Hello Phil,
P> Firstly, I would encourage you to get your definition of 'hacker' correct P> before you start shaking your finger at them. "Open Letter to Hacker Community" was better than "Open Letter to Hacker, Cracker, ScriptKiddie, Virii, Troyan Makers etc... people". I know hacker mean a guy soo good at coding/system that can write no-obvious workarounds for problems not-soluble other way. Hollywood is redefining hacker has "system cracker". >> I think Valve is triing to become the next Microsoft. The Steam tools >> is crappy, and damage users gameplay with delays and failures, and >> restrict singleplayer ability. Its the first step of a highly >> dangerous technology to damage freedom: DRM. P> How have they done any of that? That is just your personal experience. It P> hasn't changed the way that authentication is done, it hasn't introduced any P> new DRM, it hasn't restricted anything that you couldn't do before. P> All it is, is a new way to deliver Valve's content, authenticate to the servers P> (which were WON until Steam) and update the games. I dont want to comments the negative points, but... Not true: You have to use the same tool (Steam), you can't use 3th party tools, better tools than Steam. Bye Bye GameSpy, QTracker,... You can't still LAN or SP offline (will be fixed soon). You can't hack files into cache, but you can hack files into pak files. Ok, only power users and hackers care about, but the letter was address to this people... Everything is now imprisioned and buried inside Steam. The tool that access/able everything IF valve want.... Hopefully you can still directly access the hl.exe executable to lauch games :] This is somewhat like these TCPA .doc files. If Valve want to forbid "Mod Bart Simpson" can remake a new version that disable that mod, and "withouth consent" download to all users computers. This is not a problem for me, but I am not a hacker. But I think hacker will really disagree TCPA alike stuff... Maybe hackers will help to fix the Steam limitations. >> Valve as work dirty in the past. Unable Quake1 developpers to use >> both tools and some media into Quake1. P> When you take the Q1 engine, mix in stuff from Q2 and your own custom P> modifications, I'd love to see you do anything like backwards compatability P> with Q1. Valve licensed the Q1 engine fair and square and had no obligation, P> need or want to make it backwards compatable. Had not obligation other than be fair and make friends. Soo If you remove Q1 compatibility from Worldcraft... you gain enemys!.. not good. Ooops... maybe compatibility is droooped ? maybe... but is forbid at the license AND people as discovered a way to workaround (HACK HACK HACK) the problem to still use Worldcraft. q1rad is a quake1 tool to light maps with rendersity... maybe a illegal tool, but exist. You can also make Q1 maps with Hammer, but Valve forbit it... I not like that, but I not blame Valve. I list stuff that hackers disagree and hate. This is a well know example. Worldcraft, a Q1 map tool, generate BSP maps, Valve disable that (or drop) and forbid, also create is own "incompatible" BSP format. But this is also "fake" as is very easy to enable support for HL maps for Quake1. A lot of Q1 engines support HL maps. Valve forbid *me*, to upload cs_siege.bsp to my homepage and share with other files with instructions to copy this file at /quake/cstrike-ish-mod/maps Maybe this was a bussines decision, made to have more profit. Cool!. But you gain more enemys. More people will become angry. >> Abducting good mods inside >> (like Counter-Strike). Valve overload the market with his product, >> that unable oportunitys for other developers. Valve write nazi >> Licenses. P> Abducting? I'm assuming that gooseman agreed to having his MOD commercialised, P> otherwise Valve faces some serious charges. Microsoft Abducting. Lotus 1-2-3 => Excel Wordperfect => Word Mosaic => IE (builtin) Winzip => Explorer (builtin) ftp => Explorer (builtin) Winamp => Windows Media Player Valve Abducting Counter-Strike TeamFortress ... (more?) Good or Bad? I am not sure. Maybe enhance the mods itself. Good to the community. But its harder to make other mods. Its a tradeoff. P> And where are these nazi licenses, valve are incredibly nice with their MOD P> licenses. Already comment. >> If you think now the target is Valve. Please re-think. Its not cool to >> fuck a lot of people that where triing to get his fun from this. And >> Its not cool to fuck people doing fun games for all of us. If you have >> fun hacking, download Uplink game. P> Might want to address that one to the CRACKER community. :] yes, but for the public consume the word hacker is more common P> -Philip Thanks for your mail. Helll I have comment the negative side of the letter. Not good. The Valve work was sooo nice. Quake1 Singleplayer and most other FPS games was boring. But Half-Life has break everything to a new level. Good sp gameplay, good DM,... a intergrated game browser, everyting ready to fire and play. Not only, but mods like Counter-Strike show that the engine is very good to make mods, and Valve has help a lot with the SDK. Also was good that patch continue evolving and fixing some problems with the engine. But not too fast, but slowly, to make posible to play withouth the need to download big files everyday. Etc..ETc.. Etc... I am more interested at comment the positive aspects of valve. Because from negative you will learn nothing interesting, but from positive you have to learn about sucess, how to make good games, and how to make good engines. I am sorry for my english, is crap. _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlcoders
