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‘Stop talking s*** about us’ - Half-Life 2 mod blacklists a handful of YouTubers as ‘anticitizens’ and blocks them from playingDis-content creators
Dis-content creators
Image credit:Valve
Image credit:Valve
There is some spiteful drama in theHalf-Lifemodding scene this week. The developers of a heavily criticised mod forHalf-Life 2are intentionally blocking a small number of YouTubers from playing that mod, using Steam IDs to effectively blacklist and ban specific people from running it. Instead of launching the game as expected, these players will see the first-person shooter crash, alongside an error message that reads: “STOP talking SH1T about us”. This is an act of revenge for previous criticism of the mod, say the affected videofolks, who are described in the mod’s code as “anticitizens”.
In the two years since that original release the mod saw some updates, and the YouTubers followed along, tracking changes and sometimes doing follow-up videos to addresswhether or not the bugs had been fixed. Some things did get fixed, yes, but many other problems persisted, and new issues even came up, such as strange ragdoll behaviour and vanishing enemies.
With the recent release of a 2.0 version, the video makers set out to cover the mod once again, only to discover that it would simply crash. An error message would appear, reading: “STOP talking SH1T about us”. And any attempt to make the game run was unsuccessful.
“The developers used my Steam ID to somehow block me from playing the mod,” said one of the affected players ina video calling out the modders. “There is a line of code somewhere that was specifically written to block my account from playing this mod.”
Sure enough, the mod appears to have been hardcoded to include a list of four “anticitizens” who will be unable to play, accordingto this tweet that exposes the modder’s code.
