[Powerlord]

Policy of Truth

So, Fletcher Dunn from Valve emailed this out to the HLDS lists today:

Originally Posted by Fletcher Dunn <[email protected]> Lets be honest We all know that some server operators run mods specifically designed to falsify information sent to the Valve backend and to their players. These mods inaccurately report the player count and whether players are human or not. They conceal that significant modifications to gameplay have been made. This is detrimental to players' experience. Perhaps some server operators would actually prefer to not run these mods, but feel that it is necessary to compete and maintain their community. For this reason, Valve has made the decision not to take any action against any server operators at this time. We will be directly contacting some of the "institutional offenders" who are using these mods on multiple servers. However, whether we contact you directly or not, this email serves as warning to all server operators that we do have the ability to detect this class of behavior, and, going forward, we are going to be more aggressive at policing it. If we determine that you are modifying the network stream or otherwise circumventing basic security measures, we will take the actions needed to maintain a positive environment for our players. To be perfectly clear, here are some examples of the modifications and behaviours which we consider especially harmful to our community: * Forging or modifying network communications used to describe server properties to the backend or directly to clients. * Concealing the fact that bots are bots, and making them appear as human players. (Running bots is OK, as long as no modifications are made that make it difficult for players to identify which players are bots and which are humans.) * Interfering with the mechanisms that advertise modifications to gameplay rules in the server browser. (For example, nocrits, gravity, respawn times, etc.) Experimenting with gameplay modifications is encouraged, but any mechanisms in the engine designed to alert players to those modifications must be allowed to function. * Listing the same game server multiple times in the master server.

and later on

Originally Posted by Fletcher Dunn <[email protected]> Date for expected compliance: right now.

So, be aware that, while Valve will ignore what's happened in the past, but from this point forward they can (and will?) crack down on this sort of behavior.

[micazoid]

* Interfering with the mechanisms that advertise modifications to gameplay rules in the server browser. (For example, nocrits, gravity, respawn times, etc.) Experimenting with gameplay modifications is encouraged, but any mechanisms in the engine designed to alert players to those modifications must be allowed to function.

My english is worse then I thought XD

Will this breake the above mentioned? Please help.

[Jstn7477]

Originally Posted by micazoid My english is worse then I thought XD Will this breake the above mentioned? Please help.

Probably not. It's likely server owners who are using an sv_tags stripper to hide nocrits, respawntimes and other quickplay killing tags, as well as spoofing the network traffic to the master server to raise their server score.

[Zephyrus]

Originally Posted by Jstn7477 Probably not. It's likely server owners who are using an sv_tags stripper to hide nocrits, respawntimes and other quickplay killing tags, as well as spoofing the network traffic to the master server to raise their server score.

why would someone strip sv_tags? sorry i dont like tf but im curious

[musosoft]

* Concealing the fact that bots are bots, and making them appear as human players. (Running bots is OK, as long as no modifications are made that make it difficult for players to identify which players are bots and which are humans.)

So Bot Ping is now illegal? Players can still identify bots via status command.

[serpentine]

661 Servers are using that plugin to pretend bots are players? That's pretty disgusting. Glad this is finally coming through. One question I have this running. It's not instant spawn but reduced. Issues?

[Nolongerinthegame]

Originally Posted by serpentine 661 Servers are using that plugin to pretend bots are players? That's pretty disgusting. Glad this is finally coming through. One question I have this running. It's not instant spawn but reduced. Issues?

Yeah I believe both mods are deceiving the player, especially with the bots plugin. I hate it!

[Afronanny]

That bot plugin does not work on TF2 without some hacks. More than likely the servers running that plugin are using another Source game.
ducks

[Groger]

Ouch, Saints will mostlikley suffer under this measure.

[B3N4K]

I think when they talked about

some of the "institutional offenders" who are using these mods on multiple servers

They meant ESPECIALLY saints. They will be their first target definitely!