Gaming Flashing A 360

[WildWon]

Ok guys, so i haven't flashed my drive yet, and i want to... but i REALLY like my Live service and i don't wanna eff things up and get a perma-ban.

So, I just had a thought, and i could be REALLY late to the bus, but i never thought about this alley before.

I was originally thinking of getting an Arcade system to flash, so i could check out pre-releases and not screw myself, when it just hit me...

Is it possible to create a dummy acct on your current 360 (with a flashed drive) to play a pre-release, and have the cat-5 unplugged (just extra safety purposes)... then on release, you can just play on your Live acct... of course you'll be starting over... but...

Would that work?

(if this idea is how its supposed to be done, or others have done this, cool... I only *just* thought of this now >_>)

If that works, i'll be flashing VERY soon LOL

 

[comtois]

eh, it might work, but no one really knows how you get banned, it's all speculation. if you're thinking of having 2 360s, one flashed, one not, then just keep your profile on a memory card so you can easily go back and forth, only play offline on the flashed one, and play your legit games on the unflashed one.

the only issue here is that not connecting your flashed 360 to the internet is just like banning yourself, so just plug it in and play. if you get banned, it's only the console so you can pick up a console only on ebay for real cheap to replace it.

edit: just to reiterate, the console is banned, not the live account, so just to speculate, M$ doesn't care that your gamertag is playing the backup, it cares about your console playing the backup. i wouldn't waste my time with all of this, just follow my rules in the other post and you should stay relatively safe: http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=136...p;#entry1782917

 

[WildWon]

Well, i know there are no fully known reasons about banning flashed systems. I've been keeping up on the scene for a year or two now... i've just never heard this idea mentioned.

Also, its a very VERY low chance that they're scanning the drives firmwares... its usually bad burns that send a red flag... and usually release days for games, and the pre-release players get busted (for having the Play Time on their name when they log on... with gamer scores and what not)... so this was just a way of avoiding getting hit with playing prerelease games. Bad burns and the "unknown" reasons are still very viable... i was just thinking this would be as safe as playing on a non-connected system.

 

[comtois]

i know of one person who used this method, but he took it a little further. he had 2 accounts on the xbox, one live, one not. he played the backups while connected to the account with no live and would also unplug the ethernet cable. when signed onto his live account he would only play legit retail games. he swore this method worked because he had gone through multiple ban waves without getting hit, until the last one. so, it may keep you a bit safer for a bit longer, or maybe forever (this guy could have screwed up just once and got banned).

either way, this lends a small about of proof (assuming this guy was completely accurate) to the fact that M$ can see what we have played on our 360s on any account, live or not.

i think the benefit outweighs the risk, especially considering the 360s low price and rumors of another price drop (arcade down to $169 USD) in june/july.

 

[FAST6191]

For what it is worth the ban affects the console and not the account (the unbanning method involves replacing a key vault with a new one, the only place to get a working new one being another 360. Naturally this requires two homebrew capable 360s).
I have toyed with the idea of using a two vault system but nothing has been put in solder yet as there are serious holes in my theory (how detection works: would I be "wasting" two consoles), testing is near impossible (again how it works) and I do not care enough about live to warrant the time and effort. Most people who would do this probably do not care all that much about selling their banned on and getting a new one.

Back on topic how this translates to live accounts I and nobody in these circles really knows.

From what I recall a house share is something to happen in the near future for you with many 360s being in the house, see if one of your friends is amenable to a trade of sorts (I have organised a few swaps now for those that do not care about live).

 

[WildWon]

OMG i'd heard of the House Share thing before, but i thought it was out and i couldn't find anything about it lol. That is what we are looking for for when we are in the new place (with 4 360s lol).

Downside, we are all wanting Live, so we can all play at once (on separate TVs lol)

But i'll look into that (not for flashing, but for ease of connectivity).

Yea, dunno if i'm flashing or not. But i'll letcha all know

Thanks for the info!!

 

[Agjsdfd]

Well sadly theres always "risk"..
If you can afford buying the 360 games you want, you can leave it as it is.
(THIS IS MY VIEW "OPINION BASED" => NO FACTS!)
But lets do some calculations:
A new 360 game costs you around $60.
Lets say you buy 5 games. 5x60 = 300!

An arcade 360 console costs about $140 used or $199 new.

So even if you get banned after some time, its worth flashing the 360 "IN MY OPINION". Hope you understand my calculations

 

[FAST6191]

OMG i'd heard of the House Share thing before, but i thought it was out and i couldn't find anything about it lol. That is what we are looking for for when we are in the new place (with 4 360s lol).

Downside, we are all wanting Live, so we can all play at once (on separate TVs lol)

But i'll look into that (not for flashing, but for ease of connectivity).

Yea, dunno if i'm flashing or not. But i'll letcha all know

Thanks for the info!!

System link perhaps?
http://www.co-optimus.com/system.php?sort=local&id=1
http://xbox.wikia.com/wiki/Multiplayer_fea..._XBox_360_games
http://www.xboxmp.com/

edit: we appear to have misunderstood each other.
My original post suggested you "borrow" a friends 360 who does not care about live and flash that, if it gets banned so be it as you can swap back and get on with life. This and post ban swaps are what I organised, the fact you were about to enter into a house share would have made such things far easier.

"House Share thing" is what I meant by system link but I missed the boat in my initial version of this reply. I am not sure how many, if any, games allow you to piggyback onto live via system link (I have certainly played split screen over live but that is a different matter). It is too bad MS decided to prevent people doing an end run around live and using tunnelling systems like you could on the original xbox (Xlink Kai and co.).

Regarding flashing there are more than enough single player games (plus co-op and system link) and I also ascribe to the concept Kamui posted.

 

[Sportsmaniac1322]

So basically what you all are saying is that playing online with backups will lead to a ban? If you backup all of your games yourself and make sure they're all stealthed, will it still lead to ban? I don't have tons of money to be buying new systems all the time.

 

[ikick9000]

Ok guys, so i haven't flashed my drive yet, and i want to... but i REALLY like my Live service and i don't wanna eff things up and get a perma-ban.

So, I just had a thought, and i could be REALLY late to the bus, but i never thought about this alley before.

I was originally thinking of getting an Arcade system to flash, so i could check out pre-releases and not screw myself, when it just hit me...

Is it possible to create a dummy acct on your current 360 (with a flashed drive) to play a pre-release, and have the cat-5 unplugged (just extra safety purposes)... then on release, you can just play on your Live acct... of course you'll be starting over... but...

Would that work?

(if this idea is how its supposed to be done, or others have done this, cool... I only *just* thought of this now >_>)

If that works, i'll be flashing VERY soon LOL

MS will NEVER EVER EVER ban you for payinga pre release... AS LONG as it is a legit RETAIL copy... not Review copy... if your xbox has a review copy being played, they know it is leaked... if your playing a week before rleease but ms KNOWS some store may already have it and may have sold it, they cannot ban you... people shouldnt be afraid... i've had my xbox since launch and flashed when the first mod came out, and im still not banned i play every game before release...

 

[FAST6191]

Flashing a 360 is by no means a sure fire ban (by all accounts the percentages have been quite low) however being banned from live is apparently an egregiously bad occurrence for some people who have in turn been quite vocal about it giving the perception of a widespread problem. Others on the "other side of the fence" are not free from blame in hyping the situation either.
Secondly banning tends to happen in "waves" (we do not know if the requisite data is transmitted at the time or at some other point, or even in the middle of the game) giving an increased perception.

This is coupled with the fact nobody (that "we" can speak to) really knows how it is done (although there are some good guesses, see some of the various threads around here even) giving rise to misinformation which again spins it up. I said before that if it were me I would randomly ban people and leave other "known offenders" to carry on with life and incorporate both hard and soft evidence (some games are not region locked but playing a lot of them with a few other indicators....) but saying this definitely happens would mean I am just as guilty of engaging in speculation.

Generally using your own copies (good copies, stealthed too), flashing the drive properly and generally doing your part to fly under the radar are good ideas.
Scene releases of retail games* are usually good however (especially if you wait a while after the games release to be reasonably assured the release is good) and they do represent the cheaper and easier route.

*as ikick9000 mentions above "demo" (often full versions) games get sent to reviewers and these work on normal xboxes, these are often the source of prerelease games (and a lot of the high profile prereleases are these) and some are different to the final release in some way which we assume MS can detect. Often they originate outside of "the scene proper" but not always (some scene groups repackage the release for scene proper consumption even).
Some do not care about live and welcome these releases (I will have to raise my hand here) but there is a fairly obvious correlation between playing these versions and being banned from live.

 

[War]

So basically what you all are saying is that playing online with backups will lead to a ban? If you backup all of your games yourself and make sure they're all stealthed, will it still lead to ban? I don't have tons of money to be buying new systems all the time.

Dude, if you don't want to risk it, don't flash your 360. As far as I know, if you flash your 360, you are always at risk of getting banned.

 

[Sportsmaniac1322]

So basically what you all are saying is that playing online with backups will lead to a ban? If you backup all of your games yourself and make sure they're all stealthed, will it still lead to ban? I don't have tons of money to be buying new systems all the time.

Dude, if you don't want to risk it, don't flash your 360. As far as I know, if you flash your 360, you are always at risk of getting banned.

I'm aware that there's always a risk, but I'm trying to gauge how big the risk is to see if the benefits outweigh the risks. What I want to know is that if I make my own backups but still play the backups on Live, are the percentages of getting banned in my favor? If the answer's yes, then I'll probably flash my drive, and if it's no, then I probably won't.

 

[ikick9000]

So basically what you all are saying is that playing online with backups will lead to a ban? If you backup all of your games yourself and make sure they're all stealthed, will it still lead to ban? I don't have tons of money to be buying new systems all the time.

Dude, if you don't want to risk it, don't flash your 360. As far as I know, if you flash your 360, you are always at risk of getting banned.

I'm aware that there's always a risk, but I'm trying to gauge how big the risk is to see if the benefits outweigh the risks. What I want to know is that if I make my own backups but still play the backups on Live, are the percentages of getting banned in my favor? If the answer's yes, then I'll probably flash my drive, and if it's no, then I probably won't.

backup your own games using an xbox 360 dvd drive to rip them and stealthing them 100% it is safe to say that is safe.

i'll give you a 10:90 in your favor that you won't be banned for along time. (again thts with 100% current stealth on games...)

if MS starts to ban more frequently for more reasons... thats another story but at the moment you will be safe

MS will NEVER be able to detect the fimrware n the dvd drive, as it isnt checked by the 360 at all , and without a hardware upgrade they will never be able to read your firmware. (software update can't change this AFAIK)

good luck flashing and happy playing

 

[Chalky94]

Sure getting a modchip will make you ban proof?

 

[FAST6191]

@Chalky94 there are two types of mod chip, a homebrew only one that is only of use here for downgrading the 360 and unbanning it. It requires an earlier kernel that does not work on newer 360s, if you want to discuss this make a new thread as we have already derailed this one enough.

The second type does exactly the same as the drive flashing we current do and suggest, as it is a lot more expensive than a sata card (about £15 for a card, about £50 last I checked for modchip (US people can swap the pound for a dollar and it will be about the same)) the chips fell by the wayside when it came to updates. If it was updated it would be no better or worse than a flashed drive but it lacks updates and so nobody will recommend it.

Regarding drive detection I believe the general consensus was MS feared a softmod and so the drive firmware is not readable/able to be played with by the 360. This has the effect of making firmware flashing itself impossible to detect although soft evidence (high noise* or something) could possibly be used.

*jitter was an early theory/problem but depending on who you speak to it is no longer a problem or was never a problem. Having seen how badly some people treat their discs I should imagine MS do not do anything about it.

Regarding risks: the vast majority of the bannings I ever hear about are from people who did not care and played anything and everything as soon as it appeared (or a few things as soon as it appeared), used earlier methods prone to detection or had a serious run of bad luck (a usually good source went sour or something). Those that play it safe by and large do not get banned, I would hate to make an estimate owing to a serious lack of data on all counts (MS never release data, reading forum threads from both sides of the fence is not exactly a good source of statistics for banning, I have no idea of how many people flash drives, I have no idea how many 360s are out there (shipping data also includes broken 360s and many have several 360s in a household, I have no idea how many owners use live when accounting for the previous points and I have no idea how MS detect things).
Gun to head though I would say it is a minor problem that got seriously blown out of proportion by several parties although I do not think there have been many false positives, even accounting for my dislike of the paying for live concept rewards outweigh the risks by a long way.