Zipper5

This works both ways here, Rock. You're complaining that stuff you've released for free to the internet as part of a 3rd party mod for a video game is being stolen and/or sold. What is the point of putting money into a project to develop a way for "locking" PBOs? That will only solve issues in the short-term. You seem to have been burned by theft of your own work and are looking for something, anything to make yourself feel more secure about your creations. That's a logical reaction anywhere but the internet. How can we say it will actually make their job harder? Whereas it is certain that it will be decrypted eventually. In fact, it's the constant trying to block out pirates and thieves that makes them up their efforts to continue doing it, making it easier and, dare I say it, more "efficient" each time they do it. You're simply going to make both pirates/thieves and legitimate consumers angry. Do you realize it will ultimately be pointless? People have told me that the BAF DLC encryption has been cracked for a while now, but it's not been publicized at all around these parts. I can't give examples as I don't go looking for that stuff, I am just aware it's going on. If BIS' encryption which they specifically used to protect content of monetary value is being cracked, what makes you think that locks they develop for free content will be any more of an obstacle? It'll be a nuisance more than anything. And where exactly would we be if we never had tools to decrypt PBOs?

Slow news day, isn't it? :p

Great post, Dwarden.

OFPEC will never be replaced by the BI forums' editing section for me, Gnat.

If you must go with "selfish", that should read "We're too selfish to give up our ability to learn from other peoples' work". Very few members of this community steal other peoples' work, and the community doesn't support it at all when they do. I get the feeling that some of you have possibly been burned already by theft. I know Rock has, which is quite obviously influencing his opinion. Not everyone is out to steal your work and make a buck off of it. Blanket "punishments" never solve anything, I'm learning that quite well at school. Most of the time they actually provoke people to continue doing it, or for those who are innocent to start doing it to spite you. In fact, that's exactly like school... I wouldn't say that it's a bad thing that we don't want to lose that privilege, as we've had it since the beginning, and I would say the modding community has essentially developed around that principle.

Alright, sorry. At least that clears that up, been wondering for a while. :p

I may be mistaken, not overly acquainted with the terms of their EULA, but doesn't all content that passes through BIS' tools automatically fall under BIS' jurisdiction?

Yes. Unfortunately, the HALO script(s?) included with Arma 2 and OA have always had less-than-satisfactory results. Everything works fine before you open your parachute. :p

I think that's more to do with them becoming bored and moving on to the next game. At least that's the pattern they've exhibited all the way from way back in OFP.

I think we all know that, it's just unfortunate that as soon as you try to fight these guys they simply want to beat you down even more than they did before so they can rub it in your face. Look at how Ubisoft's new DRM turned out, every major hacking group on the internet wanted to be the first to shut it down, and that meant it didn't actually take too long. If they want to do it, well, they're going to do it, sadly. It would make sense to have this for payware as then the protection of your game's content matters a lot more than a simple 3rd party mod for said game, especially if the fight is going to, in the long term, be fruitless.

Of course, I don't think anyone would appreciate that, but with payware it at least makes 100% sense to lock and encrypt your releases as you can actually chase up cases of theft. But with free content you pretty much have to accept that you're putting it at the mercy of the world by releasing it on the internet, no matter if you lock and encrypt it. However, you will always have the community here fully boycotting anyone who is revealed to have done such a thing to your work so long as it happens within the community.

Well it just gives us more of an idea behind your motivation, perhaps revealing why you would treat your models released for free in the same way you would for ones you sell, one of which it's logical to lock and encrypt and the other, not so much.

I wouldn't say it's solely responsible, it just gives server admins the tools to do it instead, one such example being ping kicking, which I had hoped and prayed would never rear it's ugly head in BIS' games. :(

I get the feeling some modelers in this thread might actually be making money off of selling them. Just a hunch.

I promised myself I wouldn't come back to this, but let me just say that I am a naysayer here and I have also released content for the community, but I will never lock my pbos, even if they contain models. I recognize I'm making stuff for free and as a hobby on the internet where theft is completely inevitable, and I have the ability to accept the consequences. But why does it require people to have released stuff to the community in order for them to have an opinion? When you become un-contactable for whatever reason and people have to resort to the inevitable backdoors to getting access to your content. This will simply promote the use of said backdoors rather than stop them. That's my opinion, at least.

Since 2001. Way too many hours to count, and they keep on counting. :D

Thanks, Bink. Glad to see it appears to be working well, and that it's enjoyable. :p

If you notice, there are actually animations to make turning look more realistic. Turn around in 3rd person, or watch an AI turn around. It's just players in MP who will rotate like that.

Found this interesting new article on The Escapist. While it's not exactly news to any PC gamer, it does feel good to have a man responsible for one of the greatest FPS games of all time reasserting it. Though the article does have a point - I'd like to hear which games he thinks are so innovative. Would Arma 2 count? :p

To be honest, I think making comparisons to poking around an addon to poking around someone's house, or poking around someone's forum post, to be the extremes on either end of the scale and not really realistic comparisons to make in this situation. I'm going to end my involvement in this discussion by stating that I see the ability to lock pbos until given permission to only hurt the already fragile modding community remaining in Arma 2, as if we are to take everything that we've already discussed in terms of this topic out of the equation, what happens when you simply become no longer contactable? People will never be able to access your work again. Oh how I miss the glory days of OFP... :(

Modders to console players are mostly actual cheaters. "Modding" for consoles has become synonymous with hacking. Modding on the PC has an entirely different meaning.

Indeed, until developers officially lock modding out. *cough* :p

Of course they have better tools, but we don't pay for the tools they've released to us.

An obvious troll is obvious.

Well, in this case, it's looking after the best interests of the modder using it, as it is unknown how the community would react to being locked out of even un-pbo'ing the addon until permission is granted. You are really over-reacting to this. Some of us are trying to have a mature discussion here. To answer your question, modding should first and foremost be about pleasing yourself, if others like your work after that then it's an added bonus. At least, that's how I look at it.