HL2 Source code leaked, all goes to hell?
 

What might have been an extremely well-constructed hoax turns out to be actually true. The Half-Life 2 source code has been leaked, and Gabe Newell has issued a statement at HL2.net (or check out shacknews if that server is down). Sounds like a real nightmare for Valve and possibly for the HL2 community.

I know it's unethical to share the source, as companies like this derive a large portion of their revenue from licensing the engine, but I really would like to see it, out of curiosity (since I'll never buy it or work for Valve) for what a decent 3-D game engine looks like. I hope that (for my sake :P) it's still floating around on bittorrent come the weekend (when I have time).

It's probably going to be a big setback, I wonder if we'll see HL2 this year. It would be interesting to see the source code, I wouldn't understand it though :\ If you want to see what a decent (albeit dated) 3D game engine looks like download the quake source code, which you can get legally from ID's ftp server .

Good grief! I wonder if there are any heads going to roll within Valve.

--Erwin

Yeah... actually, I'm a long way from writing my own. I'm probably at the level where I wouldn't learn anything from code more complicated than the quakegl source -- but I'm curious, and a lot has changed since the quake days (no more BSP trees, advanced shading, some wacky subtexture things apparently, lots of awesome animation algorithms). I'm being purely hedonistic, but I'm rationalizing in the same way a d00d rationalizes downloading Photoshop warez.0

Oh man...

This is just wrong.
Why can some people let good guys like Valve do their work in peace.

This source stealing is something that should be stopped.

Bad, bad world
:\

Looks like theft, not an internal leak. Though I suppose you can never be sure.

Not a supurise with the current annoyance of the delay.

What's that all about then? Return of the King is taking a while to come out, I'll just go and steal all the filmed location footage? Plz.

Someone must be Steamed about Steam.
That or that SP was going to be played online only.

Don't forget that this is only source code. That means no graphics or actual game content. (Except for the level editor, it seems)

Still, it's a huge blow to Valve.

Man, I can't imagine how the Valve team feels... They must be enormously frustrated right now. Did you guys read the account of how it was stolen? Crazy stuff.

Very true, though I'd be extremely surprised if anyone sold any products using an unlicensed Source engine. ;) Probably wouldn't be the wisest move...

If you did, you'd have to spend about as much time (money to employ people) covering your tracks so that it didn't look like the engine as it would cost to license the puppy.

This is wicked AND royally f----- up. I think that no one will use the bootleg source of the Source engine ever, but it will secretly hang in every programmer's closet for the next three years and will be a source of 'inspiration' when in doubt about bits and pieces of code going into the new game at hand....

This really pisses me off. Really makes me fucking angry...

But I can't say that I don't wish I managed to steal it. I would do nothing with it, I would just burn it on a CD and hide it in my secret pr0n compartment of my big CD folder. The very feeling of sheer power - having pulled this off - would be marvelous.

Perhaps too marvelous. I would try to brag. I would tell Seryozha, for example, in full confidence, and then he would tell someone else, as a secret, and before you know it, I have the FBI knocking at my door...

Whoever did this lives in a place outside of the grasp of American law, like Vilnius, Kuala Lumpur, or Zagreb...

or Moscow!

--Erwin

It's the Hammer editor, it's been freely available for a long time, no surprises there...

The new Hammer editor was made available? :confused:

The new version allows people to convert Half-Life .bsp files so that they can be properly loaded by Half-Life 2, among other things. Along with being immensely more powerful.

Ah. Well, if you want to burn it to a CD, anywho, all you need is bittorrent and a dream, and it looks like you've got the latter.

and a CD.


EDIT: and a CD burner.

This must be terrible news for Valve; they've effectively lost their lead over their competitors. Personally I wouldn't rule out industrial espionage considering how valuable the engine is (though that is the least likely scenario and I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist)

I don't understand why it'd delay Half Life though? What can they do about it apart from release the game as planned?

P.S. This will probably make companies think twice about having their internal networks connected to the net; which is a good thing because theres no reason why they can't have a few net stations and then a seperate network for security. It's the only infalible way of protecting your data from hackers - no physical connection to the net right?

I think you're seriously overreacting. Is it really such a big problem that some (or a lot of) programmers will be able to learn things from this?

Valve would never had gained any money by showing bits of their code to someone. Only by licencing the entire engine (or most of it). And I can't imagine someone releasing an actual game with the unlicenced engine. That would cause too many problems.

I don't see how any real harm would come from this. I heard also that Quake (or Quake 2) source code was leaked before the game release. Don't know if that's true but if it is, I haven't heard of any problems ID have had because of it.

Oh, didn't realize it was new. It looked just like the regular Hammer editor.

damnation. hopefully this wont cause too many delays. i still want hl2 this winter, come hell or high water.

Well, HM! THIS is interesting:

http://www.eurogamer.net/article_dis...ticle_id=53398

Scroll down to what 'Gunter' has to say.

Nah. The looks of it is that it was a well-trained sc1pt k1dd13, but don't quote me on that.

Opens the multiplayer network (and Steam, possibly) up to serious cheatage, and I doubt they'd launch it without a working multiplayer in place.

Virtually infallible. :P It also reduces the # of distractions at work. (What? No... :D)

The potential harm is that Source doesn't look as appetizing to potential customers, and that if any part of Havok has been leaked, Valve has a potential lawsuit on their hands. There was an earlier post on the Quake thing.. or if not, I'm merging this thread and the one on slashdot.

Indeed.___

If HL2 gets delayed, that would mean a lot of good things for my own game. It needs to be finished before mid-december, so if HL2 comes out before that we're all screwed. :shifty:

edit: no, I didn't do it.

yeah the development of every other game depends on how much time will be left after playing hl2.

http://216.40.249.192/s/cwm/3dlil/eek13.gif

I was looking back at the original article and thinking about the tell people where to download it and we'll nuke you family bit. Well by now it must be on every file sharing network imaginable, just like what happened with the Doom III alpha. In that case of course it was due to some idiot at ATI rather than a hacker, and nothing was compromised really. It might make me evil, or something... but I'm going to try and find it, just out of interest.

There's no way to get you not to do this, but if you do, could you just immediately remove it from your shared folder so that at least more people can't get it from you? ;)

Yeah, I thought of that. Removed immediately. I still feel dirty though ;) Not that I downloaded it.... ahem... :rolleyes:

I'm sure someone will (or already has) write up a breakdown of the interesting stuff that's in the source code.

Seriously, there's no real use to be had of it. It won't run, as the game and development files are more or less missing, and what you can run only partially works.

It won't run but one can use it to come up with cheat programs for the multiplayer bit... Also, the thing has the whole source engine, it more than useful...

-S

Someone said something earlier about havok, I think that's in it. :\

There were many people in my class rubbing their hands with joy when they heard the news. :D

I think the implications are as follows:

- All multiplayer components of HL2 are now vulnerable to perfect cheats and exploits
- Stuff will have to be rewritten to prevent that. I'd be surprised if HL2 doesn't get delayed until 2004.
- No implications for HL2 in terms of retail sales. It's just the source code, without the assets.
- Havok code is included. The Havok team will no doubt be very pissed off about that.
- Miles Sound System code is included. Won't make Valve popular either.
- Some developers will look at the code and learn from it. No huge setback for HL2 in terms of licensing, though. HL2 essentially doesn't do anything more than other next gen engines, it's more of the whole package that's interesting. And you can't steal that without commiting obvious plagiarism. HL2 source is not extremely interesting to other big name developers, but smaller devs can probably learn a lot from it.
- I don't think source code has ever been this widely spread amongst the gaming public. However, note that most developers have easy access to Quake 3, Unreal, HL2 etc. source code, even if they haven't licensed it. You can get the complete source even if you're just taking it under consideration for licensing.
- Spoilers will run rampant. I already saw lists of all the weapons and enemies, but closed it before I could see all of it.

This leak / theft really pisses me off. It's like someone opened your Christmas present and ran away with it.

its a pity, because it was looking such a solid and exciting project. this will disrupt or delay things obviously. i wonder what implications there is now for using steam as a download source of the game?

From what I've seen, they've got some unique and impressive AI and animation assets (dude, the whole "27 face muscles" or whatever.. impressive shit). No one can obviously get away with stealing it, but since the code is "out there" now, licensing it will look less attractive, simply because of the subconscious appearance that the features in Source will make their way into other licensable engines. That is, while you don't have to steal it, you can bank on buying a cheaper engine that used it as "inspiration."