a good post on the Implications of the leak-
http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10894

That's an excellent summary, fraggleroc.

Supporter of the "A fredster By Any Other Name Is Still The Same" fan club.

http://www.hybridsoundsystem.com/

Bites the hands that feed.

I don't know about you, but it was quite an experience to have played thru Half-life the first time when it came out. And it's mods have let me enjoyed the game a further 5 years or so.

Well, you can make that kinda money too if you have the Skillz in making a great game. Apparently you don't. So stick your sorry, jealous, poor ass somewhere else.

a good post on the Implications of the leak-
http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10894

bid:
Try not to blanket the "gaming community" with the assumption that they share your communist views.

"Normally I'd be outraged by such an incident! However Valve's current reputation as a greedy money hungry corporation with dubious business practices has caused them to fall our of favor with the gaming community."

EXACTLY!!!!!!

STEAM is just smoke & mirrors for Valve to quadruple their money. BUNCH OF GREEDY FUCKS!!!

Normally I'd be outraged by such an incident! However Valve's current reputation as a greedy money hungry corporation with dubious business practices has caused them to fall our of favor with the gaming community.

That almost seemed an intelligent and valid argument. But, you sir, morally, are an idiot.

The arguements and my rebuttles:

1.)"Valve is screwed because no one will liscence" - This is a silly arguement if I was going to put time developing a game I hoped to sell I sure as hell wouldn't do it on code which could easily be determined stolen. Some companies might take some of Valve's idea's and use them in their own projects. But once you start using Valve's code it gives them more incentive to liscence all of Source.
2.) Cheating - There may well be more cheats. Unfortunate but true. As far as I can tell Steam is simply a method of preventing cheating, so as far as Valve is concerned this is all for the best. "Keep those monthly payments comming!"
3.) "We owe Valve so this is terrible" - We do, HL was a great game for $50-$60. No denying it, but the major popularity came from Valve essentially exploiting the mod community. All modders want is a large possible install base and untill there are free engines available they will continue to use the largest engine available. HL2 takes this for granted with the introduction of Stream and monthly payments. Their business model turned from "Good" to "Evil", watch as public oppinion turns from "Positive" to "...".
4.) I look at the whole thing as the first chance for a mod team to develop a game complely for free with a current engine. If games are not created and released through the warez distribution system it will be a shame. Valve gets 50-250k to liscence their engine, I think they should get approximatly that much if someone releases a free (In both ways. [I.E. Beer and Open Source.]) modification. If you want to get up in arms about it feel free to pay them $50 when you download any free games which come out, if they make it possible I intend to.
5.) Security stuff - Let me just reiterate here, Valve did nothing wrong.
6.) Why only the source? - If hackers had access to all the game resources (Which they almost certainly did) why only release the source? It comes down to a hacker mentality that people are inherently good and therefore deserve access to almost all information. Releasing just the source means it's not a pirate release but an opportunity for the internet community to develop using these tools. People can now develop their own games based upon this while not hindering Valve's ability to release a quality product. If everyone did this Valve would indeed be thrown back in to the melee of competing game engines but the outcome would be better products all around. After the Steam fiasco (They are essentially getting people to pay, monthly, anti piracy servers.) I don't think we owe Valve enough to cry over a general improvement in gaming to their minor detriment. From now on every game that is released should have an engine and netcode equal to HL2. So Kudos.

"Where's the crime? If YOU got offered money and/or a real job, for a "hobby" project you did, wouldn't you take it?
"

If I had any inkling that it might be bastardized like TFC?

No. You couldn't pay me enough money to take a good concept, and turn it to crap. Money is not the ultimate peak of my life, maintaining my lifestyle and happiness about every decision I make is.

Before Valve, nobody went into mod-making thinking they were going to make any money off of it, and anyone still doing it would be wise to feel the same way. Great mods don't come from being paid, they come from doing something you love doing, regardless of whether you're getting paid. You can pay a crap team for their mediocre mod...it's not going to make it any better.

This whole incident seems all to familiar to what happened to Quake. Before the game was even released, someone had given someone a password to a secured section of their FTP, and they got a hold of the quake source. It was then released between some people (not as many people compared to now since distribution methods and the internet itself weren't as mature) and some linux gurus got a hold of it. They did what they needed to do, and released a version of quake for linux before Id had even released the windows version. This is evidence for anyone that says that this whole thing will kill Valve and Half Life 2. This same thing happened to quake, and look where quake went, and where it still is today.
On another note, I gurantee that this also won't affect the way we play Half Life 2 online, as far as dealing with cheaters and such. Valve was fully aware of this problem, and more than likely assumed this would happen before anyone of us knew about it. Hell, it was stolen on the 19 of September. That was a full 13 days before we even knew about it. They aren't stupid, they will modify the crucial parts of the source so that once the game is released, the old source will be worthless. Oh well, I know that I will go out and buy this game the day its released no matter what happens between now and then. My father once said, (actually always) "Life's a bitch, then you die."

Wow! I am 200!

alas, maybe it will go GNU and we'll see it listed on SourceForge...

I think it is time for a class-action suit against MS. This shit has caused so much damage to the economy that MS needs a good slap in the face to say FIX YOUR #$%$@#$& SOFTWARE.

And to those saying Valve deserved it, shut the $#%@ up.

This comment was edited on Oct 3, 08:55.

I was going on the assumption that since Outlook was mentioned that the "source" was on a windows machine and there fore if the hacker had only tftp access or a form of ssh even maybe (ew) telnet it would be difficult to tar/zip/rar it up... what ever is out there is "release group" packaged nested in rar's and zips and how the "source" was originally gotten is still a mystery...
i wonder if Id is refraining from taking a peek?....

Well said

here is a fast chat someone had with myg0ts fearless leader:

Well, if it was a myg0t or maggot that got the source code then maybe it'll open up Valve's eyes on cheating. These assholes probably just want the source code so they can figure out how to cheat & hack the game and possibly its mods, nothing more. If you played CS with cheaters then you probably ran into them. If I was a game addict hacker and got that deep into Valve's servers, I'd just get a beta of HL2, not the source code. These jack-offs go to such lengths just to cheat, hack, and grief in games like CS that its beyond me that they have nothing better to do. These kids seriously need girlfriends.

This comment was edited on Oct 3, 07:41.

Hbringer,

Its also DEFINITELY a business! Its there to make money

Which is EXACTLY the reason why I find the current prevailent attitude amongst game developers so repugnant. You're not providing a global cure to all forms of disease, you're just providing a product that some people want to buy, in order to make yourself some money.

And it seems that, a few exceptions noted, most game developers nowadays think that pissing off their customers is the best way to do so. Quite frankly, I'm amazed at the fact the gaming industry is still growing. With the ever increasing "Ship it now, patch it later, maybe" attitude, and the plain sheer arrogance found in a lot of companies, why people keep buying so many games is a damn good mystery.

many game developers would still develop - just on a smaller scale as they couldn't afford to do it as a "day job"

Which might actually not be a bad idea, if you ask me. Every writer in the world has to start out that way (believe me, I know), and apart from Stephen King, no writer in the world bitches at his customers. Remember that "biting the hand that feeds you" bit?

Creston

Put your development material in a DMZ zone with no connection to the net. I worked for IBM, Kodak, Lucent and ReadRite, they had enough sense to put there development code in an isolated network and used seperate machines on another network for email corispondence and such. You guys are security idiots no wonder Half Life is the most haxed game of all time.. what idiot is running that place?? I need a job and some easy money for not knowing how to do it... cant hack an isolated network unless you break into the building.... Wake up this is Standard procedure in my experience.


Sean

I Guess someone got STEAMED at them.... Maybe that Krap Steam messed with some haxz Counter Strike game??? HelpValve put STEAM on your Systray to Live forever.... Like HL2 wont take enough of our system resourses, without steam... I guess there getting treated like MicroScum and getting attacked for there "community spirit".. If there such the part of the community why do they ignore the million complaints about STEAM and the Communities desire not to have another system resourse LEACH like steam forced on us like some Lame azz AOL or Microsoft marketing sceem. Valve is about $$$$$$$ so get off the Fn community soapbox your standing on Gabe and say it like it is... "We want your $$ and do not give a F!@# what the community wants". I already canceled my preorder of HL2 after the fourth installation of Steam proved to be a complete waist of my time. Plenty of games have content update as part of the game and do not need another piece of software to accomplish it. The only not so original thing Steam offers is another way to get at our money and another "HOOK" into us and our rigz. I hope HL2 goes as well as STEAM and Valve Chokes on there arogance.

Sean

here is a fast chat someone had with myg0ts fearless leader:

http://www.counter-hack.net/content.php?page=interview_%5Bmyg0t%5Dg0d

just a kid. just a little punk kid. what a waste.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
PAH!

Good luck 28 pages of DRAMA

Fucking myg0t clan. They are the bane of all gaming, especially HL's and its mods.