Firearms team hacked by "fans," FA2 isn't real

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OD-Black_Fire

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Read this, it explains everything better than I could: http://www.firearmsmod.com/

Basically, the FA network was hijacked by some FA "fans" and used to kick off Firearms 2. Firearms 2 is not real. It is not made by the Firearms team. World at War is.


Please, read it, it is very important and for some ****ing reason kept under the radar. I submited this to this website and Planet Half Life also.
 
I'll just quote what I said in another forum on the issue.

it's not just about content being used or not used, it's a matter of principal! (In respone to one of the FA2 devs saying they did not use any content and such.)

you (perhaps not you personally) took the mod away from it's developers through force, ban them from their own forums, stole their content and hosting, then! then proclaim yourselves as the saviours of FA.

if this is the actions of 'fans' then who needs enemies.

I pray this mod never sees release, if only as an example to those 'fans' who would attempt this on other developers who poured their blood, tears, and sweat into mods for you 'fans'.
Click to expand...
 
OD-Black_Fire said:
Read this, it explains everything better than I could: http://www.firearmsmod.com/

Basically, the FA network was hijacked by some FA "fans" and used to kick off Firearms 2. Firearms 2 is not real. It is not made by the Firearms team. World at War is.


Please, read it, it is very important and for some ****ing reason kept under the radar. I submited this to this website and Planet Half Life also.
Click to expand...

It's not that it's being "kept under the radar" - it's simply a matter that most fan sites would rather stay out of the middle of mod disputes, regardless of which way the truth scales may be tipping. Those of us who have been burned in the past by supposedly "taking sides" have learned that it's just not worth it.

The mod community is a much smaller world than you might imagine; half of my staff lends some manner of contribution to one mod or another, and these guys run into one another all the time. I can assure you that many more people than you realize are aware of the situation, have formed their own opinion, and likely (well, hopefully) learned something through others' misfortune. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that these type of incidents happen all the time. That's why I think it's less of a coincidence that neither hl2.net, phl, or hlfallout are covering this as "news" - and believe you me you wouldn't be the first (or the 50th) person to point out this news to us.

I appreciate your concern, as it is the fans of these mods who end up losing out in the end. It's a shame these thing happen, but they do. I think this is great fodder for forum discussion; but as for "headline news" on fansites it's best to focus on the positives.
 
i really feel sad for FA team developers...

I wish theres anything i can do about it..
 
Read about this a few days ago. Pretty shit move.

We've kind of decided informally to take the same stance as PHL (which Pratt up there is representing).
 
I don't get it? who ever owns the site is in charge of the website. Firearms isn't a trademark
Are you saying the site owner is part of FA2? Which in that case you haven't a leg to stand on
 
Are you responding to Ennui?

We were debating posting this on the frontpage. But we decided no because we just didn't want to get involved or take sides (or something. I just didn't post it because Ennui said no).
 
Firearms 2 stole everything from Firearms, banned the dev from the forums, changed the passwords, etc.

I don't care about the legal side of things, that's just not good form.
 
no agreed - morally it sucks
but if the owner of the site decided that was how things would be, then that's the way it will be
deal with it and move on, however, much it hurts
 
john3571000 said:
no agreed - morally it sucks
but if the owner of the site decided that was how things would be, then that's the way it will be
deal with it and move on, however, much it hurts
Click to expand...

The REAL owner of the site got his shit JACKED, and passwords all changed, etc. Note it's still his server, etc when they did that. Tis ****ed up no matter which way you look at it.
 
If all this is true, which I'm afraid to say it appears to be, I for one won't touch FA2.
 
http://mods.moddb.com/6296/firearms-2/?view=191228#191228

???

By sinkoman | Mon 26th Jun, 2006 @ 10:47:37pm
http://www.firearmsmod.com/

In regards to the whole hostile takeover deal.

I'm all for a sequal, even if it's against the developers own will, but I think taking over their website, stealing their VBB liscense, and robbing them of their FTP server (and all its contents) is a little much.

What is this all about? I'd like to hear the FA2 teams side of the story, no matter how biased it is.

You guys seem to just brush it under the rug like it never happend. Either be proud that you did it, or man up and say you regret it. Pretending like it never happened will only confuse the community.

______________________________________

Hopefully now, we'll get to hear their side of the story.

As I said, i'm all for creative expression, by creating a sequal, EVEN if it's against the original devs own wishes, but hacking their server is a little immature don't you think?
 
I sent him an email, see if we can't figure out what's going on here.

sinkoman said:
Why have I been banned?

I didn't do anything, but post an entire neutral, friendly, uninflamatory thread. You deleted my first thread without warning and all my posts were deleted. Then I made a thread asking why. That thread was then deleted, and I was permabanned for no reason at all.

Literally no reason. It said "you have been banned for the following reasons: None".

All I did was make a topic asking for your/the FA2 teams side of the FA takeover story. I was interested in having a second point of view.

Who knows, maybe the FA team blew the whole thing out of proportion. Maybe they were lying. I wouldn't have any answers unless I ASKED, right?

You then proceeded to IP ban me, after I had been permabanned for at least a half hour. Were you scared of me trying to make a new account?

What are you trying to hide? If you had just answered my questions, then everything would be all fine and dandy. Instead, you chose to delete my posts on MoDB, my threads, my posts, and then ban me, FOREVER.

It's now fairly obvious that you guys INDEED took over FA1, with hostilities. If I was to disregard the formentioned attacks on my oppions, then I would still have to assume the hostile takeover, that is, UNTILL I had a second point of view on the oppinion.

But now i'm fairly sure that i'm not going to get that out of you. Not to mention, you've pissed off more than enough people to get this all over the internet.

So please, before this gets blown back into proper proportion (which you seem to be smashing as small as possible), I would sincerely, like to you have you, the FA2 teams', side of the story.

Of course, this being in regards to the claims of "hostile takeover" that the FA team is making.

I won't praise them, I MAY attack you (because i'm rather infuriated at your immature actions, regarding my statements), but I will be neutral througout. I just wanted to know the truth.

I still do.

You obviously want to keep that from me though.
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HAHA! This is so sweet. These guys are going down.

If we can't negotiate any info out of them, I say HL2.net, Interlopers.net, UE3.org, CNCNation.net, and PHL all flood their MODB page, their forums, and their email addresses with messages like "WE KNOW YOU BASTARDS! YOU CAN'T KEEP HIDING IT!"

Then we tell CNN or sommat and see what happens.

hehe, this is funneh :D
 
I think it's absolutely disgusting. Going ahead with making a mod without permission is one thing but this - this is quite another.
 
Dam! i feel sorry for the Firearms team! Thats just disgusting.

As for the "if somebody steals your mod you cant do anything about it" part, if you have ownership rights you CAN do something about it.
Yet i have no idea how it exactly is with Firearms, but if they dont own their own IP, then indeed they cant stop others from copying them.

The lesson therefor is: make sure you have your IP locked down...

As for the Firearms2 crew, shame on you guys..
 
Ome_Vince said:
Dam! i feel sorry for the Firearms team! Thats just disgusting.

As for the "if somebody steals your mod you cant do anything about it" part, if you have ownership rights you CAN do something about it.
Yet i have no idea how it exactly is with Firearms, but if they dont own their own IP, then indeed they cant stop others from copying them.

The lesson therefor is: make sure you have your IP locked down...

As for the Firearms2 crew, shame on you guys..
Click to expand...

There was no official paperwork stating "This is our intelectual property. This crap is copywrite us."

The man who held the closest thing to that, took sides with the FA2 team, so he could get on with his life, and his job at DICE.
 
I'm hoping we can effect some kind of retribution. This is NOT the good kind of precedent to set in the modding community. Crispy, love him or hate him, contacted moddb.com about it, to see if they knew.
 
Does anyone remember what happened to HL2: Holdout?
We need him back, and fast.

EDIT: Lol, looking at old posts on various forums really brings it all back. How Wilko kind of left the mod, how the other members turned out to have used stolen content, how ONE PERSON IN PARTICULAR (Curman) completely destroyed the mod.

That's the person I'm talking about: Curman. If there's one person that can wtfpwn the FA2 team, it's him.
 
Oh, I remember what you're talking about now. No attacks organized on FA2, please.
 
The result and my response to several PMs Jonneh and I exchanged. If necessary I can post the full set of PMs and my responses.

Jonneh said:
I've tried repeatedly to reason with these people. There are only 3 members of the old FA team on the *** team and there are 4 on the FA2 team. Christian the original creator of Firearms is on our team. He came up with the name and the concept. Zerk the copy right holder and original coder of the mod is on our team and has given us full express permission. The self proclaimed "FA" team barely participated in creating ANYTHING! We never stole their vbulletin license this is our own. We never stole their website or content we have and are recreating all of our own stuff. And most importantly all we want is to make a great game for the community for FREE. Think what you will, but the reason why I've deleted your posts was this all happened over a year ago now. We're sick of the bullshit and every time we update our website they find a new reason to attack us. THey're afraid we will make FA great once again and are intimidated by that.
Click to expand...

Lets look at this post. He says the "self-proclaimed FA team" barely did anything - but behind the accusatory post on the FA site is the past two leaders of Firearms, in addition to some minor team members! Christian's involvement is irrelevant because he wasn't involved at the time of the schism, and Zerk only joined the team after he realized there wasn't a way he could stop them by taking legal action. Zerk also tends to neglect mentioning the unethical, highly questionable methods the current FA2 team used to secure their position when he talks about why he's supporting them. The rest is just demonization of the FA team, which is not an effective way of countering their arguments.

Jonneh said:
There is no point, the people that are viewing aren't the target audience we're aiming at. For every moron that reads the front page and goes "WOW something was on the internet so it must be true." there are 100 other gamers that will come be peacefull and play. To be honest, at this point I'm not giving anyone the satisfaction of an argument there is no point. The issues are all moot. From now on we're only focusing on making the game for a community that had been totally ignored throughout all of this. No more talking, only action.
Click to expand...
This was after I told him we at Halflife2.net may post the news, so he would do well to back up what he's said. As you can see, he deigned not to. I would like to point out that we (Halflife2.net) get tens of thousands of views a day and have over 60,000 forum members registered in total. He says the issues are moot and there is not point, but I can't understand why, because they're obviously relevant, and have gone unanswered. The only reason I can conclude for this at this juncture is that it's because the Firearms team is telling the truth, but I am still investigating.

After this message, he asked for evidence that I was who I said I was, a staff member on Halflife2.net. I told him he could go to HL2.net and message me via any of the ways listed in my profile and I would verify that I am the same person. He decided not to.

Jonneh said:
Well sorry to say you're about a year too late. Oh and I plead the fifth. I think it's great that you're willing to "report" on this issue, but people within the community have already been in the middle of all of this for ages. Hell a few days ago Apathy one of the World at War super moderators helped me make our new website! They then removed his access and totally shunned him. That is the type of elitist attitude I've been dealing with for some time now. Every attempt both public and private to make peace with these people has been ignored. It seems that all they wish to do is cause conflict and argue on the internet. For us here as Firearms 2 we are in the business of making the game we love. Nothing more, nothing less. Arguing and fighting over something that isn't even a real issue is both pointless and counter-productive. The real losers throughout have been the community members willing to stay and hope to have their game made for Half-Life 2. I hope some people learn to grow up.
Click to expand...
A year too late? How does time make this lose relevance? I do not know. The fact that it's an ongoing feud does not mean that getting the truth and facts behind it, as well as investigating the morality and circumstances of the entire event, is a pointless or futile endeavor. If anything, it only increases the necessity for some kind of conclusion and closure. I'm a little appalled at Jonneh's attempts to make him and the Firearms 2 team the victim in this situation, and I also do not see how he can write them off as merely wanting to cause trouble - I know I would do the same, if such a great wrong was committed me. He says that he merely wants to make Firearms 2 because he loves the game - but is that an honorable intention, when he founds his efforts off of a hostile, immoral takeover of the old team, without the consent of the then-current Firearms team? He also again brings up that it's not a 'real issue', which he doesn't back up and is a very silly statement to make, given the issue. I am also inclined to suggest that perhaps someone who is behind these alleged acts is in no place whatsoever to suggest that other people are being immature, especially given his refusal for reasons unknown to back up anything he's said or truely refute their accusations.

Jonneh said:
One other thing I would like to add on to that was Apathy is now back as a super moderator with World at War because I went to bat for him. Talked with the World at War guys despite our differences and smoothed things over for him. Then the next day they put this website up slandering us. It seems more like professional jealousy to me.
Click to expand...
Again he attempts to demonize the WaW/FA team instead of responding in any manner (again raising the question of maturity). Ignoring that, let's move on to his accusal of slander. First, it's libel, if anything, because slander is oral, but that's nitpicking and I won't go there. Slander is defined as "Oral communication of false statements injurious to a person's reputation". Therefore, unless he proves conclusively that their statements are false, it's not slander at all. Guess what he hasn't done?

Jonneh said:
Well take into consideration how many idiots we've had to deal with over the past year. I have no patience for someone that can't even prove who they say they are. You being the "news" reporter means that the onus is on you, not myself. Hell for all I know you're just some other kid with too much time on his hands.
Click to expand...
This is the last PM I recieved from him last night, and I suspect it is the last I will recieve indefinitely. Instead of bothering to verify that I am who I said, he merely tries to use it as an excuse a second time. Yes, the 'onus' is on me - the onus to get to the bottom of this and if necessary do all I can to fufill my moral obligations that may result from discovering the absolute bottom line.
 
Just thing about it... we wouldnt have these problems if the modding scene was more keen on doing original ideas instead of copying each other.
 
Not like it would be hard to do a simple PHP script that would keep creating the same thread over and over.
Throw in a 56ker whos IP changes on every reconnect and unlimited reconnects... or a proxy you got yourself one good spamming machine.
 
sinkoman said:
There was no official paperwork stating "This is our intelectual property. This crap is copywrite us."

The man who held the closest thing to that, took sides with the FA2 team, so he could get on with his life, and his job at DICE.
Click to expand...

Allright, though if i remember correctly if your european you dont need that. If you create something you have automatic IP to your work. One of the main clashes between Europe and US.
Not entirely sure though, copyright lessons was a long time ago :p
 
I will move to england one day. Just cuz I agree with how things are done in Europe more than the states.
 
I don't think staying neutral on the issue is the correct way to handle this situation. what cource of action HL2.net and other modsites take isn't my place to suggest but I plan to spread the word around as much as possible.
 
Wait the IP owner is on FA2 side, it has more members of teh original FA then WaW, isn't it pretty much theirs. The servers hijacking wasn't right, but thats about it.
 
Gray Fox said:
Wait the IP owner is on FA2 side, it has more members of teh original FA then WaW, isn't it pretty much theirs. The servers hijacking wasn't right, but thats about it.
Click to expand...
Yeah and with the server right about all the mod work, all the information and logs and possible private files. That's the problem, they stole everything.
 
Beerdude26 said:
Yeah and with the server right about all the mod work, all the information and logs and possible private files. That's the problem, they stole everything.
Click to expand...
But doesn't all the mod work belong to the IP owner, and seeing as they have the most original members didn't they in essance steal mostly their own work. And also they could not have stolen anything from FA2 since that wasn't beeing worked on. It remains a disgrace, to resort to that kind of an action, but I don't see them as hijacking the mod, because the mod belongs to them.
 
There's no way I can really pass judgement without hearing the other side of the story. Having been on the end of false accusations before I know how these things can snowball when people believe what they read either because they think the truth always lies with the majority (mis)understanding of 'the facts' (as told by Mr. X) or because someone who is respected or well established decides to jump on the bandwagon without actually knowing all the facts beforehand.

I'm not saying FA2 are guilty or not guilty, I just don't think we have enough evidence to go on. All I can say is the less they say on the matter the more guilty it makes them look. If they just made a statement responding to the main points they've been accused of it would give people something official to go by - then judgement can be passed. But they're not doing themselves any favours by skirting round the main crime they've been accused of.

If they are found to have been. If we could get some input from Recon Gamer on the subject we might have a little more to go on, but tbh I haven't got time for all this sleuthing on teh internets, so I'll leave that up to the people who feel motivated enough to do it. As long as they give a balanced account of what happened I can make my own decision on whether to personally boycott FA2 or whether this is just another squabble on the internet. At the moment nothing is that certain.

I think it would be unwise for HL2.net to get involved in this without having a decent understanding of what went on, and since atm it just seems to be a lot of finger pointing it doesn't look like it'll be very easy to get to the bottom of it all.
 
Gray Fox said:
But doesn't all the mod work belong to the IP owner, and seeing as they have the most original members didn't they in essance steal mostly their own work. And also they could not have stolen anything from FA2 since that wasn't beeing worked on. It remains a disgrace, to resort to that kind of an action, but I don't see them as hijacking the mod, because the mod belongs to them.
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I thought the majority of the original members stayed with the WaW team? :| Also, the IP owner is Valve :p
 
if i got my work jacked up like that i would be so pissed off! if its there work why cant they sue or anything?
 
-Crispy- said:
...
I'm not saying FA2 are guilty or not guilty, I just don't think we have enough evidence to go on. ...
Click to expand...

While wading through all that's been written on this topic, it can be surprisingly tough to notice the salient facts. There is quite a bit of disinformation out there and rather than trying to point at what I may think to be absolute truth, I think it may be better to offer a comparison of statements made by the FA2 team leader, Jonneh, as he attempts to defend himself. You'll notice that they change from complete denial in the beginning, to admission at the end.

I'd like to simply point to his admission and say "look, he definitely hijacked the forums, it's there in black and white, regardless of what he later says he intended by it," but I think it's important to see for yourself the way that this had to be pulled from him over time:


Jonneh said:
I was just the wrong guy, in the wrong place at the wrong time

[in response to an accusation that he stole content from the FA FTP server and attempted to force the FA team to allow him to continue the mod.]

Source:http://forums.worldatwarmod.com/showpost.php?p=265316&postcount=10
Click to expand...


Jonneh said:
I had no ambitions to continue FA at all preceeding the forums incident.

Source:http://forums.worldatwarmod.com/showpost.php?p=265381&postcount=23
Click to expand...

Jonneh said:
The only reason I made myself an admin that night was because of the porn that people were plastering all over the forums. As for banning the users with admin and moderator status that was a mistake snap made.

Source:http://forums.worldatwarmod.com/showpost.php?p=265386&postcount=24
Click to expand...

[Jonneh:] The foundation of FA 2 was not based on the incident that transpired either. It came up, was discussed and then began completely seperate from everything that transpired, contrary to popular belief.

[Scav in reply:] This seems a peculiar point to try and make, considering that part of the ultimatum you gave me was

Jonneh said:
Originally Posted by MSN chat log
8/1/2005 8:26:10 PM Jonny We want to make fierarms source
Click to expand...

Note the date. This wasn't after [the forum hijacking].

Source:http://forums.worldatwarmod.com/showpost.php?p=265543&postcount=80
Click to expand...


Jonneh said:
... I had access to the ftp's...in a final act of desperation I locked [banned] their administrative staff out of the forums...

Source:http://www.cdg.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=6865825#6865825
Click to expand...
 
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