Home » General Discussions » General Discussion » How do we get Renegade great again?
| How do we get Renegade great again? [message #434013] |
Sun, 01 August 2010 05:11  |
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Veyrdite
Messages: 1471
Registered: August 2006
Location: Australia, Sydney
Karma: 0
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General (1 Star) |
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Hello again to the Renegade community.
When I first discovered the online side of Renegade, I saw a happy community with modifications such as RenHalo revealing glimpses and software such as Renguard being updated from its once glory downward. A while ago I stopped playing C&C Renegade when I discovered the world of open source gaming, but slowly I am realising that Renegade has heaps of potential still to this day.
What Renegade has is unique. The online code originally written for Renegade is practically within the rules of the experimental gameplay project which left in huge holes and useless characters amongst other untied ends. This provided a vast sandbox for modifications that drastically changed gameplay or experience without having to create new models or textures to supplement the diets of renegamers.
Some projects are still online, such as RP2, but others might as well be dead for little communication exists other than occasional ( but vast ) accomplishment lists ( TT ). All I can offer is the constructive advice that to be a successful non-for-profit project, you need people to know what you are doing not just so they understand your aims and achievements but also so that the community sees progress and wants to be part of the construction.
Projects such as Overgrowth work well, with thousands of community members and equally as much money spent with donations and pre-orders to a game that is not even half way through making.
I'm not here to blame the modders though.
Multi million ( billion? ) dollar organisations such as EA could open source Renegade at a whim. More than likely it would be in their interest, creating publicity and improving sales of the rest of their C&C series, but instead they sit by and let entropy do its thing.
Rather than a discussion on what is wrong with the community, could we have a go at answering the question on how we fix it? We don't have to, but we are the only people who can.
Regards, William
WOL: Veyrdite Previously: Dthdealer ( a long time ago )
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| Re: How do we get Renegade great again? [message #434018 is a reply to message #434013] |
Sun, 01 August 2010 05:53  |
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Even if EA did want to open source renegade, they couldn't do it. Firstly, renegade uses 3rd party libraries like Miles for audio and Bink for video, none of which EA can legally redistribute (i.e. the bits that you would need if you were working with the source)
Secondly, they would need to review every line of code looking for things that could be an issue (3rd party code, things that would reflect poorly on EA etc)
And thirdly, if EA open sourced renegade, it would give cheaters ways to make cheats far beyond what can be done now.
Jonathan Wilson aka Jonwil
Creator and Lead Coder of the Custom scripts.dll
Renegade Engine Guru
Creator and Lead Coder of TT.DLL
Official member of Tiberian Technologies
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| Re: How do we get Renegade great again? [message #434039 is a reply to message #434013] |
Sun, 01 August 2010 09:16 |
a000clown
Messages: 363
Registered: May 2005
Location: Canada
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Commander |
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I'm sure if EA actually cared enough they could work out something legal to release the source (privately, to the members of TT only) via some sort of sub-contracting license, since this patch is intended to be an official update of sorts. But that's only if EA cared, which they don't... So tough luck for us.
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| Re: How do we get Renegade great again? [message #434088 is a reply to message #434013] |
Sun, 01 August 2010 22:24 |
Rocko
Messages: 833
Registered: January 2007
Location: Long Beach, California
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Colonel |
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| liquidv2 wrote on Mon, 02 August 2010 00:13 |
| jonwil wrote on Sun, 01 August 2010 07:53 |
And thirdly, if EA open sourced renegade, it would give cheaters ways to make cheats far beyond what can be done now.
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| a000clown wrote on Sun, 01 August 2010 11:16 |
I'm sure if EA actually cared enough they could work out something legal to release the source (privately, to the members of TT only)
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ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhsilentkane
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silentkane would leak it to ox90
black and proud
[Updated on: Sun, 01 August 2010 22:25] Report message to a moderator |
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| Re: How do we get Renegade great again? [message #434091 is a reply to message #434089] |
Sun, 01 August 2010 22:54 |
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Good-One-Driver
Messages: 959
Registered: January 2009
Location: Ukraine
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| Clark Kent wrote on Mon, 02 August 2010 01:39 |
Renegade is dead... TT has less of a chance of saving it everyday we continue to wait for it.
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Renegade is actually not dead.
Dead is when no players play it and I run two servers with =DA=Phob and we get about 16 players in it every day
and i see n00bstories and jelly is doing better then ever, I even see some nubs that never played Renegade ever. Also alot of people are coming back to Renegade. Renegade is going up from last year as I currently see and my clan is more active then ever.
Edit: I lost faith in TT Patch.
| Quote: C4Smoke |
Good-One-Driver is a little noob crying kid who sux at renegade I say let little noob kid Good-One-Driver cry all he wants lmao
Cry away little tiny kid
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[Updated on: Sun, 01 August 2010 22:55] Report message to a moderator |
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| Re: How do we get Renegade great again? [message #434094 is a reply to message #434091] |
Sun, 01 August 2010 23:03 |
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Clark Kent
Messages: 274
Registered: January 2010
Location: Smallville, Kansas
Karma: 0
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Recruit |
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| Good-One-Driver wrote on Mon, 02 August 2010 00:54 |
| Clark Kent wrote on Mon, 02 August 2010 01:39 |
Renegade is dead... TT has less of a chance of saving it everyday we continue to wait for it.
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Renegade is actually not dead.
Dead is when no players play it and I run two servers with =DA=Phob and we get about 16 players in it every day
and i see n00bstories and jelly is doing better then ever, I even see some nubs that never played Renegade ever. Also alot of people are coming back to Renegade. Renegade is going up from last year as I currently see and my clan is more active then ever.
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1. Not sure what you mean by 16 players... but that is not shit compared to what Ren used to be.
2. NS and Jelly = better than ever... Doubtful, very doubtful. Especially seeing how they have fewer servers than in the past.
3. New people maybe, but not enough to make a difference... and they probably are not gonna stay long.
4. Old players coming back, probably... untill they are reminded why they quit playing and fade away again. I know I have done that a few times.
5. Clans becoming active again happens quite a bit from what I hear, but the hype fades fast, or people cheat to be the best...
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| Re: How do we get Renegade great again? [message #434095 is a reply to message #434094] |
Sun, 01 August 2010 23:10 |
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Good-One-Driver
Messages: 959
Registered: January 2009
Location: Ukraine
Karma: 0
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Colonel |
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| Clark Kent wrote on Mon, 02 August 2010 01:03 |
| Good-One-Driver wrote on Mon, 02 August 2010 00:54 |
| Clark Kent wrote on Mon, 02 August 2010 01:39 |
Renegade is dead... TT has less of a chance of saving it everyday we continue to wait for it.
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Renegade is actually not dead.
Dead is when no players play it and I run two servers with =DA=Phob and we get about 16 players in it every day
and i see n00bstories and jelly is doing better then ever, I even see some nubs that never played Renegade ever. Also alot of people are coming back to Renegade. Renegade is going up from last year as I currently see and my clan is more active then ever.
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1. Not sure what you mean by 16 players... but that is not shit compared to what Ren used to be.
2. NS and Jelly = better than ever... Doubtful, very doubtful. Especially seeing how they have fewer servers than in the past.
3. New people maybe, but not enough to make a difference... and they probably are not gonna stay long.
4. Old players coming back, probably... untill they are reminded why they quit playing and fade away again. I know I have done that a few times.
5. Clans becoming active again happens quite a bit from what I hear, but the hype fades fast, or people cheat to be the best...
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1. well a few months ago our servers where completly dead so this is progress.
2. well they probably arn't better then ever, but they are very active you can actually catch a good game in one of thies
3. yes not to much to see but its helping and improving.
4. I talked to a few old players and there coming back casue of cw.cc and they missed the good times in Renegade.
5. yes, clans are becoming active again but nobody is doing clan wars  I have to beg a clan to have a fun war or clanwar.
6. cw.cc is back which is great!
| Quote: C4Smoke |
Good-One-Driver is a little noob crying kid who sux at renegade I say let little noob kid Good-One-Driver cry all he wants lmao
Cry away little tiny kid
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| Re: How do we get Renegade great again? [message #434102 is a reply to message #434089] |
Mon, 02 August 2010 00:27 |
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Veyrdite
Messages: 1471
Registered: August 2006
Location: Australia, Sydney
Karma: 0
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General (1 Star) |
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| jonwil wrote on Sun, 01 August 2010 22:53 |
Even if EA did want to open source renegade, they couldn't do it. Firstly, renegade uses 3rd party libraries like Miles for audio and Bink for video, none of which EA can legally redistribute (i.e. the bits that you would need if you were working with the source)
Secondly, they would need to review every line of code looking for things that could be an issue (3rd party code, things that would reflect poorly on EA etc)
And thirdly, if EA open sourced renegade, it would give cheaters ways to make cheats far beyond what can be done now.
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Unless the engine source contains large amounts of intermingled code ( monolithic design rather than modular ) from the libraries ( as opposed to code that connects to the libraries ) I don't see what the issue is. Even if a big chunk of the engine source is missing it is better than nothing, and loose ends of code that would normally talk to external libraries could be re-written to use free ones ( eg OpenGL, OpenAL and a better codec than Bink like Theora ). Once Renegade is open sourced more modders will join our current dedicated modders ( eg John & Jerad ) and make Renegade great again.
More than likely editing the game the way we currently are means we are facing the exact same legal problems, it is just EA and affiliates turn a blind eye to 'harmless modding' activities.
The idea that open source games fall to cheats more easily is as easily countered by the fact that people will be able to contribute fixes. My operating system ( Ubuntu Linux ) is not affected by a single piece of malware to date, even though it amongst the other hundreds of distributions are open source. Yes it is easier to write cheats, but it is twice as easy to write counter-measures and with good moderators the problem does not exist.
Remember to try to be constructive with 'How do we get Renegade great again' rather than 'What is wrong with Renegade'. The same complaints existed before Renguard was released, with topics claiming the online community will be 'dead within a month' due to cheaters - but most people understood this is not true.
| Ferhago wrote on Sat, 31 May 2003 22:50 |
It would last a lot longer if you would stop posting threads like this.
DAMN YOU PLANETSIDE WHY MUST YOU STEAL ALL OF THE RENEGADE PLAYERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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| spreegem wrote on Sun, 01 June 2003 06:57 |
Renegade will live for ever I think
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Regards, William
WOL: Veyrdite Previously: Dthdealer ( a long time ago )
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| Re: How do we get Renegade great again? [message #434103 is a reply to message #434013] |
Mon, 02 August 2010 01:28 |
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Malware is different to cheats.
Malware is software that the owner of the computer does not wish to run (and therefore will install things designed to block it)
Cheats on the other hand are things the owner of the computer wishes to run. Given the architecture of renegade, it is almost impossible to stop many cheats purely on the server (including various forms of hacked objects.ddb files) if the client can "lie" to the server (e.g. sending the hash of an unmodified objects.ddb file even though its loaded a modified one)
Jonathan Wilson aka Jonwil
Creator and Lead Coder of the Custom scripts.dll
Renegade Engine Guru
Creator and Lead Coder of TT.DLL
Official member of Tiberian Technologies
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| Re: How do we get Renegade great again? [message #434119 is a reply to message #434013] |
Mon, 02 August 2010 06:22 |
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JohnDoe
Messages: 1416
Registered: May 2006
Karma: 0
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General (1 Star) |
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Can someone explain this GNU General Public License stuff? Does this mean that everyone can make commercial videogames using the Quake 3 engine or does this only cover free games i.e. Quake 3 mods that now no longer need Quake 3?
lol
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| Re: How do we get Renegade great again? [message #434121 is a reply to message #434102] |
Mon, 02 August 2010 06:56 |
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| dthdealer wrote on Mon, 02 August 2010 15:27 |
Unless the engine source contains large amounts of intermingled code ( monolithic design rather than modular ) from the libraries
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The issue is that without reviewing EVERY single code file, its impossible to know what files contain 3rd party code. If EA were to release a single line of code without permission, they would be in trouble.
And since reviewing every file takes time (and time = $$$), its not going to happen.
With regard to other games that have been made open source such as Quake 3 or DOOM, A.Those games are much smaller and simpler (and therefore any required code review is much easier and cheaper) and B.ID Software specifically made sure from day one any 3rd party code is 100% seperate from ID software code (so it can easily be removed). Renegade is much more complex than DOOM and Quake and EA almost certainly never cared about any mixing of 3rd party code with EA code.
Jonathan Wilson aka Jonwil
Creator and Lead Coder of the Custom scripts.dll
Renegade Engine Guru
Creator and Lead Coder of TT.DLL
Official member of Tiberian Technologies
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| Re: How do we get Renegade great again? [message #434125 is a reply to message #434013] |
Mon, 02 August 2010 09:08 |
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JohnDoe
Messages: 1416
Registered: May 2006
Karma: 0
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General (1 Star) |
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I'm not comparing Quake with Renegade, it was a general question about being able to sell games built for an open source id software engine and you didn't really answer that.
All this talk about open source (which fucked up Enemy Territory public gameplay similar to what happened to Renegade and now all that's left are gay slavs) had me thinking about id tech 4 going open source in 2011. It doesn't look dated (see brink) and we won't be seeing any major breakthroughs in graphics as the console manufacturers are going for interactive controllers/3d nonsense instead of better hardware/graphics so we probably won't see a Playstation 4/Xbox 3 until 2013 or later.
Indy developers could theoretically be selling games with state of the art graphics and only have a pay their employees, right? The only mod team I know of in a similar position is Tripwire because they won some Unreal engine contest, others seem to use outdated engines or have to build their own, which has to suck either way.
lol
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| Re: How do we get Renegade great again? [message #434153 is a reply to message #434125] |
Tue, 03 August 2010 00:38 |
nopol10
Messages: 1043
Registered: February 2005
Location: Singapore
Karma: 0
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General (1 Star) |
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Getting it onto Steam as a free download after the TT patch is done is probably the best way to publicise to a wide audience, how that can ever be achieved is another question altogether.
nopol10=Nopol=nopol(GSA)
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| Re: How do we get Renegade great again? [message #434154 is a reply to message #434103] |
Tue, 03 August 2010 01:55 |
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Veyrdite
Messages: 1471
Registered: August 2006
Location: Australia, Sydney
Karma: 0
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General (1 Star) |
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| jonwil wrote on Mon, 02 August 2010 18:28 |
...Malware is software that the owner of the computer does not wish to run...
...Cheats on the other hand are things the owner of the computer wishes to run...
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I don't understand how this affects whether or not it will be easier to cheat or to uncover cheaters in an open source Renegade. Whether or not cheats are desired is just as prevalent in a closed source project - and possibly some of the cheat writers would turn around and contribute to the code instead.
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Renegade is much more complex than DOOM and Quake and EA almost certainly never cared about any mixing of 3rd party code with EA code.
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Good old EA - this is why monolithic design is never nice in the long term. There goes any hopes for an open-source Renegade.
Thanks Jonwil for the insight. It's an unwanted truth
Could it be possible for the server to run a version of the client game ( simultaneously with the server ) that is modified to output things such as deviations from where the client predicts other players/entities will will be to where they end up the next lot of packets? Then you would just need to check of the deviation is within an acceptable range of what was predicted.
WOL: Veyrdite Previously: Dthdealer ( a long time ago )
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| Re: How do we get Renegade great again? [message #434158 is a reply to message #434013] |
Tue, 03 August 2010 05:29 |
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reborn
Messages: 3231
Registered: September 2004
Location: uk - london
Karma: 0
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General (3 Stars) |
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There are few options that are in the realms of possibility (The list gets less and less likely (and serious) as it goes on) to increase renegade's player count...
Please note, while some of these ideas are theoretically possible, I do not endorse the behaviour. Most of the ideas are illegal and immoral, no one should consider trying them (they are just fantasy).
Torrents
Hosting a server on Gamespy and disabling it's serial validation by patching the FDS (or better creating a WOL clone) would mean that players do not require a serial to play.
You could then totally flood the torrent scene with the ISO's of the discs, and provide a valid serial for installation.
The torrent gamers love a free a game, and it's pretty much gauranteed to be free to play forever that way. Especially if someone had a WOL clone and the torrent version was cracked to join there automatically).
However, this would split the community (existing clients would not likely move to the the servers hosted on the WOL clone).
Olaf disables serial validation
Olaf controlls XWIS. If he was to disable serial validation, it would mean that you could flood the torrent scene with the renegade ISO's and a valid serial for installation purporses. This would have the added advantage of not splitting the community.
However, while Olaf owns and operates XWIS, he is not in the position to disable serial validation without consent from EA.
If he did it without their consent, they would likely remove there redirects. If they did not boot back up their WOL servers (which they likely wouldn't), then Renegade would be no more.
Hack
Someone hacks Olaf's XWIS serial validation server and disables it. If he doesn't notice, and more importantly neither do EA, then you could follow through witht he torrent flooding.
If EA or Olaf realised, then it could be turned back on, meaning the opputunity of attarcting torrenters again, would be lower.
Plus EA might just turn off their redirect anyway to XWIS, even though it wasn't Olaf's fault.
Plus, EA would find out almost immediately, anyway.
Hack 2
Someone hacked the serial database and released all the serials, would require a little marketing, but would be effective.
Slightly less effective would be someone creating a serial generator for renegade, as not all serials would be held on the serial database, so would be a little hit and miss for the clients (and it needs to be as pain free as possible for them).
EA gives the game away for free
I heard EA are contractually oblidged to not give it away for free for some time still to come, probably something to do with it being part of TFD which is still being sold.
However, they have released CnC games for free before.
Marketing
This would have to be highly effective and on a shoe string budget. Publicity stunts of the highest order would be needed to make an impact. We're talking parliamentry break-in's, faked televised suicide attempts, Sporting event take-over's...
Possibly a fake virus that swept the world?
Fathers for justice are a good example of this type of marketing, but there's no way a group of Renegade fans are going to be stupid enough to do this sort of thing, and anything short of it would fail.
Lottery
If someone won the Euro millions and was an avid renegade fan, they could make the game popular again by arranging with EA that it be released, and also advertising it.
This however, is not going to happen.
I can't think of anything else that might work at the moment, but as you can see, there is little chance of actually accomplishing this.
[Updated on: Tue, 03 August 2010 05:53] Report message to a moderator |
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| Re: How do we get Renegade great again? [message #434164 is a reply to message #434160] |
Tue, 03 August 2010 06:25 |
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luv2pb
Messages: 1488
Registered: February 2004
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General (1 Star)
Not everything is as it appears
Untouchable |
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| reborn wrote on Tue, 03 August 2010 07:29 |
Torrents
Hosting a server on Gamespy and disabling it's serial validation by patching the FDS (or better creating a WOL clone) would mean that players do not require a serial to play.
You could then totally flood the torrent scene with the ISO's of the discs, and provide a valid serial for installation.
The torrent gamers love a free a game, and it's pretty much gauranteed to be free to play forever that way. Especially if someone had a WOL clone and the torrent version was cracked to join there automatically).
However, this would split the community (existing clients would not likely move to the the servers hosted on the WOL clone).
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I've said this before. TT could whip it together in like 30 seconds (normal) time ... 3.5 years their time.
It doesn't even have to be that complex. First off you bundle the install disk, patch, cp's, rg, rr, scripts, portal, HUDs, skins, ts, reborn, mirc, porn, apb, tt and what ever the hell else you can think of into one clean install. Then you take 30 seconds to write an app that scans xwis for available servers and lets you select which one to direct connect to. Throw a little unique identifier in there to prevent abuse and you're golden. Servers that don't want to participate could block direct connect or block that unique identifier.
Even if EA gave a shit there isn't anything they could do about it. Even if they tell TT to stop once it is out there it is out there.
*I know it isn't really that easy but you get the idea.
| Herr Surth wrote on Tue, 03 August 2010 07:56 |
how about pleas for our starving cats?
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I see what you did there.
N00bstories Director Of Operations
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| Re: How do we get Renegade great again? [message #434169 is a reply to message #434164] |
Tue, 03 August 2010 07:22 |
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EvilWhiteDragon
Messages: 3751
Registered: October 2005
Location: The Netherlands
Karma: 0
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General (3 Stars) |
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| luv2pb wrote on Tue, 03 August 2010 15:25 |
| reborn wrote on Tue, 03 August 2010 07:29 |
Torrents
Hosting a server on Gamespy and disabling it's serial validation by patching the FDS (or better creating a WOL clone) would mean that players do not require a serial to play.
You could then totally flood the torrent scene with the ISO's of the discs, and provide a valid serial for installation.
The torrent gamers love a free a game, and it's pretty much gauranteed to be free to play forever that way. Especially if someone had a WOL clone and the torrent version was cracked to join there automatically).
However, this would split the community (existing clients would not likely move to the the servers hosted on the WOL clone).
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I've said this before. TT could whip it together in like 30 seconds (normal) time ... 3.5 years their time.
It doesn't even have to be that complex. First off you bundle the install disk, patch, cp's, rg, rr, scripts, portal, HUDs, skins, ts, reborn, mirc, porn, apb, tt and what ever the hell else you can think of into one clean install. Then you take 30 seconds to write an app that scans xwis for available servers and lets you select which one to direct connect to. Throw a little unique identifier in there to prevent abuse and you're golden. Servers that don't want to participate could block direct connect or block that unique identifier.
Even if EA gave a shit there isn't anything they could do about it. Even if they tell TT to stop once it is out there it is out there.
*I know it isn't really that easy but you get the idea.
| Herr Surth wrote on Tue, 03 August 2010 07:56 |
how about pleas for our starving cats?
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I see what you did there.
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With the software we have at BlackIntel currently, I guess making a WOL clone which connects to the actual XWIS server isn't really the problem. Would basically do the reversed of what we did when we made a WOL proxy that allowed our server to be both on the USA and the EURO one at the same time  .
I've also made an installer which installs Renegade, WOLAPI, most of the Core Patches, the UberMapPack without skins and the latest scripts release.
So the illegal way wouldn't be hard, but it wouldn't help us (the TT team) to get EA to push TT over the patcher. Therefor can't do this right now. For now we're focusing on releasing TT over the patcher and possibly getting EA to release it for free/very cheap on STEAM.
BlackIntel admin/founder/PR dude (not a coder)
Please visit http://www.blackintel.org/
| V, V for Vendetta |
People should not be afraid of their governments.
Governments should be afraid of their people.
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| Re: How do we get Renegade great again? [message #434170 is a reply to message #434168] |
Tue, 03 August 2010 08:28 |
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GEORGE ZIMMER
Messages: 2605
Registered: March 2006
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General (2 Stars) |
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| JohnDoe wrote on Tue, 03 August 2010 09:02 |
Didn't EA release some C&C games as multiplayer-only free downloads? Maybe we'll just have to hang tight for another 5 years
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They released C&C95, RA1, and TS for free... the first of which doesn't even HAVE multiplayer, so, not quite.
Eventually Renegade will have a free release, but not before RA2 and Yuri's Revenge.
Toggle Spoiler| Scrin wrote on Sat, 24 January 2009 13:22 |
| cAmpa wrote on Sat, 24 January 2009 12:45 |
Scrin, stop pming people to get the building bars.
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FUCK YOU AND THIS SHIT GAME WITH YOUR SCRIPTS!!! I HAVE ASKING YOU AND ANOTHER NOOBS HERE ABOUT HELP WITH THAT BUILDING ICONS FEATURES FOR YEARS, BUT YOU KEEP IGNORING ME AND KEEP WRITE SHIT, SO BURN YOU AND YOUR ASSLICKERS FRIENDS, THIS TIME I'M NOT COME BACK!!!!!!!!!   
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