You guys need to do a stupidity check

[logoliv]

I suspect because people have figured out there aren't that many additional cards you can add without a rebuild of the .exe, and that isn't forthcoming.

The original game has 260 cards, we've yet coded more than 400 new cards, and that's just a beginning

They will be people who have read these forums, copied the mods, and are using them to play online.

If they are so stupid to do that, we can't do nothing about it

Offline play: You may think you are completely detached from the Steam servers, but you're not. At intervals the client .exe will attempt Steam reconnection and will either patch itself once connected, or shut itself off otherwise.

That's false : if we play offline, there's no connection with the Steam servers.

Do you think you can hack Steam's security system?

It's already done (not by us) for a long time, and this game is no exception

[Uresti]

- Adding mana generating cards, and mana handling.
- Complex cards such as Force of Will, Haunting Echoes, Blazing Archon, Zektar Shrine Expedition.
- Some other things coming this week-end, but shhh, it's a secret

U didnt mention any of my great creations??? dang! im really disappointed

[Yanna]

Fixed ^^ I added a Strip Mine to the list.
I indicated recent cards that went throught my mind, sorry for this

[Incantus]

S The Steam network admins will have a nice little chat with your site's ISP, or perhaps whoever gateways your site's ISP to the US backbone, and then out of the blue your forum users' connection rate goes all to h*. It's been done before, and it's very effective. You may not grasp the concept, but I suspect the head forum admin(s) will.

I won't address any of your other points (I'm not part this community since I can't run it on my Mac) but this would be very difficult for the Steam network admins to pull off, since this site is not hosted in the US. So unless those same admins have magic access to all the international trunk lines coming into the US to block slightlymagic traffic, I think the forums here are safe.

[Goblin Hero]

since this site is not hosted in the US.

Actually it is. But DotP forums will stay here unless I receive a complain from Valve/WotC. And yes I agree that it's worth writing in big red letters: "You're using these mods at your own risks. You may be banned. Be careful."

[Incantus]

Oh, I stand corrected. For some reason I thought you were hosted in Greece.

[Yanna]

Oh, I stand corrected. For some reason I thought you were hosted in Greece.

As a wild guess i'd say it's hosted in Pennsylvania

[Huggybaby]

I thought we were hosted in Estonia or Ukraine or something similar! Regardless, if we receive a D&C, I have a plan B ready.

[Uresti]

good to hear that!

[frwololo]

The banned players will point the finger back at this site. The Steam network admins will have a nice little chat with your site's ISP, or perhaps whoever gateways your site's ISP to the US backbone, and then out of the blue your forum users' connection rate goes all to h*. It's been done before, and it's very effective. You may not grasp the concept, but I suspect the head forum admin(s) will.

What the DMCA is used for is mostly to enforce the respect of copyrights. I haven't looked at these mods and how they are built, but unless some copyrighted contents are distributed on these forums (card pictures come to mind), I don't see why/how anybody could legally request to shut down the access to this website.

For what it's worth, the code of the cards created by the modders is their property. The only gray area here is the information distributed on how to create the cards, which was probably obtained by reverse engineering, and which is usually prohibited in the US except in some rare cases.

I am not a lawyer and I don't live in the States, but I've been involved in many hacking/modding things, and I doubt WotC have too much time to waste dealing with something that is so borderline. From WotC's point of view, it is way more cost effective to ask the official developers to fix the security holes in their program than to take legal action against every site that improves the game's features

I have programmed very large enterprise-scale systems, modders do not make me feel inferior.

Would you happen to be a sysadmin? I know a bunch of sysadmins who like to talk about massive retaliations, god-like events on data centers, and how the US army is finally creating Terminators. These guys tend to read slashdot a bit too much, and transform every single piece of news into a massive world-scale event for some reason, I wonder if it's a requirement that comes with the job. (you won't get these 100 additional machines unless you come up with a scenario involving an earthquake or something...). That would explain the scenario involving cutting down the access to this website. (just kidding )

[captain video]

I didn't post to get into silly legal arguments. Just so you know, except for the card art, copyright has nothing to do with it. MtG is patented. And international patent law respects US patent law. So, theoretically speaking, a cease-and-desist could shut the whole site down. That's not in the cards right now (OMG, a bad pun), but don't ramble on about points you clearly know nothing about.

As I tried to express in my previous posts, the modders here wouldn't be noticed if you took some steps to prevent the modded client from being run on Steam. However, it seems obvious that those involved endorse cheating. I don't have any data, but it wouldn't surprise me that for every player who is either posting in these forums or e-mailing privately with the programmers, there are 50 more who have downloaded the hacked client specifically for the purpose of cheating on Steam. Previous posts here freely acknowledge the cheating.

Anyone had problems lately with the client AI refusing to play anything but lands? Oh dear.

And no, I am not a sysadmin.

[frwololo]

And international patent law respects US patent law.

This is incorrect. An example is software patent, an heresy that only exists in the US, and that they've been trying to enforce on other countries for years without much success.
Game rules cannot be patented in Europe either, so the patent owned by WotC is invalid in Europe. If you look at the European patent office, you will see that their request for this has been rejected (or, rather, they ended up withdrawing it)

That being said, yes, in other countries, game rules are protected by other laws, that are not patents, so the fact that the patent is invalid outside of the US doesn't mean anybody can do whatever they want with the game outside of the US.

But from a commercial point of view, WotC has better chances fighting against copyright infringements, design infringements, and trademark infringements, rather than against people using the rules of their game. I haven't seen WotC shooting down any Flash-based CCTG, while, given the scope of their patent, they could almost claim ownership of any strategy game ever made (which proves how ridiculous this patent is)

don't ramble on about points you clearly know nothing about.

The same applies for you (see above, you are incorrect about patents, and believe that US laws apply all over the world ). Despite not being a lawyer, I've been following European and international laws regarding copyrights for a little while now, and I've been (unfortunately) involved with WotC's lawyers. Although I don't have the theoretical background, I believe I have enough practical knowledge on the subject to discuss it with other people.
My point remains the same: although it is theoretically possible to shut down any site that infringes their patent, from a financial point of view it makes little sense.

I didn't post to get into silly legal arguments.

You want to frighten the owners of this website for some reason, that's kind of lame IMO, and I replied to this attack because I like this site and I believe your arguments are not good enough, while I have historical data that show the unlikeliness of this site being shut down. Don't attack if you don't want people to fight back... To be fair, you are right, it is possible that WotC could shut down sites like this one. My point is: they probably don't care about such a small community enough to bother, as long as copyright things are in the clear.

I'm sorry I'm going clearly off-topic in this, but I think this topic is quite irrelevant anyways:
Coming to a forum dedicated to CCTG development/modding, and assuming that people here will cheerfully accept insults and threats about their work is kinda silly. Warning users about the potential risks for their Steam account is a good thing, but, you know...coming after the creators of the mod because people mis-used it, is like suing a company selling knives because people use it to kill each other...
Blame the usage, not the tool.

Also if you really cared about this game you would know it was designed with mods in mind. Not "unofficial mods" of course, but mods nevertheless. http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/a ... eature/43c (the article even provides card samples...).

So are you gonna whine the same way when you lose against people who bought all the DLC, when you only have the original game?

As I tried to express in my previous posts, the modders here wouldn't be noticed if you took some steps to prevent the modded client from being run on Steam. However, it seems obvious that those involved endorse cheating. I don't have any data, but it wouldn't surprise me that for every player who is either posting in these forums or e-mailing privately with the programmers, there are 50 more who have downloaded the hacked client specifically for the purpose of cheating on Steam. Previous posts here freely acknowledge the cheating.

Fair enough. I myself don't own the game and don't know what the cheat is about. I would assume that it allows people to play with custom cards. If it allows to cheat online, then the issue is clearly that the game is a very bad piece of software. There are easy ways to protect a game from using unallowed content, so the devs of the game are the ones to blame if a local hack allows remote cheat. If you've worked on enterprise-scale computer systems, you can't possibly disagree with that.

[Huggybaby]

if you took some steps to prevent the modded client from being run on Steam.

People here add cards, they don't mess with the network code. I don't know if the Steam code is even accessible. Regardless, people here use these mods to play against the AI AFAIK.

there are 50 more who have downloaded the hacked client specifically for the purpose of cheating on Steam.

I don't think so.

Previous posts here freely acknowledge the cheating.

It has been acknowledged that cheating goes on, but no one here has admitted to doing it. If they did I would call them an asshole.

I'll let this thread stay open a while longer. I RARELY lock a thread, but this one has about run its course.

[Bog Wraith]

I'll let this thread stay open a while longer. I RARELY lock a thread, but this one has about run its course.

I was thinking the same thing!

[STARPOWER]

I'm new to these forums and i don't pretend to know anything about coding cards or modding or any of that...but from my very basic point of view i don't understand why you (captain video) take the time to write these sprawling monologues about how much trouble the modders are going to get into. They know and they accept the risk, just like anyone else who does things that skirt the boundaries of the law in order to have a little (or a lot ) of fun. You have come here with a "high and mighty" approach, dispensing nuggets of knowledge to us simple folk, and it doesn't seem like you care about these people at all. This attitude (perceived, if not intentional) accompanied by your adversarial commentary, has effectively portrayed you as a figurehead/advocate for the very system all of their modding work seeks to circumvent. You might as well be beating you head against a wall, because your not going to change anyone's mind with your current method of argument.

Reflecting on my previous statement, maybe you should knock that skull of yours against something hard. You might get lucky and shake loose whatever part of your brain is responsible for your "i know whats best for everyone and must tell them so" philosophy.