Dan Bugglin

@LENSconcept Yeah looks like TF2 Heavy and Soldier are trying out new opportunities, but Heavy looks like he needs a vacation.

There are legitimate reasons for doing this... the primary reason is because VAC banned or server banned players can EASILY register a new Steam account and ban evade to harass a server and there is NO WAY to stop them.

But this mod can slow them down greatly, requiring them to buy $5 worth in the Mann Co store to upgrade their account to premium. With that barrier it's less likely they will continue to harass a server.

Valve's F2P FAQ says they have a system in place to track this sort of ban-evading behavior, however they don't give any details of what will be done to violators or when.

All this means is that Steam will be able to identify which DLCs you have, and associate DLCs with accounts and allow you to download DLCs you own. It doesn't mean they will be selling them. (EX: The game may allow you to import it into your Steam account for easy patches, and if your CD key is a pre-order key you get the appropriate DLC).

Unrelated: TF2 is now permanently $10 on Steam.

@TraceurRyuk Part III I have heard theories floating around that Ep3 will be HL3.

@xFenixKnightx In the same way that it has the same engine as Half-Life 1, sure.

But in less of a hyperbole... Valve has been incrementally updating the engine ever since they purchased the license from iD for the original Quake engine. There will doubtlessly be new things in the Portal 2 engine, followed shortly by SDK updates so mod makers can use them.

@The MAZZTer Addendum: I play a lot of Team Fortress 2, only have seen a handful of hackers in the 3+ years I've played, and I've played 1000+ hours (was unemployed for 2 of those years).

"Games rely on the security of the encryption on the platforms they're played on"

Umm PCs are typically unencrypted and games have flourished on that platform. Because GAME DEVELOPERS don't take the lazy route and expect the platform encryption to keep their games unhacked.

Wow, is it just me or is this mod compiler trying to play the victim?

"Well I totally ripped off these guys' work as my own, and chose to publish it rather than take 5 minutes to compile a text file, but that's not the point! I took the link down right away but those filthy players might redistribute the mod!"

"it seems that the unit is unable to run any retail games"

This doesn't make sense for a factory-made model, why make so many that you can't sell?

I suspect this unit did not have its firmware loaded onto it yet (not sure, didn't watch the video) thus it would be unable to run anything. It probably could be waiting for a specific firmware loader to be inserted in the card slot and booted before it will do anything else.