Update: 5/9/2010
I've talked with Valve a (over an hour!), here's the basics.
1. Valve doesn't like the use of their official models such as official hats, promo content, any micro-transaction content that may come in the future (note: there was no confirmation of micro-transaction content coming to TF2!)
2. Valve considered this for a long time and had some worries about content cloning where people make exact copies of their stuff, hence the outright ban on everything. My argument is I think servers doing this would be in the minority.
3. The only intention is to protect their own stuff, not ban custom content. They'd love to have a solution that allows custom content while blocking their own content. The decision I'm told, was not made lightly.
4. I've made a proposal that they might be willing to try as a science experiment, but again, circumvention of the system needs to be kept a minimum or we could lose everything as a result. Only being able to make make custom attachments is much better than only being able to make invisible attachments.
Now, I'm going to release a plug-in that would re-enable wearable attachments, there's a few problems but I will try to work these out so it's not a pain in the ass. Also, I will be blocking the use of all their official player wearables. There will be no discussion of using the workaround in a fashion that would allow the use of their models. Distribution on here of another workaround won't fly either. I'll try to have the patch by Tuesday.
The patch does not fix weapons not drawing if you issue custom weapons. It will be a patch for tf_wearable_item first.
We may be able to get them to implement a compromise that would allow custom content, while protecting their own content from misuse. But we need to play by the rules and ensure that there isn't widespread use of their content. Members on here can't be distributing hacked copies of their wearables in any form.
tl;dr
Valve is intentionally breaking mod functionality, preventing plug-in authors from attaching entities to players. This is a petition asking them
nicely to consider reversing this policy.
This kind of policy going forward towards modifications may eventually break other kinds of mods that use various Source engine features for creativity.
If you are a server operator, please encourage your community members to sign the petition as well. Because this affects them just as much as server operators and plug-in authors, because they are the main beneficiary of these kinds of plug-ins, the players.
https://secure.voogru.com/petition/index.php
If you post a comment, please be nice and respectful, being nasty will not get us anywhere.
There is also a steam community group here:
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/Sav...hmentsPetition
Please join, and invite your friends.
Full version:
In the 1.0.8.6 TF2 update, Valve put in a new policy that prevents server modifications from attaching entities to players and having the attached entity be visible.
This greatly limits creativity with server-side mods, a list of what this new policy breaks:
1. Custom, unofficial hats. One example of this is my servers "AWESOME!" hat which is a giant yellow ball with the famous awesome smiley. Valve can't possibly add every single hat to TF2 and some servers have special unique hats. Essentially, all servers are barred from using anything as a hat.
2. Custom, unofficial and on-the-fly generated weapons that server modifications may issue to players. An example of this is my dodgeball flamethrower for my servers. Custom weapons simply are not going to be drawn to other players (and possibly the owner itself)
3. Any future game play modification that may want to attach an entity to a player for a variety of reasons. PropHunt used this feature, valve explicitly added two new inputs to prevent PropHunt from being quite difficult to fix. My question to Valve is, would PropHunt ever came into existence if this policy on no attached entities been in effect the whole time?
Valve games have always been very mod friendly and this is one of the reasons for the longevity of their games, Valve has been one of the few game companies that are quite open with their games that allows these kinds of things to thrive. This new policy is an arbitrary limit on mod creativity.
This currently breaks:
TF2Items
TF2 Equipment Manager
All of my item toys which do similar things to the above, and affects my Dodgeball items.
Link:
https://secure.voogru.com/petition/index.php
If you post a comment, please be nice and respectful, being nasty will not get us anywhere.
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