HL2 Source code Leak

(fattakin) #21

Im sorry for the guys at valve and how it affects them etc but im feeling selfish and…

the longer the delays and cheating in MP etc = better shelf life for ET!!!

(chavo_one) #22

But now the criminals who have the code can see all of the network code in the game. If there are any exploits to be found, don’t you think they might use them? Sort of like the Unreal engine problem that gave criminals access to your PC through the game. I think that effects every person who buys hl2 and plays MP.

(Machine for to kill) #23

Got that right…I was afraind that since my map is taking forever to complete nbody would bother with it since half-life would be out (talking about original september release) and everyone (including me) would start making stuff with that engine. Now I got lots more time. Of course once DOOM 3 comes out with its far far far superior engine you won’t be hearing anymore about ET or halflife. We all know you can’t top ID…

I still thing this thread doesn’t belong here and the moderators should delete it.

(rgoer) #24

The differences are numerous, but subtle:[ul]1. The mazes are different, more challenging (in that they provide less protection from the ghosts, while making it more difficult to reach the power pellets)
2. The ghosts move more quickly than the ghosts in Pac-Man
3. Ms. Pac-Man moves more quickly than Pac-Man
4. The fruit bonuses move about the level, rather than just sitting still
5. The ghosts seem to be a tiny bit “smarter” than those in Pac-Man, but this might be human misconception[/ul]You’d think that such small differences wouldn’t create such a rift between two otherwise-similar video games. However, Ms. Pac-Man is “more than the sum of its parts,” to say the least, and is a vastly superior game to Pac-Man in almost every way.

(nate.h) #25

As much as I do love old Id games, and owe my gaming heritage to them a thousandfold, that’s just Fanboi-ism talking. Half Life 1 was far better than Quake 2. Quake 3 wasn’t really even a game; it was more of an Engine. RTCW was pretty good (Note Id played a minor role in developing the actual gameplay component), and I think ET is great because it fleshes alout alot of the great things about RTCW, and brings back some of the long lost dynamics from the TF I days (Much love there).

But, really. HL2 >> Doom 3. I don’t see how you can argue otherwise.
As much as I would love for Doom 3 to prove me completely wrong, I’m afraid HL2 will simply be a better single-player game experience – if the HL/Q2 comparison is any indication.

Of course, multiplayer is still anyone’s bet. I’m curious to see what Doom 3 multiplayer is like, but from what I read from Carmack, it is going to be alot more like Doom/Doom 2 style (2-4 players, deathmatch). Of course, there are people who read this forum who know far better than I coughsplashdamagecough… but this is my understanding. This isn’t really a bad thing, but everyone keeps talking like Doom 3 is going to kill all the large multiplayer team-based games, and I don’t think that’s quite a fair comparison.

Just my $0.02

EDIT:

Having seen the Doom 3 and Halflife 2 videos, I have to question this. Did you see the rigid-body dynamics in HL? I mean, doom does a great job of making good shadows, and fleshing out the whole “creepyness” aspect… but Halflife 2 does this, and works great in a city, on a beach, etc, too! Of course, if Halflife 2 gets borked because of this code leak, we may never know…

(bani) #26

put your microsoft windoze development machines on the public internet and you’re just asking for it.

really hard to have sympathy for them, especially when:

  1. they get cracked
  2. by a months-old exploit
  3. after realizing they got cracked, take NO corrective action to secure the rest of their network.

you’d think developers would be smarter than that.

(bani) #27

the real question is – how does ragdoll, rigid body physics make for a good multiplayer game? or all the uber graphics in doom3? my guess is everyone is going to tweak their video settings to make it look like a TRS-80 anyway, to get that competitive edge, so most of that eye candy will be for naught.

(Machine for to kill) #28

Ah a Linux loser…let me guess you’re one of those guys who likes to program with notepad right…

GO BACK TO RUSSIA COMMAND PROMPT LOVER

On another note…say what you will about HL2…granted ID has never had a record of good storylines but if there’s something they know how to do it’s how to make good engines. I am yet to play a game build on ID technology and not like it (including the first half life) and I’ve played just about all of them. Things like facial animations and other useless things like that that nobody ever notices are just hype. Fact is that the QuakeIII engine has been around for 4 years now and it’s still in use. Same will be true about the DOOM III engine. If the half life engine can compete with that than good, but I seriously doubt it.

But then again who better to resolve this discussion than the splash people. You all worked with the DOOM engine…is it all that it can be and then some?

But come on seriously, have you seen those DOOM3 screenshots, they’re movie quality.

(damocles) #29

put your microsoft windoze development machines on the public internet and you’re just asking for it.

I was talking to a friend of mine about this just the other day. He was telling me about how much people slag off windows and microsoft when they simply don’t deserve it. He is a fully qualified network engineer and chief consultant for internet security for the company he works for (a company that install networks all over Britain) and he was telling me about how unix is a lot more vulnerable to attack that windows. Apparently windows was very vulnerable and buggy back in the days of NT servers, but since the move to 2000 servers, microsoft is now far and away the most secure option available to end users (as far as “store bought” solutions go). So it’s not perfect, but there is no such thing as perfect software. My friend was talking about how everyone slags off MS because of the bad press they get. The only reason they get bad press is because windows systems make up the major majority of servers. Therefore hackers are more inclined to try and break into windows systems than unix because they are more likely to find a poorly protected system. There are much more dangerous vulnerabilities in unix systems but they don’t get abused by hackers so much simply because of the reduced number of unix servers in areas hackers want to hack.

(Irrelevant) #30

Thanks, rgoer. I’ll need to have another look at those some time…

I see no connection between any of the ideas here. For instance:

[ul][li]Notepad doesn’t run on Linux.
[/li][li]Anyway, it’s rubbish for programming in. Scintilla is much better. :fiesta:
[/li][li]Many Linux variants have GUIs. (Mandrake, for example.)
[/li][li]Notepad doesn’t even run on the Micro$oft command prompt (DOS).
[/li][li]Russia? What does that have to do with anything? :???:[/ul]
[/li]Damocles has a point about security. The reason more virii, malware, etc affect Windows than *X is because more people use Windows. Howver, as the Linux kernel is open source, bugs get fixed very soon after they’re discovered.

Before you flame me for being a ‘Linux loser’, I’m using Windows XP right now. :stuck_out_tongue:

(Sauron|EFG) #31

Bad day, huh? That’s one uneducated comment… :blah:

Command prompt > GUI :smiley:
(Although I have to use a third party command prompt because the one included in Windows is so crappy.)

If that’s true it wouldn’t have been much better with another OS (except that exploits are not as frequent on any system as the sum of Windows, IE and Outlook). Unpatched = unsafe, patched = less unsafe. :disgust:

Do you happen to know which exploit it was bani?

(damocles) #32

I don’t think valve gave official word to what exact exploit it was, only that it was a fault in outlook express’ personal information manager that allowed someone to install spy software onto Newell’s computer and read important info such as passwords, etc. They used that stolen info to “hack” the system and half-inch the source code.

(bani) #33

your friend says a lot of things, most of them wrong :smiley:

microsoft’s hatred is well deserved, they worked hard almost two decades to earn every bit of it. “poor, helpess microsoft doesnt deserve all this negative press”. yeah right. tell that to the people suffering the latest incarnation of msblast. :moo:

(damocles) #34

Yeah, nice work there bani. That was quite possibly the best para-phrasing yet seen on the internet.

(Depth_Charge) #35

has any1 even heard about a multiplayer for hl2? i think the game wud lag so much that it wudnt be worth playing on multiplayer and poorer people wont be able to play it cuz they dotn have higher than 64 bit vid cards . And any1 that steals stuff from gamecompanies jsut make nothing to steal when software companies run out of money from all the stealing

(bani) #36

no other OS (except mac, but who uses those? :D) has OE. OE is as loose as a mexican whore. you use OE, you trade off security for convenience. and you get what you deserve. :moo:

and yet, OE isnt the only choice on windoze. but its probably the poorest one. just about ANYTHING is more secure than OE.

gabe wasnt specific, only that it was an OE exploit.

i still can’t imagine why anyone would have their primary development network connected to the public internet, with something as high stakes as HL2.

(Machine for to kill) #37

microsoft’s hatred is well deserved, they worked hard almost two decades to earn every bit of it. “poor, helpess microsoft doesnt deserve all this negative press”. yeah right. tell that to the people suffering the latest incarnation of msblast

I hate to keep going on this whole microsoft is evil crap since it’s completely off topic but as a computer engineer who has studied and knows a lot about OS i just can’t stand when people talk out of their ass.

First of all windows 2000 and XP are the best OS out there in terms of reliability, security and yes easiness to use. Unix is a great PROGRAMMER’S OS because it has a lot of useful utilities that make your life a little easier some times, but if you wanna do anything else don’t bother because it sucks. As far as security is concerned, any systems programmers will tell you that the UNIX NFS is a lot easier to hack because it has a lot more loopholes that can be easily exploited by even the stupidest of hackers. And as far as Linux security is concerned I got two words for you: OPEN SOURCE, so lets not even go there. Windows gets hacked the most, but this is not because it’s the most
vulnerable but simply because 90% of computers out there use it.

I am not a microsoft rep, and I couldn’t care less about microsoft, but I’ve used all of the above OS and I currently use XP because it gives me the most productivity and the fewest headaches in my work. It’s true that the windows OS used to be garbage, but that’s not true anymore. I’ve met a lot of people who hate windows and talk all kinds of crap about it, and they’re usually either nerd wannabes ( yes they exist), or dinosaurs who made their mind up 15 years ago about what’s good and bad in the world and refuse to try anything new in their 386 machines, because they’re “rebels” and they’re still “fighting the power”.(excuse my very subtle sarcasm).
In the end an OS is just a tool, and you should choose the one that is best suited for you. But this choice should be based on your experience, knowledge and how productive and efficient you are with it, not on myths and stupid clichés that you’ve heard from self-proclaimed experts.

…By the way, try a search on google about hacking and you’ll see that 99% of links are on how to hack non-microsoft systems(unix primarily)

(rgoer) #38

I have a hard time believing you are a payed professional in the IT industry, after some of the things you said up there MftK:

Well, this is a matter of opinion, but I think that if you took an objective, unbiased poll of real people, both users and admins, you’d find that Mac OS X wins the title for all three of those, hands down. I’d use it, if only I could afford an Apple ;^)

Um, there’s no way to say this lightly, so I’ll be blunt: this is the most uninformed, zealous position I have ever seen anyone take. I pray that you don’t do any kind of important work where reliability or dependence matters; if I was your sysadmin, I’d fire you. In any case, let’s refute your statements, one by one:[ul]1. Firstly, while NFS does have its share of holes (most of which are well known and dated problems that any sysadmin worth his salt would have patched about five years ago), NFS is by no means a measure by which to judge UNIX as a whole.

  1. There are many more-secure alternatives to NFS if a network filesystem is something you must have (AFS comes to mind).

  2. The UNIX filesystem, by the way, is about the most secure filesystem one could dream of.

  3. Oh, and as for Windows being more secure, try mailbombing administrator@<someNTFS-running company>.com and as soon as the partition fills up you’ll own their server due to sloppy managing of buffer overflows on Microsoft’s part (sound familiar? almost every Windows hole exploits some buffer overflow exploit or another… didn’t these guys get CS degrees?)

  4. “And as far as Linux security is concerned I got two words for you: OPEN SOURCE.” Well, I’ve got two words for you, in return: OPEN SOURCE! When you’ve got thousands (if not tens-of-thousands) of programmers working with the same code, the holes get found and fixed at an alarmingly rapid pace. Sure, some malicious entity could scour the source for vulnerabilities–but for every would-be GNU/Linux attacker there are a dozen GNU/Linux coders looking for the same vulnerabilities, just to fix them instead of exploit them. Security through transparency, baby.

  5. Windows does, in fact, get hacked the most because it has the largest installed base. Microsoft only exascerbates the situation, however, by leaving such gaping, inviting orifaces in nearly all of their software. I dare you to find a single MS product that hasn’t fallen victim to some buffer overflow or another in the past five years.[/ul]

By the way, pick up a copy of 2600 magazine next time you’re at Barnes & Noble and you’ll see that 99% of articles are on how to completely fucking own any and all Microsoft systems.

</rant off>
Ok, so let me add a little post-script disclaimer: yeah, as a 3D artists I can’t help but use Windows. It’s just a fact of life. What MftK said about “choosing the right tool for the job” is exactly right–the 3D hardware I need to use is most easily supported by running a Windows OS, so I have to make that sacrifice for the sake of getting my job done.

However, I don’t try and kid myself into thinking that my box is, in any way, “secure” when running Windows. As a matter of fact, it angers me that I pay hefty liscencing fees to Microsoft and they continue to output such shoddy work.

(bani) #39

could have fooled me. you couldnt have done a better sales pitch if you were steve ballmer.

but that’s all it was, a sales pitch.

i just love all these self-professed “computer engineers”. you think you know a lot about OSes, but you made it clearly obvious you don’t. you come off as another one of those 12-year-old kids who likes to argue how his amiga 500 beats the pants off your PC.

keep it up, i need a good laugh :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

(Machine for to kill) #40

Ok this is the last thing I’ll post on this topic(hopefully) since it seems to me that it doesn’t belong on this forum at all.

Since most of you missed the point of my previous post, I’ll state it more clearly.
THE REASON FOR THE CODE LEAK WAS NOT THE CHOICE OF OS!!!
It’s completely idiotic to try to think that had they been using something else they wouldn’t have been hacked. But always in stead of taking responsibility for your own fuckup, it’s much easier to blame the big bad and evil microsoft. I would like once in the IT business to hear someone say , yes it’s our fault. The point is it’s their fault for having bad security, and YES they would have been hacked no matter what OS they used since they obviously don’t know how to protect themselves.
As far as the whole argument about which OS is better this is completely a
question of opinion. Anyone can give you a hundred ways in which they think one OS is better than another, and someone else can come and disprove all those points, so I don’t think that proves much.
I work in IC design, so my opinion for most OS comes mainly from the most important point of view which is the user’s, as I’ve worked with most of them. Like I said previously OS IS A TOOL and it should be treated as such, which means try them all and choose the one you’re most productive with for your application. And it’s form experience that I said previously that THEY ALL CAN BE HACKED since I’ve experienced hacks first hand even in places where they used the apparently best file system one can dream of (rogoer).
I don’t want to go into childish arguments and pointless bitching because I think this topic has been beaten to death already so let’s just say that I just don’t agree with a lot of you people out there, but I would still advise a lot of you to examine your choices better and to try and base your decisions on your experiences and not on opinions and hype.

P.S. rogoer, some very good points but again we all know that they are all opinion not facts.