It all depends on how the server owner configures it, mate. Trickster already said his server will remain sv_pure 0. Other owners will most likely have a specific whitelist of the models and textures so that you can't mathack and alter models, but skins and sounds are possible. Disclaimer: I have no idea what I'm talking about in sentence #2.
what about fp view of your weapon? can you cheat with that? if not then those skins should be alowed.
sv_pure should only be on for scrims really. EDIT: It's gunna be funny watching some people's ability in clan matches drop like stones when they can't use their exploits
I think the use of custom content will grow due to that you can just delete the Empires folder in /steamapps/username/ after the Steam release. (It'll be like a fresh install) Unless some fag server admin decides to put sv_pure to 1.
It depends on the server owners as you said. If any server owner is serious about stopping cheating, they wouldn't allow much more than the changing of first person models and maybe vehicles. Player models/skins are easily exploitable. But like I said, I don't care. If someone wants to cheat on a pub server then it's sad, but it doesn't matter that much, as they will eventually get caught and banned anyway. As long as scrims run sv_pure 2 with absolutely no whitelist at all, then all's good. I ran a fuck tonne of custom shit, but I've gone back to 100% stock purely for that.
Replacing the BE RPG is cheating trickster. No matter how much you sugar coat it, it's an unfair advantage.
most of my shit is custom. I just hope server owners will at least allow custom sounds, I like my party apcs.
sv_pure 0 allows all custom content. sv_pure 1 allows custom content in specific places (materials/custom, sounds/custom and so on) sv_pure 2 doesn't allow anything outside of GCF. Most public servers will be using sv_pure 0 or 1.
Custom sounds/models can be used to gain an unfair advantage that sv_pure was created to prevent. It seems a bit silly to whitelist them.
Just in case anyone is wondering what was happening in CS:S before pure was introduced http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2A_rwmUFs0g It was such a problem that Frog developed a custom server applet to track people down who were exploiting it. I'm afraid sv_pure is just part of Empires growing up and going mainstream.
Agreed. We'll see how it plays out, but if Empires takes off in terms of player numbers, I bet everyone will end up turning it on.