Regarding the impact of the crashcode put into ConfigLib and the needed clarification and explanation of the code for layman understanding

[tiggerbiggo]

10 minutes ago, Mushroomancer said:

Many of the community's 'other concerns' are based on the least charitable possible interpretation of events, but my main concern is the conflation of the 'Malware' that Maltiez produced and the common perception of 'Malware' at large. This was not ransomware, it was not data theft, it wasn't bricking systems. People - and you in this very response - are behaving as though Maltiez is going to start smuggling in worse and worse code into the core of Vintage Story when there is no evidence of that and the community's assumptions on his motives are - well, assumptions. Admittedly based on a somewhat prickly and stand-offish personality and individual, but still assumptions. You act as though what Maltiez has done is a spiritual corruption that proves he is going to continue doing more evil acts that tempt every programmer who sets fingers to code.

If I agree on anything it's that we need some kind of further communication from Anego on the matter because at the moment it seems like a particularly uncharitable interpretation of everything said and done up to this point has calcified. Though I'm not sure there's anything they could say to deescalate the situation at this point, it very much seems as though that uncharitable is going to continue. 'Trust is broken' and what not. Though given the uncharitability, I suspect that trust prior to this event is being very overstated.

It doesn't matter what Maltiez would or would not do. This is about whether the community can trust the approach and attitude of the development team. 

As far as I see it, the actions we know of which are concretely defined and not speculation, are inexcusable. There was no reason for him to treat the community that way, so having him on the team now is an unavoidable black mark. That's why I use the term "bad actor", because this kind of behaviour points to a mindset that he has. That it's ok to act this way if his intentions are pure. 

I will admit i've only been playing vintage for a few months, but as far as I knew their reputation was pretty much immaculate before all this. I'd heard nothing but good things from everyone I talked about it to. Malt has almost singlehandedly destroyed a big chunk of that, the remedy is clear.

[Sparticus247]

On a side related tangent, I've noticed a pattern with some in the Vintage Story community as well related to some modders like Saltywater and a few others that made some high quality mods, and showed their programming talent.

Once some in the community noticed that some "icons" used ai-generated images, it became almost a crusade by not a small number that they were now slop authors, and their work and morals were now suspect. Every post around their mods had people making it their mission to tell all that would listen of the sins that they committed, and that the mods shouldn't be used because they used unethical means, and was a sign that the work "could" have been partially vibe-coded, and even resorted to personal attacks/insults.

The only thing that finally shut that down was them giving in and deleting all previous small uses of ai-generated images/icons, and writing apologies to the community on reddit.

What I'm getting at is there is a segment of the community that really has a tendency to try to force others to bow down to their will. This community can seem very supportive at times, but step out of line and you will find the other side very quickly.

[LadyWYT]

33 minutes ago, Sparticus247 said:

The only thing that finally shut that down was them giving in and deleting all previous small uses of ai-generated images/icons, and writing apologies to the community on reddit.

In my general observations, giving in to the mob doesn't actually shut it down as much as it just teaches people that they can get what they want by force rather than debate. Whoever was targeted will still continue to get dragged through the mud, just maybe not to the same extent as before unless they step back out of line.

[OBAMFSpike]

44 minutes ago, Sparticus247 said:

What I'm getting at is there is a segment of the community that really has a tendency to try to force others to bow down to their will. This community can seem very supportive at times, but step out of line and you will find the other side very quickly.

OH so very well said. 

They are right there with the cheaters. 

Anybody with a little common sense can do some deducing of their own and figure out a few things. 

[Thorfinn]

22 hours ago, OBAMFSpike said:

To hell with cheaters. Im slow to anger in the method of removal. In 2026 IVE GROWN RATHER SICK OF CHEATS. 

I don't know. Sounds a little extreme. I think I'd draw the line somewhere before having them drawn and quartered. Maybe not much short of that, but still.

 

22 hours ago, icesharkk said:

The target doesn't change the legality, ethics, or correctness of the action.

I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on the intartubes. Ethically, it might be a little grey, but I'm fine with it. Except when sworn in, no one is obligated to tell you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Parts of the West used to be high trust, but I don't think it exists anywhere anymore. As a functional adult, you need to figure out a way to handle these kinds of things, because they happen, and will become more commonplace as society degrades.

As for correctness, it was the only means that would work at all. And I've always been more of a consequentialist than a deontologist so far as ethics go, anyway.

[OBAMFSpike]

XD

[Teh Pizza Lady]

4 hours ago, Gandorf said:

Past examples from other communities show it often starts with slipping something "lite" and then over time evolves into full-on "I'm the law" moments on modders' part. Really, this is a story as old as modding, although this case is worse in a way since he is now on the studio's payroll

nevermind that what he did was BEFORE he was on the payroll. If I sneeze on an old lady's shoe and then get a job at a hospital are you going to want the hospital to punish me for what I did before I got there? Doesn't make sense.

36 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

In my general observations, giving in to the mob doesn't actually shut it down as much as it just teaches people that they can get what they want by force rather than debate. Whoever was targeted will still continue to get dragged through the mud, just maybe not to the same extent as before unless they step back out of line.

This whole thread is a certified "We did it, Reddit" moment.

15 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

As for correctness, it was the only means that would work at all. And I've always been more of a consequentialist than a deontologist so far as ethics go, anyway.

The cheat mod went away. I call that a win. No one got physically or monetarily hurt in the process. They just couldn't use certain mods for a bit until Maltiez remember the code was there and pulled it. And then put it back to spite certain people and then pulled it again after the backlash got out of hand.

[OBAMFSpike]

4 minutes ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

The cheat mod went away. I call that a win. No one got physically or monetarily hurt in the process. They just couldn't use certain mods for a bit until Maltiez remember the code was there and pulled it. And then put it back to spite certain people and then pulled it again after the backlash got out of hand.

I hope his alias is as powerful as his attitude and he continues wrecking cheaters for decades to come.

Edited Tuesday at 02:05 AM by OBAMFSpike
Autolncorrect strikes again

[LadyWYT]

12 minutes ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

This whole thread is a certified "We did it, Reddit" moment.

We're not at that stage thankfully(and hopefully never get to that point), but there are definitely similarities between what happened with that incident and what's going on now. And it's a very good example of just how destructive internet mobs can be.

[Bumber]

It's the Welchia ethical dilemma all over again, but with demonstrable harm to legit mod devs and players. (Welchia caused some minor network disruptions due to its spread.)

It's always ethically dubious when you have to sneak something past your users, despite any good intent.

My beef with Anego is that it seems they knew months before we did, but made no attempt to inform us. People wasting time diagnosing Caves and Cliffs crashes, and they sat on it.

Edited Tuesday at 02:44 AM by Bumber

[Zvengks]

When I commented on this thread last night, my comment was on page 9/9 of this thread.
When I woke up, My comment was on PAGE 23 OF 30.
what got shuffled in behind the older posts so nobody reads it? why are there replies with 'content unavailable'?

I feel like I'm being gas-lit at this point.

 

 

[LadyWYT]

3 minutes ago, Zvengks said:

When I commented on this thread last night, my comment was on page 9/9 of this thread.
When I woke up, My comment was on PAGE 23 OF 30.

A lot of threads got merged together into one megathread, I would assume to tidy up the forum so that there's not twenty different threads about the same thing clogging up the page.

 

4 minutes ago, Zvengks said:

why are there replies with 'content unavailable'?

Do the spots look like places images used to be? It's possible that those are comments that got moderated, but it's also possible that the images contained in those comments got deleted from the user's profile cache(there is a limit on that and the cache will need to be cleared from time to time), in which case they won't show up any longer in the comments they were posted in.

[Cicadas]

Is there a particular reason why all the posts about the Maltiez incident were merged into one?

[Mushroomancer]

38 minutes ago, Cicadas said:

Is there a particular reason why all the posts about the Maltiez incident were merged into one?

Probably so there aren't twenty threads and a single megathread can be a means of providing a space for discussion and venting on the topic. It keeps the discussion board from turning into "Maltiez, Maltiez, Maltiez, Fishing!, Maltiez, Mod recommendations, Maltiez, Maltiez, Maltiez."

[TheCat]

I find this situation really sad, it feels like a suppression campaign is being waged to get back to normal when the reality is it completely shifts how I will see the VS team from now on, maybe I should wait on updating, maybe I should make backups of versions, maybe I should simply not interact with mods. I understand there will be oversight but evasive and vengeful natures are often great at keeping up appearances.

This is a gut shot and the fact that there is a sense that a group of people are trying to downplay what is an objectively horrendous move on the part of someone now linked into the development makes me lose confidence in the community as a whole. This feels less like the end of a story and more like the middle point of a video essay titled something like "The Downfall of Vintage Story".

I hope that good faith can be recovered but I will not be recommending this game to others until I feel this is dealt with in a way that does not seem like a suppression campaign. The personality and actions of someone has been revealed to be counter to the general morality of modding and development as a whole and the response has been counter to good PR and Management decisions as well.

Evaluate your actions and make an internal report about the damage this has done if you really want to move forward, this will allow you to understand the failings of this situation, an independent third party could be of great assistance as well. It may delay development but  if you lose trust then there will be no one to develop a game for.

[tiggerbiggo]

6 hours ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

nevermind that what he did was BEFORE he was on the payroll. If I sneeze on an old lady's shoe and then get a job at a hospital are you going to want the hospital to punish me for what I did before I got there? Doesn't make sense.

This whole thread is a certified "We did it, Reddit" moment.

The cheat mod went away. I call that a win. No one got physically or monetarily hurt in the process. They just couldn't use certain mods for a bit until Maltiez remember the code was there and pulled it. And then put it back to spite certain people and then pulled it again after the backlash got out of hand.

So first, yes, what he did before he was on the payroll does matter, and your analogy isn't sensible. This is more like someone hiding laxatives in the food at an old people's home after one of the residents upsets him somehow, then never being allowed to work in healthcare again (Which would absolutely happen if someone did that), it wouldn't even need to hurt or kill anyone, it wouldn't even need to be laxatives.

And since you wouldn't respond to me elsewhere making this exact argument, *I would be fired from my job if I did exactly what maltiez did*, that's not even disputable. So why should Malt get a free pass when any other dev in any other part of the software industry would be blacklisted over this, or at least need to hide it from any future employers?

And yeah, the cheat mod went away. Afaik nothing about the game itself has changed to make those cheats harder to detect or stop, so there's precisely 0 reason these cheats won't come up again if another dev decides to start it back up again. Malt's actions were largely ineffective at actually making the game more robust to cheating and all they did was make people quite rightly distrust them.

"And then put it back to spite certain people" - And you somehow think this is acceptable? That this doesn't show a complete disdain for the community as a whole? It's sad that you're defending this at all, funny thing how the people defending these actions don't seem to understand software development, and the ones who are actually making the arguments that matter are devs... Maybe don't assume you know what you're talking about and listen to those who are looking at this and thinking the same as me. If I did that i'd be fired.

Edited Tuesday at 08:22 AM by tiggerbiggo

[Demoncyborg]

adding this here since it seems to be the most recently active topic. posted on the discord earlier

[tiggerbiggo]

5 minutes ago, Demoncyborg said:

adding this here since it seems to be the most recently active topic. posted on the discord earlier

Thanks for adding this, but the response is so disappointing... This still doesn't include mod developers in the story, and trying to distance themselves from Malt while still keeping them employed seems to be their answer. As much as I love this game, i'm taking my refund and running far, far away from this dumpster fire.

The way this reads is;

1. You're overreacting, this never really affected anyone
2. Don't attach what one of our employees said to our company, please
3. Don't like it? Leave.

Edited Tuesday at 09:35 AM by tiggerbiggo

[Angius]

1 hour ago, tiggerbiggo said:

1. You're overreacting, this never really affected anyone
2. Don't attach what one of our employees said to our company, please
3. Don't like it? Leave.

4. Look how needed this anticheat was! Cheaters are even griefing our servers! Look how right Malwaretiez was in his crusade!

[Gandorf]

well response is still a mixed bag 

But on the approach to fighting cheaters:

I think the best anti-cheat is giving server admins tools to monitor players and players tools to report cheaters. Creating good anti-cheat is not easy, and it's an arms race situation. While good old community oversight of their own servers is cheaper and pretty effective if admins are given the right tools, hiding anti-cheat will always be just a temporary solution.

 

Edited Tuesday at 12:03 PM by Gandorf

[Stellarbone]

3 hours ago, tiggerbiggo said:

Thanks for adding this, but the response is so disappointing... This still doesn't include mod developers in the story, and trying to distance themselves from Malt while still keeping them employed seems to be their answer. As much as I love this game, i'm taking my refund and running far, far away from this dumpster fire.

The way this reads is;

1. You're overreacting, this never really affected anyone
2. Don't attach what one of our employees said to our company, please
3. Don't like it? Leave.

Same. I'll miss it a lot, but I won't be supporting this. If they change their minds in the future, sure I'll buy the game again. Might even try to get friends into it again. But till then, I have other games to play and Voices of the Void has a new plushy that looks neat and DrNose hasn't told his playerbase to sod off. 

[tiggerbiggo]

11 minutes ago, Stellarbone said:

Same. I'll miss it a lot, but I won't be supporting this. If they change their minds in the future, sure I'll buy the game again. Might even try to get friends into it again. But till then, I have other games to play and Voices of the Void has a new plushy that looks neat and DrNose hasn't told his playerbase to sod off. 

Yep, if they ever reverse course i'm right back in because this game is just better than minecraft imo which is why it's so upsetting to see them taking this path...

[Nossin]

Maltiez is a dev so whatever they say is going to represent the Anego whether they like it or not.

Looks like the anticheat malware was doing the heavy lifting on their own servers so now they actually have to manage it themselves.

[VANTABlack2000]

3 hours ago, Demoncyborg said:

adding this here since it seems to be the most recently active topic. posted on the discord earlier

This addition is disappointing. It still doesn't really feel like the player's affected by all this are being considered just Anego's side and AFAIK we haven't gotten any sort of official response here on the forums just on Discord which not everyone uses Discord, so leaving information like that there is another disappointing decision IMO. It's really making me consider if I want to continue recommending this game to people.

[Vratislav]

4 hours ago, tiggerbiggo said:

The way this reads is;

1. You're overreacting, this never really affected anyone
2. Don't attach what one of our employees said to our company, please
3. Don't like it? Leave.

2 hours ago, Angius said:

4. Look how needed this anticheat was! Cheaters are even griefing our servers!

And that is the reason the discussion is not about reality anymore. If I stretch it to the other side:

1. Even if zero players except griefers were affected, WE have decided that Annego is on the same level of evil as Microsoft.
2. So you mean it that every company who hires somebody is responsible for every his bullshit from the moment he was born, because these people sold their sins to the company now.
3. If the refund is not enough, what the heck will you satisfy? Tyron guillotining Matinez in the square, giving you his head on a golden plate?
4. There is no right to try to reduce griefing opportunitites, as good guys are also shepherd dogs who are guarding the server 24/7 to minimize damage caused to players by its inevitable reverting.

Disclaimer: I do not stand with these statements, they are intentionally stretched. Just have enough of this drama to be one-sided .

But on serious note: I am sure there is big group of people who are not as much concerned, please respect it. People, who are screaming "malware" to press the studio to execute Matinez, are already damaging the game for other players. And this is situation, where righteous defenders of morality are becoming villains too. Ask yourself: Were you disappointed so much, that you want to say goodbye and burn all bridges? Or do you also want to have Vintage Story destroyed for those who do not feel this way?

Edited Tuesday at 01:37 PM by Vratislav