SolidusDave
Member
Lindsay said:
well the savegame folder view shows at least only one entry per game no matter how many savegames the game has.
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Sony, let me backup my saves
- Thread starter Goldrusher
- Start date
well the savegame folder view shows at least only one entry per game no matter how many savegames the game has.
I'm an expert
Formerly worldrevolution. The only reason I am nice to anyone else is to avoid being banned.
Wait, wait. I used the backup system utility last week to back up my PS3 to an external HDD and it went absolutely fine. And the reason I did it was because of my Demon's Souls save file. It did not tell me it couldn't copy or anything like that.
SecretBonusPoint said:
Even better:
LittleBigPlanet- This Save is not by your PSN id. Trophies are turned off!
Want the trophies? Use your own save.
Want everything else, Use the GameFAQs save.
Even better is with your method is unlocking the save after. I 100%/Plat'ed the game. Why should it continue to be locked?
XiaNaphryz
LATIN, MATRIPEDICABUS, DO YOU SPEAK IT
You have to backup your HDD to an external one. That's the only way to backup locked save files. The downside is, HDD backups are for the entire drive, you can't just choose to backup save files. So if your drive is full, it will take a while.igotnewsuper8 systemWRONG! said:
Megadragon15
Member
Edit: Disregard. I misread this thread.XiaNaphryz said:
XiaNaphryz
LATIN, MATRIPEDICABUS, DO YOU SPEAK IT
Wait, what? It's not even just a normal locked save file? WTF. :lolMegadragon15 said:
Plus the post above by worldrevolution makes it sound like he backed it up okay.
I'm an expert
Formerly worldrevolution. The only reason I am nice to anyone else is to avoid being banned.
I even checked the external HDD a few days ago and all the dat files from 11/3 are there, 30gigs or so worth. This thread has me interested though, I'm gonna backup again today after work and sit there for the first 10-15 minutes to see if it prompts me or anything. The backup from last week I just pressed it, went to bed, got up in the morning and turned it off (it said completed).
Sony's backup tool is retarded.
I moved to a PS3 Slim recently and it hardly copied anything across.
A few save games were lost, ALL my PSN stuff had to be downloaded again. What is the point!? It seems like it's more for music and videos.
The locked save files I can understand to some extent, because some devs want to prevent cheating by duplicating the save files, but there should be ways for legitimate backups.
I moved to a PS3 Slim recently and it hardly copied anything across.
A few save games were lost, ALL my PSN stuff had to be downloaded again. What is the point!? It seems like it's more for music and videos.
The locked save files I can understand to some extent, because some devs want to prevent cheating by duplicating the save files, but there should be ways for legitimate backups.
Megadragon15
Member
Maybe I'm not reading the thread right. I dunno. I thought I read everything. Guess my comprehension is low. 
I apologise.
I apologise.I'm an expert
Formerly worldrevolution. The only reason I am nice to anyone else is to avoid being banned.
Just for reference I have an 80 gig Japanese PS3 from last November (exactly one year old) and I'm backing it up to a Buffalo 1 TB external (also Japanese). My Demon's Souls is the US version.
For anyone buying a new HDD but using the same PS3:
Do a complete HDD back up through the system menu. That backs up everything, even copy protected saves. Install the new HDD, format it (it will tell you to), then do a restore. It will be like you never even touched the PS3. Your theme, settings, everything will be set up as they were before.
The copy protected saves are so people can't load other people's characters, etc. It would kind of mess up online play.
To do the back up you will need a big enough external HDD, formatted in FAT32 (or equivalent).
taken from a PS forum post.
The big concern is if you get a YLOD then no matter what, your protected saves won't come back.
For anyone buying a new HDD but using the same PS3:
Do a complete HDD back up through the system menu. That backs up everything, even copy protected saves. Install the new HDD, format it (it will tell you to), then do a restore. It will be like you never even touched the PS3. Your theme, settings, everything will be set up as they were before.
The copy protected saves are so people can't load other people's characters, etc. It would kind of mess up online play.
To do the back up you will need a big enough external HDD, formatted in FAT32 (or equivalent).
taken from a PS forum post.
The big concern is if you get a YLOD then no matter what, your protected saves won't come back.
XiaNaphryz
LATIN, MATRIPEDICABUS, DO YOU SPEAK IT
Are HDD backups locked to a specific system?Jonnyram said:
makingmusic476
Member
I had put over a hundred hours into the game when my ps3 bit the dust. I went back and put in another 100+. :lolWEGGLES said:
I think those of you having the backup utility stall on you are having a bigger issue than just having a Demon's Soul save.
I do a back up very week or two, and I've done at least two backups since I started playing Demon's Souls and it hasn't given me any issues completing a backup. Then again, it's well known that quitting Demon's Souls via the XMB rather than going through the in-game "quit game" option can corrupt your save (poor coding by the DS devs IMO, regardless of whether you're online or not and that really shouldn't have gotten through the Sony QC for the Japanese release), so quite frankly I wouldn't be surprised if Demon's Souls itself isn't hosing the file system on some PS3 HDDs.
Or . . . you might have bad sectors on your PS3 HDD or the HDD you're backing up to that is causing the hang.
Do you even read the threads you post in? Locked saves are locked to the system, so you can copy locked saves to a new HDD on the same system fine, the issue is if you buy a replacement/slim (or get a replacement due to a dead system) and try to copy the locked saves over to that.
I do a back up very week or two, and I've done at least two backups since I started playing Demon's Souls and it hasn't given me any issues completing a backup. Then again, it's well known that quitting Demon's Souls via the XMB rather than going through the in-game "quit game" option can corrupt your save (poor coding by the DS devs IMO, regardless of whether you're online or not and that really shouldn't have gotten through the Sony QC for the Japanese release), so quite frankly I wouldn't be surprised if Demon's Souls itself isn't hosing the file system on some PS3 HDDs.
Or . . . you might have bad sectors on your PS3 HDD or the HDD you're backing up to that is causing the hang.
Do you even read the threads you post in? Locked saves are locked to the system, so you can copy locked saves to a new HDD on the same system fine, the issue is if you buy a replacement/slim (or get a replacement due to a dead system) and try to copy the locked saves over to that.
Dr Bad Dude PHD
Banned
Sooo essentially........ I could delete almost everything and just leave a few of the important things so HDD backup is easier and quicker, yeah?XiaNaphryz said:
consoul
Member
My Japanese launch system went YLOD recently and I tried restoring an old backup to my new Slim. Took 2.5 hours and I was informed that some content would not be restored because I was restoring to a different PS3 system.
Hardly anything of any use was successfully restored. Only a handful of my PS3 game saves were restored. No games, demos or DLC were restored. Most mysteriously, none of my 15+ legacy memory cards were restored. PS2 I could understand I suppose (given the loss of PS2 BC), but where the hell are all my PSone cards? In a fucking box in storage somewhere is the answer apparently. Great.
But hey, thanks for restoring all the old trailers of Lair and shit. I really needed those.
Hardly anything of any use was successfully restored. Only a handful of my PS3 game saves were restored. No games, demos or DLC were restored. Most mysteriously, none of my 15+ legacy memory cards were restored. PS2 I could understand I suppose (given the loss of PS2 BC), but where the hell are all my PSone cards? In a fucking box in storage somewhere is the answer apparently. Great.
But hey, thanks for restoring all the old trailers of Lair and shit. I really needed those.
Agent X
Member
This is something that I'm concerned about, especially since my original PlayStation 3 broke earlier this year. Fortunately, I had a good amount of my saves backed up before this happened, and was able to restore most of them, but there were a few games that I was never able to back up from the original system. Street Fighter IV is the most notorious of these, as I had a lot of progress in that game, and had to completely start over on my new system. I've since regained most of what I had before (and even more that I didn't), but I would dread having to do it all over again.
That would be lame to see people running around online with unlockables that they didn't actually earn. However, Capcom could have instead handled it in the way Burnout Paradise did it--by tying the saved data to your PSN ID.
For comparison, I'll run down three examples illustrating different ways that developers have chosen to handle this:
#1 is exactly the way it should be done. From everything that I have read (but have not tried this myself), if I were to transport my save file to a friend's house, then it can only be used as long as I am able to log in using my PSN ID, and only while logged in under that account. This would prevent unauthorized users (in other words, anyone whose PSN ID is not "AgentX") from being able to use the advanced cars that I unlocked, or gain trophies that they don't rightfully deserve--but would still allow me to do so.
#3 is exactly how it should not be done. Learn from this, Capcom!
#2 is better off than #3, since my online stats were retained--but apart from that it still sucks that all my offline progress is gone.
Also, here is something very interesting that you may want to keep in mind: Developers have the ability to patch games to unlock save files that were previously locked. This has been done at least once before, with the game MotorStorm: Pacific Rift. See this entry from the official PlayStation.Blog for more information.
Pctx said:
That would be lame to see people running around online with unlockables that they didn't actually earn. However, Capcom could have instead handled it in the way Burnout Paradise did it--by tying the saved data to your PSN ID.
For comparison, I'll run down three examples illustrating different ways that developers have chosen to handle this:
- Burnout Paradise. This game does not have a locked save file. I was easily able to back up my save to a USB flash drive on my old system. When I got the new system, I restored it, and everything (offline and online) was exactly the same way that I had remembered it. I lost nothing and could pick up exactly where I left off.
- Killzone 2. This game has a locked save file. Last week, I decided to play the game for the first time on my new PS3 (last time I played was on my old PS3 in March). Obviously, I had to start a new save file, so for the offline mode I have nothing and must start from the beginning. However, the game was able to retrieve my online stats from the server, so I was able to play online with my rank and other online unlockables that I had accumulated previously. The game even awarded me a retroactive trophy!
- Street Fighter IV. This game has a locked save file. I had to start over from the beginning, for both offline and online. The only existing record of my February-March gameplay is in a handful of online scoreboard entries that I attained--and of course trophies (which are stored on PSN). Everything else, including my online rank and cumulative win/loss record, was summarily lost forever.
#1 is exactly the way it should be done. From everything that I have read (but have not tried this myself), if I were to transport my save file to a friend's house, then it can only be used as long as I am able to log in using my PSN ID, and only while logged in under that account. This would prevent unauthorized users (in other words, anyone whose PSN ID is not "AgentX") from being able to use the advanced cars that I unlocked, or gain trophies that they don't rightfully deserve--but would still allow me to do so.
#3 is exactly how it should not be done. Learn from this, Capcom!
#2 is better off than #3, since my online stats were retained--but apart from that it still sucks that all my offline progress is gone.
Also, here is something very interesting that you may want to keep in mind: Developers have the ability to patch games to unlock save files that were previously locked. This has been done at least once before, with the game MotorStorm: Pacific Rift. See this entry from the official PlayStation.Blog for more information.
Mr_Appleby
Member
Lindsay said:
you know you can group content in the game saves list? makes a folder for each game.
Agent X said:
only caveat is that you need to be signed in and online? What happens for offline play? I don't mind the idea that if you backup/restore, you have to 'sync' online to activate/validate your saves to that machine, but you still need to be able to play offline too
AgentOtaku
Member
Someone should ask Nintendo this same question
My wife had a good year or so worth of time put into her Animal Crossing City Folk (the only franchise she played and loved as she's not really a gamer) ...then our Wii died and Nintendo wasn't able to recover the data (they basically replaced the console).
Needless to say, she sorta bailed on gaming as a whole. She doesn't understand how in this day an age, you could have system like that and have no contingency IE: Memory cards, etc.
And yeah, I heard about this RE5 patch that unlocked the saves but I coulda sworn my was STILL copy protected when I tried to back it up. Needless to say, I lost all of that shit I unlocked/bought. Really not looking forward to doing it all again for Alternate Edition =(
My wife had a good year or so worth of time put into her Animal Crossing City Folk (the only franchise she played and loved as she's not really a gamer) ...then our Wii died and Nintendo wasn't able to recover the data (they basically replaced the console).
Needless to say, she sorta bailed on gaming as a whole. She doesn't understand how in this day an age, you could have system like that and have no contingency IE: Memory cards, etc.
And yeah, I heard about this RE5 patch that unlocked the saves but I coulda sworn my was STILL copy protected when I tried to back it up. Needless to say, I lost all of that shit I unlocked/bought. Really not looking forward to doing it all again for Alternate Edition =(
AgentOtaku
Member
Oh and bless devs that do alot it
Been playing Borderlands on both my bedroom and living room PS3s for a couple weeks now. So damn convienent!
Been playing Borderlands on both my bedroom and living room PS3s for a couple weeks now. So damn convienent!
xBerserker
Member
Thanks guys I updated the list with the following:
http://www.ps3blog.net/2009/08/26/locked-game-saves-on-the-ps3/
Locked
C&C Red Alert 3
Devil May Cry 4 (Only the online file is locked)
DJ Hero
Patched
Valkyria Chronicles
Resistance 2 (Been told it isn't copy protected)
Let me know of any others and I'll update the list. Hopefully one day we won't need this list ..
http://www.ps3blog.net/2009/08/26/locked-game-saves-on-the-ps3/
Locked
C&C Red Alert 3
Devil May Cry 4 (Only the online file is locked)
DJ Hero
Patched
Valkyria Chronicles
Resistance 2 (Been told it isn't copy protected)
Let me know of any others and I'll update the list. Hopefully one day we won't need this list ..
Grant DaNasty
Neo Member
Face it guys: trophies/achievements are more important to most people than save mobility.
The Faceless Master
Member
hrm, actually, now that i think about it, to make 2 towns in AC Wii, i would need 2 Wiis?AgentOtaku said:
CrayzeeCarl
Member
That's not really possible because the drives are encrypted using a key from the system.dralla said:
POWERSPHERE
Member
Didn't you figure out you have to have wicked skilled saves to be able to save the saves. My saves are radder than your saves, sing it.
Agent X
Member
mrklaw said:
Good question, and to be honest I thought about that shortly after I wrote my post. My PS3 is always online when I use it, so I don't recall ever loading this up while offline. I might give it a try later (play the game while disconnected from PSN) and see if anything happens.
My guess (and this is only a guess, maybe more accurately labeled a "wish") is that for offline play, it should bind to whatever user was last logged onto PSN on that console. So, if I logged onto PSN last, then logged off and remained offline, it would continue me(or anyone else playing that system) to use the save, and update it with any progress that I've made. As soon as someone else logs in, then it would render that save file unusable until (when and if) I log back into PSN. Once I log into PSN, it could update my online stats and trophies accordingly. If it were up to me, that's how I would handle it.
peacemountain
Member
Like RangerX mention in his answer in post 3, its up to the developer. Anyway i throw my thoughts about the hole annoying issue in:
The impossibility to copy your savegame away from your system is a problem for several reasons:
* People owning multiple PS3 are not able to play the Single Player campaign consecutive on changing systems. That means, if you happen to own a PS3 at work, at your girlfriends mansion and at home, which a surprisingly high amount of people actually do, you are bound to play the single player campaign at one location only OR do the whole thing twice or more with separated savegames.
* Hard Disks fail. This has been an issue for PC systems and every other device that contains any sort of storage device. This is especially true for mechanical devices, which are used in every single PS3 model released by now. So, what happens if your hard disk fail? All your savegames are gone forever and if youre not really into IT forensics, theres a good chance you wont see a single byte of those ever again. Say Goodbye to your Dragons Age char youve built in the 50 hours of your life you invested to play the game.
Now, there must be a catch why developers are setting their saves to a "locked" state, where you are not able to copy this savegame, right? There are several possibilites:
* To prevent obtaining trophies without playing the game
Refutation: Trophies are bound to the PSN account. You cannot copy a savegame from user A (with PSN account a) to user B (with PSN account b) and obtain trophies with user B (with PSN account b). This feature is already in place. There is no need to prevent to copy the savegame itself. For reference see all the great games like Burnout Paradise, Ratchet and Clank, Uncharted 2, Dead Space, Little Big Planet and many more.
* To prevent cheating by savegame manipulation as seen in the lousy implementation of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.
Refutation: As I mentioned before, this should really not be an issue that is addressed by locking the savegame, but by implementing server-side checks of the client configuration value, as every more or less professional multiplayer shooter on the PC plattform did 10 years ago. If this is the reason, patch it and unlock the freaking savegame.
* To prevent spreading of a "better" savegame
Refutation: As multiplayer stats are stored server side, the savegame is only relevant for single player play. Personally, I happen to think that people should decide by themself, whether they want to play a game from A-Z by themself or get along quicker by cheating or using someone others savegame. As long as this doesnt affect anyone else by granting a higher rank or other advantages in multiplayer, no one should really care what someone else does with a game he paid for. However, even this issue should be dealt with by binding the savegame to the PSN account as LBP for example seems to do, but not locking the savegame and preventing it from being copied to another storage device.
* To prevent multiplayer statistics from being manipulated
Refutation: As with the second point, this shouldnt really be a problem that exists in a professional product nowadays and Im pretty confident, that developers are smart enough to keep all statistics neat and tidy on the server side. Due to this fact, the savegame should not affect the multiplayer part of the game in any competition-relevant way. The savegame does probably store your preferences for multiplayer games, like voice volume and so on, but I think we can deal with that...
So again: There is currently no reason why the lock of the savegame should not be revoked as soon as possible. This is currently an annoying issue for a lot of people that would just like to play the SP campaign without hassles. So please, bringt out a minor patch, revoke the lock (see for example Motorstorm 2) and everyone will be just fine. Its a minor tweak that would help a lot. So if there is actually no reason why this shouldnt be done, lets just do it.
The impossibility to copy your savegame away from your system is a problem for several reasons:
* People owning multiple PS3 are not able to play the Single Player campaign consecutive on changing systems. That means, if you happen to own a PS3 at work, at your girlfriends mansion and at home, which a surprisingly high amount of people actually do, you are bound to play the single player campaign at one location only OR do the whole thing twice or more with separated savegames.
* Hard Disks fail. This has been an issue for PC systems and every other device that contains any sort of storage device. This is especially true for mechanical devices, which are used in every single PS3 model released by now. So, what happens if your hard disk fail? All your savegames are gone forever and if youre not really into IT forensics, theres a good chance you wont see a single byte of those ever again. Say Goodbye to your Dragons Age char youve built in the 50 hours of your life you invested to play the game.
Now, there must be a catch why developers are setting their saves to a "locked" state, where you are not able to copy this savegame, right? There are several possibilites:
* To prevent obtaining trophies without playing the game
Refutation: Trophies are bound to the PSN account. You cannot copy a savegame from user A (with PSN account a) to user B (with PSN account b) and obtain trophies with user B (with PSN account b). This feature is already in place. There is no need to prevent to copy the savegame itself. For reference see all the great games like Burnout Paradise, Ratchet and Clank, Uncharted 2, Dead Space, Little Big Planet and many more.
* To prevent cheating by savegame manipulation as seen in the lousy implementation of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.
Refutation: As I mentioned before, this should really not be an issue that is addressed by locking the savegame, but by implementing server-side checks of the client configuration value, as every more or less professional multiplayer shooter on the PC plattform did 10 years ago. If this is the reason, patch it and unlock the freaking savegame.
* To prevent spreading of a "better" savegame
Refutation: As multiplayer stats are stored server side, the savegame is only relevant for single player play. Personally, I happen to think that people should decide by themself, whether they want to play a game from A-Z by themself or get along quicker by cheating or using someone others savegame. As long as this doesnt affect anyone else by granting a higher rank or other advantages in multiplayer, no one should really care what someone else does with a game he paid for. However, even this issue should be dealt with by binding the savegame to the PSN account as LBP for example seems to do, but not locking the savegame and preventing it from being copied to another storage device.
* To prevent multiplayer statistics from being manipulated
Refutation: As with the second point, this shouldnt really be a problem that exists in a professional product nowadays and Im pretty confident, that developers are smart enough to keep all statistics neat and tidy on the server side. Due to this fact, the savegame should not affect the multiplayer part of the game in any competition-relevant way. The savegame does probably store your preferences for multiplayer games, like voice volume and so on, but I think we can deal with that...
So again: There is currently no reason why the lock of the savegame should not be revoked as soon as possible. This is currently an annoying issue for a lot of people that would just like to play the SP campaign without hassles. So please, bringt out a minor patch, revoke the lock (see for example Motorstorm 2) and everyone will be just fine. Its a minor tweak that would help a lot. So if there is actually no reason why this shouldnt be done, lets just do it.
charlequin
Banned
All three console-makers absolutely deserve blame for even allowing this (although Microsoft at least has managed to scare most people off of it by making profile-locking a good option.) A well-designed system has no room and no need for locked-down saves.
Rummy Bunnz
Member
PS2 saves could be locked too! So could GC saves. I don't mind that, since memory cards aren't too failure prone or tied to a console. But man do I worry about my PS3 dying and losing my Demon's Souls save.
Apologies if this has already been asked, but does the 360 HDD transfer kit transfer protected saves? I can't remember, even though I used it once.
Apologies if this has already been asked, but does the 360 HDD transfer kit transfer protected saves? I can't remember, even though I used it once.
charlequin
Banned
Rummy Bunnz said:
360 saves don't get locked to the hard drive; a lot are locked to the profile and in like two cases (VP and DoA, I guess?) they're locked to the console. There's no reason for them not to transfer off the HD since it's removable anyway.
Flek said:
You have to re-create local users and tie them to your PSN accounts again. IIRC, you want to do that (using the same local user name as well as tie to the same PSN accounts) first before you do restore, so a few more things will restore properly. However, not everything will transfer because it's a different system.
Wait, so with some of these new games, if your system dies and you restore a backup to a new machine, not only can you not get trophies (I knew this, whatever) on your existing unlocked saves, but if the saves are locked as with Demon's Souls and R&CF2, you can't even play the game using the existing save?
Is this what I'm reading?
Are there any new games from the past month or so that are NOT locked? I've read DJ Hero, know that Demon's Souls and R&CF2 are locked. Assassin's Creed 2 looks to be the same as well.
I was going to get a HD to back my stuff up, but if I can't even play some of these games using existing saves I'm not going to bother...
What a joke :lol
Is this what I'm reading?
Are there any new games from the past month or so that are NOT locked? I've read DJ Hero, know that Demon's Souls and R&CF2 are locked. Assassin's Creed 2 looks to be the same as well.
I was going to get a HD to back my stuff up, but if I can't even play some of these games using existing saves I'm not going to bother...
What a joke :lol
charlequin
Banned
lupin23rd said:
If your system dies, that's correct: there's no way to use your saves from system-locked games like Demons' Souls again.
Agent X
Member
lupin23rd said:
With regard to getting trophies on existing unlocked saves, it would depend on the game. Here's a list of games for which I was able to transport my save from my old PS3 system to my new one, and had successfully earned trophies using the same save data file on both my old system and my new system:
- Blast Factor
- Burnout Paradise
- PixelJunk Eden
- Wipeout HD
There are a few games like flOw and Lemmings which I am not counting here, as those were only very recently patched for trophies (long after I got my new system). I can confirm that for both of those games, I was able to use my old save data before the trophy patch, although after the trophy patch Lemmings restarted my save data (this appears to be a patch issue and probably unrelated to the issue we're discussing here). In the case of flOw, I was able to earn trophies on my old save file.
There are also some other games like LittleBigPlanet and Echochrome, for which I have earned trophies on my old system, but haven't yet received new trophies on the new system because I haven't fulfilled any requirements for earning other trophies. So, from my perspective, these are "unknown" for now with regard to trophies. In both cases, I was able to resume my game progress. Also, I never got a warning from LBP about not being able to earn trophies, so I assume I'm safe.
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