Gucci Messiah
Banned
I would consider it to be piracy as long as they attempted to circumvent the revenue system because that is cheating the creator out of sales.
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Halo Online modders working to strip micro-transactions, release worldwide
- Thread starter mocoworm
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I would consider it to be piracy as long as they attempted to circumvent the revenue system because that is cheating the creator out of sales.
Gucci Messiah
Banned
From the moment they threw a fit over region locking and micro-transactions? Is this a serious question?
Primethius
Banned
Seems like you're over simplifying the issue to fit your narrative.
Yeah, and not everyone during a robbery wants to shoot anyone. You always have that one guy that flies off the handle though.
I wouldn't go within 100' of messing with this if it is some leaked code from a f2p game that was being released.
Edit** I don't like f2p gouging by the way...I just wouldn't mess with this. Too sketchy.
DEElekgolo
Banned
Which is exactly what we aren't doing.
Someone completely irrelevant to ElDortio could be doing that.
Read the god damn source.
https://gitlab.com/Wunkolo/ElDorito
Nothing here enabled any aspect of what you guys claim it to be enabling. It's literally just a beefed up trainer. That is entirely offline.
Gucci Messiah
Banned
Oversimplying the fact that these dudes have illegally downloaded an alpha and are attempting to remove a revenue source because they're cheap/throwing a fit over a design choice? Haha, ok.
Zomba13
Member
But what if the revenue system is something like, use coins earned in game or gems paid for with money (and given rarely during game play)? In that case the revenue stream is actual cash but also players time. So would saving time (through use of a mod or cheatengine) be considered piracy? What if there was an in-game exploit that allowed the duping of currency? Would people who do that be pirates too?
I agree that acquiring a game/movie/music through means unintended by the creator that deprives them of their due is piracy but what if it's something where you can get everything if you just have the time? Is time a legitimate currency now?
Serious question. I actually find this stuff interesting as it's fairly new ground.
Where did you get that software? Is it a legal copy?
You could have told me about DRM-Free games. Is it legal downloading them from the internet because you don't need a crack to play them?
Gucci Messiah
Banned
The phrase 'time is money' rings true here. I still consider it to be piracy, but that is my own personal opinion on the matter.
Please go to the many threads (sanctioned by the mods of this board) and point out how "entitled" anyone who uses a VPN to access Netflix, or Origin/Steam deals is. Or don't, because it's a ridiculous argument. If people can bypass the Russian region lock to access this game trivially then that's on Microsoft to fix, just as it is for Netflix or anyone else when dealing with the infrastructure of the internet. And, as already stated by one of the modders in this thread, their goal is not to bypass the payment models of the final game but to tinker with the engine. So what harm is being done here, besides the usual embarrassment that results from Microsoft's feeble "support" of the traditional PC market?
As for appeals to "demonstrate demand", the customer base has repeatedly done that, and the result for these customers was:
343 industries said:
At this point Microsoft are doing more harm than good with their vague promises of supporting the PC market. For the sake of their own reputation they need to outline exactly what PC support for Halo actually constitutes for the customer base they built on that platform (it was shaky enough when Halo 2 was tied into garbage like the initial release of Vista and GFWL). Half-hearted support in the form of mobile/tablet ports to Steam, followed by a title that they say is designed for "new fans" (without addressing their existing customers) doesn't cut it when PC gamers are spoiled for FPS games from publishers that actually treat their customers right.
Primethius
Banned
Yes, especially since we have a dev here telling you it's not thier goal along side linking to his contribution.
About the only crime I can see an argument being made so far for is the download of a leaked alpha. Of an F2P game that isn't even fully released yet.
So let me rephrase. It's a gross over simplification of the issue at hand.
As far as I know it does not circumvent the revenue system.
So now you are claiming that bypassing region lock systems is piracy and stealing. This is getting better.
Gucci Messiah
Banned
Maybe you should try reading the article before posting. Or you could continue to type nonsense, either way I am entertained. It is heavily implied that these modders, or at least the one interviewed, are doing this to get around region locking/micro-transactions.
You downloaded the software from a legitimate source, and lets say for the first week the software runs with full functionality. After a week the software switches of a more limited "trial mode", and to get the full functionality back you buy a license or serial from the author to fully unlock it forever. Now then, someone else completely unrelated to the development of the software knows the algorithm the software uses to determine a valid serial... and in the case of a license, they know exactly what the program expects to find and where, and can create one just like it. As a result the software can now run, without anybody ever paying for it, and no binaries were harmed. Still cool?
I think the DRM-free stuff is simple enough. The author can distribute as many DRM-free copies as they like, but those receiving it aren't allowed to distribute more copies.
The dev literally came in here and said ElDorito is basically a trainer at most. Those are other people's goals. Change around what you saying first cuz you soundin real dumb.
Primethius
Banned
And you are ignoring the one dev who quite clealry stated that the opinions and goals of 40 people couldn't be characterized by one voice as the article clearly does.
And then you ignore his replies to your inquiries to keep pushing your narrative.
Not the same, so I won't.
Zomba13
Member
It's basically:
"You're Pirates!"
"No we're not. This is what we are doing."
"I don't believe you!"
The thing that should be discussed is whether they are pirates for acquiring the leaked version and if that counts as pirating if the release version is free to download. In the letter of the law that may well be piracy but in the spirit I don't think it is. Piracy is a way to get things for free you would otherwise have to pay for but if it's available for free then that hardly counts though. I mean, in the eyes of the law in court it might but to rationale people then it's not really a big deal.
Gucci Messiah
Banned
Guess you missed the parts where I asked him/her multiple times to explain their reasoning and was given vague answers. After that they went on ignore. I'm leaving this thread because it's pretty clear that there are many in here who support stealing or accessing an owned property without permission. Lets ignore MS's takedown notices though, right? The one dev quoted in the article who is clearly in this for the piracy is just an isolated member of the team, nobody else can possibly feel the same. Better take this one random neogaf poster who claims to be a dev as proof.
You mean "one of the 40+ devs", right?
If they each have "different motives" and then one of them (such as the one interviewed) looking to circumvent its payment system (and tbh, a trainer for a f2p game is basically that), then any discussion around that has merit. Unless we address the lead dev directly, then our posts are only directed at those that have those intentions (again, such as the person being interviewed in this article).
Well at least go out of your way to say that damn.
Primethius
Banned
I'm actually not sure what's so vague about his answers given what he has actually done.
But feel free to leave the thread.
First, what is wrong with bypassing region locking?
Second, where does he say anything about breaking micro-transactions system?
So World of Warcraft, for example, you download the 7 days trial game. Then you build up a Mangos server, which is a server emulator that does not uses any game code, and keep playing for free on your own server. How can that be illegal?
NullPointer
Member
Doesn't the article reference an actual developer on the project too?
DEElekgolo
Banned
Woovie is not a developer on ElDorito and never has been.
I don't even recall if he has ever done anything for that matter.
If there is any project you want to keep eyes on that intends to spoof Halo Online services it's AuraCore.
I don't even recall if he has ever done anything for that matter.
If there is any project you want to keep eyes on that intends to spoof Halo Online services it's AuraCore.
The actual project is just a trainer. It doesn't let you circumvent the payment system.
The actual project code supports the dev in this thread more than it supports Eurogamer's shitty journalism.
Crayon
Member
Zomba13
Member
Just wondering peoples thoughts on this:
Game is released in Russia only as an F2P game with microtransactions.
Player A (Vlad) Plays the game in Russia and never bothers with the microtransactions, earning everything with real time. Esentially plays the game forever for free, without paying MS anything even though he is playing their game on their servers.
Player B (Billy) Plays a hacked version in the USA. It's the same game except this time the Microtransactions are removed (as in all of them, the option to pay and the items that go with it leaving you with only the base free stuff) and plays on a private server ran and funded by players like himself. Billy also never spends a dime on the game like Vlad and enjoys it forever for free but outside the intended region and with a fan made hack and server.
Is Player B a pirate? Is Billy a bad little boy? Is Vlad also a pirate for not giving MS any money for the service? Does it only matter when the actual virtual item (that can be acquired with enough time or consecutive log ins) is "stolen"?
Game is released in Russia only as an F2P game with microtransactions.
Player A (Vlad) Plays the game in Russia and never bothers with the microtransactions, earning everything with real time. Esentially plays the game forever for free, without paying MS anything even though he is playing their game on their servers.
Player B (Billy) Plays a hacked version in the USA. It's the same game except this time the Microtransactions are removed (as in all of them, the option to pay and the items that go with it leaving you with only the base free stuff) and plays on a private server ran and funded by players like himself. Billy also never spends a dime on the game like Vlad and enjoys it forever for free but outside the intended region and with a fan made hack and server.
Is Player B a pirate? Is Billy a bad little boy? Is Vlad also a pirate for not giving MS any money for the service? Does it only matter when the actual virtual item (that can be acquired with enough time or consecutive log ins) is "stolen"?
I'll admit, I'm unsure of how the legality for cases like this works out... but conceptually, I don't really see this being any different to cracking trial software tbh. In both cases you obtained the software legitimately, in both cases that software expects to be paid for in order for continued use, and in both cases you've taken actions to sidestep payment, whilst enjoying a product that simply couldn't exist without the author's work. Regardless of the medium or nature of the software, or how involved getting around it is.. it's all the same thing at the end of the day, you're cheating the creator out of being paid for their work.
Well... this is interesting...
Vlad, no. Billy, yes.
NullPointer
Member
So the original source is an article on TorrentFreak and quotes Woovie and Neoshadow42 as team members, though the team is described in the article as 'loose-knit'.
Are these people not in a position to speak about ElDorito team goals? Are they full of shit?
Are these people not in a position to speak about ElDorito team goals? Are they full of shit?
Chip N Chance
Member
Man. Gamers sure are entitled.
Hackers aren't necessarily gamers first. Neither are pirates necessarily.
Nevermind that, look at the movie tv and music industry. Wallets open when the options are there.
Edit : that's odd I swear your post was after mine when I first hit post.
DEElekgolo
Banned
I started the ElDorito software as a handy way of messing with the engine myself and named it "ElDorito" as a joke. More and more modders from the old days of halo modding and even some new faces had joined up and a lot of over-establishing happened. ElDorito became both the name of my software and the "Domain" of people that are interested in reverse engineering the game as well. ElDorito became a flagship of a lot of their findings and the open-source nature of it allowed for many to provide their input. At some point someone out there might fork the project and make it enable something controversial, someone might come by and turn it into something completely different. That is the nature of having open-source software. People are using our information as they please. Just look at how the 3ds-crackers acted around the chance that their information could be used to allow piracy for the 3ds console.
The loose-knit aspect of it is that the private channel that we all talk in is quite literally just a surplus of people, all reverse engineering the same game and sharing information of their findings. Some of them are picking up information and utilizing it for whatever they wish to do. Some are making launchers and trainers for themselves. Some are appropriating the information to get silly things to happen and some are just in it for the twitter/youtube followers or whatever their individual motives are. The channel we have is just a repository/hub of information that we all find. Those in the peripheral had over-established while drunk in their optimism. People made forums and registered websites and made intro-videos purely out of their speculation of what might happen or be possible and some took it upon themselves to try and act like our publicity team to these news sites.
To have a single person represent everyone's voice or motive is just silly. There are new faces popping in and out and some old ones. I have my launcher, some others have launchers, some others are simulating the in-game chat service and someone is probably hoping to completely replace the need for 4game to have online-play. There are individual minds on this doing as they please and the domain of ElDorito managed to be a hub for a lot of this traffic. A single person's belief can't possibly represent the nature of a loose collection of people the same way you can't have one cynically-cherry-picked saying from a spectrum of interests represent the thoughts of the group as a whole.
The loose-knit aspect of it is that the private channel that we all talk in is quite literally just a surplus of people, all reverse engineering the same game and sharing information of their findings. Some of them are picking up information and utilizing it for whatever they wish to do. Some are making launchers and trainers for themselves. Some are appropriating the information to get silly things to happen and some are just in it for the twitter/youtube followers or whatever their individual motives are. The channel we have is just a repository/hub of information that we all find. Those in the peripheral had over-established while drunk in their optimism. People made forums and registered websites and made intro-videos purely out of their speculation of what might happen or be possible and some took it upon themselves to try and act like our publicity team to these news sites.
To have a single person represent everyone's voice or motive is just silly. There are new faces popping in and out and some old ones. I have my launcher, some others have launchers, some others are simulating the in-game chat service and someone is probably hoping to completely replace the need for 4game to have online-play. There are individual minds on this doing as they please and the domain of ElDorito managed to be a hub for a lot of this traffic. A single person's belief can't possibly represent the nature of a loose collection of people the same way you can't have one cynically-cherry-picked saying from a spectrum of interests represent the thoughts of the group as a whole.
SmokedMeat
Gamer™
The game was stolen, and is now being modded to bypass it's means of making money.
Justify it to make yourself look better, but it is what it is, and measures were taken to make sure there's nothing Microsoft can do about it. It's disgusting that anyone can even think of defending this. You think FTP games are free to develop?
DEElekgolo
Banned
Read the god damn thread.
NullPointer
Member
That would mean you couldn't speak to any team goals either, wouldn't it?
Nope.
Dongs Macabre
aka Daedalos42
The game files were obtained through an official website, right? So I don't know if that counts as piracy, or even unethical, as there is literally no way to give them money right now. Either way, the trainer itself definitely isn't piracy, though, and doesn't circumvent any microtransactions or anything, since they don't exist yet. You can't really do anything except mess with the engine anyway.
killer rin
Member
I'd still buy it.
DEElekgolo
Banned
Most "team goals" are short term.
Like "Oh I found out where global physics data is stored!"
"Really? Maybe we can find where gravity is handled"
"Oh man that would be fun"
*40 minutes later*
Outcome:
http://a.pomf.se/tmnqmt.webm
http://a.pomf.se/ckygig.webm
http://a.pomf.se/gmwqlf.webm
Diablohead
Member
It's as close as we're going to get any time soon, I know it's not THE halo 3 but it's engine is there.
SunBroDave
Member
What "team"? From what I understand, it's a bunch of modders who just happen to be pooling their findings into a single repository. There's no "team" of hackers with a common goal, like for example, stealing Halo from Microsoft, as some people (and sensationalist headlines) seem to insinuate.
While I'm not about to go around telling people to pirate everything I don't think it's always so black and white no.
Microsoft has made it clear that this game is specifically developed for Russia and they have no plans to release it outside of that area. This has been confirmed by 343 devs as well, so nobody is losing any potential profits. You can go on about the principal of the matter or that a law is being broken but that doesn't change the fact that nobody is losing anything here and laws aren't an issue of morality. So what's the problem?
I think it's great that more people will be able to experience something that they otherwise would've been unable to just because they live in the wrong region.
They've never stated that it'll never leave Russia though. They said that if they were to bring it to other regions there would be changes to the model to suit the market. It's hardly a clear "no, it's Russia only".
And how would it not be losing any potential profits? If a completely free variation of the game starts floating around, you really don't think that has a good chance of affecting the Russian market for it as well? That's not even considering the (quite likely) possibility that they'd look to expand the service later.
LightningXCE
Member
It's a completely free game released in another region that the most we can do with completely home-written software that just shifts a few bytes of memory around is run around the map, spawn some stuff, and mess with projectile swapping.
That. Is. All.
Getting network running on this is 99% unlikely, and if anyone is doing it, it has nothing to do with ElDorito.
Nothing with ElDorito has ANYTHING to do with circumventing any form of payment models. Period.
Yea, I get that it's not running fully. The post I replied to though had already established the "what if" scenario of it actually running.
My posts also don't mention ElDorito (seriously, I'm pretty sure that's the first time I've typed that name here). I'm not accusing anyone specific. Just stating the intention/desire obviously seems to be there for at least a few people that have their hands on it (hence the interview).
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