How do you feel about map protecting?

[Zerox]

If people were honest, I wouldn't protect my maps. But who will notice if some takes a noobs map, soups it up a bit and then re-releases it, claiming all the credit that the noob was entitled to?

If I was really well known and made fantastic games, I wouldn't protect them, because everybody would know that I had made it originally.

For us noobs, protection is about protecting one's hard work and possibly our success-makers, while a pro would try to protect their amazing triggerwork or models, and keep their secrets of succes to themselves.

Never thought of it that way. Very insightful. Now I don't hate that people protect maps so much.

 

[216199]

People should stop typing their names/nicknames in their maps, thus keeping it uncluttered from some useless text and triggers.

People should no longer desire credits for the work they have done.
(this takes some refinement of character, that's why most selfish 14-17 year old teenage mapmakers are unable to even comprehend this idea and the joy of being an anonymous contributor to the map community)

People should not corrupt (a.k.a. protect) their maps.

All maps should be freely available to everyone to edit (like in the GNU licence, but since War3 maps are already copyrighted by Blizzard actual legal enforcement is impossible)

 

[s3rius]

People should stop typing their names/nicknames in their maps, thus keeping it uncluttered from some useless text and triggers.

Just being curious.. did you ever intensely worked on a map for weeks or months and released it without your name?

 

[Dameon]

I am working on a big map which is currently in beta phase and I am protecting each and every version I release and also try to obfuscate certain parts of the code as good as I can. There are two reasons for that.
1st) I am using a save code and I don't want people to simply cheat themselves to max level.
2nd) Just a few months ago an idiot came and told me that he deprotected my map, did a few changes, put himself as the creator and distributed the unprotected (see first reason) version on epicwar.. that is what I call rude. Luckily I could convince the mods that that map was hacked and it got downloaded *only* about 300 times...

Arguing that one could not learn anything from protected maps is completely nuts, too.
Most of the guys who are using this as an excuse haven't even tried to ask the creator of the map whether he or she could tell them a few things.
I myself have a few "pupil" who I am teaching Jass and Gui and I am gladly helping everyone who asks me in a polite way.

There are only two situations in which I support map deprotection.
Either when you really only have the intention to learn from the map and the creator is too busy/ignorant to help.
Or when a map is already dead for a long time and the creator has vanished (I am guilty of that - without this action I'd never have started my current project).

Some of your might know the map Night Of The Dead: Aftermath. It's a quite popular zombie killing map. In my opinion its creator should be a shining example for every mapper. She released released earlier versions of her map unprotected (those which use a different save code system), regulary shared triggers with others and even allowed someone unknown to use her terrain for his own map. :thup:

edit:

It might be easy to find them if it is Dota or something with similar popularity. But rather unknown maps don't have this type of protection. Or your example about Custom Hero Line Wars 1.5. Occasionally I play HLW but how should I know that it's hacked? I also barely play Dota. I hardly know which the newest version is. Tricking me with a hacked dota is easy.

Of course everything actually belongs to Blizzard, but that means that Blizzard is also the only one that is allowed to take those maps "by force". What justification do other people have to take it? It's new to me that it is ok to steal something that neither belongs to your nor to the guy you stole it from.

Well the first clue is the map says version 1.5 but in game top right it says version 1.4, also baka posted on his web site that it is a hacked version. Don't get me wrong, It is ok if people want to protect there maps, I am going to protect mine before it's release, but I am doing it stop people from adding cheats or finding out the secrets that will be hidden in the map, as for dota, I don't like it and dont play it.

 

[Romek]

To all those protection-haters
Even if you don't like the idea that the map can't be opened, protecting maps can save masses of space, which make's it easier to play on B.net

 

[Kazuga]

Altough you can't pick out AI systems, that's the only thing I want from this map. Link As long as you give credits for such things it should be ok.

 

[Romek]

Altough you can't pick out AI systems, that's the only thing I want from this map. Link As long as you give credits for such things it should be ok.

...Are you asking someone to deprotect that map or something?
If you want to know how something is done, post in the Help Zone. (Wth an explanation)

... I also think this thread is getting out of hand

 

[Kazuga]

No I am not asking for someone to unprotect it, if someone has protected their map then he should be respected and leaved alone.

I do have submitted a thread for help with this, here.

 

[bananaHUNT]

I think it's a good idea to protect your map. It prevents other people from editing hacks into your precious work and discovering secrets in a cheap way. Like said before, I don't care if someone learns from my map, but you can just ask me, since the map makers who protect their map always put credits on it.

Also there are always guys who can unprotect it, but usually they are advanced map makers themselves who are sufisticated enough to only learn from it and don't make cheat versions.

 

[Romek]

Also there are always guys who can unprotect it, but usually they are advanced map makers themselves who are sufisticated enough to only learn from it and don't make cheat versions.

The noobs usually don't even know a map is protected.
Thats why we get the
"OMG I TRYD 2 OPEN A MAPZ I MADE (100% ME) BUT ERROR HELPZZ!!!!!!111!!!11!1!11!!1111111"

 

[Kazuga]

Yes indeed... Well I asked Cal1991 if he could share he's AI system now since he made one for he's Footman like map.

 

[D.V.D]

I don't like protection because it _doesn't work_, and it _can't_ work. The map has to be readable to the game, so there is a fundamental limit to how much you can protect it. It's like DRM, except you don't even have control of the reader.

As far as I can see there is only one way to 'protect' maps, and that is by digitally signing them. Battle.net should let you assign a public key to your profile, and the 'author' field in the map should be used to identify the account.

Any maps signed by the person in the author field get nice big "SIGNED BY (YOU)" text. If anyone modified the map it will no longer be signed. If anyone signs it themselves, it will say signed by them. Good luck getting anyone to play a version of dota that doesn't say "SIGNED BY ICE FROG".

Of course that doesn't really work for unpopular maps, where it's more likely that the map gets all-out stolen than just cheated. In that case we would need something like battle.net signing maps with a date stamp, which would allow you to prove who did what first.

Maybe someday blizzard will actually notice that we want this type of system.

Dosen't WEU have the password to protect your map? And anyways its not going to take too long to crack the code. Most of the time you don't even need to know the code.

 

[Zerox]

Wow now were kinda straying a lot towards the topic of why its possible to deprotect a map. Thats kinda on the border of whats allowed guys. *I actually read the rules*

To those of you who intentionally deprotect maps why do you do it?

 

[WindexIsBack]

Protection ftw!
I feel like most people think that protection is about making your map un-openable,so that people won't steal your ideas.But actually...
1)Protection makes the map smaller - DotA is 3 MB IN SIZE PROTECTED.How much would it be unprotected?Would it even playable on bNet?
2)How many hacked versions of maps would there be of good maps left unprotected?10 for every version of the map?
3)Even if someone wants to see how you've done something,why not?It's not like hell make an exact copy of you map :\.TheHelper wouldn't even be here if everyone thought "they'll see how I did this,lets protect"

So,thumbs up for map protection :thup::thup:

--> I think that everyone should protect their maps.

Dotas size is caused by models; not the badly written code that dota has. Correct me if I"m wrong, but map optimizing does very little for animated models.

----
I bet that everyone who voted for options 2 and 3 aren't experienced mappers

Also, Aren't the options a bit.. weird?

I've been mapping for a year and a half and I think it's rude to do so. It doesn't effect me anymore either or not someone protects because I have no need for looking. Most beginners do however.

But map protection is up the users fault; when I was starting off it really helped me finding unprotected maps, and I'm doing the same to help others.

 

[demotry241]

a Map is your creation, a map is something you put an effort. a Map represents how you do things.

protecting a map is used to make noobs dont touch it. because noobs sometimes makes somethings in that map imba.

one who knows to unprotect sometimes only looks at it for the codes, or sometimes they make it more playable/balance because they know how to use an editor. they also know how to leave credits.

Don't Ask, Just Think.

anyway... those people who want those codes.. should ask it from the creator...

 

[HappyPeasant]

no that was when i first got into maps that where not meele, that was on a older crudy computer got a virus so i formated it and lost all the warcraft downlaoded maps (Along with like 30Gb's of other stuff ), but there was only a few intresting ones anyway.

lol sucks thats how mine is right now lol all fuk'd over lol i think i know the map your talking about lol i used to play it too had a bunch of dinasour customs lol if i cant find it on my comp... well anyone know the name lol go to warcraft.org lol they have all the old and sucky maps

 

[HappyPeasant]

People should stop typing their names/nicknames in their maps, thus keeping it uncluttered from some useless text and triggers.

People should no longer desire credits for the work they have done.
(this takes some refinement of character, that's why most selfish 14-17 year old teenage mapmakers are unable to even comprehend this idea and the joy of being an anonymous contributor to the map community)

People should not corrupt (a.k.a. protect) their maps.

All maps should be freely available to everyone to edit (like in the GNU licence, but since War3 maps are already copyrighted by Blizzard actual legal enforcement is impossible)

this is a really good point.... and i change my mind again lol

if you have a contract with blizzard i see a reason to put your name on a map otherwise your making maps for others not to get credit behind some online name that means nothing and back to the contract again something with this magnitude would be a contracted buisness not an idividual you know. lol im going back to unprotected maps (+) anonymous makers

 

[Zerox]

protecting a map is used to make noobs dont touch it.

And that there is kinda rude to the little guy who is not experienced yet. Honestly how many of you can actually say you didn't just take a already made map and make it way rigged by like a really overpowered unit when you were just starting out. I'm sure all of us have done it at some point. Now really once you get experienced you of course want to take it out because it gets lame for you and the people your playing with. All in all map protection = bleh if you ask me.

 

[THE_X]

i think you could make 2 maps 1 protected 1 unprotected, and post the unprotected one on sites like this you know for the map maker guy cause whoever is gonna steal your map probably isnt gonna go to a forms for help hes just gonna put in a cheet or something, but the people here will most likely use it for help and whatnot

 

[Zerox]

Tis true what you say. I think that people wouldn't find it here that are just wanting to put cheats in. I also think that the general community here would use it for just that. We got a nice group here. Oh and X *points to X's avatar* Don't kill yourself.