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

[Teh Pizza Lady]

48 minutes ago, slimes said:

You feel attacked? I hope you don't have any hard feelings here my guy, I don't mean you any ill will. Please stop trying to smooth over the damage that was done. You're writing paragraphs of rhetoric speaking of their valour and humility in response to someone saying they're disappointed with these very clearly irresponsible and harmful choices that were made for a year now. You're not steering the conversation persuasively despite the efforts you have made. 

I've been a tremendous fan of this game and post about it a lot. I can't bring myself to join my server and play Vintage Story right now. I'm pretty upset with how this happened and how it's dealt with. This community has poor moderation policies and the terrible behavior of people suggesting things like "only cheaters would support this" and calling people R-slurs should be dealt with. This isn't the behavior of a noble group of indie game devs.  

 

This horse has been beaten to death so many times, I don't think there are even any bones left.

[Cicadas]

I have a bone to pick with the horse then.

The beatings will continue until morale improves.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

15 minutes ago, Cicadas said:

I have a bone to pick with the horse then.

The beatings will continue until morale improves.

That is a pretty terrible way to improve morale. Please don't. Beating the dead horse about this topic is just going to fatigue everyone. You have your opinion. I have mine. It's time to move on.

[VANTABlack2000]

27 minutes ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

That is a pretty terrible way to improve morale. Please don't. Beating the dead horse about this topic is just going to fatigue everyone. You have your opinion. I have mine. It's time to move on.

The only thing that will improve morale I think is if Anego does another announcement regarding the topic especially on forums or in game.

I don't think beating the dead horse will make that happen at this point either, so what's best is to sort of just leave it unless someone comes in that doesn't understand the situation I think then we can try to explain it the best we can.

Even if the situation DOES change because we beat the dead horse does that really improve the situation or is that just Anego giving in just to please us which doesn't help with trust IMO.

Not saying this as anything against you I agree we shouldn't beat the dead horse in case this came out wrong.

[Kreeate]

Here's an interesting tidbit...

 

I, too, got caught up in the witch hunt and, uncharacteristically and impulsively wrote a support ticket to Anego, asking for a refund.

In short time, I got a reply stating the following:
"We will process your refund, but due to the age of the purchase your payment provider (PayPal) won't allow an automated refund. Could you please share your PayPal email address so that we can manually send your refund amount back to you?
Also, we have decided to allow you to retain access to the game regardless of refund.

Kind Regards"

In view of that, I retracted my refund request, ultimately realizing that I overreacted, and that this whole issue is really a giant nothing-burger at the core.

Yes, some things were done. Yes, those things were not okay. But ultimately... it's all okay.  We'll all be fine. Keep the game. Keep enjoying it as usual.

Sh*t happens sometimes. It's up to you if you choose to let it be water off the duck's back, or if you want the sh*t to stick to you.

In the end, one of those two choices will smell bad. The other... business as usual.

 

Edited 21 hours ago by Kreeate

[VANTABlack2000]

2 hours ago, Kreeate said:

Here's an interesting tidbit...

 

I, too, got caught up in the witch hunt and, uncharacteristically and impulsively wrote a support ticket to Anego, asking for a refund.

In short time, I got a reply stating the following:
"We will process your refund, but due to the age of the purchase your payment provider (PayPal) won't allow an automated refund. Could you please share your PayPal email address so that we can manually send your refund amount back to you?
Also, we have decided to allow you to retain access to the game regardless of refund.

Kind Regards"

In view of that, I retracted my refund request, ultimately realizing that I overreacted, and that this whole issue is really a giant nothing-burger at the core.

Yes, some things were done. Yes, those things were not okay. But ultimately... it's all okay.  We'll all be fine. Keep the game. Keep enjoying it as usual.

Sh*t happens sometimes. It's up to you if you choose to let it be water off the duck's back, or if you want the sh*t to stick to you.

In the end, one of those two choices will smell bad. The other... business as usual.

 

Sounds about right. If you ask me the big question here is Ignorance or Malice. I think Anego is proved themselves ignorant at this point and it's all just a big mistake.

I no longer assume malicious intent from Anego and just hope for the best resolution to all this. I will still enjoy the game if I need a good Sandbox and still recommend the game to people while probably mentioning this in passing for those who care.

Let's hope they learn from this and whatever they do for PR training or people allows them to manage the community better in case something like this happens again.

Mind you me saying this is me not having a problem with Anego. I still think Maltiez had malicious intent somewhere along the way, but he is being dealt with by Anego and they have taken steps to remove him from places to put minimum harm AFAIK, so overall there is little for me to worry about in this whole situation.

Edited 19 hours ago by VANTABlack2000
correcting my statement on PR

[River Oak]

5 hours ago, Cicadas said:

I have a bone to pick with the horse then.

The beatings will continue until morale improves.

please do not beat me

[Juwan Alexander]

It is kinda crazy that lots of people who seem to not understand very much about cybersecurity have twisted the actual definition of the word malware into whatever convenient bogeyman they believe is worthy of this level of vitriol.

Imagine if schlep was hated by the Roblox community for tricking pdf's into exposing themselves with help from the actual police lmao.

[Atemo]

3 hours ago, Juwan Alexander said:

Imagine if schlep was hated by the Roblox community for tricking pdf's into exposing themselves with help from the actual police lmao.

You poor, innocent soul…

[Nossin]

7 hours ago, Juwan Alexander said:

It is kinda crazy that lots of people who seem to not understand very much about cybersecurity have twisted the actual definition of the word malware into whatever convenient bogeyman they believe is worthy of this level of vitriol.

 But it is a malware? By definition the library mods never disclosed the anticheat that targets obfuscated code to cause the targets to crash. If you want definitions, EU laws would call it a trojan.

Just because you weren't the target and the effects was only crashing and bad performance doesn't change the fact Maltiez distributed a malware to thousands of players through Anego's database.

A normal response is to ban the bad actor and remove all their mods. Instead they get hired as a dev and their mods remain with free maintenance from Anego.

How are we supposed to reconcile with this? I also expect Maltiez to plot their revenge cause they sure as hell have no remorse for what they did and there are plenty of ways to do damage even without code access

[Teh Pizza Lady]

28 minutes ago, Nossin said:

 But it is a malware? By definition the library mods never disclosed the anticheat that targets obfuscated code to cause the targets to crash. If you want definitions, EU laws would call it a trojan.

Just because you weren't the target and the effects was only crashing and bad performance doesn't change the fact Maltiez distributed a malware to thousands of players through Anego's database.

A normal response is to ban the bad actor and remove all their mods. Instead they get hired as a dev and their mods remain with free maintenance from Anego.

How are we supposed to reconcile with this? I also expect Maltiez to plot their revenge cause they sure as hell have no remorse for what they did and there are plenty of ways to do damage even without code access

[Diff]

29 minutes ago, Nossin said:

A normal response is to ban the bad actor and remove all their mods. Instead they get hired as a dev and their mods remain with free maintenance from Anego.

If you want to have a good, productive conversation you should seek to not blatantly misrepresent the situation. They are banned, and stretching existing employment and losing control of all of your active passion projects into "free maintenance and a job" distracts heavily from what I think are understandable points you have to make.

 

29 minutes ago, Nossin said:

there are plenty of ways to do damage even without code access

What are they

Edited 46 minutes ago by Diff

[Thorfinn]

IANAL, @Nossin, and have no idea what definitions are used in Europe, but in security terms, what Malt did qualifies as PUP, not malware.

[EDIT]

And if you are concerned about The Wrath of Maltiez, maybe hyperventilating about this whole situation was a mistake, which might give him cause to believe he was maltreated? Just sayin'.

Whatever you think of Maltiez, he's probably not going to break into your house and install real malware on your machine. If malware does somehow get on your machine, look in the mirror.

Edited 41 minutes ago by Thorfinn

[Teh Pizza Lady]

21 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

And if you are concerned about The Wrath of Maltiez, maybe hyperventilating about this whole situation was a mistake, which might give him cause to believe he was maltreated? Just sayin'.

[TARGET ACQUIRED]

[MKMoose]

1 hour ago, Nossin said:

A normal response is to ban the bad actor and remove all their mods. Instead they get hired as a dev and their mods remain with free maintenance from Anego.

Maltiez got hired well before this blew up, and has faced a range of consequences including the first half of what you deem a "normal response".

His mods are also entirely safe to use and include some of the most useful libraries on the modding scene, so taking them away from the community just to make a point is far from necessary and would arguably be counterproductive. They will still probably just fall out of use over time in favor of forks or replacements unless an active maintainer takes over.

Ergo, your "normal response" is essentially fulfilled, while minimizing the undesirable impact that outright removing the mods would inadvertently have on the community.

 

1 hour ago, Nossin said:

But it is a malware? By definition the library mods never disclosed the anticheat that targets obfuscated code to cause the targets to crash. If you want definitions, EU laws would call it a trojan.

Ah, yes, arguing about definitions. My favorite.

Regardless of definitions, if you look at actual damages and risks, the "anti-cheat" was at the very low end of malware where definitions become debatable, and at roughly the same level as a software bug. No hardware damage, no data corrupted or extracted, no backdoor for malicious actors, no ransom - none of the standard risks of trojans or malware in general.

If it was malware proper, there wouldn't even be any discussion about this. Which specific definition for malware you use when trying to make a point is virtually irrelevant for anything besides legal purposes, because its exact intent, design, functionality and flaws were known as soon as the public learned where to look for the code - they're buried somewhere with the horse, but they are there for you to find if you just dig around.

Edited 16 minutes ago by MKMoose

[LadyWYT]

25 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

The Wrath of Maltiez

Oh so that's why people keep beating the dead horse. They're after Invisible's Reins.

[OBAMFSpike]

When does the lower lip get pulled over the head and swallowed?

[OBAMFSpike]

9 hours ago, Juwan Alexander said:

Imagine if schlep was hated by the Roblox community for tricking pdf's into exposing themselves with help from the actual police lmao.

lots and LOTS MORE OF THIS PLEASE ACROSS ALL PLATFORMS =D 

[OBAMFSpike]

I baked cookies.