[Kingzjester]

Perhaps since it is open source, hax0rz are not challenged enough, so they leave it alone. It is a dumb prospect, and not really worth considering. It just isn't fun when it is easy - then again, the guy had to steal the source first and then go at the cheats... late for class; no time to make written thougts cohesive...

[ragnar]

Originally Posted by twifkak

Well, I'm going to ignore 1, for obvious reasons, but 2 is a valid point. So what would you like to take out of Half-Life in place of security? The jawdropping graphics? The amazing AI? The ability of the engine to accomode open levels and giant car-crushing striders? The physics engine? I'll give you the choice.

I'm not saying they should lay *all* their money on cheat-security. A game without gameplay is quite worthless. On the other hand, a game without gameplay is the most secure one. ;P

Originally Posted by DomStLeger

Heres something I was wondering; could the open source community legally look at the illegal code and rewrite it with equivalent code, to make an open source version of the engine; thus allowing open source games to make a huge leap forward? Or would any code derived from the illegal source code in itself also be illegal code?

They could of course look at the code and then write your own engine (without using the HL2 code), but the key here is that they still need to write it themselves. That takes time. It is quite the same as if a commercial company would look at the code and making an engine. It could be used to get inspiration on solutions to different problems though and incorporate such things into engines like CrystalSpace.

Originally Posted by DomStLeger

(Edit: and another thing, Valve have effectively lost a lead over their competitors right? There is nothing they can do with the old code to regain that lead. So would it make sense to make their part of the HL2 code open source; thus ensuring the competition; while able to use the code legaly; effectively end up having to compete with lots of valve derived games, loosing their own leads and completely changing the shape of the market?)

I don't think they have lost much of their lead. No company can use the HL2 code directly, so they still need an awful lot of coding before they can have a similar engine. Besides, they probably have the basic knowledge already. It's more about good optimizations that will determine how good the engine is. I wouldn't mind if they open sourced the game though.

Originally Posted by Marek

Ragnar: you have to consider that the people who write cheats or exploits always go for the biggest audience. They love reverse engineering a game that has hundreds of thousands of players because, of all those players, it's *them* who figured it out. That's why there's Half-Life clans devoted to cheating. There's little challenge (or fame) to get from writing cheats for relatively obscure open-source games.

This is also why nearly all viruses are written for Windows, not MacOS or Linux.

That is certainly a valid point. Therefore it is *more* important for Valve to make sure it is hard to cheat. And in open sourced games an exploit will probably be fixed very fast after it has been discovered, since everyone can fix the code.

[remixor]

Originally Posted by ragnar

2) A multiplayer games first priority is always to make sure it is secure against cheating. No one will play it, no matter how good the graphics and gameplay are otherwise, if there are serious issues with cheating.

Well, yes, they will. That's where cheating issues come from. Diablo II has had huge cheating problems for years, and tons and tons of people STILL play it. The legit players complain constantly, but considering the game came out years ago, the player base is still pretty impressive. I'm sure this is the case for many games.

[ragnar]

Originally Posted by remixor

Well, yes, they will. That's where cheating issues come from. Diablo II has had huge cheating problems for years, and tons and tons of people STILL play it. The legit players complain constantly, but considering the game came out years ago, the player base is still pretty impressive. I'm sure this is the case for many games.

Yes, people still play it, so what? I think they would have liked it even more without the cheating.

Call To Power II is a good example of a cheat killing the multiplayer. It is a cheat that gives you a very great advantage. Activision never cared about it and thus never fixed it. No one else has been able to come up with a way to stop the cheat either.

[twifkak]

Originally Posted by ragnar

That is certainly a valid point. Therefore it is *more* important for Valve to make sure it is hard to cheat. And in open sourced games an exploit will probably be fixed very fast after it has been discovered, since everyone can fix the code.

Marek's point is that your claim "open-source games are more secure" could very well be hooey. Neither of us have looked at the network/authorization code for HL2 and for major opensource games and done a comparative analysis.

Stopping cheats from existing is near-impossible (without burdening the server intensely with all sorts of physics-validation code) -- putting in a decent karma/moderation system to treat cheats is the way to go, imho.

[ragnar]

Yes, it is near impossible to get rid of all cheating possibilities, but there should be an effort to do so anyway. If it is very easy to cheat you won't be helped by som karma-rating.

[Erwin_Br]

Originally Posted by ragnar

Yes, it is near impossible to get rid of all cheating possibilities, but there should be an effort to do so anyway. If it is very easy to cheat you won't be helped by som karma-rating.

You can't fully test a game wether or not it's cheat proof until you release it to the masses.

--Erwin

[ragnar]

Originally Posted by Erwin_Br

You can't fully test a game wether or not it's cheat proof until you release it to the masses.

--Erwin

There is something called beta testers.

[Erwin_Br]

Originally Posted by ragnar

There is something called beta testers.

Yes, but testing is not the same thing. Cheat programs are being written after a game's been released for a while. What do you want to beta-test about something that's not developed yet?

--Erwin

[Kolzig]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/33260.html

http://www.gamershell.com/news_BHalf...yeduntil.shtml

So, now Half-Life 2 has been pushed to april 2004, eh?

Just f*cking great...

Although, again comes a word from Vivendi...

http://www.halflifesource.com/



Thanks to the higher powers that Max Payne is going to be delayed.

[ragnar]

Originally Posted by Erwin_Br

Yes, but testing is not the same thing. Cheat programs are being written after a game's been released for a while. What do you want to beta-test about something that's not developed yet?

--Erwin

You employ beta testers that are experienced with finding cheats and exploits and let them try to find all the cheats and exploits they can and fix those. Before the release.

[remixor]

So, now Half-Life 2 has been pushed to april 2004, eh?

This really sucks, but I'm secretly happy because it will allow me time to save up for a new PC that will run the game.

[remixor]

Originally Posted by ragnar

You employ beta testers that are experienced with finding cheats and exploits and let them try to find all the cheats and exploits they can and fix those. Before the release.

Definitely, but there's really no way to simulate millions of users, many of whom have extensive hacking capabilities. Beta tests can only be so long and so extensive.

[Erkki]

Originally Posted by remixor

Definitely, but there's really no way to simulate millions of users, many of whom have extensive hacking capabilities. Beta tests can only be so long and so extensive.

And even if they had unlimited betatesting resources and time, it just isn't possible to "completely" test a program as complex as HL2.

[ragnar]

Originally Posted by remixor

Definitely, but there's really no way to simulate millions of users, many of whom have extensive hacking capabilities. Beta tests can only be so long and so extensive.

HL2 is a server based game, right? That would mean that if the server never ever sends _any_ information that a specific client shouldn't get. It's rather impossible to be able to cheat if you can't get the information. The one owning the server might have an easier time to cheat, but that is another story.

[remixor]

Then what are you worried about?

[ragnar]

Originally Posted by remixor

Then what are you worried about?

I'm not the one worried. I have throughout this thread claimed that the leak of source code shouldn't be an issue with cheats and exploits.

[content_evil]

YO dude i have the copy of Half life source code on my website no joke i swear to god. here is the site http://www.vmdb.tk go there and click on HL2 source code and wallllah enjoy

[ragnar]

I saw a rather comical thing just now. I really don't believe it's true, but anyway:

Valve already under pressure from the community and the publisher.

The community wants the game NOW! The publisher and its wack PR lies to the community giving false hope with unattainable dates.

Dates slip, community backlashes at valve.

Valve KNOWS it can't ship this year. Valve know the community does love them and they will need all the community help they need to survive. They NEED to figure out a way to delay the game yet again with the community supporting it.

What do they do? Leak there own source?

It is VERY possible that the above is true. I have yet to here of anyone finding ANYTHING of extreme importance in the code. Hell I have not heard of anyone actually compiling the code yet.

Im not a coder but so I don't know for sure... but what if the code that was released was the equivalent of a SDK release?

Quit possible I tell ya.

Source: http://www.shacknews.com/ja.zz?id=8634205

[Erkki]

Originally Posted by ragnar

Im not a coder but so I don't know for sure... but what if the code that was released was the equivalent of a SDK release?

The code complies (at least parts of it -- haven't tried everything).
There's 160 MB's of it (a lot). It isn't well commented. Typical file headers look like this:

//========= Copyright © 1996-2003, Valve LLC, All rights reserved. ============
//
// Purpose:
//
//================================================== ===========================

I've only looked at some files from here and there and that's all I can say right now.

[edit]
Havok seems to be in there too, at least parts of it. Not sure.
Hmm... part of what seemed Havok is actually something called "Ipion Virtual Physics SDK" (C) Ipion Software GmbH. But I'm confused, because Havok and IPV stuff are in the same subfolder.

[edit2]
Well ipion.com redirects to Havok.com so I guess Ipion was previously havok or something. Havok code seems not to be well documented either, but manuals are included.