User:Sitzkrieg/Sandbox/Source code
This page will not discuss methods of acquiring or distributing the illegally leaked source code. It will only cover the impact of the leak(s) and major events.
On April 21st 2020 the source code for many Source Engine games was leaked. Team Fortress 2 was no exception to the leak, as it contained a complete 2016 build of TF2.
Contents
RCE Scare
When news of the leak initially spread, fear, confusion, and worry was spread throughout the community from a speculated vulnerability discovered in TF2's source code that could potentially allow for RCE (Remote Code Execution). This caused many players to not play during this time until it was deemed safe to play again. Some media figures within the community warned that only valve servers were effected, while other TF2 media sources claimed all servers were effected.
Media Response
Within weeks after the leak, media figures within the community began auditing the source code. During this time the "spaghetti code" rumors of TF2 were found to be verifiably true.
On social media websites, forums, and video sharing platforms, comments within the source code received the most media attention. This was due to the comical nature of emotions expressed by the developers. The developers expressed frustration, confusion, and anger throughout many of the comments.
Cheating
The source code leak bolstered the development of 'custom' Cheating clients for TF2 to an unfathomable degree. Cheat developers no longer needed to rely on guesswork or reverse engineering aspects of the game. Instead, they could directly read how the game functions. Many new cheating clients were developed at this time. Most pre-existing functions and features within cheating clients received hyper-optimizations, and many new features were added to such clients.
Botting
The source code leak caused a chain reaction of malicious action against the game. After cheating clients became more powerful than ever, botting became easier than ever. This lead to a 4 year plague known as the 'botting crisis'. Two known prominent figures within the 'botting community' were pursued with legal action against Valve.
