The source code for an earlier build was uploaded without Microsoft's permission. It's theft. It's without their permission.
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Halo Online modders working to strip micro-transactions, release worldwide
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LightningXCE
Member
Nobody has any source code. The only thing people have access to is the one beta that was posted on the official website to download.
Again, absolutely no source code was posted, hacked, downloaded, etc. All of this work is doing is a tool to swap bits of memory at runtime and to load maps for offline play
I think stripping out microtransactions in their entirety can also be viewed as stripping out advertising, and the advertising itself is part of the way the product is funded; Vlad is still being advertised to, and that advertising has the opportunity to convince him to start making purchases. That's not part of the deal with Billy's setup. It's certainly at this point, though, that I feel the questions involved get very interesting, and I can certainly see valid arguments to the contrary.
LightningXCE
Member
wont be offline much longer apparently
That is just showing left over UI tags from mainmenu.map. You can modify what gets shown.
Zero functionality and it means absolutely nothing.
From what I'm reading they are getting close to LAN working. They already got server chat messages working via emulator so I don't understand why this is out of the realm of possibility?
LightningXCE
Member
There is a huge difference between sending a text string via memory manipulation and getting a fully networked, online game working.
Regardless, the 'team' working on that is separate form the (at least original) ElDorito team, unlike what all of these articles are reporting on.
DEElekgolo
Banned
I swear people are desperate to paint us as pirates.
Since F2P requires dedicated servers to even work, and the fact that P2P would be too taxing for lower end computers that they wish to target, all the peer code is gone. You need peer code to do LAN.
It's possible with any game, let alone Halo, to memory edit and insert chat messages into the game's memory space so that it shows up as chat. You're not really doing anything other than feeding strings to code that's meant to read strings.
Not just that, but Vlad as a non-paying customer is still valuable, as without users like him, others that will be paying customers are unlikely to actually play or pay. If the monetary model is to pay for advantages over free players, then those free players must actually exist for the system to work.
This of course doesn't apply to Billy.
HighResTomato
Member
Going to laugh so hard when these guys eventually get caught and jailed. No matter which way you look at this, it's theft.
I wonder how many people saying this even realize the microtransaction part of Halo Online is not even live yet.
Not only is the article's program just a trainer and CAN'T circumvent the F2P nature of the game, the F2P functionality doesn't even work yet. You can only walk around maps in Halo Online by yourself. It's a glorified model viewer. You could get more functionality modding the original Halo 2 for the Xbox.
Metal Gear?!
Member
Calling this theft is like calling using the MS Core Fonts Installer on Linux theft.
It's not been stated directly no, but it's been heavily emphasized that this game was made and designed with the Russian market as the target audience. The main reason for its existence being that the F2P model is very popular over there so they made a game that would appeal to them. What with H5 coming out soon they don't have much reason to even bring it here.
I don't think it'll affect the game any more than piracy does to non F2P games. Hell I think it could very well affect it less given that most people probably don't feel like going through the hassle. The people over there actually have the ability to purchase items in the game as well so that muddies the issue even further.
It's so great when people go to jail when they didn't steal anything in the first place amirite
Two things here.
First, you don't appear to realize that - legally - its irrelevant as to whether the payment model has gone live. You couldn't distribute a work print of a movie either.
Second, don't play coy here; this won't stop with walking around an empty map and it won't be shut down once the game goes live. You know as well as I the ultimate goal is to recreate the game sans the payment.
It was an open download from microsoft's servers. This build is old anyway, and won't be useful when the actual game is out.
Well, see, you're up against people that actually know what they're doing when they're screwing around with the Halo engine versus your incorrect assumptions. Modifying the game in the way ElDorito does in no way allows you to circumvent the F2P transactions of the game. It doesn't even provide a path towards that.
As I pointed above, you could mod Halo 2 Xbox to do crazy shit and you'd actually be able to play that online via LAN tunnelers with other people, even though it's online is shutdown.
DEElekgolo
Banned
I feel like a lot of people are just reading the topic name and posting here like "yea put em in jail!"
You're probably not far off
i imagine legally this would be a very clear cut case of shutting down the group(s) that makes the metaphorical 'final blow', but DEElekgolo swears up and down that his project is just memory injection and will not evolve to anything detrimental to the final product and so I do not know why we are upset at him nor he with us. surely DEElekgolo will be in good agreement in condemning the group that does eventually enable online hacking or piracy on this here videogame
SunBroDave
Member
I think the important thing to remember here is that
1) ElDorito isn't a free version of H:O. H.O. is free as it is, and whether you need to have a Russian IP to play it or not, once that game comes out, that game is going to be available for free to anyone who wants it (though non Russians might not be able to quote unquote use it)
2) ElDorito isn't circumventing the F2P nature of H:O because circumventing microtransactions isn't going to be feasible on official servers, i.e. you can't run the game through ElDorito and get the super dirty BR in official games without paying for it. Afaik all that some modders want is to have everything unlocked in their own private matches, completely removed from official play. No one's cheating to get to the top of the leaderboards. I don't see a problem if you just want to have all of the armors unlocked when you're playing with just a few of your buddies.
1) ElDorito isn't a free version of H:O. H.O. is free as it is, and whether you need to have a Russian IP to play it or not, once that game comes out, that game is going to be available for free to anyone who wants it (though non Russians might not be able to quote unquote use it)
2) ElDorito isn't circumventing the F2P nature of H:O because circumventing microtransactions isn't going to be feasible on official servers, i.e. you can't run the game through ElDorito and get the super dirty BR in official games without paying for it. Afaik all that some modders want is to have everything unlocked in their own private matches, completely removed from official play. No one's cheating to get to the top of the leaderboards. I don't see a problem if you just want to have all of the armors unlocked when you're playing with just a few of your buddies.
LightningXCE
Member
This is exactly what it is, minus the playing with your buddies thing, because that is not really functional as of now.
DEElekgolo
Banned
Another thing to consider is that all the offsets that I have now are going to be absolutely pointless once a new build comes out and the memory gets all placed differently along with whatever else they might have changed. I'm probably going to leave all this once a new .exe build comes out and we have to start from ground zero anyways. The stuff we have now is going to be the most-vulnerable version of the game that we're going to get I assure you. There are early signs of them implementing stuff like GameGuard and LOTS of old xbox related code that will most likely be cleaned out and omitted with each new revision of Halo Online. The game still attempts to look for an xbox profile and even has old Halo 3 related data and xbox debug info.
All of these menus that you see people like Gamecheat post acts as if it is still running on an xbox and are barely even functional. Parts of the game are even expecting controller-input still which is why the forge-mode that we had enabled is so broken on a keyboard/mouse setup and doesn't even work properly on the newer maps.
Pretty much all the exploits that people are doing now are correlated to the fact that the engine is very much the same to Halo 3. A lot of the mods that were done for Halo 3 are transferring easily over to this since the engine is very very very much the same. With each new revision of the game it will most likely be lesser and lesser so. Not much of what we have now is going to transfer well to any newer revisions of the game at all which makes these piracy claims that much more ridiculous.
All of these menus that you see people like Gamecheat post acts as if it is still running on an xbox and are barely even functional. Parts of the game are even expecting controller-input still which is why the forge-mode that we had enabled is so broken on a keyboard/mouse setup and doesn't even work properly on the newer maps.
Pretty much all the exploits that people are doing now are correlated to the fact that the engine is very much the same to Halo 3. A lot of the mods that were done for Halo 3 are transferring easily over to this since the engine is very very very much the same. With each new revision of the game it will most likely be lesser and lesser so. Not much of what we have now is going to transfer well to any newer revisions of the game at all which makes these piracy claims that much more ridiculous.
If this project causes fewer players to be in Halo Online, then it is a direct attack on the F2P business model. So if a future comes to pass where HO fails to meet expectations and is turned off, and the modders say "see, if it wasn't for us you wouldn't have this at all", it may be because of them.
Meanwhile the Halo franchise managers at Microsoft who are going to be dealing with this issue are the same ones making decisions about greenlighting future PC based Halo projects.
Meanwhile the Halo franchise managers at Microsoft who are going to be dealing with this issue are the same ones making decisions about greenlighting future PC based Halo projects.
Zomba13
Member
That's an interesting point and I didn't really see it that way before. I guess when you have the option of buying a gun with real money, regardless of whether you do so or save up ingame currency/time, it's still advertisement and can still potentially lead to a sale, however small.
Enter The 36 Chambers
Member
Why is Halo pc port begging allowed?
Genuinely curious why it always gets a pass but other games etc gets a ban?
Genuinely curious why it always gets a pass but other games etc gets a ban?
Because it has been on the PC before. So it's not out of the realm of possibilitily to think others might hit the platform at some point.
thehillissilent
Member
Halo 1 and 2 were ported to PC years ago. There is a huge PC fan base for Halo, but MS ignores them. That is probably part of it.
Not right now, no. But it's in the realm of possibility. If it's just Halo 3's engine code, they just need to find the split screen options.
Not really sure what makes that better than port begging any other game that's had entries on other platforms before. The same would apply to Bayonetta 2, Street Fighter V, Sonic Lost World etc.
that's so damn cool! thanks, even if it doesn't work having a halo 3ish game on PC is going to be rad.
the examples you cite are all very different its not really comparable. in yoiur examples you cite games that had contract with hardware manufacturers for a game to be exclusive to a system.
in halo's case we have the publisher (microsoft) who also makes hardware (xbox) releasing a games on a neutral platform ( PC ) infact microsoft used to be really good when it came to supporting PC, many of the early xbox360 exclusives also launched on it, and a few of the x1's exclusives are also on PC. Halo 1 & 2 is also on pc. it really isnt outside the relm of possibility. on the other hand. Tell me the last time nintendo or sony published a PC game that included key exclusive franchises?
The Lamonster
Member
When it comes to Halo, MS sure knows how to fuck up lol
Well in that case then this ceases to be about Halo, or its prior existence on PC. Now you're saying that any MS IP is fair game for port begging, and any third-party exclusive that isn't published by the platform holder (Sonic Colors, Guilty Gear Xrd, Yakuza etc) should all also be fine to port beg.
It's completely different. Platinum didn't release Bayonetta: The Visual Novel on Sony/Microsoft platforms to "attract new Bayonetta fans to the series" alongside Bayonetta 2's release, did they? Yet here Microsoft is, making all kinds of bizarre decisions like the Spartan Assault port followed by a F2P region-locked multiplayer-only title that literally nobody asked for, instead of the blatantly obvious requests from their PC customers. Bayonetta 2's exclusivity was the fallout of Sega's exit from the majority of boxed retail game publishing, but here you have Microsoft throwing money at a new game that is startlingly similar to the existing Halo engines, yet locked to the Russian market and placed behind a F2P business model. It's like a bad joke, and almost contemptuous towards their existing customers.
I think the majority of platform exclusive decisions like Street Fighter V and Sonic Lost World are awful for customers who have supported these franchises on other platforms. It's a shitty way to treat people who are literally asking for the ability to give them money!
I agree that exclusives for the sake of being exclusives are pretty shitty. I don't think Halo's situation is very special though tbh. Spartan Assault is more a case of trying to use the Halo name to push Windows Phone/Tablets, rather than trying to get more people into Halo. They just decided to throw it up on Steam rather than only leave it on the Windows Store.
As for ignoring the requests of PC gamers... well that's basically what port begging is... If they don't feel like putting the game on PC, that's their decision really. I'd consider something like Halo Online to be preferable to the alternative Sony/Nintendo stance.
Anyways... this is pretty far off the topic now. Just thought the "it's been on this platform before" reasoning doesn't really hold up when you consider how many other games would fit that criteria.
This software does the same stuff Durante's modifications do to other games.
It's not attacking the F2P business model.
It can't be used to attack the F2P business model.
It doesn't even allow you to cheat online.
It allows you to modify attributes and memory addresses, offline, in a local session, because this has been a feature of the Halo engine since Halo 1. It's hacking like editing a game's .ini is hacking.
ChosenPredator
Banned
Because as soon they do that, everyone will go out and buy gaming PCs, and no one will ever buy an Xbone again.
Edit: ^^Meant as sarcasm.
Custom game setup it looked like.
Also if the method to do it releases soon, it's not going to die since access to files will always be shared
Again, MS is a software company. I'm not seeing the problem outside of them not being able to trojan horse their hardware (which isn't gaining traction, 360 was pretty much an anomaly for them. :/) into living rooms. Hell, if MS wants to be protective, don't give Halo 5 to PC for 2-4 years. This means anyone that wants the latest entry has to buy a console for it. Those that can wait, will.
The main thing stopping Microsoft from releasing content for PC in the past was that they never had a software platform to support it. When they did have one, they supported it (GFWL with Gears, Viva Pinata, AoE3, Halo 2, Shadowrun), then that died and they had no more stake in the market. I'm interested to see how serious they are about the Windows 10 store.
poopninjamvc3mk
I sucked six dicks to get this tag.
The jank and rubberband lag is real
I was trying to be sarcastic.
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