If you can't protect it then it should not be on the web, unless you are sharing it.
That should apply to everyone and everything.

So is everyone arguing that it's OK to steal someone else's tags? We all know how that argument goes in this forum. :)

The point I am making about the Halo Online game is that the owners of it have indeed issued cease and desist orders. One day after I removed the thread with links I received one from Innova and a week later a communication from Microsoft. There is no grey area here about this. The owners of the game are in the process of protecting their rights to it. Regardless of the hackers interest be it benign or malicious they do not have rights to the software and are wrong in what they are doing.

This is not like Halo Custom Edition where it is expected and intended that the game will be modified and the grey area is to what extent. Halo online has been stolen and hacked against the express wishes of the undisputed owners of the game.

Their justifications for continuing to do so do not stand up to scrutiny.

Nothing was stolen. The client came from their own website.

On another note, your choice of language is interesting. What's the difference between modding and 'hacking'? I'm assuming you're using the media's definition of hacking rather than the original.
Edited by Btcc22 on Apr 17, 2015 at 04:04 PM

Some of you guys do not understand the point, before HO everybody use to said that RIP tags, models, animations, etc from any Halo (Bungie 343i) was wrong but now you are applauding the hacking job of a few kids who just want to feel rebels, all what Deniss want is just that you guys try to understand that if you make the awesomeness map ever and some guys hack and rip his tags or any kind of software how you'll feel about it? HO is not MS is a bunch of boys doing his job and wanting to be recognized by it.

I know that you know better than that. The downloaders agreed to the terms of use and those terms prohibit what the hackers/modders/people are doing.



For this conversation:

Modding = making changes to the game within the rights allowed by the publisher (plenty of grey area)

Hacking = making changes to the game without and in this case against the express wishes of the publisher.

In my opinion neither definition has any real world impact until the changes are distributed, regardless of intent. Modding comes with it the rights to distribution, whereas hacking comes with a potential law suit.
Edited by Dennis on Apr 17, 2015 at 05:25 PM

Halo PC's EULA expressely forbids modding. Under your definition, this makes plenty of people on this forum 'hackers'. On the other hand, nobody has attempted to stop Halo Online modding from taking place. The only thing they've sought to prevent is redistribution of the client.

Dennis...... the game is not hacked the community is just fixing up the game.

Correct. People hack Halo PC. People mod Halo CE. That is why I do not have a Halo PC section in the forum or on this website.

Many have incorrectly interchanged "modding" with "hacking" and as I have explained they are not the same. A modder is granted certain rights, a hacker is not.

Hacking is not an inherently a bad thing which is why there are white-hat and black-hat hackers and plenty of grey areas in between. Heck, I'm a hacker at times. And in case you forgot it was my generation that came up with the concept.

But back on point: Halo Online is a commercial product and a luxury item that prohibits (so we don't get tied up in semantics) making code changes to the game. There is no societal or pressing need for the game to be changed so no valid justification for someone to distribute unauthorized changes.

I have no issue if they want to hack at the game to see how it works, or how to make to do something else like run their refrigerator. But once they distribute, share or try to profit from the changes they are both in violation of the legal code of most all western countries and just plain wrong.




Excuse my snark, but please children we having an adult conversation here.

The amount of inaccuracy in this post almost makes me want to slam my head against the wall. First off... It is not DIFFICULT to find a physical copy of Halo Combat Evolved, just visit the M$ store.( www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Halo-Combat-Evolved-PC-Game/productID.253659000 ) Secondly piracy and hacks are not ever, EVER the solution to a company making poor business decisions. I want to play Halo Online as much as the next guy, but I will wait for them to release it and see if it will become a international title. (If not I will move to Russia.) and my last comment is that M$ has every right to sue anyone for stealing their content and just because they made a poor decision and the files were leaked does not mean people should be hacking them. Also M$ is a huge corporation and I don't think that pirating their game is going to help matters at all, If anything it will make them reluctant to release the game to us. If anyone agrees with me fine, if not explain how I am wrong.
Edited by klasher1000 on Apr 17, 2015 at 06:40 PM
Edited by klasher1000 on Apr 17, 2015 at 06:41 PM

I bought a copy not any less than 6 months ago via M$, just wait they will restock. Also Amazon and Ebay are semi ok choice, but you do risk the chance that the CD key has been broadcast to the entire world.

Also the fact that you just "Stopped reading there" is a bit ignorant.
Edited by klasher1000 on Apr 17, 2015 at 06:52 PM

I am originally from Russia, I have family and friends in Russia. I moved to the United States with my parents and siblings to enjoy a better life. Me moving back to Russia is not an unrealistic claim.

*sigh* It does seem a bit absurd yes, but Hey I am just saying that if someone had the finances to do so who are you to say that it is an unrealistic claim? Anyway we should get back to the topic at hand of Halo Online.

It's not an unrealistic claim, it's more of an odd incentive choice. Moving to a country just to play a video game. I know that a lot of people are probably thinking the same thing as you, but you shouldn't let video games dictate your life like that.

But that is none of my business.
Edited by PopeAK49 on Apr 17, 2015 at 07:21 PM

This community is full of self entitled people. Yes Halo Online is exciting. But people are biting the hand that feeds them and being dicks about it. MS has been very tolerant of the illegal activity that goes on in the Halo PC community, and people should not be forcing them to finally clamp down.

I understand the excitement of Halo: Online, and how many opportunities there are to be had with the game. But be smart about it, respect the developers and the company providing it.

It doesn't matter how "oh boo hoo I have been deprived of a video game" you want to be. Get a fvcking job if you want to play Halo and get a 360 or XB1. Even the argument of "we haven't had a PC Halo to mod" are pathetic. You guys aren't the ones modding, its a small small pool of people and what they are doing isn't modding, it's hacking the game. They aren't creating original content, they aren't creating new opportunities for you to do the things you do in CE, it's simply trying to pirate and release a game before MS can officially release it.

Anyone who believes Halo: Online isn't/wasn't coming to America is a fool, there is no need to "make it happen". Anyone who is crying about microtransactions or how the game plays is a fool, outside of a leaked beta all you had was a blog post and a trailer for information. Even if the games gameplay sucked, nothing is stopping you from modding it when it is out.

The majority of those who are trying to defend what is going on with Halo: Online "El dorito" are acting like sack of sh it self entitled losers, who are arrogant enough to decide they know whats best for the game and the future of Halo on the PC. Anything going on with the game at this point should remain private, including the modding which is going on (lots which isn't even public and I applaud the people with the self control to keep it that way).

On the other hand, El Dorito brought about an end of Modacity so at least that cess pool is gone even if it lives on in the IRC.

Modacity's temporary downtime had nothing to do with Halo Online.

Well that's disappointing.

I agree with you Dennis and masters, feeling of entitlement is rampant and there is no grey areas, what is being done is illegal. But mortality is very different, especially when it comes to dealing with company's like Microsoft.

You all know I am the last person to have any love for MS, if you have such a problem with them then don't buy their crap and play COD, Mario and use a Macbook or Linux. If you are going to use a MS service then accept the good with the bad. Me? Outside of Halo related things I don't use a single MS product I don't have to.

I actually feel bad for them but I still wholeheartedly believe that company's should just be smarter,safer and more competent in general. Don't they watch the facebook posts about the grade 2 kids seeing how quick something on the internet can go viral?

True story: I don't give a badger's arse either way. I have never ascribed to a particularly decent moral outlook; I just want the nice, shiny assets the game has so I can throw them at the 405th and go 'hey! Make props outta this!'.

So please, feel free to argue amongst yourselves.

You know back in my day when Halo PC games leaked we didn't pull any of this crap. H2V especially.

In your day, Grandpa, you were lucky to make it through the day without contracting polio and Germany suddenly declaring war.

Seriously. Just give it time.

What do you think is happening here that didn't happen with HPC/H2V exactly?

Trying to redistribute and repackage the game? Compete with the actual product they are putting money into releasing? Trying to sabotage them testing the market for a future for Halo PC?

I wasn't around for when the HPC beta leaked, but people respected Gearbox and Bungie when it happened.

When H2V leaked we quickly started playing with it, and were engaged in actual discussion with the Devs who asked us not to redistribute it any further. Of course after Lag delayed and got that nudity sticker stamped on it the game was pretty much toast sales wise and word of how bad it was had spread, never mind the failed G4WL experiment and the disaster that was vista. MS abandoned the game in total before any real hacking of it started happening. Plus the game never fully ended up working on Windows XP. Hell it doesn't fully work on W7 and W8. The point is we didn't try to undercut the company who provided the game.

Why would you even call it a port, it's not a port. It's a new game and engine BASED on Halo 3's engine. It is what it is, a causal friendly free to play Halo game. It's not designed for modding or creating new content. I am sure as a casual Halo game it will play just fine and be fun.

Trying to compare it to HCE or H2V is silly, you may as well compare it to ODST or H4 or Reach. There is nothing special about this game other than the fact you don't need a modded xbox in order to manipulate it. Hell even Gamecheat13 is saying H3 for Xbox is more mod friendly than H:O.

But AS a port from what I know, it seems like graphically they've done a good job, feature wise it's stupid make a judgement as the game is still like a year or so away from being officially released, and so much can change feature wise in that time.


Edit: And who is the jerkoff pretending to be me in IRC?
Edited by Masters1337 on Apr 17, 2015 at 09:13 PM

All of the things that you claim didn't happen did. Perhaps whatever community you were a part of didn't redistribute the game but you can't take much of a moral high ground. On one hand, you're condeming redistribution and yet on the other, you're openly admitting to downloading it. Do as you say but not as you do.

It could be argued that the situation with HPC/H2V was worse. The Halo Online modders aren't redistributing/repackaging the game and even if they were, it wasn't a leak and it's not software that requires a purchase.



For right or wrong, this entire episode has come about as a result of their neglect of the PC market. Microsoft knows there's a huge demand for Halo (specifically, 3) on the PC but they're not interested in meeting it. This isn't testing the waters for anything and anybody that claims that this could put them off releasing Halo titles on the PC in the future needs a reality check.
Edited by Btcc22 on Apr 17, 2015 at 09:20 PM

lol.

Ive honestly got sick of Halo Online already. It's not official even available in the US, so the only people who can play it are breaking the law. That's pretty limiting on the audience.

The modding shows nothing beyond what you can do with Halo 3/Reach/4 on the Xbox 360 yet.

And it's been tearing this community apart since it was announced.

Dear god I wish Dennis would just shut down all HO threads. Find somewhere else to jerk off together over this game.

The Halo community didn't partake in trying to openly redistribute the game, what we have now is an entire community who's goal is to redistribute and undermine the actual game. Keep in mind, I was the first person in the Halo PC community to have H2V, where I then distributed it to a small group of people who kept it in a small circle. The Devs requested we not give it out and use it for our own uses until the game came out, and to the best of my knowledge we did. Of course I downloaded H:O when it became available, who didn't to check it out.

But there is a difference between downloading and using it for private use, and reverse engineering it to cause malicious harm to it's proper owner. Which is what is happening now.


Your idea that this happened because they were mean to you and your Halo PC friends is ridiculous. Wha wha wha I want a game. Microsoft is aware there is a demand for more Halo on the PC, and they are providing it! And look how you guys are reacting to them trying to change their ways. I would imagine that any other talks they have about releasing Halos on the PC will go along the lines of... "Well, the last time we tried to release Halo on the PC the community did everything they could to pirate it and undermine us." I think you are the one who needs a reality check.

The sane person has spoken

masters, I think you're getting a little childish in the argument logic there, and it's beneath you. At this point you're both arguing over the same facts but from differing opinions, which is as hilarious as watching a religious debate.

On an actual note, claiming that this garbage is Microsoft "meeting the demand for a halo on PC" is laughable.

My child is very hungry, has a huge demand for food, so here's 2 saltine crackers that I jizzed on. By definition, it's edible and technically does the job, but it's a sad, sorry excuse for what the actual demand is for.

It'd be like having a market demand for a sports car - the car in demand is made in the US, but has high demand overseas, where it's (let's presume for this little picture) illegal to drive a car that is driver-left-side on their road system. So they beg and plead for YEARS. YEARS they ask for a driver-right-side model to be made, meanwhile the manufacturer of the car is the one paving the roads these people want to drive the car on, and they release all sorts of OTHER cars that are the correct type, but never that specific one.
Then finally, one day, they say "this line of cars you've been asking for....well...here comes a new car from that line, that is DRIVER-RIGHT-SIDE! THATS RIGHT! IT'S MADE FOR YOU! IN THE FORMAT YOU WANTED! Oh but it's actually a really crappy minivan and it charges you per use for features like GPS and MP3 support. Each song is $1, GPS use is $10/100 miles. Enjoy you car, stop whining, we did what we wanted."

That's hardly meeting market demand, and it's a very close parallel to whats going on with this H:O garbage. Hence MS isn't even the one developing it, 343i is just kind of babysitting to make sure the new cash cow doesn't get a disease and die.

I have more hope for fan-based PC halo games like I:01 and Project Contingency (which is funny, because PC probably will never finish, which is why I abandoned ship earrrrly on).

Should people download the legitimate source files? Sure they were free and available.
Should people hack and redistribute? Probably not, but the whole 'piracy is wrong' is a dead horse. Everyone has their stance on it and nothing you say will change anybody's mind.
Should people thank microsoft for finally bringing this garbage to PC? No, they should not. It's a slap in the face to everyone who is a halo fan on the PC that this spliced up garbage is meant to appease us.

Sad days.

That'd explain why both games were available on torrent sites before they were out, even if the HPC leak was just a press preview that only contained a single campaign level and multiplayer. There's not much point in going deeper with this line of discussion since you'll likely have some nebulous definition of a 'Halo community' that excludes anybody that partook in redistribution.

Either way, the situation isn't analogous. The modders aren't attempting to gain access to Halo Online, they're attempting to recreate the Halo 3 experience using the engine. If Microsoft were to release a Halo 3 port, the project would have zero reason to exist.



I wouldn't be so hasty to include me in ad homs. I'm providing a counter-argument but I haven't given my opinion on the ethics of the mod.



They're not providing it. They're releasing something that nobody wants to a market that they have no audience in. That is, unless you genuinely believe that their audience is in Russia and has been crying out for a pay-to-win game for the past decade.

The likely reality is that they abandoned porting efforts in favour of propping up Xbox One sales with MCC. They don't care about the market and they haven't changed their ways.



Or they could look at the sales figures for Halo PC and realise that if they did a decent port of a newer game, they could likely shift millions of copies. Nope, easier to blame everything on 'pirates' that happen to be fans of the franchise and have legally purchased the previous installments.
Edited by Btcc22 on Apr 17, 2015 at 10:08 PM

You talk about this game as if it's crackers when it's far more interesting than a PC MCC. Why people want the be given the same games they've played before... I don't know. It's a breath of fresh air and a new take on Halo. Are you people really that flat ass broke you can't afford $350 for MCC + XB1? Why on earth would you want that game on PC anyway. It'll never have mod support, will require 343's dedicated servers, won't look or play any better than it does on XB1, won't have split screen, and won't offer anything new! Worst of all, you'll likely have W10 pushed on you for it and the new cross platform play bullcrap for your "competitive" Halo.

Wha wha wha, the game I know nothing about sucks and I hate it give me a game that's 7 years old.

Like I said, the way the community is handling this is so immature and disrespectful, let alone illegal, is just going to push them away from ever wanting to venture into future PC endeavors in the future.

You are the exception. Most seem to want it because they can't afford and Xbox. But like I said, I don't see any advantages to having MCC on the PC, and no one has offered one either. You can hope for whatever you want, but it's been pretty clear what direction MS is going in with XBO games on the PC.