Valve have just updated the Source 1 SDK on GitHub to the latest code based on Team Fortress 2, effectively making TF2 code source available.
SDK was previously updated in 2014.
This is great, but also WEIRD because Valve have historically gone after TF2 fan projects in the past few years. I guess they just changed their minds?
Damn, Valve going against fan projects is really weird. Especially considering that most of their biggest games are former mods. And they let just about anyone do something in the Half Life universe.
Its worth noting that all of those fan projects were based off of an old leak of the source code. Shutting them down makes sense and honestly it was weirder that it didn’t happen sooner.
Either way releasing this SDK gives the modders a brand new much more updated set of tools to make the mods all over again but this time they could even release on steam instead of just being some sort of semi-illegal back alley deal
Just because the source code is available it does not mean it is free to use and do with it what you want. The license explicitly states that you may use it but have to publish it for free and follow the Steam subscriber agreement. Also this is just source code, not the assets (at least as far as I understand it).
Valve has made attempts to take down projects that follow those rules. TF2Classic is the example that comes to my mind since it’s the main one I’ve played, but I know there are several others. In TF2C’s case, they tried contacting Valve to find out why they’d been hit with a C&D, never heard back, and eventually quietly resumed development.
Some kind of miscommunication between legal and the devs? Maybe internal drama? Maybe they didn’t really pay attention and still aren’t aware TF2C is back up? Who knows. Still happened tho.
Also this is just source code, not the assets (at least as far as I understand it).
Could probably just require the official game to be installed too and load the assets from that directory, or might even be able to use the shared folder, but not sure if tf2 uses that, i remember l4d and css and hl2 used to.
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Official announcement for the TF2 SDK: https://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=238809
This is great, but also WEIRD because Valve have historically gone after TF2 fan projects in the past few years. I guess they just changed their minds?
Or maybe they took fan projects down because they had this in the works.
Damn, Valve going against fan projects is really weird. Especially considering that most of their biggest games are former mods. And they let just about anyone do something in the Half Life universe.
Its worth noting that all of those fan projects were based off of an old leak of the source code. Shutting them down makes sense and honestly it was weirder that it didn’t happen sooner.
Either way releasing this SDK gives the modders a brand new much more updated set of tools to make the mods all over again but this time they could even release on steam instead of just being some sort of semi-illegal back alley deal
Except they can’t, they got DMCA’d so they can never do those mods ever again, they’re lost forever.
Not that weird when you realize they are giving out an alternative to their game filled with microtransactions
Buying Campo Santo changed Valve a lot, for the worse.
Just because the source code is available it does not mean it is free to use and do with it what you want. The license explicitly states that you may use it but have to publish it for free and follow the Steam subscriber agreement. Also this is just source code, not the assets (at least as far as I understand it).
Valve has made attempts to take down projects that follow those rules. TF2Classic is the example that comes to my mind since it’s the main one I’ve played, but I know there are several others. In TF2C’s case, they tried contacting Valve to find out why they’d been hit with a C&D, never heard back, and eventually quietly resumed development.
Some kind of miscommunication between legal and the devs? Maybe internal drama? Maybe they didn’t really pay attention and still aren’t aware TF2C is back up? Who knows. Still happened tho.
I don’t doubt that this happened. All I wanted to point out is, that this move doesn’t conflict in any way with such things happening.
Could probably just require the official game to be installed too and load the assets from that directory, or might even be able to use the shared folder, but not sure if tf2 uses that, i remember l4d and css and hl2 used to.