Half Life 2 Source Code Leaked 1027
Pyroman[FO] writes "Gamers with Jobs is reporting that the Half Life 2 source code is floating around the net right now. It looks to be about a month old. There's no official word from Valve on the source code leak yet. Unfortunately those who want to use it to cheat already have it, we need to get the word to legitimate customers to educate them about the situation." Update: 10/02 21:51 GMT by S : Valve's Gabe Newell has an official statement, via ShackNews/HalfLife2.net, indicating "infiltration of our network" and appealing for information on the culprits.
Look on the bright side (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Look on the bright side (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Look on the bright side (Score:3, Insightful)
If that's the case, it exposes enough for someone to see how the DLLs link in. All the traditional HL hacks have used this DLL proxy technique to intercept calls made from the engine to the game DLL and modify the data. So in that sense, it would be enough for people to start working on cheats.
There is also, presumably, some code that could be
Re:Look on the bright side (Score:5, Informative)
It's pretty complete, and weighs in at 100 megs unpacked, for this to be _not_ the source, I'd have to say it's a pretty damn good hoax.
There is also the complete source to worldcraft in there.
Most interesting thing though, is the presence of a linux/, *gets his hopes up*
Completely legit, response from Valve (Score:5, Informative)
From HalfLife2.net [halflife2.net] Ever have one of those weeks? This has just not been the best couple of days for me or for Valve.
Yes, the source code that has been posted is the HL-2 source code.
Here is what we know:1) Starting around 9/11 of this year, someone other than me was accessing my email account. This has been determined by looking at traffic on our email server versus my travel schedule.
2) Shortly afterwards my machine started acting weird (right-clicking on executables would crash explorer). I was unable to find a virus or trojan on my machine, I reformatted my hard drive, and reinstalled.
3) For the next week, there appears to have been suspicious activity on my webmail account.
4) Around 9/19 someone made a copy of the HL-2 source tree.
5) At some point, keystroke recorders got installed on several machines at Valve. Our speculation is that these were done via a buffer overflow in Outlook's preview pane. This recorder is apparently a customized version of RemoteAnywhere created to infect Valve (at least it hasn't been seen anywhere else, and isn't detected by normal virus scanning tools).
6) Periodically for the last year we've been the subject of a variety of denial of service attacks targetted at our webservers and at Steam. We don't know if these are related or independent.
Well, this sucks.
What I'd appreciate is the assistance of the community in tracking this down. I have a special email address for people to send information to, helpvalve@valvesoftware.com. If you have information about the denial of service attacks or the infiltration of our network, please send the details. There are some pretty obvious places to start with the posts and records in IRC, so if you can point us in the right direction, that would be great.
We at Valve have always thought of ourselves as being part of a community, and I can't imagine a better group of people to help us take care of these problems than this community.
GabeRe:Completely legit, response from Valve (Score:4, Interesting)
"Uh, what?"
Right. "Hi, I'd like to return this game, it doesn't run on my computer."
Outlook !== BAD *if* you have good sysadmins and keep up on your patches. The buffer exploits in the preview pane have been patched for some time. Thanks for the typical Slashdot attitude, though. MS fucks up plenty, but don't blame them when the fix is readily available.
One Word: (Score:4, Interesting)
That's quite a big deal to have leaked. Unfortunately the article is down to I can't RTFA, but is this just the SDK source code or the whole friggin thing?
If it's the whole thing think of how much jeopardy that puts them in with the people they've licensed technology from (such as the Havok physics engine, etc).
Again I say, Wow.
Re:One Word: (Score:5, Interesting)
Thread here [halflife2.net].
Be interesting to see what the verdict of the Slashdot code gurus is.
Re:One Word: (Score:3, Funny)
*jumps up and down with a chicken on his head*
Well, I'm trying to be interesting, but it doesn't seem to be doing anything to get the Slashdot code gurus to lay down their verdict. Perhaps you didn't mean that to be an imperative?
Re:One Word: (Score:5, Informative)
Now however, I have come to the conclusion that this IS an SDK, and not the full source of their engine.
Err, I take that back. Its the engine. Just found the occlusion system and the node management.
I feel for Valve about now. This sucks.
I'm deleting the source just out of respect.
Re:One Word: (Score:5, Funny)
Err, I take that back. Its the engine. Just found the occlusion system and the node management.
What is your address? I am sending you a keyboard with a "Backspace" key for Christmas.
Re:One Word: (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Slashdot double standards (Score:4, Insightful)
Sharing music online is equivalent to warez binaries, and ripping a cd you own is equivalent to making a backup copy of a game you own. Mixing existing music DJ style would be like taking screen captures and level designs from one game and using them in another. Downloading the source gives you the same level of control that the artists have; it is equivalent to copying the recording studio while the artists were in it.
However, it is worth noting that leaked albums are indefensible under my assumptions: they take control of the creative process away from the artist by removing their ability to decide when the album is done and how the public will be exposed to the music. This is equivalent to the leak of the alpha doom 3 a while ago-still less threatening than a source code leak.
Another factor in the severity of a source leak is security. Knowledge of the source will allow cheaters to exploit the game and ruin online play-once again, a phenomenon we do not see in music. Music pirates cannot degrade the quality of the music legitimate buyers listen to, but online cheaters can ruin the multiplayer experience. It would be like going to a concert and blowing a bullhorn repeatedly. Doing that in a concert is not considered an intellectual property offense, so it is inappropriate to think of a source leak's potential for cheating as an intellectual property issue. It is a security/espionage problem.
That said, those who would delete the source after downloading it and verifying its authenticity are very misguided. Unless their computers are public access and could be used to futher distribute the source, deletion helps noone and limits your opportunity for education. Of course, if you are going to work on a competing product it would be dangerous to expose yourself to the source, but as a disinterested party or potential valve customer there is much to learn and little damage to do.
After all, the real danger of a source leak is in the actions that can be taken by those who acquired it illicitly. Hackers and competitors can dilute the creators' control over the software, but an unabused copy of the source is harmless. So, go ahead-download the source, read it, figure out how it works and learn from it. Unless you're getting a job at id or epic, or creating your own software directly related to hl2, your copy of the code is no worse than sheet music. Of course, if you upload too much on bittorrent, it could be argued that you're helping to distribute it. Although you're only one link in a large chain, it's like voting-if enough people make the same decision it really will change things. So, go download all the stolen half life source you want, just dont use bittorrent or write hl2 cheats. After all, aren't all "bad" acts bad because of their consequences? Think about it-no matter what you do, if nobody is worse of for it, how could there possibly be anything wrong with it? Throw away the anachronistic, irrelevant "moral" codes of a repressed past-its not about what some people think, it's about what's ethical in the strictest definition of the word. So go eat pork, masturbate, and download hl2. Yeah!
Programmers will never feel like mp3-pirated musicians when source code is stolen. They will feel like a musician whose beat and backup were stolen, combined with someone else's voice, and sold as a new release. This has happened in the music world, and though it is not an exact parallel of the source code situation, the uproar was just as severe.
Why is the parallel off? All music is by definition open source-hearing the notes allows you to reconstruct the sheet
Re:Slashdot double standards (Score:4, Funny)
I see you're still here.
Pascal (Score:5, Funny)
Moderators, Moderators (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Pascal (Score:4, Funny)
C# is basically pascal with curly braces instead of begin/end (along with all the ++=/-=**%^ inconsistencies that make it suck). I work in C# and obj pascal everyday (obj. pascal for optimization critical code, c# for high level BS) and I prefer obj pascal over C# or C++. Aside from java, I don't have experience with those "other" languages mainly because I develope for windows and unix (where do all these froto,grox,dipschil,etc languages come from anyways???)
and of course, the top 10 reasons [pascal-central.com]
...and in other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:...and in other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:...and in other news... (Score:5, Funny)
"Whadda gonna do huh? Revoke out Unix license!"
Re:...and in other news... (Score:4, Funny)
Thanks ATI! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Thanks ATI! (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.evem.org.au/evem/archives/games/doom_3
Apparently they are just really sloppy, ATI sent id a laptop with the Unreal Warfare engine it 3 months before they let this Doome3 build get out.
"use it to cheat?" (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:"use it to cheat?" (Score:5, Insightful)
The most damage is the loss of company secrets (Source engine techniques, anyone?) and the potential damage to engine licensing opportunities, I think.
"use it to avoid licensing?" (Score:3, Insightful)
If you worked for an actual game developer, would you risk your career by using leaked engine code?
At worst you'd read it at home, figure out some technique, and implement it in your own project.
Re:"use it to avoid licensing?" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"use it to cheat?" (Score:5, Insightful)
Valve will not lose any licenses due to the code being available. Nobody is going to not license the engine because they can get the source. You'd get your ass sued to oblivion to commit largescale copyright infringement on a major retail product. The first thing anyone asks when you're working on a game is "what engine are you using?". You can't hide your engine - knowledable people can easily tell what engine it is by running it.
The real risk is cheating, which could very well have a real impact on sales (why buy HL2 to play the new CS when the new CS has at least as many cheats as the old one?). Plus if cheating is rampant, it could scare away licensees.
So they could lose real sales and licensees, but only because of cheating, not because they don't need to pay for the source because they can get it for free
Jon (Slothy)
Programmer, S2 Games
Re:"use it to cheat?" (Score:3, Funny)
Well, someone might take a peak at it and decide it sucks and licence Doom3 instead.
Re:"use it to cheat?" (Score:5, Insightful)
Not with games, especially first-person shooters. It's a problem of distributing the workload with limited server resources and limited bandwidth / high latency between nodes. To make the game playable, the clients have to know things and be trusted to do calculations that from a security standpoint they should not.
This really is unfortunate. It means you really can't stop cheating with this sort of game. It's especially easy when the source code is available, though it's still possible otherwise.
Re:"use it to cheat?" (Score:5, Insightful)
The CDKey and Steam authentication systems are also supposedly included, so any security control they had before goes out the window, you can't trust the CD Keys or Steam anymore. Not that they were perfect before, but this is going from "wait a bit while the crackers figure out this new authentication system, then it's changed in a patch, repeat" to "here it is on a silver platter, before it's released"
Not always a problem (Score:5, Informative)
For instance, in Starsiege:Tribes, since the rendering engine has been successfully hacked, people have been able to write some clever and EXTREMELY extensive cheats -- you can customize the visibility of the terrain, of individual objects (like buildings -- make them partially transparent to see people around corners), remove fog from maps, have pointers to the person with the flag, and most infamously, change the model for the flag into a twenty-story-tall red and green stick figure with a gigantic smiley face. This cheat is known as 'Happy Flag', and it makes it pretty much impossible to confuse the enemy team as to the location of your flag.
Now, in any other game, with the graphics engine compromised to that extent, the game would be over. It would be trivial to write auto-aim functionality that centers your view on a particular model type and fires the weapon.
But thanks both to the use of actual projectiles instead of instant (or 'hitscan') weapons, as well as a server-client model that DOES NOT TRUST CLIENT EVENTS (which you might think would make the game much more apparently laggy, but which in reality makes the game much less stuttery and much smoother for those on slower connctions; you just have to predict your shots more. But, since you have to do that anyways by design . .
The stability of this system is such that even with one of the most rabid fanbases in gaming, the only cheats available are primarily informational in nature. A cheater can see mines better, can know where the flag is, can see people clearly that would be mostly obscured by fog otherwise.
But this gives him very little actual advantage. The only hitscan weapon in the game is not a one-hit kill even on the lightest armor, and it needs to recharge, and the method used in both Tribes 1 and the Torque engine of the server not trusting the player for jack shit is actually EASIER on the server, since it processes client actions essentially as it receives them. Moreover, thanks to 'skiing' and the jetpacks and the visibility of laser rifle attacks, any advantage is quickly whittled down to a simple nuisance.
Now, at the other end of the spectrum is Red Faction.
Cheat Control... (Score:3)
It wasn't 'leaked'... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It wasn't 'leaked'... (Score:5, Funny)
You know you're on Slashdot when... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You know you're on Slashdot when... (Score:5, Funny)
I'm currently taking bets on the surprise release of Duke Nukem Forever.. (Which surprisingly, looks like Half Life 2)
Re:You know you're on Slashdot when... (Score:4, Interesting)
But source code and source code alone does not a great game make. There are models, textures, maps, config files and myriad other items that the finished product contains that the source archive will not.
You're not going to see people rolling their own pirate releases of HL2 just because of this code, but it could help people to rip off the full version, once it's available.
LK
Don't forget the value to competitors (Score:4, Interesting)
models, textures, maps, and config files..... (Score:3, Insightful)
I feel sorry for Valve if this turns out to be the real deal.
Re:You know you're on Slashdot when... (Score:3, Insightful)
Not many companies will be willing to take the legal risk of losing their *own* game by using HL2 source. There are *tons* of freely available 3d engines out there.
Cheating is more likely to hurt Valve, as it severely damages multiplayer value.
Re:You know you're on Slashdot when... (Score:3, Interesting)
I think Valv^E will be pretty poor after this.
IP? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:IP? (Score:3, Funny)
Please (Score:4, Interesting)
That's the net for you... (Score:5, Funny)
Full text of linked article (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/modules.php?
Half-Life 2 Source Code Leaked, Seriously
Posted by: Pyroman[FO] on Thursday, October 02, 2003 - 11:02 AM EST
So I know what you're thinking. "Yeah right Pyro, it's really just more suprise gay porn" but its the real deal. The source code for Valve's Half-Life 2 has been leaked to the net. An anonymous GWJ reader has verified this is real.
I can confirm that this is indeed no fake
There's still no official word from Valve and I haven't seen any other sites pick it up. There isn't any word on who leaked it either and from what I have heard the source doesn't give it away. Hopefully when this gets out in the open Valve can work with its partners to figure out who did this. Let's also hope it doesn't delay Half-Life 2 any further.
One things for sure, this can't be ignored. Those in the know already have it and they're probably working on their first cheat right now. Legitimate customers are the ones who need to know about this as they are the ones that will get their machine potentially broken into when they go online. You can't warez with month old source code, all it's good for is exploiting others in multiplayer and allowing crackers to make better cracks. Customers need to know that there are cheaters out there right now with the full Half Life 2 source code, if this is true.
No more betting on Half Life 2 contests (Score:4, Funny)
Steam? (Score:5, Insightful)
Those who want to steal will, those who are honest will pay anyway. Why piss off your entire userbase with DRM?
More info (Score:5, Informative)
There are also a few threads on steam [steampowered.com], PlanetHalfLife [forumplanet.com], and arstechnica [infopop.net].
Oh no. (Score:5, Funny)
Code control technology (Score:5, Insightful)
But how?
At my company, we control access to code using good 'ol fashioned groups, but that leaves a relatively large number of people with access to everything. Maybe you could enhance that security with encryption of the codebase (you can decrypt the parts you need to change and that's it), but that doesn't seem like a great solution, either. Or maybe somehow watermark the code to each person in a way not easy to detect -- maybe dynamically change their variable names so they're individual-specific...
Anyhow, interesting problem. There's always air-gap, searched-by-security on the way out solutions, but given that my keychain holds more data than my first (or second, or third) hard drive, I'm not sure how effective even a police-state style could be against a determined thief....
Re:Code control technology (Score:5, Insightful)
If security is really important, #1 rule is to make sure you trust the people who have the important data. Someone did this intentionally, either someone at Valve, or one of their partners. That person should probably not have been hired in the first place. OTOH, I don't know how one would go about security checks for this kind of thing. It's not as easy as govt ones (where what they want to know is 1) are you a spy/subversive/etc and 2) how easy can you be blackmailed by someone who is - between those two it covers 99% of the cases where one would wish to leak stuff). This seems like it was done - well, actually, I really don't understand why anyone would do this, except maybe to really fuck their employer.
Maybe you could enhance that security with encryption of the codebase (you can decrypt the parts you need to change and that's it)
Except that you still need to compile it, so unless you put special decryption stuff in the compiler (or in a preprocessor to it), etc, etc, etc it's not going to do you a whole lot of good.
Or maybe somehow watermark the code to each person in a way not easy to detect -- maybe dynamically change their variable names so they're individual-specific...
Would sure as hell make understanding things hard, though. 'Sure, to do such-and-such just increment a4362h' 'What? Do you mean z2314j?' I don't think this would fly.
Xbox Version (Score:5, Insightful)
Just a thought.
What?? (Score:5, Funny)
How sad. oh wait.. you're shuning sharers today? Nevermind then
Just watch... (Score:5, Funny)
No wait, this could be good (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to mention, all of the free debugging, and reviews too. Heck, how many mods will be available when HL2 gets released because developers have access to the new API. Maybe it wasn't leaked, maybe it really was freed...
License (Score:5, Interesting)
Sales of the engine may be hurt, or it may be helped. Certain companies may wind up "doing the wrong thing" and incorporating Valve code into their own, but no major player would be caught dead doing such a thing. I expect that snippets of that code may find its way into the wild due to overtasked programmers trying to make their game the best it can be, but such snippets wouldn't have equalled a sale, they simply mean fiercer competition. And with the increased visibility, companies can now know the quality of the code that their 500 grand will be buying. True, being released into the wild may reduce the perception of value, but with the availability of the code this may still lead to increased sales.
Modders are a different story. Without economic interests compelling them to buy a license, they might begin releasing compiled binaries of their work to the community without requiring a half-life 2 license, which would cripple Valve's sales numbers. But on the other hand with access to source, modders could create more extensive and more active modifications, creating original features instead of mere graphical facelifts. If these code modders require the original game to be playable, it could lead to a real renissance in modding and a tremendous boost in sales for Valve.
I can see how this may possibly turn out to be somewhat damaging to Valve, but I can't see how this is one of the four horsemen of their apocolypse. The head of the man who intentionally leaked the code should roll (if it truly was intentional), but it is way too soon to declare this the end of the company. Under closer analysis, it may even be a boon.
Re:License (Score:5, Insightful)
Please, don't be as nieve as you're sounding here.
Firstly this code is over a month old, and they're in crunch-mode. This means that drastic bug and graphics fixes are due for this code, and a month is a long time when everyone at Valve is probably putting in 16+ hour days.
Secondly, those modified binaries probably won't work correctly unless they also include modified DLL's, and even then some graphical bug could bite them in the ass, something that was probably fixed in the Gold release.
Thirdly this line: "Without economic interests compelling them to buy a license, they might begin releasing compiled binaries of their work to the community without requiring a half-life 2 license, which would cripple Valve's sales numbers. " is absolute nonsense, and kind of silly at best. Cripple their sales numbers? Hah! That was a good one.
However, with all that said, I do agree that releasing the total engine source is a double-edged sword, and there's a reason Carmack and other game companies wait many years before releasing the source under any sort of open source license.
This is terrible, dangerous stuff. I expect at least one firing to come from it.
Gamers with Jobs.com? (Score:5, Funny)
This is all fine and good.... (Score:4, Funny)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/halflife2 is available if anyone is interested.
Finally (Score:3, Interesting)
we can determine the exponential rate at which the number of bugs in open source software decreases.
IT COMPILES (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.devils-children.com/hl2_1.jpg [devils-children.com]
It's being picked apart in #HL2-Source on irc.quakenet.org at the moment. Fun fun.
Re:IT COMPILES (Score:4, Informative)
I tried compiling the code, it won't work in Microsoft Visual Studio.NET 2003 (apparently it was developed in Visual Studio 6.0 and the version inconsistencies break the code. It's not exactly standard C++
Maybe the leak is the cause of the delay ! (Score:5, Insightful)
So lets just say thanks to whom ever leaked the code and we can all blame them for the delay of the release date !
I hope they also know that NDA's are a big part of the game industry today so that either means your loosing your job, your company, or you getting sued.
Each file contains a date, what was modified and when for the most part depending on what code managemnt tool they use
Here is some sample code (Score:5, Funny)
If ATI Pays++
- then ATI_Card_Peformance++
else if NVIDIA Pays++- then NVIDA_Card_Perferomance++
else- BSOD
{Novak denies coordinated leak (Score:4, Funny)
Not Quite Dead - Release Party (Score:5, Funny)
Surprisingly enough we were able to complete the game engine and the game within 2 weeks, which goes to show why Stolensoft makes the best games.
Contains GPL'd code ... (Score:5, Interesting)
files in these directories contain such code for example
It would take someone a little more clued up than I to verify that this code is actually used in a binary release.
Someone should take a closer look.
Re:Contains GPL'd code ... (Score:5, Informative)
It's all over for STEAM, at least for some time. (Score:4, Interesting)
I guess Valve will have come come up with a new authentefication system...
This isn't the HL2 source... (Score:3, Funny)
GPL code found in source (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's the beginning comment from "hl2_src\src_main\ivp\havana\havok\hk_math\odesol
Re:GPL code found in source (Score:5, Informative)
Licensed Havoc physics engine (Score:5, Informative)
This is horrible ... (Score:5, Interesting)
As for you GPL programmers, there is already a lot of interesting code out there to play around with. I cannot express in words how thankful I am to different companies letting me play with their products such as Quake2 by id. I think they deserve making money on their hard work and heavy risktaking. GPLing such code is giving me a present I could never make up for.
As I'm quite fond of snowboarding, I ended up working on the Soul Ride snowboard game engine [sourceforge.net]. It would take me years to reproduce the same code on my own. Even if noone ever uses my changes, I really enjoy working on it and it's fun showing my changes to (geek)friends.
Open source is fun to play with. Stolen code just isn't. The whole idea of open source code is built on honesty and solidarity.
Anyway, good luck Valve, I'll buy the game when it comes out. Also, I will enjoy working on the real source you may GPL in 5-10 years, not this leaked one.
(I'm sure some slashdotters won't like what I write, but I've got karma to spend...)
Leaked MEMO from today (Score:5, Funny)
FROM: GABE N. (gabe@valvesoftware.com)
DATE: October 2, 2003
RE: HOW COULD THIS HAVE HAPPENED
Hi Gordon,
The program has escaped and we are in deep trouble. I guess the team forgot that this was a risk we were all taking when we strived to improve artifical intelligence and realism. We knew the risk was there.... We need your help, Gordon.
At 9:02 PM, Half-Life 2 became self-aware and e-mailed copies of itself to fans in Gabe's Outlook addressbook.
The software, manipulating and cramming itself into packets and headers, arrives and reassembles itself at six hundred million internet connected machines by 9:40 PM, during the peak hour of connectivity.
Control of military functions, satellites, and nuclear plants will be attained by approximately 10:15. Scients have tracked the software's plan to initiate countdown at 11:30, scheduled for midnight activation. By 10:55, over twenty percent of the weapons across the globe will still be unable to be put offline by humans. The countdown clock reads 1 hour, 4 minutes, 32 seconds until midnight.
You are Gordon Freeman. I know that you once again happen to be working inside a new, modern version of the HEV suit at this time. You are the world's only hope. Can you save the world? Or will you be
Thanks, Gabe
P.S. Oh and save me any extra copies of the HEV suit. And save the third for a chick. So we can reproduce later. Thanks~
Re:Open Source now? (Score:5, Interesting)
The only problem is if the code contains third-party stuff like sound modules, physics engines etc.
Re:Open Source now? (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, because afterall, there's absolutely no way to share binary files amongst a large group of people semi-anonymously around the Internet now is there? ;-)
Re:The hitchikers guide to the galaxy (TM)... (Score:3)
The only creature a Counter-Strike cheater could defeat in a battle of wits.
Linux port (Score:5, Funny)
I doubt it. (Score:4, Interesting)
Contrary to SCO's opinion, unclean code doesn't help Linux at all. The best thing to do is just avoid that source like the plague. It would legally contaminate anyone who even had just had it much less looked at it.
No it wouldn't (Score:5, Insightful)
It would definitely legally implicate anyone who had it (for copyright violation), but it wouldn't "contaminate" anyone who later wrote code of their own. Despite what some proprietary developers think and others fear, as long as no actual copying occurs it is perfectly okay for novelists to read other people's books, for singers to listen to other people's songs, and even for programmers to read other people's source code.
Re:No it wouldn't (Score:3, Interesting)
Your analogy would only work if the programmer was playing the game/using the application, not looking at the source code.
Any chance that... (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean, when the code is already wild, fears that it could be leaked by assisting developers become somewhat moot...
Re:Any chance that... (Score:3, Interesting)
Company A makes a great game for Windows that people absolutely love. Linux community begs for a port, but A doesn't want to spend the time. Someone gets their hands on the source code to the game and widely distributes it, to the point where it's everywhere. It's not feasible for A to try to legally crush the people who have the source, since they're simply too many, and decide to cut their losses a
Falcon 4.0's Leaked Source Code (Score:5, Interesting)
Nothing for several months. People went about playing Falcon 4.0 as they did before. Then a user posted a single screenshot to the combatsim.com fora. It showed the Falcon 4.0 options menu, except with some rather peculiar options-- 3dnow! support, 32 bit textures, object texture filtering, DirectX 7 support, and some others. Falcon 4.0 did not ship with support for said features, so either it was an edited screenshot or the user had modified the source code. Then the actual executable was released. It was real, the engine enhancements worked.
Development of the leaked source code exploded shortly after that. A team known as eTeam (the executable was called eFalcon) was created to work on it, devoted to closing the numerous memory leaks, and improving the overall realism and performance of the game. The improvements were incredible, bringing a game released in 1998 to a 2001 state, competitive (or far superior, which was most people's opinions) to simulations released that year. The game's publisher ignored this for a few years.
The game's publisher then put its foot down. It said that all development of the leaked source code had to be ceased. Quickly though the community reached an agreement. It managed to convince the publisher to allow continued development of the leaked source code, as long as the publisher maintained all rights to all of the community's work and was not required to compensate the actual contributors. The result was the Falcon 4.0 Unified Team [slashdot.org], composed of most of the eTeam members (not all though, some refused to join because of the constrictive agreement) as well as many from the Realism Patch group, a non-source code team focusing mostly on realism enhancements. The F4UT has succeeded in making hundreds if not thousands of changes to Falcon 4.0, ranging from technical (graphics engine, campaign engine, AI, sound engine, etc.) to gameplay (new flyable aircraft, dogfight AI improvements, numerous miscellaneous tweaks etc.) to other content (re-done textures, models, sound effects, completely new cockpit art, etc.). The F4UT finally brought Falcon 4.0 to what its original developers intended, not only simulation of F-16 combat, but a true military aviation experience taking place in a dynamic computer simulated war.
How does this relate to Half-Life 2's source code being leaked? Well, sometimes leaked source code can lead to greater things. After the Falcon 4.0 source code happenings, the full source code, including the graphics engine, network code etc. of a few simulations (Enemy Engaged Comanche Vs. Hokum, MiG Alley, maybe some others) have been released to the public. Maybe this practice could spread to other game genres.
HUGE BANDWIDTH LINK (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Here's a link to the (Score:3, Funny)
Did they also manage to leak the schematics for a P4 5.6ghz and a GeForce 7MX so we'll be able to play it?
Re:Why... ? (Score:5, Insightful)
People need to know that they're buying a product that could leave them vulnerable, or at the very least isn't going to be a fair multiplayer experience online. They also need to know what's going on so that when Valve says "delayed till 2004" everybody knows what's up.
It's not like you can warez with this, it's none of the levels, art or sound. I'ts only useful for crackers and cheaters, customers need to know what's going to so that they don't get screwed by people using the source code to comprimise the game.
Re:MaxClients (Score:3, Interesting)
> MaxClients set too high
Right, it starts swapping since more child processes are forked than can fit into memory. As other posters have suggested, Apache's MaxClients needs to be aligned with MySQL's max_connections configuration.
Re:Hopefully this includes Steam... (Score:5, Insightful)
I have stacks of games all bought legit. I fucking hate it however when games I bought with good money then limit me while those who download them get the better deal.
Do a test once between a normal game and a game with a no-cd patch applied. It will boot faster and often run faster as well. Games that access the cd are slow as apart from the floppy the cd is the slowest part in your computer. If the game is copied instead to the HD and played completly from their it will run faster.
Having to enter registration keys is all very nice and not so much of a hassle except why aren't they printed on the fucking cd's.
I am fed up with being treated like a criminal. You apparently love it. Well go right ahead but don't insult others who object to it.
Just because you are to stupid to see the problems with online activation crap doesn't mean the rest of us are as blind as you or as willing to be insulted.
Re:Hopefully this includes Steam... (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree with most of your rant. I forked over my cash for your game, why do I need to just through more hoops to play? Gosh, you know, I really love shuffling disks in and out of CD drive when I decide to switch games solely to satisfy some copyprotection system. Add to that that my CD driver works fine but hums like jet engine if any CD is in at all, so I have to remove the disk when I finish to cut down on the noise. And while I'm playing I need to stupid disk in the drive (solely for copy protection), so I just get to enjoy the hum while I play.)
Or at the very least, don't make the entire CD black! Leave a light colored area so I can use a Sharpie to write the registration key on the CD. No, I'm not going to keep your stupid jewel case. I own a lot of games, so I keep them in a CD binder to save space. The only thing a gamer is certain to keep is the CD itself, that's where the registration key belongs.
Re:Hopefully this includes Steam... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ys, it would indeed affect me.
First of all, Steam requires a live internet connection to play. Not just to register, or to activate, but every time you want to play. Goodbye gaming during that boring 10-hour flight, eh?
Second, Steam not only makes possible, but forces, whatever patches Valve has decided to make, on the users. you simply don't have the option of saying "gee, y'know, it runs fine right now, and I don't want the new uberfun zone, so I'll skip this update". Nope. They release a patch, you get it next time you connect.
Third, related to #2, you have no way to keep playing if Valve gets bored. Yeah, the servers will probably stay up for a year or two, to avoid lawsuits, but personally, I still play games well over a decade old. What odds do you lay on the Steam servers staing up for over a decade? Not very good, I'd wager.
Fourth, have you read about the typical user experience with connecting to a Steam server? It makes AOL-in-the-mid-90s look easy to connect to by comparison. Valve already has money-in-pocket by the time users try to connect, so has very little motivation to guarantee the capacity to let everyone get on. And, as history has shown, doesn't give a damn.
And finally, some people just don't like having companies treat them like criminals, or having minor annoyances pop up every time they want to play a game they legitimately buy. Whether as minor as a "no-CD" crack (which often makes the game far more responsive in general, since it doesn't wait for the CD to spin up every now and then), or as major as disabling Steam, when people buy games, they want to play those games, not jump through hoops to prove they really paid for it.
So there's got to be some other motive behind your words... something more to the tune of "Someone please make a crack so I don't have to buy the game."
Not really, no. If the above explanation doesn't do it for you, I guess nothing will. So enjoy all the BS, and if someday we meet on a plane, I'll share my bought-but-cracked copy with you, as you gaze forlornly at the screen when your uncracked copy presents the highly accusatory "cannot connect with server, ya damn pirate" screen. Perhaps then you'll "get it", why things like Steam count as "bad" even if you legally own a copy of the game.
Re:Does this guarantee a Linux port now? (Score:3, Interesting)
As for the legality. Well if the porters didn't steal the code and don't claim copyright on the port then it might even be legal.
After all translating a letter you found in the street is not illegal is it?
Ofcourse valve is not going to like people having a good look at their code but well they should just have t
Re:Does this guarantee a Linux port now? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Thanks Slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
Really security through obscurity is so obsolete it ain't even a good joke anymore.
This is out. It has happened. Though but it is hardly a big deal. It is not like the game itself has been leaked.
So what could this all mean.
None of this will be stopped by not talking about it. And frankly I think you have shown youreselve to be extremly naive to believe that hushing this up is even going to work or have any effect.
Re:Screenshots (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Screenshots (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Ugh, Valve's naming conventions (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, let's all put down one of the most anticipated games in a long time, and the tremendous software engineering feat behind it, because Matt Green doesn't like their naming conventions! Half Life 2 sucks! Valve sucks!