AW: [bf1942] 1.4 and disablin mods????

[Jon]

Here is a copy of the e-mail he sent to DICE:

"We are appreciative of the 1.4 patch and are very happy that
 you all are supplying solutions to the cheating, the hanger / repair
 pad camping, voting gui, linux server and even 2 new guns (boy I wish
 we get the M1 Garand soon).  We are acceptant and very happy that
 you are stopping the client side cheating, especially all of the
 work of ToadPeon and his ruination of 1942.

 Here is my sentiment on going to a server side mod -

 Merciless 1942 could be converted to a server side mod, but we are
 losing 99% of the "focus factor" of our original design. As of right
 now, the original 1942, Road to Rome, and I assume Secret Weapons,
 each use their own "custom game type". The original 1942 uses BF1942,
 the RTR uses XPACK1, and Secret Weapons I am guessing will use XPACK2.

 The premise design of the Merciless 1942 was to provide unabridged
 ability to get on ANY vanilla 1942 original gameplay server which includes
support for the latest expansion packs also and just allow
the client to "play 1942 using the Merciless 1942 addon". Thus, they
still playing the same old original 1942, or 1942 with RTR, but they
are getting the benefit enhancements of using the Merciless 1942. They
are getting the detailed loader screens, the historically correct flags,
the bloodFX, the upcoming new shrapnelFX, the upcoming new deepsoundFX,
many GUI fixes, many subtle things to make teamplay better. We also went on
a limb and created custom map specific textures for each and every map. Our
downfall was that we left these "uncompiled" and did not RFA compile them
(but this really would not have stopped the cheaters).

Now, having said all of that, here is what we are begging from Dice and EA
(as our many fans are). We praise patch 1.4. We praise the anti cheating
measures. We ask if Dice and EA will authorize / NDA / contract our mod as a
secure closed "non official addon" that will work with the server types
BF1942, XPACK1, or XPACK2. Seeing as DICE is going to change the security,
you are going to allow only your expansions to work via security checks back
to the servers on the game load. We ask if we could be included within these
as MC1942 but will work on all current BF1942, XPACk1, or XPACK2 servers
just like your expansions will. Granted anything needed to be done before we
release any new versions we will gladly provide so that you may see that we
are not releasing any cheat code. This way we can close our texturepacks,
keep Merciless 1942 working as it was... but it will still function on any
and all standard 1942 servers and not require custom servers."

Jon Wolberg
www.ECGNetwork.Com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Scratch Monkey" <ScratchMonkey at SewingWitch.com>
To: <bf1942 at icculus.org>
Sent: Monday, April 21, 2003 11:38 AM
Subject: Re: AW: [bf1942] 1.4 and disablin mods????


> --On Monday, April 21, 2003 11:32 AM -0700 Jon <MMmmGood at cox.net> wrote:
>
> > He e-mailed DICE with this solution two months ago to no avail.  His
e-mail
> > was more extensive than the description above for obvious reasons.  It
> > included a fix to the problem that would let true modders still be able
to
> > make client-side mods but the cheats would stop working.  He was
ignored.
>
> "Obvious reasons"? Do you mean security by obscurity? How would other mod
> writers learn how to do this? Just what is his solution?
>