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Halo Online modders working to strip micro-transactions, release worldwide

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Darknight

Member
Im not a Halo guy but intrigued by the events. Im not sure how this is piracy at all if its a F2P game. Sure, content had to be created but no one is technically paying unless they want the "premium" items. If you could hack the server to get you the premium items for free, that would be piracy to me.

But what do I know. Some say its a grey area type of thing and I guess that fits it well. If some blame is being passed onto the devs of this mod, then MS deserves some as well for limiting the release to begin with. How was NA region locked from this release is unthinkable in my honest opinion. Like if I were a die hard Halo fan, Id get the MCC just to replay all the games and play this on/off depending on the service. Dont see why this region had to be locked away...
 
So to be clear, you are implying that people who play this modified release of a unreleased region locked free2play game are pirates?

I don't have skin in the game either way, but yourself along with rest of the moral super police in this thread are equally on some high horse. 'Neither group is being objective, and the only thing your side of the argument is doing is shitting up a perfectly interesting thread.

It absolutely does make them pirates. Just like if someone were to download the leaked GoT episodes under the excuse of they aren't yet available in a certain region...

You're free to justify it to yourself as you see fit, but what you're doing is piracy. There's no two ways around that little fact.
 
You can't buy stuff from them game if you lived outside of RU anyways. Its a Russian only game.

Don't get me wrong I see where its a very very thin line, but unless we move to russia we have no way of giving them our money and the stuff we would have to pay for are removed in this version. Now if the game came to the states then it would be a clear cut case, but here it's a bit tricky.

Well, even if it did release outside of Russia, that still doesn't excuse the fact that people are inventing future scenarios that aren't based in reality to support their anti-piracy rhetoric. As has been said before, microtransactions (ignoring the fact that they aren't running even in Russia) are NOT stripped using any of the available tools(ElDewritoe, which unlocks custom games UI), trainers (command line tweaks allowing modification of the engine in real-time, gravity, physics, etc.), tunnelers (Evolve, XLink, Hamachi, etc.), etc.
 

gillty

Banned
Acting like we are some sanctimonious ethics cops doesn't change what this is. If you want to discuss the actual merits and details of this, go to reddit.
Why would I go to reddit? Is this is a thread about the merits and details of "Halo Online modders working to strip micro-transactions, release worldwide Reply to Thread".

Take a break, you're not making any sense at this point.

Anyways I am done; it is blatantly obvious that your sole objective is to shit up this thread. You're not worth my leisure time.
 
So if the company's business model is selling the game for $60 the audience can just go ahead and steal it in your opinion?
No, but I don't really jive with the idea that this is theft of a product.To the extent that it is theft at all, its theft of the free portion of a product that was made public, an old version at that, and cut off from the official servers and premium elements.
 
So if the company's business model is selling the game for $60 the audience can just go ahead and steal it in your opinion?
If I could buy the product I'm playing right now for $60, I would.

There is literally no option for me to buy this game anywhere. What do you want me to do? Not play the game I've been waiting for for 8 years and wait for Microsoft to eventually announce a US release if one even exists?

This thread is literally the worst right now, and I don't understand how you guys are allowed to derail the discussion this much.

Going back to Reddit to discuss the game.
 

gillty

Banned
It absolutely does make them pirates. Just like if someone were to download the leaked GoT episodes under the excuse of they aren't yet available in a certain region...

You're free to justify it to yourself as you see fit, but what you're doing is piracy. There's no two ways around that little fact.
What I am doing? I have not played Halo Online, nor do I have any intent to, don't put words in my mouth dawg.

Anyways let me say that while I do agree that the GoT situation is piracy, I don't not agree that the situation is analogous to this thread.
 

Bessy67

Member
No, but I don't really jive with the idea that this is theft of a product.To the extent that it is theft at all, its theft of the free portion of a product, an old version at that, and cut off from the official servers and premium elements.
In both cases you are circumventing the game's business model. Not sure how you're OK with it in one scenario and not the other.
 
In both cases you are circumventing the game's business model. Not sure how you're OK with it in one scenario and not the other.
I think the thread title is confusing a lot of you.

The goal here is to make the game playable. Removing microtransactions is just a side-effect.
 

Bessy67

Member
If I could buy the product I'm playing right now for $60, I would.

There is literally no option for me to buy this game anywhere. What do you want me to do? Not play the game I've been waiting for for 8 years and wait for Microsoft to eventually announce a US release if one even exists?
Yes, you should do exactly that. MS is under no obligation to provide this game to you. You are not entitled to access to it simply because it exists.

I think the thread title is confusing a lot of you.

The goal here is to make the game playable. Removing microtransactions is just a side-effect.
Holy shit you're delusional. Whatever, keep thinking you're in the right and a moral crusader sticking it to the man. But I bet even you deep down know this is just piracy.
 
Condoning this bullshit is why Microsoft owe PC gamers nothing. Instead of accepting that this is a product for a specific market people have to have it. It's the worst type of entitlement and no different than torrenting a television show because it's not aired in your country.
 

jmga

Member
I hope this will open your eyes, Microsoft. PC gamers don't want a Halo F2P, they want a traditional Halo game with traditional online play, LAN, etc.

You gave the second one hidden inside the first one, they just realized and uncovered it, and no one else is interested in your F2P, get over it.
 
Condoning this bullshit is why Microsoft owe PC gamers nothing. Instead of accepting that this is a product for a specific market people have to have it. It's the worst type of entitlement and no different than torrenting a television show because it's not aired in your country.
Yeah, I'm out of this thread.

Best of luck to you guys and your attempts to convince people not to play something they're already playing.
 

Synth

Member

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But I may be biased in that I don't see how an audience holds any responsibility to protect a company's business model.

Well, when you put it like that, why not say you support piracy outright then? It's only the company's business model being affected, right? Why should we care?

You don't get official updates when you apply cracks to software either. You wait on a newly cracked version based on the later updates. That doesn't really change anything.
 

Dmented

Banned
I can agree this is basically piracy. It would be one thing to just get it working for all people worldwide but removing the microtransaction part of it is removing their business model. If removing the microtransactions were caused by making it usable worldwide it's still piracy.

Hopefully this can show Microsoft people want a worldwide release.
 
In both cases you are circumventing the game's business model. Not sure how you're OK with it in one scenario and not the other.
Is the problem here that users don't have the right to use a free game client because of the assets within that client? Or is it purely a matter of circumventing a business model?

On the first you may have a point - maybe - but to use a hypothetical, what if the game had already come and gone, and the servers were no more. Would it be a crime simply to run the game client, disconnected from the back end services? Because how is that different than what the team is doing here?
 
I can agree this is basically piracy. It would be one thing to just get it working for all people worldwide but removing the microtransaction part of it is removing their business model. If removing the microtransactions were caused by making it usable worldwide it's still piracy.

Hopefully this can show Microsoft people want a worldwide release.

Another victim of the poor thread title I see. Welcome.
 
If this screws the revenue they had planned for this games, I can see them shutting down more development, and Saber interactive loses big time. But hay, it's MS fault, right?

Can't wait for this project to be the reason why Microsoft will never release another Halo game on PC.

That would be incredibly stupid and short-sighted on MS' part to abandon all Halo PC endeavours because a few people are modding this and playing it on custom servers.
 
Because it's bannable so people are keeping their mouths shut so you have the posts by the posters you see here.
I don't support piracy and am not keeping my mouth shut because I'm actually trying to understand the arguments here. It doesn't seem nearly as clear cut to me as it does to others.
 
Is the problem here that users don't have the right to use a free game client because of the assets within that client? Or is it purely a matter of circumventing a business model?

On the first you may have a point - maybe - but to use a hypothetical, what if the game had already come and gone, and the servers were no more. Would it be a crime simply to run the game client, disconnected from the back end services? Because how is that different than what the team is doing here?

It would be a crime but with the critical difference being that most sane people don't consider actions like that to be particularly harmful or meaningful, similar to how emulating old arcade games is a crime but no one gives a shit outside of corporate hyper-loyalists. This situation, however, has a presumably real effect on resources.
 

KissVibes

Banned
I find it weird that people were so upset that Halo Online was Russia only. As it makes sense to have Russian developers focus on supporting the region they're based in first and then expanding after enough testing.

Also lol at putting the Bungie name back in there. At least respect the people actually working on the product you're currently playing?
 

Jonnax

Member
Wait so reading the first page it read like a group stole source code from Microsoft.
But in the last few pages people are saying that it is a trick to bypass the region lock.

Which one is it?
 

watership

Member
Yeah, I'm out of this thread.

Best of luck to you guys and your attempts to convince people not to play something they're already playing.

Oh nothing anyone here says will change that now. The game is out there. And if I came on strong, I apologize. Moral stances, ethics aside, I just feel people were jumping through dingy hoops trying to say this was something other than what i think it really is. That got my hackles up.
 
Care to explain it for me then? Sorry if I don't know more than the thread title.

Some people were able to download a pre-release version of Halo Online from Halo Online's website. The files have since been removed, but are obviously being shared in links around the web by people who are just finding out about this now. You can find the links on google.

A bunch of other people collaborated on a tool (ElDewrito) that makes available the original Halo 3 UI within the game. Like so:

People are now using 3rd-party tunneling applications in conjunction with ElDewrito tool to create "LAN" games in custom lobbies over the internet.



Here is an album of pics from reddit: http://imgur.com/a/jsVIQ#5

--

Honestly... this would be a brilliant viral marketing pr move on Microsoft's part if it plays out that way. Just saying.
 
It would be a crime but ...
It would be a crime? Simply to run a freely available (in my hypothetical) game client? What crime is that?

And obviously it isn't a crime to circumvent a business model or else ad-blockers would be criminal and I'd have to pay all the street musicians on the corners in the Haight-Ashbury.

Random Disclaimer: Don't lump me in with the crowd that feels that MS needs to or owes people to put Halo out on PC and so therefore whatever works is OK. That's an entitlement I don't share. I just don't see the crime here.
 
Theoretical: Is there anything that could stop someone from spoofing their IP to play the actual release and/or just install the RU client software themselves? Or, even if it's not that simple, a solution to make that work that would be less effort that the current "using private servers to play a game that's not even out yet" has been to develop?
 
I fully expect new versions and competing versions being released in the future. Especially if there are no customs in final.

Why wouldn't everyone just play that version instead? The game would get even better with a bigger player base and it would be an equal playing field without the micro transactions.
 

LilJoka

Member
Why wouldn't everyone just play that version instead? The game would get even better with a bigger player base and it would be an equal playing field without the micro transactions.

Because there is another mod team working on a more complete package. And they dont want to collaborate.
 
Why wouldn't everyone just play that version instead? The game would get even better with a bigger player base and it would be an equal playing field without the micro transactions.

Honestly, I don't know why anyone would play this game at all other than on PC there's no other option (regards to Halo 3, I mean).

When Microsoft release Halo Online final, I imagine whatever extra content that is included in that release will be reason enough for some developers to release an updated version or fork of ElDewrito or similar. Unless Microsoft completely strip out all remnant of Halo 3's UI and custom game lobbies, etc. which would make this tool non-functional. In a way, this tool is crowd-sourcing for Microsoft, showing exactly what they should fix for launch if they don't want people doing this.

I expect people will still come up with something, though. I already suggested putting up a "running lobby" of sorts, where - assuming the spectator mode in Halo Online is treated as another "player" - you have the spectator/host run a script of some sort to rotate through a random assortment of maps and gametypes, with the host themself hidden from view (max 8v8 + 1 spectator/lobbyhost). I have no where near the technical expertise to make such a thing possible, but I can see it happening somewhere along these lines.
 
Theoretical: Is there anything that could stop someone from spoofing their IP to play the actual release and/or just install the RU client software themselves? Or, even if it's not that simple, a solution to make that work that would be less effort that the current "using private servers to play a game that's not even out yet" has been to develop?

The key here is people don't want to play Halo Online, or at least, most people don't. People want to get past the Russian F2P part of Halo Online and get to the Halo 3 part of Halo online, and thats what we've got now.
 

Zomba13

Member
Theoretical: Is there anything that could stop someone from spoofing their IP to play the actual release and/or just install the RU client software themselves? Or, even if it's not that simple, a solution to make that work that would be less effort that the current "using private servers to play a game that's not even out yet" has been to develop?

No. You could use a VPN and log in (if they restrict the game to RU IPs only rather than just making the client and registration RU like how PSO2 is but in JP).

Basically, people are getting upset because people are playing a game right now that doesn't have a business model and are bypassing that non-existant business model by playing the game in a simulated LAN environment using one of the many LAN simulation programs available on PC.

Then you also have other people who would think even if you play the RU release when it's out that you are still a pirate.
 
Condoning this bullshit is why Microsoft owe PC gamers nothing. Instead of accepting that this is a product for a specific market people have to have it. It's the worst type of entitlement and no different than torrenting a television show because it's not aired in your country.

For real? I'm not saying ms deserved this but they have treated PC gamers like 2nd class citizens for the better part of a decade so it really shouldn't come as a surprise when PC gamers come together to get stuff like this working
 
Does not compute.
Ignore the fact that I'm still in the thread, but this is the thing I'm just not getting.

Halo 3 was the peak of the Halo franchise for me. Halo 2 was great, but Halo 3 brought in Forge, and Forge was amazing.

The recent Halo games have tried to do too much.

The Halo: Online I want to play is Halo 3 on PC, and that's what the community is creating. We don't want armor abilities, sprinting, etc...

Saber Interactive however, is creating "Halo 4 with content from Halo 3: Free to Play Edition".

If and when Halo: Online is completed and released in the U.S., it will likely not have Forge, theater, or much customization at all. It will be matchmaking, and matchmaking only, with a very strict set of playlists unlikely to strip out the features of Halo 4 that many do not want at all.

I couldn't care less about weapon skins and other various features that weren't even present in Halo 3 to begin with being locked behind microtransactions. That doesn't bother me at all.

But the version of the game that I currently have access to is more player-friendly than any official version we're going to receive, and that's the version that I want to support, whether or not it's considered piracy.

I bought an Xbox One for MCC. I bought MCC. I paid Microsoft for those things, and Live. I bought Halo: CE for PC, and the disaster that was Halo 2 Vista. They've promised over and over again that they would support PC gamers, and they haven't. They gave us the worst DRM we've ever had instead, and a Fable game to top it all off, as if that's a big deal. They've shown us just how easy it is for them to port Xbox games to PC with Forza.

And like I said before, I would be more than willing to pay Microsoft for this game. I don't consider myself a pirate for playing something Microsoft has shown absolutely no interest in actually giving us. Do I think I deserve this? No. But I've wanted it for 8 years, so of course I'm going to take up any opportunity to have it, whether it's official or not. I don't think that makes me a pirate, because I'm sitting here right now, wallet at the ready, willing to give every last dime in it to Microsoft for even the slightest interest in supporting the PC gamers they mistreated and abandoned.

Instead, I'm giving my money to those actually willing to give me what I want. The Evolve servers aren't as good as the real thing, but they're the only thing I can give my money to at the moment, and I appreciate them taking in all of this traffic.

Edit: The difference between Microsoft and Sony in this case, is that Sony has never shown an interest in PC gamers. Microsoft teases us, gave us Halo: CE and 2, and locked and ruined a lot of games with GFWL. Don't take this entire comment as a reply to what you said. I think only like the first couple parts apply to what you said. Just saying in general regarding the posters in this thread.
 

Bessy67

Member
Ignore the fact that I'm still in the thread, but this is the thing I'm just not getting.

Halo 3 was the peak of the Halo franchise for me. Halo 2 was great, but Halo 3 brought in Forge, and Forge was amazing.

The recent Halo games have tried to do too much.

The Halo: Online I want to play is Halo 3 on PC, and that's what the community is creating. We don't want armor abilities, sprinting, etc...

Saber Interactive however, is creating "Halo 4 with content from Halo 3: Free to Play Edition".

If and when Halo: Online is completed and released in the U.S., it will likely not have Forge, theater, or much customization at all. It will be matchmaking, and matchmaking only, with a very strict set of playlists unlikely to strip out the features of Halo 4 that many do not want at all.

I couldn't care less about weapon skins and other various features that weren't even present in Halo 3 to begin with being locked behind microtransactions. That doesn't bother me at all.

But the version of the game that I currently have access to is more player-friendly than any official version we're going to receive, and that's the version that I want to support, whether or not it's considered piracy.

I bought an Xbox One for MCC. I bought MCC. I paid Microsoft for those things, and Live. I bought Halo: CE for PC, and the disaster that was Halo 2 Vista. They've promised over and over again that they would support PC gamers, and they haven't. They gave us the worst DRM we've ever had instead, and a Fable game to top it all off, as if that's a big deal. They've shown us just how easy it is for them to port Xbox games to PC with Forza.

And like I said before, I would be more than willing to pay Microsoft for this game. I don't consider myself a pirate for playing something Microsoft has shown absolutely no interest in actually giving us. Do I think I deserve this? No. But I've wanted it for 8 years, so of course I'm going to take up any opportunity to have it, whether it's official or not. I don't think that makes me a pirate, because I'm sitting here right now, wallet at the ready, willing to give every last dime in it to Microsoft for even the slightest interest in supporting the PC gamers they mistreated and abandoned.

Instead, I'm giving my money to those actually willing to give me what I want. The Evolve servers aren't as good as the real thing, but they're the only thing I can give my money to at the moment, and I appreciate them taking in all of this traffic.
Someone took a product that MS is eventually going to release, changed it to remove any and all ability for MS to receive money from it, and is distributing it on their own. Piracy. Stop pretending you're entitled to piracy just because MS isn't giving you what you want.
 

LilJoka

Member
Someone took a product that MS is eventually going to release, changed it to remove any and all ability for MS to receive money from it, and is distributing it on their own. Piracy. Stop pretending you're entitled to piracy just because MS isn't giving you what you want.

The bigger issue is that in no way will the F2P version be better.
Pirating other games is not such a big issue for devs, since you are locked out of things like multiplayer, but in this case, there is no reason whatsoever to ever play the F2P version. Other games the people may pirate, they may pay money to play on the real servers, no point doing that here.
 
Someone took a product that MS is eventually going to release, changed it to remove any and all ability for MS to receive money from it, and is distributing it on their own. Piracy. Stop pretending you're entitled to piracy just because MS isn't giving you what you want.
Someone took a product that MS is eventually going to release in a single region, for free, and removed the very content that MS would have locked behind payments.

Halo: Online is Halo: Online, and Halo 3 is Halo 3. If their product is so terrible that a community project like this can possibly overthrow them, they have other issues to worry about other than a free version of their game existing.

League of Legends, every Valve game, Blizzard games. Hell, every other successful game that exists on the PC platform is successful because they aren't as anti-consumer as Halo: Online is.

If you really believe that this project will damage the final release of Halo: Online, then Halo: Online was never meant to be pro-consumer anyways, and doesn't deserve the support of the PC community.
 

Zomba13

Member
Someone took a product that MS is eventually going to release, changed it to remove any and all ability for MS to receive money from it, and is distributing it on their own. Piracy. Stop pretending you're entitled to piracy just because MS isn't giving you what you want.

But if he was going to download a theoretical English version of the game but ignore all the F2P microtransactions and instead just play it like it was Halo 3 with map weapons and no custom guns etc then the only thing that is different is that he's being advertised to (with the option to purchase in-game scopes and such). So really, as it's a F2P game, he's really just kinda using Ad-Blocker to block those ads. Then we get into things like "Is using Ad-Block software a crime? Is it piracy? Is it theft?" which it could well be and you definitely know companies think that.
 
The bigger issue is that in no way will the F2P version be better.
Pirating other games is not such a big issue for devs, since you are locked out of things like multiplayer, but in this case, there is no reason whatsoever to ever play the F2P version. Other games the people may pirate, they may pay money to play on the real servers, no point doing that here.

Why would anyone play Dark Souls on PC without DSFix?
 

Magwik

Banned
Ignore the fact that I'm still in the thread, but this is the thing I'm just not getting.

Halo 3 was the peak of the Halo franchise for me. Halo 2 was great, but Halo 3 brought in Forge, and Forge was amazing.

The recent Halo games have tried to do too much.

The Halo: Online I want to play is Halo 3 on PC, and that's what the community is creating. We don't want armor abilities, sprinting, etc...

Saber Interactive however, is creating "Halo 4 with content from Halo 3: Free to Play Edition".

If and when Halo: Online is completed and released in the U.S., it will likely not have Forge, theater, or much customization at all. It will be matchmaking, and matchmaking only, with a very strict set of playlists unlikely to strip out the features of Halo 4 that many do not want at all.

I couldn't care less about weapon skins and other various features that weren't even present in Halo 3 to begin with being locked behind microtransactions. That doesn't bother me at all.

But the version of the game that I currently have access to is more player-friendly than any official version we're going to receive, and that's the version that I want to support, whether or not it's considered piracy.

I bought an Xbox One for MCC. I bought MCC. I paid Microsoft for those things, and Live. I bought Halo: CE for PC, and the disaster that was Halo 2 Vista. They've promised over and over again that they would support PC gamers, and they haven't. They gave us the worst DRM we've ever had instead, and a Fable game to top it all off, as if that's a big deal. They've shown us just how easy it is for them to port Xbox games to PC with Forza.

And like I said before, I would be more than willing to pay Microsoft for this game. I don't consider myself a pirate for playing something Microsoft has shown absolutely no interest in actually giving us. Do I think I deserve this? No. But I've wanted it for 8 years, so of course I'm going to take up any opportunity to have it, whether it's official or not. I don't think that makes me a pirate, because I'm sitting here right now, wallet at the ready, willing to give every last dime in it to Microsoft for even the slightest interest in supporting the PC gamers they mistreated and abandoned.

Instead, I'm giving my money to those actually willing to give me what I want. The Evolve servers aren't as good as the real thing, but they're the only thing I can give my money to at the moment, and I appreciate them taking in all of this traffic.

Edit: The difference between Microsoft and Sony in this case, is that Sony has never shown an interest in PC gamers. Microsoft teases us, gave us Halo: CE and 2, and locked and ruined a lot of games with GFWL. Don't take this entire comment as a reply to what you said. I think only like the first couple parts apply to what you said. Just saying in general regarding the posters in this thread.

This reads a lot like entitlement to me
 
This thing is amazing, it's almost unbelieveable how much progress has been made in so little time. I wish MS would see that and realise that there is genuine HUGE demand for continued Halo PC games.
 
Someone took a product that MS is eventually going to release, changed it to remove any and all ability for MS to receive money from it, and is distributing it on their own. Piracy. Stop pretending you're entitled to piracy just because MS isn't giving you what you want.

Do you always pull things out of your butt and present what you find in there as fact? How about, stop inventing a reality that suits your argument and instead actually spend a few minutes googling or, hell, reading the responses to this exact same assumption that the clickbait article this thread is based on, and see what people are actually doing?
 

LastChance2Frag

Neo Member
The problem with the situation now is even if MS had plans to release this with windows 10 in the west and make it b2p like CS:GO what's to stop people from playing the leaked version.

I'm not sure on all the legal side of this but if this was Dota 3 and the alpha leaked and some modders made it playable wouldn't that be along the lines of hacking/pirating. Also with all these f2p games you have to have an account and accept the t&cs. I think its pretty mental that its got to where it has and has put MS in a bit of a hard situation.
 
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