An open discussion.

[Tural]

I want to know what you, the user, have to say. Holy shit, staff consulting members, hell freezing over?

Container resigners. They are there. We know. I removed like 8 topics today because we have no rules prepared for this.

I want discussion from respected members of the community. If you joined a week ago, just don't post. Same goes for if you joined this site for Halo 3 modding. You are biased and I don't care about a whole lot you can say. I want the people who know what they're talking about, people who have seen the site rise and fall, people who aren't completely ignorant and are just pushing their own agenda so they can make zomg kool forge modz. People who are intelligent.

What do you think about allowing a container resigner to be published on this site? What about Xbox Live, profiles, saves, achievements, DLC piracy, etc? If we disallow this, people will leave, it will essentially be the final nail in Halomods' modding coffin. Nobody's going to respect the site if we disallow public tools. Then again, we never published Halo 2 DLC resigners, and Halo 2 did fine. Then again, Halo 2 had modding to fall back on, this is the only thing Halo 3 has, and we'd be shunning it.

Thoughts? And again, don't post if you're going to be stupid, you'd just be hindering the discussion.

And neodos, don't post unless you consider all sides of the argument, which you haven't demonstrated previously. I don't want to read one of your giant posts if it's completely one-sided.

Staff, this is my topic, I will manage it. If you have discussion to add, do so, but do not touch my thread.

[jimmygoon]

I don't know how well my post will be received, but for what it is worth I've been here since Halo 1 was released and I never really posted much, but I used SparkEdit and HMT and was here when it used to be files.halomods.com, etc. Anyway...

The only reason I can understand to not allow the discussion of resigners is because of piracy and corruption of XBL. Sadly, this will happen regardless of whether or not it is discussed here. (Profile/gamesave resigning is ALREADY going on...) I don't see why we can't allow discussion of resigning Halo 3 Forge Offline content, and say that discussing resigning other CONtent for XBL is against the rules.

If it is for legality reasons, then the whole point is moot. There is no way of (really) modding Halo 1 on the Xbox without everyone KNOWING that illegal bios modding was taking place on the console first... so why would there have to be blanket - NO to resigning?

• No discussion of resigning = People still cheating and stealing anyway...
  Discussion of Forge Resigning = People doing it still anyway... and having a good Halo 3 modding community here at forums.halomods.com.
  Discussion of all Resigning = Damage to an outstanding community and people cheating/stealing, possibly more-so than otherwise...

[Tural]

We're not going to allow people to post modded Forge variants on the Forge board that are hosted through Bungie.net, because Bungie specifically asked to not allow such things. People wouldn't have any new options here, unless they planned to post the actual variant file, and have their users change the profile and console IDs for their own console.

[unknownv2]

I think this is allright for now. Most of the "lolz" people don't really have the knowledge to edit anything other than Halo 3 content. Most of them can't even mod films because of the lack of a good rehasher.

I was highly disappointed when derived decided to release his source because most if not all of the responsible people already had resigners. Then a few irresponsible people got one and decided to exploit them for their own benefit, this is where it went bad. Derived wasn't happy at this and decided to let the public get their own resigner. I don't think he thought it out well enough because in my opinion this wasn't a good thing to do.

The only thing that will stop most of this is when the keypairs are banned and its back to mostly normal until somebody shares another keypair. I doubt most people can extract their own keyvaults for use.

[jimmygoon]

@Tural, I could envision some scenario of a social site for people uploading their variant files and then storing the key vault pairs on the site, then when they go to request the file, the site resigns on the fly and offers it as a download. Or it could be a client/desktop side application where you download an unsigned variant file and just resign it on your own to play.

(this model would also have the added benefit of restricting which types of content could be resigned easily. If no "easy" desktop application is released then people would use forgeresigner.com or whatever, and there checks could be put in place that assure only forge variants get resigned, hopefully alleviating some of that concern)

(In regards to "we don't have the administration to do that sort of thing", if that means from a technology standpoint, server standpoint or go-in-that-route standpoint, I would volunteer my spare time to writing some webapp in Django or something similar if this idea is at all popular)

Obviously, Bungie will have to come up with a way of restricting modded content, best of luck to them, and obviously forums.halomods.com should respect that... but really, as long as it is available and people have the maps on their console, they will push them to Bungie's fileshare if Bungie doesn't patch it (somehow).

Has Bungie/MS given any indication as to how they will handle this - presumably they will ban keyvaults and if that is the case, modding will quickly return to a limited number of people that have the knowledge or the patience to learn to mod the "hard" way, but still a community would be nice.

(OT, I'm moving to Lincoln in august)

[Tural]

Not on this site, we don't have the administration to do that sort of thing. Changing the IDs is simple though.

PID Len: 8
DID Len: 14
PID Loc: 0x00000371
DID Loc: 0x000003FD


I'm working on a discussion with.. some people. Stay tuned.

[Argon]

I don't want con signers or little kids posting forge hax >_> here. Theres a lot that can be done with con and not just halo 3 stuff. It can be used for other things for the Xbox 360 that I'm sure Microsoft would have an issue with. A Bungie forum ninja stated that anyone with prerogative photos on there file share will be banned from match making and maybe Xbox Live all together.

[grimdoomer]

I think this is the most pathetic thing to ever happen. Look around, these are game saves, people have stollen, cheated and a cuple computers crashed. For what? the ability to mod game saves. I think that if this forum did allow people to post mods, and we had the container resigner here it would have major effects on the board. For one, the forum would be filled with stupid topics such as " HOW DO I GET MORE GAMERSCORE?!?!", "N33D HELP WITH CON MODDING!!!" and "OMG H4X 0N S4ND7R4P". The moderators would be overwelmed with bannings and keeping control of this. This could possible lead to the end on HaloMods if we did'nt allow it, but what might happen if we do? I garentee people will be selling hacked gamer profiles with really high gamer score soon. So would'nt this site be looked at to do the same with halo 3 content?

But if the board allows it, then I hope to see Shade45 answer all the stupid questions and coop with all of this, as it is his and derived's mess.

In conclusion and in my opionun, I would not like to see this be allowed.

[jimmygoon]

I think this is the most pathetic thing to ever happen. Look around, these are game saves, people have stollen, cheated and a cuple computers crashed. For what? the ability to mod game saves. I think that if this forum did allow people to post mods, and we had the container resigner here it would have major effects on the board. For one, the forum would be filled with stupid topics such as " HOW DO I GET MORE GAMERSCORE?!?!", "N33D HELP WITH CON MODDING!!!" and "OMG H4X 0N S4ND7R4P". The moderators would be overwelmed with bannings and keeping control of this. This could possible lead to the end on HaloMods if we did'nt allow it, but what might happen if we do? I garentee people will be selling hacked gamer profiles with really high gamer score soon. So would'nt this site be looked at to do the same with halo 3 content?

But if the board allows it, then I hope to see Shade45 answer all the stupid questions and coop with all of this, as it is his and derived's mess.

In conclusion and in my opionun, I would not like to see this be allowed.

How is this different than any other game? With Halo 1, people wanted to know how to exploit their xbox, DL the game, find the uncompressed maps online, etc. With Halo 2 people were stealing DLC content left and right and looking for help on here. Forums always have to deal with this, but if halomods says, look were about Forge CON resigning ONLY... and the mods keep up with the posting, it won't be like that.

Also, my understanding is that the worst that can happen is people modifying game content and game scores. The LIVE/DLC content is protected in PIRS/LIVE containers which resigners will never ever be made for since no one has physical access to the (encryption) keys.

[grimdoomer]

I dont see why this should be allowed. You can't spawn anything interesting even with modding. Ive been playing with them for the past 2 weeks. There is extreamly limited options even with modding.

[Tural]

But it's symbolic of modding in general. If we don't allow people to do the only thing that is possible, well, that sends a message.

[xzodia]

Since this is the Internet and no doubt by now hundreds if not thousands of people will have downloaded at least one of the CON resigners, simply refusing to make any form of one available on this site seems somewhat detrimental...

It is important to consider the following:

• Disallowing the use of CON resigners on this site has a high chance of bringing Halo 3 modding to a complete stand still. Since the little hope that there was (from CON resigning) will be squashed.
  
  While a CON resigner has the ability to be used for other purposes, those with the knowledge to do so are few and far between. Also, since multiple CON resigners have been released, one more on this site won't make any difference to overall situation.

IMO, the effect on the forum will be the same either way. Since, the type of person who would come asking about non-modding related ways to use a resigner is also the type of person not to look to see if there is a resigner here. They'll just see "Halo 3 Modding" be like "ZOMG they must knowz aboutz the CONz stuffz !!11!11!". Therefore, making the point of not having the resigner on the forum meaningless.

[mxrider108]

We already have topics that deal with usermap structure and modification, just not with resigning. It seems silly to allow that sort of thing but pretend that people aren't going to actually resign the files.

I say we allow it, but be sure to have rules about the types of discussion that is allowed. No help for people who wish to modify screenshots, upload to fileshare, etc.

Also, since a resigner is public and many have access to 360gamesaves, uploading the usermaps to the site and requiring the end user to resign with their own IDs is a workaround to fileshare.

[Yamagushi]

Halo 3 modding is really the next step for Halomods. To deny such a thing would surely have a bad impact on the site. I believe the site should support the use of the CON signer, However, Teach proper use of it for the specific purpose of Halo 3 modding only. Make it very clear for people not to come here for use of the CON signer with anything but specific Halo 3 modding. Like many have said this tool will be available whether or not Halomods supports it. It would just be foolish not to use the tools at hand.

[Tural]

[07:34:03] JacksonCougar: Anyways, I have to get back to rea modding, I really care not about this forge thing popele hype so much. I used to but then I clued into what it was, and it made me sad. If you ban it the impact on a content side of things would be small, but on the moral side of things... poeple would just get pissed off.
[07:34:20] Tural: How is it different than yesterday?
[07:34:28] Tural: Plenty of people had one yesterday, it just wasnt public
[07:34:31] Tural: We didnt allow them to post it
[07:34:37] Tural: It's no different now
[07:34:43] Tural: It's still the exact same rule
[07:34:51] Tural: People just change their opinion on it because they can
[07:34:55] Tural: Oh, so now it's not fair
[07:35:04] Tural: But what about the people it wasnt fair to yesterday
[07:35:07] Tural: Oh, forget them
[07:35:10] Tural: That's not biased

[PlasmaGhost]

Tural, with respect, don't be a prick. You asked for a discussion, let's discuss, not argue. He hasn't attacked you yet, be considerate and don't attack him.

Back on topic, it's not like I can't search Google and find resigners. They are there, and there's nothing we can do about it. Banning the discussion of forge editing would be a terrible blow to Halomods. Personally, I would go to a different site.

Edit: Nevermind about being a prick, you deleted your post.

[grimdoomer]

But it would condone cheating, something halomods is against.

[PlasmaGhost]

And posting Halo 2 modding apps didn't?

[grimdoomer]

But they where only for Halo 2 maps, not for every single game plus system files.

[jimmygoon]

But they where only for Halo 2 maps, not for every single game plus system files.

Eh, I guess I could care less if people shares profiles and change their gamerscore. The gamerscore has no impact on gameplay... and neither does the profile unless seeing the Katana really gives one player an advantage over another.

and condoning "Forge Variant Modding" is still not the same as condoning "cheating". Yes, the same tools are used, but then again, knives can be used as a weapon or as a utility.

@grimdoomer, Bungie has sorta killed file uploads because of people uploading inappropriate pictures. Official reactions though, I'm not aware of any.