[voogru]

Originally Posted by Narwhal I fail to see how banning server-side attachment of models accomplishes anything at all in this regard. For anyone that wants to clone Valve's items they have to look no further than their game directory using a VPK viewer like GCFScape. Or, if they have the dedicated server package, the models are right there for them to decompile. ./materials/models/player/items/ ./models/player/items/ A server-side mod doesn't add to this capability in any way. Oh well...that's Valve for you .

Banning all forms of attachments does prevent cloning from a server-side plug-in outright.

And we won't allow discussion or distribution of cloned valve content on these forums, posts will go to special happy place.

We either play by the rules or lose all attachments forever, simple.

No use of official valve content.
No cloning/recompiling valve content.

[Mecha the Slag]

surely there must be another alternative that doesn't solely rely on the morals of the server owner?

[Narwhal]

Originally Posted by voogru Banning all forms of attachments does prevent cloning from a server-side plug-in outright. And we won't allow discussion or distribution of cloned valve content on these forums, posts will go to special happy place. We either play by the rules or lose all attachments forever, simple. No use of official valve content. No cloning/recompiling valve content.

Sorry if this caused concern. I'm not condoning, or trying to give out any info about it. I'm stating the obvious that the stuff is right there in the game files and at everyone's fingertips...and it will remain as such no matter what level of mod-disabling is done. Valve's method of addressing their concern lacks any apparent logic is all I'm saying.

[ratty]

As a server admin, I'll voluntarily not enable any valve hats on my servers. I bet if you just block valve hats in your plugin, most server admins will be too lazy to comment out the code in the source and recompile.

[scopesp]

block all valve hats sounds nice
because most of this are shit...

[voogru]

Originally Posted by Narwhal Sorry if this caused concern. I'm not condoning, or trying to give out any info about it. I'm stating the obvious that the stuff is right there in the game files and at everyone's fingertips...and it will remain as such no matter what level of mod-disabling is done. Valve's method of addressing their concern lacks any apparent logic is all I'm saying.

Right, but they can make hoops to jump through that pretty much require recompiling of the model.

So, recompile the model (annoying process, but easy), add it to server downloads (at the annoyance of players, downloading models they already have basically).

Are they going to do that for every model? Probably not. Why use the standard hats when there are plenty of customs around?

Basically, if it's not as easy as dropping equipment manager on your server and having access to their own stuff, servers that activly go and try to recompile the official models will be in the minority.

It's either this, or nothing at all. I'd like to at least try this to see what happens. If it doesn't work out, they just lock it down, and we'll lose all attachments.

Yeah, it can be bypassed, but my 'patch' will force them to jump through hoops. Again, I think hoop jumpers will be in the minority, anybody here running a legitimate server and community knows that if they abuse the attachments, they'll lose them all so our only concern is trolls that don't care.

Originally Posted by ratty As a server admin, I'll voluntarily not enable any valve hats on my servers. I bet if you just block valve hats in your plugin, most server admins will be too lazy to comment out the code in the source and recompile.

That's what I'm trying to say! But the business end of my patch will be closed source.

[Mecha the Slag]

in conclusion, your 'patch' would be the same as Valve tweaking how it is currently to only hide entities with official hat models

[voogru]

Originally Posted by Mecha the Slag in conclusion, your 'patch' would be the same as Valve tweaking how it is currently to only hide entities with official hat models

My patch is a server-side version of what I proposed they do on the client.

It does rely on the morals of the server owner, but we can at least make it a teeny bit more difficult than it used to be, it's no longer plug-and-play bam hats.

[Thraka]

You rock voogru. Keep it up. I don't think people should be able to wear valve hats they didn't earn.

That being said, maybe one thing valve can do is build into the client a blacklist for models that automatically sets the model to ERROR whenever an external source changes the model to one of the blacklisted ones. This way, they can detect when the normal method of setting the model is invoked (Built-in UI Equipment Manager) and let it work.

That way they dont need to worry about your plugin (or anyone in the future that decides to duplicate your plugin but not be nice about it).

[voogru]

Originally Posted by Thraka You rock voogru. Keep it up. I don't think people should be able to wear valve hats they didn't earn. That being said, maybe one thing valve can do is build into the client a blacklist for models that automatically sets the model to ERROR whenever an external source changes the model to one of the blacklisted ones. This way, they can detect when the normal method of setting the model is invoked (Built-in UI Equipment Manager) and let it work. That way they dont need to worry about your plugin (or anyone in the future that decides to duplicate your plugin but not be nice about it).

The thing is, some sort of blacklist would have to be maintained. As far as duplicating my patch, good luck. People can't even clone dodgeball properly.