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Playstation Network Down

AtheistPreacher said:
But the thing about the 4-2 trick is that you can kill half a dozen enemies at once. It's much, much faster than killing enemies individually.

Here's the trick. You know that reaper-looking guy in 4-2? There's actually a couple of them, but there's one through the first tunnel at the beginning of the level. He controls all those glowy-type guys, there's something like six of them. The thing is, if you kill the reaper guy with two or three arrows (from the door where you first saw the cutscene for the reaper, he's down in the area below you), those other six or so enemies die along with him... and you get souls for all of them. That's why it's such a good place, you get something like seven enemies for the price of one. After you kill the guy, run back down the tunnel and jump off the cliff, collect your bloodstain, and do the whole thing again. And conveniently, the merchant in the tunnel sells arrows! (As long as you've freed him in 4-1) Note that you do need to kill the reaper somewhat quickly, or his minions will start to attack you (they advance as soon as they see you, but luckily their movement speed is quite slow).

It does help if you have the lava bow first, since it will stun the enemy with fire, making it easy to hit on consecutive shots. Lava bow can be made from the Armor Spider's soul (boss of 2-1). And again, a ring of avarice will give you more souls per kill, making the whole thing even more efficient... it can be found in 3-2 for free, or bought in 3-1. Remember, lastly, that the more the world tendency is towards black, the harder enemies will become... but they'll also give you more souls.

That's the trick. Doing that, you can pretty much pump your character up as much as you want.
Click to expand...


The difference in souls gained is very large between the two methods. Where I am now, I'd get somewhere close to 10,000 souls in a minute - minute and a half for each time I'd run through 4-2, and around 45,000-50,000 in 3 minutes or so for each run on 4-3.

I've heard of another run that involves going through 4-2 backwards starting from the old hero archstone, however it requires pure black world tendency and soulsucker. This one apparently accrues over 100k + per run in about 3 minutes.
 
Apparently Homeland Security and the FBI are now involved in investigating the PSN's security breach:

https://www.gamespot.com/news/6310929.html

This in the wake of an e-mail sent out by Sony to all PSN users early on Thursday morning explaining the known facts of the network intrusion. I'll paste the e-mail below for those interested.



-----Original Message-----
From: PlayStation Network [mailto:PlayStation_Network@playstation-email.com]
Sent: Thursday, April 28, 2011 4:50 AM
Subject: Important information regarding PlayStation Network and Qriocity services


Add PlayStation_Network@playstation-email.com to your address book

===================================

PlayStation(R)Network

===================================

Valued PlayStation(R)Network/Qriocity Customer:

We have discovered that between April 17 and April 19, 2011, certain PlayStation Network and Qriocity service user account information was compromised in connection with an illegal and unauthorized intrusion into our network. In response to this intrusion, we have:

1) Temporarily turned off PlayStation Network and Qriocity services;

2) Engaged an outside, recognized security firm to conduct a full and complete investigation into what happened; and

3) Quickly taken steps to enhance security and strengthen our network infrastructure by rebuilding our system to provide you with greater protection of your personal information.

We greatly appreciate your patience, understanding and goodwill as we do whatever it takes to resolve these issues as quickly and efficiently as practicable.

Although we are still investigating the details of this incident, we believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following information that you provided: name, address (city, state, zip), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login, and handle/PSN online ID. It is also possible that your profile data, including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip), and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may have been obtained. If you have authorized a sub-account for your dependent, the same data with respect to your dependent may have been obtained. While there is no evidence at this time that credit card data was taken, we cannot rule out the possibility. If you have provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, out of an abundance of caution we are advising you that your credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may have been obtained.

For your security, we encourage you to be especially aware of email, telephone and postal mail scams that ask for personal or sensitive information. Sony will not contact you in any way, including by email, asking for your credit card number, social security number or other personally identifiable information. If you are asked for this information, you can be confident Sony is not the entity asking. When the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services are fully restored, we strongly recommend that you log on and change your password. Additionally, if you use your PlayStation Network or Qriocity user name or password for other unrelated services or accounts, we strongly recommend that you change them as well.

To protect against possible identity theft or other financial loss, we encourage you to remain vigilant, to review your account statements and to monitor your credit reports. We are providing the following information for those who wish to consider it:

- U.S. residents are entitled under U.S. law to one free credit report annually from each of the three major credit bureaus. To order your free credit report, visit www.annualcreditreport.com or call toll-free (877) 322-8228.

- We have also provided names and contact information for the three major U.S.
credit bureaus below. At no charge, U.S. residents can have these credit bureaus place a "fraud alert" on your file that alerts creditors to take additional steps to verify your identity prior to granting credit in your name. This service can make it more difficult for someone to get credit in your name. Note, however, that because it tells creditors to follow certain procedures to protect you, it also may delay your ability to obtain credit while the agency verifies your identity. As soon as one credit bureau confirms your fraud alert, the others are notified to place fraud alerts on your file. Should you wish to place a fraud alert, or should you have any questions regarding your credit report, please contact any one of the agencies listed below:

Experian: 888-397-3742; www.experian.com; P.O. Box 9532, Allen, TX 75013
Equifax: 800-525-6285; www.equifax.com; P.O. Box 740241, Atlanta, GA 30374-0241
TransUnion: 800-680-7289; www.transunion.com; Fraud Victim Assistance Division, P.O. Box 6790, Fullerton, CA 92834-6790

- You may wish to visit the website of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission at www.consumer.gov/idtheft or reach the FTC at 1-877-382-4357 or 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20580 for further information about how to protect yourself from identity theft. Your state Attorney General may also have advice on preventing identity theft, and you should report instances of known or suspected identity theft to law enforcement, your State Attorney General, and the FTC. For North Carolina residents, the Attorney General can be contacted at 9001 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-9001; telephone (877) 566-7226; or www.ncdoj.gov. For Maryland residents, the Attorney General can be contacted at 200 St. Paul Place, 16th Floor, Baltimore, MD 21202; telephone: (888) 743-0023; or www.oag.state.md.us.

We thank you for your patience as we complete our investigation of this incident, and we regret any inconvenience. Our teams are working around the clock on this, and services will be restored as soon as possible. Sony takes information protection very seriously and will continue to work to ensure that additional measures are taken to protect personally identifiable information.

Providing quality and secure entertainment services to our customers is our utmost priority. Please contact us at 1-800-345-7669 should you have any additional questions.

Sincerely,

Sony Computer Entertainment and Sony Network Entertainment
 
Apparently Sony is saying the PSN should be back up "within a week":

https://www.gamespot.com/news/6310549.html

Sony is also trying to assure people that there is not yet any evidence that credit card information has been compromised. That data was encrypted, and 3-digit card security codes were not stored on the compromised servers at all. Further, major banks Wells Fargo, American Express, and MasterCard say they have yet to detect any unauthorized activity tied to leak.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-28/sony-faces-lawsuit-regulators-scrutiny-over-playstation-user-data-breach.html
 
AtheistPreacher said:
Apparently Sony is saying the PSN should be back up "within a week":

https://www.gamespot.com/news/6310549.html

Sony is also trying to assure people that there is not yet any evidence that credit card information has been compromised. That data was encrypted, and 3-digit card security codes were not stored on the compromised servers at all. Further, major banks Wells Fargo, American Express, and MasterCard say they have yet to detect any unauthorized activity tied to leak.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-28/sony-faces-lawsuit-regulators-scrutiny-over-playstation-user-data-breach.html
Click to expand...

Even still. It's easier just to change your card than having to fix unauthorized use after it has happened.
 
https://www.gamespot.com/news/6310961.html

Sony rolling out 'Welcome Back' program for PSN users

By Tor Thorsen, GameSpotPosted Apr 30, 2011 11:02 pm PT

PlayStation Network users to get 30 free days PlayStation Plus, free "entertainment content" for download following outage; some services going back online this week, PlayStation Store coming back later this month

On Tuesday, Sony said that some services of the PlayStation Network would come back online within a week. Today, the company gave a comprehensive response to the ongoing PSN outage in which it identified exactly which aspects of the network would be coming back online.

According to senior director of corporate communications and social media Patrick Seybold, online gameplay for both the PlayStation 3 and PSP will be restored later this week. PlayStation Home will also be back, as will friends lists, and chat functionality.

Account management will also be back online in the coming week, but all PS3s will have a mandatory system update that will require users to change their PSN passwords. The update will also require that players either change the password on the PS3 on which their account was activated or change it through a validated e-mail confirmation.

At a press conference in Tokyo, Sony Corporation executive deputy president Kaz Hirai offered his apologies for the outage. He also said that the PlayStation Store would not be back in the next week, and would instead return later in the month.

Sony also laid out the specifics of the attack and what it is doing to prevent further such intrusions. The company said the attack happened at the company's data-center located in San Diego, California, where Sony reportedly enlisted the local branch of the FBI's cybercrimes division. Today, Hirai confirmed the FBI was on the case.

Hirai said that some 10 million credit card numbers may have been exposed as a result of the breach. He told a reporter that it was unclear what the motive behind the attack was. Last month, the PSN was attacked by the hacker collective known as Anonymous in retaliation for Sony suing PS3 hacker George "GeoHot" Hotz. Anonymous has denied being part of the PSN outage and data breach, but the decentralized nature of the collective means rogue elements could have been involved.

Sony reps said that in response to the breach, the company has implemented additional firewalls, added "enhanced levels of data protection and encryption," and implemented extra measures to detect software attacks on the network. Sony is also creating an all-new position of chief information security officer, directly reporting to Sony Corp. chief information officer Shinji Hasejima.

As a make-good to the now-78 million PSN users across the globe, Sony will be initiating a "welcome back" program as a token of appreciation for its customers' patience. This program will offer every PSN user a free month of PlayStation Plus, with current PlayStation Plus members getting a complementary month of the service. Each territory will also be getting free "entertainment content" downloads as part of the program, although details on exactly what the content will be is currently not available.
 
TheDude said:
Anyone know what Playstation Plus is?
Click to expand...
I know that it

1. Lets you download certain games for free (such as some PS1 classics)

2. Discounts on some other items

3. Early access to demos

4. Most significantly for me, they give you 150 megs worth of space to store your files "on the cloud." That means you can travel and pull your saves on any other PS3, and also gives you backup saves if your system YLODs. My brother Got PS Plus just for this feature... he already lost all of his saves once from a system crash.

I haven't sprung for it yet myself, but I'm thinking about it.
 
It’s bad news piled on top of bad news for Sony.

Hackers may have stolen the personal information of 24.6 million Sony Online Entertainment users, the company said on Monday. More than 20,000 credit card and bank account numbers were also put at risk. This is in addition to the recent leak of over 70 million accounts from Sony’s PlayStation Network and Qriocity services.

“We are today advising you that the personal information you provided us in connection with your SOE account may have been stolen in a cyberattack,” Sony wrote in a statement on its website on Monday.

Sony Online Entertainment is a division of the company that publishes online multiplayer games like the recently released DC Universe Online. Sony turned off all SOE game services Monday after it learned of the intrusion.

Sony said that the compromised personal information includes customers’ names, addresses, e-mail addresses, birth dates, gender, phone numbers, logins and hashed passwords.

Also at risk are the credit card numbers and expiration dates of 12,700 non-U.S. customers, plus 10,700 direct debit records from customers in Austria, Germany, Netherlands and Spain, containing bank-account numbers, customers’ names and addresses. This information was stored in what Sony said was an “outdated database from 2007.”

Hackers may have had this information for more than two weeks now. The intrusion occurred April 16 and 17, Sony said.

Customers first noticed that Sony’s PlayStation Network service was down April 20. After a week of downtime, the company said that hackers had attacked its services and that the personal and credit card information associated with more than 70 million accounts were at risk.

At the time, Sony said that the Online Entertainment division had not been affected by the hack and would remain in operation, telling customers that their data was safe to the best of its knowledge.

Though both Visa and American Express told Wired.com last week that they had no reason to believe their credit cards had been compromised, several dozen Ars Technica readers reported what they believed to be PSN-connected fraud.

The PlayStation Network is still offline, but Sony says it will restore some services later this week, including online multiplayer gaming for PlayStation 3 and PSP. As a goodwill gesture, Sony says it will offer all customers a selection of downloadable content and 30 free days of its premium PlayStation Plus service.

As compensation for the Sony Online Entertainment leak, Sony said that it will give all of its customers 30 days of additional subscription time, plus an extra day for each day the servers remain down.

Sony did not say when its SOE services would be back online.
Click to expand...

Jesus Sony.
 
Is the PSN network back up and running at all yet? Mine is not working but we changed ISP's so it might just not be functioning.
 
It is still down and they've been pretty vague about when it is coming back. Last update says "at least a few more days" :-|
 
It asks you to log into PSN but you can cancel and get around it and still use it, or at least I can on either of mine if I wasn't at work I would go do it and do an exact step by step break down.
My old PS3 disk drive died still trying to find a local place to buy one so I can swap it out myself, don't wanna use ebay so it is pretty much a Netflix box/downloaded games from PSN.
 
What root said. It will ask you to log in. Try and it will said PSN is performing maintenance. Push back. Log in asked for again. Enter. Same maintenance message. Back. = Netflix working for me.
 
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