post "what is taking so long for this or that update" or make unreasonable or ungrateful demands of the authors? Where is the gratitude and the appreciation that someone is putting in long hours to make this happen?

I really hate it when people ask for ISO or state "I want CFW so I can download ISO, where do I find them". I wish there was more of a crackdown for this sort of thing. WE know the main purpose of CFW is not ISO but when people make statements like this and get away with it I think it really hurts the homebrew scene because people aren't asking for homebrew, they mostly ask for ISO.

Where did things go wrong?

Oh man I know what you mean it bugs me so much. People take it for granted, the youth of today are so needy and expect to get anything they want (For free!). I buy all my stuff, it just isn't the same when you download it. I like to build a solid collection of something. I hope all gaming doesn't turn to digital content because I'd like to be able to physically buy the game. I love it that you can play backups on your psp but I wish you couldn't so people can't just download everything. Sony should make a way for you to make your own backups to play on a OFW psp.

[brentbizzle]

This is kinda steering away from my original meaning. Ive got my fair share of ISOs and quite a large mkv collection building, so Im no saint. Im talking about how us giving easy answers to people is building a group of ignorant homebrew users. They follow a guide on how to do something and never understand what they are actually doing. For example, they try to flash a custom flash0 theme, something goes wrong, and they dont understand why their psp wont boot up anymore. They dont understand that this action involves replacing system files... they are just following a tutorial ignorant to the possible consequences.

That is what Im talking about.

Yea, they don't understand whats going on at all, they are just following orders. The more and more you mess with this kind of stuff you start to understand though.

This is kinda steering away from my original meaning. ~That is what Im talking about.

The reason many don't understand is because they don't care. All they care about is running that ISO and nothing else. They could care less about the details or the effort that goes into it.

[crait]

Exactly my point..

[Kanadier]

Hell yeah we keep feeding the internet! Correct me if I'm wrong, But isn't the whole reason the brew is around to help people? So what if kids mess up, that's their fault. I personally don't think it's possible to do anything major to your console without knowing what your doing. I do agree that kids shouldn't do it unless they do know, and agree to the risk, but I also have a problem with them taking credit for all the hard work DAX and others put into this. I saw a kid about a year back bragging that he hacked his psp, and basically saying he was the smartest kid around. I looked at it, and all he had done was put CFW on it. (via pandora's battery). That pisses me off. In my opinion, as long as they don't take credit, it's all good.

Haha, when I first got into the seen and I put CFW on my psp people where all like whoa you hacked it! And all that and I would just be like its easy, anyone can do it. There is a guy in my class that I showed how to do it a year ago and it is all he talks about till this day. He brags about it and its so simple.

I understand, i was once one of those who was spoon fed.
But when your younger and dont know better, well, you DONT KNOW BETTER!

Also the whole ISO things, well lets say "Those who make buying real games impossible, make pirating games the only choice of those who cannot afford to buy them" -Farquezy

[brentbizzle]

i guess my big issue is that a lot of people don't take the time to try and find any information themselves. They just start at 0 and make a post hoping someone gives them all the answers. This is exactly the OPPOSITE of what I've done and because of it I actually know what I'm doing. Everything I know about console hacking has all come from the internet, reading and watching what others have done and posted about. The whole reason for forums is that old conversations can be searched and read again to provide useful information for others later on down the road. I think for stupid posts I'm just going to provide links to google search results.

"Those who make buying real games impossible, make pirating games the only choice of those who cannot afford to buy them" -Farquezy

I was just thinking that today. Games are a BILLION dollar business so what is the justification for charging almost $70 for one? I would buy a lot more frequently if they were cheaper. I mainly just do without and so my game collection isn't that large. My PSP is for PS1 games that I love to play over and over again like Einhander and Vagrant Story. I will buy a UMD which are more reasonably priced but I can't afford to get them all. 300 was a lot of fun. R-type command was my last purchase for PSP. I haven't been interested in anything else.

Everything I know about console hacking has all come from the internet, reading and watching what others have done and posted about.

I am with you there brother!

I remember the several times I made my way back onto this forum. The first time was back in the 1.5 days lol

but when I got a psp again, I searched and searched on the internet to try and find out exactly what I needed to do to run CFW. I also figured out WHAT it was. Not by asking all of these experts and making posts that said "HEYYY!!!!! NEEED HELPP!!!".

After bricking my psp with 3.52m33... I had to do the same thing to research how to create and use the Pandora battery and MMS. It was really rewarding when I did figure it out and make it work too.

It seems like nobody understands that anymore. Also when people are trying to solve things intelligently now, there is always that big mass of noob posts.

I've never spent more than $20 for a psp game so far.
Although I did get God of War $40 and Crisis Core $30 for Christmas/Birthday

I went on a spree on PSP games on eBay several months ago. I spent maybe $70 and got 6 games:

Lumines 1
Castlevania: DXC
Metal Slug Anthology
NBA Street Showdown
Wipeout Pure
Monster Hunter Freedom

Half of the games were brand new too!

Resistance Retribution will be the only game that I have bought brand new for $40.

eBay makes buying them much more reasonable.