Teh Pizza Lady

Y'all giving me ideas and now I'm neck deep in the game code figuring out diseases, poisons, and potions. I hope you're all happy!

That's kind of where I'm sitting mentally at this point. I will still play the game and I'm confident that moving forward the team will improve, but right now, it's not in a good place and there's nothing that we, as normal players of the game, can do about it except to vote with our wallets if we feel that's necessary. This pains me because it hurts the company, but sometimes things must be done for the greater good. I'm sure Maltiez would understand.

Children, please, just hover each other's usernames and click ignore before both of you get spanked by the moderators.

Well I was sourcing this from here: So maybe a lot of us misunderstood Tyron on this, but I definitely took it to mean that Maltiez was hired into an advisory role to direct the combat update, not necessarily have a direct input on the code itself. If someone from the VS Dev team could clarify this, it would help immensely to know instead of assuming.

As a software dev myself I can answer this. First it's about trust. Maltiez is on the VS team, hired by Anego, to advise them on the combat update. When a company hires an individual and then the individual does something bone-headed while on the payroll, that person, being an extension of the company, actively harms that company by doing so. Maltiez lied by not communicating clearly what his code was doing, broke the ModDB TOS, and actively harmed people's gameplay by coding his widely-downloaded core library mods to have anti-cheat code in them that was falsely flagging mods that weren't being used for cheating. Maltiez broke that line of trust by his actions and while he is still employed by Anego, he is harming the line of trust that we have in the company to produce a good video game and deliver on their promises. If we cannot trust the employees, we cannot trust the company. Second it's about the legality of what he did. Had he gotten approval from Anego via the proper channels instead of misconstruing what his code did either accidentally or deliberately and thus misleading the game devs about what it did, then his malware could be considered a feature. Many game companies have hidden malware in their code that breaks the game if you pirate it. It's very effective and hard to detect because the game still allows you to play somewhat but your experience will be harmed until you play a legit copy of the game. That said, Maltiez didn't get approval to do this. His code did not affect only the users of the cheat mod, it affected innocent bystanders. Two mod authors independently came to him because their legitimately obfuscated code was tripping his detection and breaking their mods. He whitelisted them and left the detector running for everyone else. At that point it stopped being a feature that misfired and became code he knew was hitting the wrong people and shipped anyway. That is not allowed and breaks a few laws concerning malware in different areas of the globe. Third his attitude around the whole thing was lacking. He acted as if he had the right to make the decision to combat the cheat mod himself. His anti-cheat was targeted, and poorly at that, against a single known cheat mod. When eventually caught he was flippant, and even blamed the person who caught him out for ruining his work. He dismissed accusations with "Oh well, it worked so I'm happy." as if that solved the problem of the code existing in the first place and then when pressed, he relented and removed the code or so he claimed. He only removed it from a few editions that contained it, not all of them. ModDB moderators had to go through his released and pull many versions themselves. So not only did he lie to the VS team, he lied to us, broke laws, and acted like we were the problem, not him. That is not the kind of dev you want on your team.

this is accurate An understandable position to have! From what I've heard because so many mods rely on his (PMLib, ConfigLib to name the biggest two), banning him would effectively cripple the modding community. I'm sure Anego has something planned for him, but until something official is released, we can only speculate which is useless in this thread and in line with what got others sent to vacation island. It'd debatable whether the responsibility of action fell in Maltiez's hands. If it did not, then his actions fell short of morally upright because he took matters into his own hands. I do not care for cheaters. They have no place in multiplayer games. Something must be done, but it must be done right and through the proper channels. Otherwise all we have is anarchy in the name of the greater good. You're missing a LOT of context from the VS discord then. I won't get into all the details of it because I feel @icesharkk has done a good enough job summarizing it here. Plus we still don't know all the details, just what ShadowFox could tell us in her brief QA session on the Discord. However, the facts remain that damage was being done against the names of Maltiez and Anego by people who weren't in a position to do said damage. Any damage done to Maltiez should be done by Anego. Anego doesn't bear the blame for this because they simple were not given all the information until it was too late. Given how rabid things became, I think shutting down the discourse before it turned into a full-blown doxxing witchhunt was the right call. As for Maltiez, he only ever was officially an advisor to the devs and only for the combat portion of the 1.23 update. I don't think he had access to the code. ShadowFox has already assured us that any code he does submit will go through rigorous review before it is allowed to be part of the game.

could have, but didn't, so speculating on it is useless and in line with the actions that got other forum members silenced/sent to vacation island.

Same. I'm seeing a few alchemy mods, but I'm not sure I like what they do. They seem to gameify the whole thing.

TIL, too!

I just noticed in my single player worlds that there's a lot of flora sitting around that has no use other than giving bees some flowers to suck on. Problem is... there are WAY more flowers than beehives. Also breaking the flowers gives you a plant item that you can replant. I wonder if they're intending for the flora to be used in herbal remedies. Maybe when status effects get implemented, they'll add brewing and potion making? Would love to drink me some herbal tea for a health regen boost.

That's not what the timestamps show when I look.

Probably because you posted about it in the wrong channel a full hour and a half after the moderators said they would start enforcing rule #2? Idk maybe a coincidence.

Best I can do is this:

Well clearly you just want to engage in bad faith arguments so I'm dipping out. Read what I wrote. Read all of it. Try to understand it. I won't reply to further comments or mentions in this thread.

You didn't read the whole thing: Your logic doesn't hold up since stealing is illegal.

slippery slope much there? By your logic, no territory or colony should have fought for freedom from the British Empire because if they could commit treason, then what else might they do?

someone didn't read the thread before replying...

Ah, see my code of ethics doesn't care with the names involved, just what the action was and whether it benefits more people than it hurts. It is a type of Utilitarianism-type of ethics, sure, but the point is, yes it targets cheaters now. Tomorrow if it targets someone else, then it should be stopped. Seeing now that it caused negative impact for users of Caves N Caverns, I have to say it oversteps by a huge margin. I think Maltiez had good intentions, but executed it poorly.

I'm not seeing the issue... he put anti-cheat into config lib. maybe don't use cheat software while playing a multiplayer video game? idk doesn't seem that hard a concept to follow.

Okay I believe you, lol. Try this: Click Start Type Terminal Select "Run as Administrator" Type citool.exe -lp Check for an entry called VerifiedAndReputableDesktop. Look for the property Is Currently Enforced. It should be false. If it is not, then turning off SAC didn't take the first time and you may need to try it again. Make a note of the Policy ID Click Start Type Event Viewer Navigate to Applications and Services Logs > Microsoft > Windows > CodeIntegrity > Operational Look for the events that match with the date and time you see this issue occurring. Event 3077 is an enforced block, event 3076 is just an audit. Make a note of the Policy ID that blocked the files. It should be different but if it's the same as the one from the earlier steps then you might need to do something else. I'm not giving up because this is genuinely a Windows issue and will cause you troubles with other things, not just Vintage Story.

Did you reboot? That should have fixed it...

It's the Smart App Control or SAC, for short, that's messing with you. When an application tried to load an unsigned DLL such as a plugin, SAC shows the message "part of this app has been blocked". The solution is to turn SAC off. I'm assuming you are on Window 11 Home edition as Professional and Enterprise do not ship with this feature enabled by default. Bear in mind that turning SAC off is permanent and cannot be turned back on without reinstalling your operating system, though MS is considering making it a thing you can just switch on or off. Anyway, do this: Click Start button or press the WIN key on your keyboard. Type "Windows Security". Go to App & Browser Control. Under Smart App Control, click Smart App Control Settings. Select Off Accept the confirmation prompt and reboot your PC. Enjoy! If the above fails, make sure you are an admin on your PC. There might also be a registry setting you can change, but Microsoft warns that this can sometimes cause SAC to start blocking program files incorrectly...so it's kinda weird.

I do like the idea of the corpse mechanic, but as you said, it doesn't really solve the whole issue of what caused your death in the first place? Fall in a deep hole? you're gonna need to go down there safely to get your stuff or it's as good as lost anyway. Same thing if it's at the bottom of the ocean or whatever (I still need to build an underwater base...for science), you will have a hard time getting your stuff and if you died to a lack of oxygen, then you won't be getting your stuff without some considerable effort. At least with all your items popping out with your bags, they will float to the surface instead of sinking to the bottom.

There is a 3rd option but that's between me and someone else. The point is you're not going to get anyone to listen to you if you come out the gate attacking. And I'm sorry you don't have temporal gears, try looking harder? They're pretty common as far as rare loot goes, you just need to loot rotbeasts and pan bony soil. Those are by far the most common ways for me to get them. You can also just use the keep inventory game rule and avoid this entire pointless confrontation that you started, btw.

That's not what I meant and you can either back off with that tone or change it, please. We're trying to have a civil discussion here, no need to get pissy about it. Your complaint was all your stuff despawning before you get back. I just mentioned two ways that you can get back before your stuff despawns. Get back instantly Have a different spawn point if you're going to be so far from base that you can't get back in time. I've gotten several temporal gears before getting steel equipment anyway so your poorly worded cut at me is a moot point anyway.