I wouldn't worry too much about it, I think the only real complication there could be if you make money from using or adjusting there code. Also its not like its damaged any sales of the game infact quite the opposite!

I remember when Star Wars Galaxies came to the end and a few individuals reverse engineered the code. SOE didnt seem too bothered as they wasn't taking any money from it and when you think about it it happens alot. 

Car tuners adjust the code for the ECU's that are made by Bosch etc etc and they do make money from it. 

As it was said before some people purely brought GTA V just to play LSPDFR, I did as I already had it on the XBox One so if it wasn't for LSPDFR and others that make it possible, R* wouldn't have made any extra ££.

I think someone should make some callouts to arrest CEO's of greedy companies 

 

Edited June 15, 20178 yr by scorponok

June 5th was a very busy day for a lot of people, I'm sure Jim would have another field day with TS in his Jimquisition. I found the quotes by T2 CEO rather interesting; if you aren't supporting monthly transactions your basically a freeloader. 

 

 

Edit; PS: Forgot if we're allowed to link videos, just seemed like this was valid more than ever given the gravity of the current situation

Edited June 15, 20178 yr by MrAnarchy

This reminds me of soon after the release of GTA V on PC. Early in summer (During the Steam Sales in fact), everything went on sale, as normal. Well instead of Take-Two, and really, Rockstar, making the game cheaper, they "Lowered the price" but added an insignificant amount of sharkcards to send the price right back up to 70 bucks. These people have been after the money the whole time. They don't give a shit about the community, they care about the profits. 

 

This again, makes me reaffirm my position on the petition; it's important. We affect their bottom line. At the end of the day we matter.

lol GTA 5 Mods had to take down one of my mods due to it sharing default game files (The vehicles are uv map for customization so no they are not just the default files). They figured out what it was and are going to allow it for now. Everyone is blowing this way out of proportion before anyone knows any true facts.

 

The bad most backing factor I could find about this issue as of today: I downloaded the new gun runner update on my xbox 1 version of the game. I've never seen it before but I got a disclaimer to report any abuse of GTA Online and it would be reviewed and appropriately be handle if any exploit were found and if you are found using any, your account would be banned/disabled. (This is not the exact wording but I'm generalizing). I've never recall seeing this in the past nor do I know if its been there for a while already but odd this comes around the same time. Yet again this ONLY APPLIES TO GTA ONLINE!

 

For Rock star games to change all of there files to a different format would be a lot of work  for the company to do and I frankly do not believe it. Try explaining to a greedy corp executive that you need thousands, millions of dollars to basically remake a game to stop single player exploits that cost them no money to be exploited. This  would get turned down right away (Common greedy knowledge tells you if it doesn't cost you money why worry about it). So the file change thing I'm skeptical about. Also whats to stop another coder from coming along and breaking the code for those files? Then they just wasted all that money for nothing.

 

The good. Take 2 and rock star games have a lot of money. They could easily afford to have a legal document properly proof read before sending it to the person or persons being served the document and translated properly as well. The grammar of the letter brings so much doubt of its authenticity that I am very skeptical about it. PC Gamer recalled and I even remember when an ARK modder sent a bogus cease and deists letter to another modder who made Pokemon replace Dinosaurs  in the game and led to  forcing the mod shut down TEMPORARILY as a prank. That could very well be what this is. More  skepticism I have with this is that OpenIV never published the letter entirely. Just bits and pieces of it. They don't have a Legal obligation not to post the entire letter. If they did then they violated it by revealing the poorly written grammar portion of the letter which in there post they clearly say it is written that way on the cease and deists letter.

 

With all of the above however I do understand the precaution of You Tubers discontinuing there episodes in fear as in some cases YouTube is there main source of revenue and can't afford to lose it as well as other sites taking pre cautionary actions over modding.

 

But with all that being said. Wait until someone gets a hold of Rockstar Games and/or Take 2 and get there side of the story to prove its authenticity. I'm not saying to get your hopes up here because I could be wrong but no one has been available for comment as of yet. With a gaming magazine as big as PC Gamer inquiring about the accusations and them not responding leads up to three scenarios:

 

They haven't responded because they are not aware of any such letter (That is what I'm hoping for anyways).

 

They were not available for comment because the time the post was released was after normal business hours (Could be a possibility).

 

Or they are trying to come up with a legal Pro PR way of coming out about the cease and desist letter and trying to save face with the community (Most likely)

 

However we always have rockstar pretty much okay with it via there  blog okaying the modding of single player:

 

Source: http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/05/07/grand-theft-auto-5-pc-mods-get-seal-of-approval-from-rockstar-games

 

Read on below, via Rockstar Games' official blog. Emphasis added.

"We have always appreciated the creative efforts of the PC modding community and we still fondly remember the awesome zombie invasion mod and original GTA map mod for GTAIV PC among many other classics. To be clear, the modding policy in our license has not changed and is the same as for GTAIV.  Recent updates to GTAV PC had an unintended effect of making unplayable certain single player modifications. This was not intentional, no one has been banned for using single player modifications, and you should not worry about being banned or being relegated to the cheater pool just for using single player PC mods. Our primary focus is on protecting GTA Online against modifications that could give players an unfair advantage, disrupt gameplay, or cause griefing. It also bears mentioning that because game mods are by definition unauthorized, they may be broken by technical updates, cause instability, or affect your game in other unforeseen ways."

So in short, Rockstar supports the use of single-player mods in Grand Theft Auto 5. Rejoice!

 

 

3 minutes ago, Thero said:

 

-snip-

 

I am in 100% agreement. It baffled me that Take-Two (Who I'm sure have written a legal document or two) couldn't figure out proper grammar when sending this C&D in the first place. And that the OpenIV guys only reacted to it days later via update, with no warning, and just pretty much said "bye, see ya later". 

 

My original crazy theory is that it was an attempt on GTA modding from another modder or developer to stop production of a competitor. (My theory is based on the dev for Police1013's interactions with this community, but it isn't wholly based on him.

 

And another thing. Why send a C&D to one modder, but randomly contact "Alex" (Who we still have no idea about), about changing game files 4 years after initial launch. This makes no sense.

Just now, thegreathah said:

I am in 100% agreement. It baffled me that Take-Two (Who I'm sure have written a legal document or two) couldn't figure out proper grammar when sending this C&D in the first place. And that the OpenIV guys only reacted to it days later via update, with no warning, and just pretty much said "bye, see ya later". 

 

My original crazy theory is that it was an attempt on GTA modding from another modder or developer to stop production of a competitor. (My theory is based on the dev for Police1013's interactions with this community, but it isn't wholly based on him.

 

And another thing. Why send a C&D to one modder, but randomly contact "Alex" (Who we still have no idea about), about changing game files 4 years after initial launch. This makes no sense.

I think "Alex" just wants attention.

8 minutes ago, Thero said:

So in short, Rockstar supports the use of single-player mods in Grand Theft Auto 5. Rejoice!

 

 

R* isn't really the issue, though they have done stupid things in the past. T2 is the problem, their the ones who want to crack down on everything, they would sell their own family to make a quick dollar.

For anyone wondering, "Alex" is Alexander Blade. Remember ScripthookV? That's him, for the one's who kept asking.

Edited June 15, 20178 yr by Fartknockr

51 minutes ago, Thero said:

-removing wall of text-

 

Agree completely. There is no way a legal document would've gone out with such poor grammar. Even if it was translated from English into Russian, it would've gone through a competent legal translator and not just Google translate. I hope they post the full letter.

 

It also doesn't make sense - OpenIV has been around for a long time now. It's not like TakeTwo or R* suddenly found out OpenIV existed last week.

IF this is bullshit, why would OpenIV comply?  Again, the OpenIV team aren't idiots.  For them to receive some random C&D should have them skeptical and trying to verify its legitimacy.  Seeing as OpenIV has already taken the steps to shut down, whoever contacted them has to have something that shows they are an active employee with T2.  I'm just saying, the OpenIV team wouldn't be so quick to do as instructed unless they genuinely believed in the authenticity.

 

In regards to the actual letter itself, it does look bullshit.  It looks like someone from the EU who has only been in the US for a month wrote it.  I'm normally not one to freak the fuck out, but the reason folks such as myself are getting so upset is because we have put a lot of time into modding our game.  We have taken a lot of time to personalize the game to how we want it.  My game is fully modded out.  Audio, characters, graphics, cars. I have over 4 DLCs filled with standalone cars.  The very idea of all my modding efforts going out the window enrages me.  I'd be just as mad if Rockstar pushed out an update for a file I didn't have backed up, which ruined my entire game. (Mind you, my normal backup method works flawlessly.  It's when Rockstar randomly updates a different file, such as Steam_API)

 

Ultimately, most of us here just want to play games how we want to and enjoy it.  The idea that someone is trying to stop us from doing this is what makes most of us so mad.  If we rented the game, I could get behind suing someone who modified it.  In this case, we spent $60 on the game.  It's OUR game now.  Rockstar does ultimately own it, but so do we.  We can do as we please with the game so long as it doesn't infringe upon GTA Online or Rockstar (redistributing).

 

If this is some gag, good, we can move on in a few days.  If not, goodbye LSPDFR and GTA. I will never be purchasing another GTA title.

Edited June 15, 20178 yr by Deputy Rourke

Well, I'm f*cked.

 

Those nasty f*cks picked the wrong time to get rid of OpenIV. I'm right now in modding nirvana, it seems. I have two pages of mods that I ENJOY making, but the thing is, for some reason, my Windows 10 computer is unable to take screenshots in-game. I need to use OpenIV's WFT viewer for this, as you may find, so I can appease both the admins and the potential downloader.

 

Sure, OpenIV likes to mess up my vehshare and my resident.rpf, but the thing is, I'm only modding for GTA IV, and I'm like the most active modder there right now. Sure, there may be some legal loophole in GTA IV, and sure, GTA V was a pain in the arse to mod, but my contributions here have been a pillar of my involvement in the modding community. 

 

The world's out to get me during these exam times, I'm sure of this.  But this is the biggest blow to the GTA IV modding community since GTAPoliceMods shut down. I'm not updating my OpenIV out of fear, so I can't use that anymore. And SparkIV doesn't have a WFT viewer.

 

Nobody really knows how much it has affected my corner of mods. But let me tell you something - for keeping within site rules, it is REALLY BAD.

At the grand old age of 44 I am only just getting into the modding of GTAV and just love lspdfr and hope that I will be able to continue to use it, even tho at this moment I can't due to outdated script hook, and now I get this popup on OpenIV giving me the option to uninstall (Not a cat in hells chance!). I have paid for GTAV on every format that it has been released on so have spend a fair amount of money with R*. It does make me wonder if people will now stick their middle finger up at them and just used pirated versions from now on. I have purchased this software so i should be able to do with it what I want, if I can't then why should I put my hand in my pocket and hand over money! 

 

Rant over...

 

Anyone know how to stop the OpenIV popup from coming up every time you start openiv?

There's an upside should this turn out to be true, and they screw us all over, I will have 60 odd gigabytes of space free as I won't be playing that excuse of an Online Experience.

 

Get with it Take 2.

I think a lot of people are overreacting about this. Yeah its really shitty how T2 have made such a bad decision, but right now GTA modding is not affected. OpenIV still works, which many are failing to understand. If you were smart you would have made a backup through RPH for the update that literally just came out so no issues there as well. As some have already said, there will be OpenIV alternatives if OpenIV stops working because there are people out there with the knowledge and dedication to make one.

 

Really the only thing im pretty pissed about is now we won't get a fucking Liberty City mod from OpenIV team, i've been waiting for that since Jan 1st!!!!! 

This whole "Cease and Desist," corporate international/multi-platform contact letter raises a lot of red flags from what the OpenIV team has and has not said.

For the record, Take Two Interactive is a company valued at over $1b and growing since the release of GTA V. It has stock on the NYSE. Furthermore, Rockstar Games and 2K Games are subsidiaries of Take Two Interactive (T2 owns both companies and their outlets).

 

I did not think it was a big deal at first, but it has certainly been raising a stink. However, I'm optimistic this is either fake or an unintended mistake. There are some red flags and inconsistencies that tip off to a possible phoney.

 

T2 Interactive owns Rockstar Games - RSG develops and publishes, as well as handles all point-of-contact interaction with customers and community on behalf of T2 if it is a Rockstar game. RSG has never implemented any intentional counter-modification update or feature and, as mentioned prior in this thread by Thero with proof, they have even supported it. This is very inconsistent with Take Two Interactive's supposed Cease and Desist letter.

 

As for the letter, Take Two Interactive has confirmed with and through RSG in the past (by their own operation) the legality and availability of modding in GTAIV and GTAV. It's odd that the letter comes unprompted and right after a DLC update that does not affect infrastructure or other critical files that would obstruct or disable OpenIV. The largest alarm to the credibility of the letter is the grammatical errors of the document and its delivery over international jurisdiction. It is quite odd, legally and operationally, for a company to send a letter to cease and desist under terms of another jurisdiction to just one individual in a different legal jurisdiction in another country  Furthermore, the document's authenticity is at large (I have not seen the letter, but if it is as bad as Deputy Rourke implies, then it seems largely debatable).

 

The timing of it all contributes to the suspicion. After a significant update, but nonetheless at perhaps the least critical time for GTAV sales and GTAO interaction. Four years into GTAV, there is no overt financial motivation by either company to discourage modding and even go as far to cease it. As RSG said themselves, they support it and, obviously, it attracts even more sales because of more content. It seems irrelevant, out of character, and inconsistent for Take Two Interactive to pen the Cease and Desist letter.

 

Laying all of this out, it seems even more indicative to me that the letter is false. It just doesn't add up. If it is not false, then I am not worried. There will be other ways, and RSG and T2 will identify their fault eventually, especially here in the closing one to two years of GTAV (four years later). If not, I have faith in the community to come back. This community always has, just look where we are today and what they're capable of.

 

Until next time.

Edited June 15, 20178 yr by marine9077
Typo/Clarification

I sure hope this is some sort of prank or scam, as mentioned before this C/D demand letter seems to be full of typos and spelling mistakes. Lawyers are usually pretty thorough on these matters so it does seem a little fishy. In any case, OpenIV can still be used as long as you yank your ethernet cable before updating it, and possibly keeping the game at a previous version through the launcher bypass mod. Hopefully we'll get some real information on whether this is a genuine demand or some idiot playing with the tool creators. 

Edited June 15, 20178 yr by wilfordbrimleysmoustache

I think the theories stating the C&D is possibly a hoax could hold some weight, but I imagine the OIV team have undoubtedly received cease and desist letters before. I would hope they at least verified the letter was from T2 before acting. 

 

It'll be interesting to see what happens over the coming days/weeks. 

Currently on toilet in school right now - I've had a theory - if it is true, like the Red Dead map mod, this could have happened as a result of making the GTA IV map mod.

 

Thoughts? This has been a tricky one.

Does this effect the new script hook coming out? 

Strangely, Open IV with the last version, open normally. No issue, or unistall...

 

EDIT : Oops, not the last, never mind, I'll not update.

Edited June 15, 20178 yr by Corrupt Cop