Nov. 24, 2003 @ 05:55
Do It Yourself

This GCF Extractor I’ve been working on ever since Valve came up with Steam is becoming a pain in the ass.

I mean really, its not any sort of ‘killer-app’ and for the general public they can either get the files out by using an HLDS install or downloading them from someone else who has. However, my natural curiosity and the fact that I’ve ‘cracked’ file formats before is probably what’s driving me to even bother trying.

Thing is though, I’ve started to get stupid ammounts of e-mails asking for updates on its progress and begging letters basically demanding I send them a copy of it as if their very existence relies on this program.

Well sorry to say but the truth is, as of time of writing, that the GCF extractor is nothing more than some crudely bashed together scripts which I have to re-compile and customise for every single task I want to do with the file. Theres no GUI and not even any sort of command line interface to speak of. So in short, I can’t send you a utility that doesnt yet properly exist. Not even the fact that I haven’t fully worked out the GCF virtual filesystem format matters to some people!

Actually what I have found amusing is some of the ‘hate’ mail I’ve been getting. It seems to come in two flavours – those who are also trying to write one and seem to be scared/jealous/envious that I might finish an extractor before them, and others who have tried and failed and list reasons why even trying to create the extractor is a pointless exercise anyway.

Ain’t people funny?

Ah well, I don’t really care. I have more important things to worry about so this isn’t exactly the number one priority in my life right now and its not as if I’m being paid to write it.

Responses to “Do It Yourself”


DOING A BIT OF RESEARCH ON THE NET .GCF IS THE FORMAT OF A WINXCOMP GROUPED COMPRESSED FILE, STEAMS CODE IS OF THE SAME FORMAT, BUT WITH REDUNDENT DATA TO CONFUSE PROGRAMS LIKE WINXCOMP COMPRESSOR/DECOMPRESSOR, SO IF U FILTER OUT THE NESSERY INFORMATION IF COULD WORK-THE RACE IS ON–

Posted by CHEMICAL SPILL9-11
Sun, December 28th, 2003 @ 13:56