My opinion on the leaks.

[Skullhair]

Ok I've been thinking about this since the beta and source was leaked and I think the two leaks were by two different people.

Here's why:

Message from beta Theif:
"Have fun playing, but buy the game, because this wasn’t intended to be leaked! After the source leak, there was no reason for keeping the beta private."

- Anonymous Thief

So this means two things.
1. He did infact have the beta before the source leak even happened and that after the source was stolen he saw no reason to keep the beta anymore for himself.

2. This guy either works for ATI, NVIDIA, or Activision (who play tests the game) and clearly had access to an early build. Doesn't it seem a little odd that the same guy who released the HL2 beta also releases a leaked copy of Nvidias newest drivers?


If you look at the game it's clearly obvious that it was a pre-e3 build. If you look at the e3 maps they are not even finished. Two of the e3 maps/demo are missing.

Now there's a message on the screen that says Source Engine 2 (build -4 - days until 9/30/03. This doesn't necessarily mean four days before 9/30. It could simply mean what build it is at that time. Say July it was Source Engine 1 build 8 or something along those lines and that 9/30 was just the goal to finish bye.

It just seems odd to me after seeing the beta at my friends that this could have been it so close to the 30th. There's just so much missing. Why are the e3 maps not complete or missing a bunch of stuff when we saw all the stuff in the videos is in it? Why are the other e3 maps not even in there? Valve obviously had to have the stuff in the maps to make the video, why take them out? With all the stuff missing in this 'beta' it just seems weird that so much would be missing when it was already in there.

That's why I think the source hacker is just that a hacker who got the source code and the beta Thief is none other then a play tester or works for a company that is involved with Valve in some way, who had played an early build, and simply stole it; but didn't want to release it. Then when all the shit started to go down he thought "I'll just kick Valve harder when they're down".

I'm not accusing ATI, NVIDIA, or Activision in anyway, this is JMO of course and I could be completely wrong. It just doesn't add up is all I’m saying.

 

[-JeZ-]

Good post skull. It is certainly food for thought.

 

[burnzie]

i thought the beta was made from the sorce?

but its the most likely solution for the missing stuff

good post :cheers:

 

[lapin]

Thats somthing to think about. I belive everyone should read this with an open mind.

 

[Gaemon82]

Good thinking :cheers:

 

[Vitalogy]

Nice post. Its a good read.

 

[Elanthril]

Yiep... I haven't played the "beta" myself so I don't know how it looks but reading the post it sounds logical !

 

[Tomek`]

shot skull, very good post :cheese:

 

[Shuzer]

Best post I've read here in awhile. Makes sense to me.. I've always thought the lines didn't connect properly to the dots (so to speak), but that was just me. Good post :cheers:

 

[Yatta]

Very good thinking & reasoning, Skullhair. But I read somewhere that the hacker is from Russia?!!!

 

[alco]

Originally posted by Yatta
Very good thinking & reasoning, Skullhair. But I read somewhere that the hacker is from Russia?!!!

I think you're mistaken. It was a quote saying that Valve's efforts of catching the hacker were futile. It said that they waste so much time, and the hacker could end up from Russia or some other country. So they'd be powerless outside U.S. Jurisdiction.


Well, I think they could, and probably would contact international authorities if it were the case. I have a hunch that this guy's American, anyways.

 

[Yatta]

Oh... I don't think I'm the one who's mistaken though. The article I read must have been at fault, perhaps their editor was the person who had mistaken earlier news.

 

[AgentXen]

Brilliant Assumption.

 

[maleficarus™]

Skullhair:

Nice points. The very first thing I thought when I heard all about this stolen source scam was NVIDIA. NVIDIA needs this code to tweak there DET50 driver build. I think the thing most people forget is NVIDIA and ATi are in this for the money. They depend on there cards being the top performers for the game of the year titles. Now let’s look at the recent events first:

NVIDIA claimed that there silicon would perform better in ID's up and coming game DOOMIII. And low and behold a series of benchmarks were done and it looks like NVIDIA came out on top with that one. BUT, and this is a very big but...DOOMIII is still "vaporware". There isn't really even a launch time. So without such a launch the hype died down almost as fast as it started.

Enter ATi--and the recent release of Valves HL2 benchmarks showing ATi embarrassing NVIDIA's best silicon to date! And guess what? HL2 has a release date, or at the very least a date or month or even year in sight. To further prove my point:

After the release of the HL2 ATi vs. NVIDIA benchmarks NVIDIA's stock fell a considerable margin. Not to mention there online popularity. And to no surprise ATi's stock jumped about as much as NVIDIA's fell. So what we are seeing here is basically real money changing hands in a big offline sort of way.

If you have been following the industry you will notice NVIDIA made an offline alliance with Electronic Arts (EA). There whole sales pitch is "The way it's meant to be played". On the other side of the fence we have ATi. They made a surprising alliance with Valve software the makers of Half-Life2. Personally EA was a good bet, but never under estimate the underdog ATi because Half-life is an almost guaranteed profit maker. Now that ATi has proved that there silicon can play the most anticipated game the best, NVIDIA is pushed into a corner. And I would not doubt it for a single second that someone from NVIDIA is behind this scam...

The above just needs to be proved or proven against now...

:flame: