Map protection

[Eye]

Nobody seems to ask or care about it now. Would be nice if one could do it without hacky methods, which not exactly protect, but delay the inevitable.

EDIT: It is a suggestion thread.

 

[The_Silent]

An author system would be better imo
So you can see if a map is official or not by who released it

 

[deepstrasz]

An author system would be better imo
So you can see if a map is official or not by who released it

Like the Blizzard logo which appears on their maps, indeed but only limited to that.

 

[Wareditor]

Something really interesting would be to be able to pull a private key from Blizzard server at runtime that is unique to the map author's id.
Another approach would be to have a online cache for saves which is secured in some ways.

 

[Rui]

I am in favor of this, though we should keep in mind parallel wc3 gaming scenes exist. Meaning an authoring system run in BattleNet cannot guarantee protection in those scenarios.

 

[Wrda]

I don't really understand where you want to get this, because it is pointless, there will always be people who want to do the bad stuff and will find any means necessary, but still it's a low amount
1. People who want to learn how something is done, are a fan of the map, are curious about something of the map can't do it because X person protected it, restricting any one to gain knowledge from it.
2. Other map makers want to copy another map maker's amazing system, but can't because it's protected.
3. People experience bugs when playing a certain map, ask a friend to fix them. He either can't because it's protected or he can but will take a long time because he has basically to re-do the map.
4. Map maker is gone/unreachable, can't fix minor stuff in map.
You might say: "people might edit my map and publish it as their own".
Counter-argument: First of all, I have never seen an instance of a map that is actively being made being stolen. Second: if you are an established mapmaker in any forum or discord, people will play your official version over any other. Third: any edit is likely to be crap. Editing someone else’s map is not easy (especially complex maps) and someone who’s good enough to do that probably won’t be stealing your work. They’ll be making their map. Or, perhaps, editing a map that’s been dead for years.
The disavantages and situations outweight the idea of protecting maps.
It looks is unnecessary drama, you know, we're talking about a game inside a game, not about Top Secret Heavy Nuclear Weapons Area 51.

 

[deepstrasz]

The disavantages and situations outweight the idea of protecting maps.

So, how do you decide whose freedom is to be limited/restricted? Frankly, if authors want to put an open source or unprotected version out there after a while, they can do it but if they don't, who's to decide which action is morally good or bad? You make it sound so easily humanitarian.

 

[LordDz]

Sounds like the Sc2 map system could work here.

 

[Eye]

there will always be people who want to do the bad stuff and will find any means necessary

I agree with you there, but people lock doors and protect things, knowing that determined enough person may enter or steal, because not everyone is determined enough.

want to learn how something is done, are a fan of the map, <...> can't do it because X person protected it

want to copy another map maker's amazing system, but can't because it's protected

Yes and it would be an author's choice. When someone does not want to share, and you take it anyway, it is called stealing. And why would

a fan of the map

have more rights to take something than person who is not? Or why did you mentioned it?

People experience bugs

Map maker is gone/unreachable

That is it then.

disavantages and situations outweight the idea of protecting maps

I do not see them at all. Author either share or not, either repair broken map or not. Not your decision.
Now you can not take something from someone's map and implement in yours either, if you did not know that.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Problem is that because everyone can play a custom map there cannot be any form of data protection. The Warcraft III (reforged) client has to read the map data after all... Even StarCraft II has this problem.

Best that can be done is introduce systems to protect content creator rights. People trying to claim someone else's content as their own get their content removed or even punished.

Stopping cheating in the form of save/load codes for maps is near impossible. Design around it, socially shunt known cheaters and then forget about it. The only way games can stop this is if a server runs the actual game logic to verify no cheating occurs in the creation of the state for the code, and that is not a cheap thing to do and certainly not what Warcraft III was designed around (WoW was but that came later after a lot of changes).

 

[Rui]

We've had a several pages debate in Site Discussion regarding map (de)protection. It's an interesting read. It'll help us not starting all over again from scratch.

I have never seen an instance of a map that is actively being made being stolen.

=)

 

[Wrda]

So, how do you decide whose freedom is to be limited/restricted?

No one decides, people just use common sense.

Frankly, if authors want to put an open source or unprotected version out there after a while, they can do it but if they don't, who's to decide which action is morally good or bad?

Again, that's not how it works, morality in games/internet just doesn't apply the same as it does in real life.

Yes and it would be an author's choice.

Author has absolutely no authority over his map, besides being the owner. Just because someone made something doesn't mean he shouldn't let other people see what's in it.

When someone does not want to share, and you take it anyway, it is called stealing. And why would a fan of the map have more rights to take something than person who is not? Or why did you mentioned it?

If someone doesn't want to share, then why the hell he published it in first place? That's contradictory, he shouldn't publish it, besides, Warcraft 3 World Editor wasn't even made for such purposes like "not to share". It's not a question of if a fan of the map has more rights or not than someone who isn't, normally and obviously, a fan of SomeMapMaker map could have some inspiration from his map, while someone who isn't, most likely wouldn't even touch his map, it was just an example.

I do not see them at all. Author either share or not, either repair broken map or not. Not your decision.

And who's to say it isn't my or anyone else's decision? Is it my decision to play the map? Or do I need consent for that too? Who's going to stop someone from repairing a broken map? Again, no one has authority over someone. They can simply use common sense.

Now you can not take something from someone's map and implement in yours either, if you did not know that.

Copying a fragment like a system/spell/import and use it in your map in your own way isn't considered stealing. There are lot of examples like this in arts. Now opening someone's map and changing the author's name to yours is a whole different thing, stealing.
There are other ways to counter stealing, such as releasing your map on an official site, like hive, plus warning in map description where to get official version/updates.
Hoping for map protection is just...delaying the inevitable.

 

[deepstrasz]

No one decides, people just use common sense.

Which for you in this case isn't protection but deprotection.

Again, that's not how it works, morality in games/internet just doesn't apply the same as it does in real life.

Says you?

Author has absolutely no authority over his map, besides being the owner.

Blizzard has full authority from what the EULA states. However, it does not state anything regarding protection. It's laughable, how can you be the owner of something but have no authority over the thing you own? It's like you have this house but anyone can come in when they please.

Just because someone made something doesn't mean he shouldn't let other people see what's in it.

Not your decision to make.

If someone doesn't want to share, then why the hell he published it in first place?

That's just stupid. You're deliberately misinterpreting protection policies.

Is it my decision to play the map? Or do I need consent for that too?

...you really like to have your way in without a care about other people's views, don't you?

Copying a fragment like a system/spell/import and use it in your map in your own way isn't considered stealing.

Yes it is. It's like taking Thrall and porting him to Warhammer and calling it a good day.

There are other ways to counter stealing, such as releasing your map on an official site, like hive, plus warning in map description where to get official version/updates.

There are people who make resources or have paid for those resources to be made (example: Gaia's Retaliation) and those people might not want to share those resources outside their maps at least not until a point.

So, really, just learn to deal with other people's view on it and stop this pointless contradiction. Either you provide arguments in a nice manner without looking at the people you reply from a pedestal or refrain from posting. You're not helping your view like this.

 

[Rui]

Again, that's not how it works, morality in games/internet just doesn't apply the same as it does in real life.

Actually, it does. Stealing is still stealing, privacy is still privacy, and manipulation is still manipulation. It's just that the “otherworldly feeling” of the wild Internet, with everything and everyone reduced to a screen, and the possibility to shut it down and go back to “real life”, puts people under the false impression crimes and abuses committed there are less serious.

And who's to say it isn't my or anyone else's decision?

I've got means to protect my map. And only I can choose to do it, or not. Clearly, 1) it's a decision, and 2) it's mine to make. Of course, fortunately, you'll often find people use other criteria besides what's in their power to do. Such as respect for others, or their will.

Again, no one has authority over someone.

Agreed. That's why you don't have the authority to tell people what they share or don't share.

 

[Eye]

Copying a fragment like a system/spell/import and use it in your map in your own way isn't considered stealing.

It is. Here, on Hive, and in every respectable community.

 

[Chaosy]

I steal all the time, and I am not banned... yet.

Go figure, I hate protected maps as it makes it that much more annoying to get my hands on what I want. Though it only delays it.

However, I only steal certain things.
For example, I watched a cinematic by AP project and was mind blown about certain things he did.
So I did a bit of a study of the triggers and stole a fog model he used as I deemed it useful.

Quite frankly, no one cares unless you steal a whole lot of things to the point that it becomes clearly noticeable.
Like, who the fuck goes through a random map's triggers and checks if a system is stolen or not?

edit: I am quite fair though, if someone stole something from my map(s) I would not care at all.

 

[Ether]

Once you release a map, you are also releasing it to be vulnerable to hackers, dataminers, and curious players. You cannot stop that. There is no such thing as full protection and authority. Even Blizzard did not protect their own in-games because they know things can be opened or dissected on by any means.

The only way to give your "map" or "mod" privacy is to make things... complex and convoluted like ways of... including corrupted extra-files in the map, make them xxxxx.extension files, altering .slk's, adding confuser and trash triggers to tire dataminers. That is what you can do. If you cannot allow others to operate and dig deep to your project, you have to tire them and make them insane from confusion plus hack the hex codes of your listfiles. If a map contains a thousand or 3000+ files with 60% of it are trash and dummy files.

Also the most fel and diabolical way is including a worms, scripts, and bat or any infected files in your map with changed extension so that it will only cause havoc when carelessly accessed by intruders or even someone tried to one by one open your stuff. Well, you must not do this method unless you are paranoid and won't ever want to share or simply in greed.

In conclusion, the only things you can protect and cannot be stolen are your lore, the quality production, and ownership which is known by your players. Well, THE BEST thing you can do is ask permission to the owner and credit them.

 

[Chaosy]

If a map contains a thousand or 3000+ files with 60% of it are trash and dummy files.

Which increase the map size for the innocent players, do not do that.
Some map protections actually reduce loading time (or so I hear) and that's fine.. I guess. But I don't like the mentality of "my map is so special, I must protect it"
Unless you are the maker of DotA and want to prevent as many copies being floated around as possible.. I give you the middle finger for protecting maps.

 

[Ether]

Which increase the map size for the innocent players, do not do that.
Some map protections actually reduce loading time (or so I hear) and that's fine.. I guess. But I don't like the mentality of "my map is so special, I must protect it"
Unless you are the maker of DotA and want to prevent as many copies being floated around as possible.. I give you the middle finger for protecting maps.

You don't need to do that blobbing and stacking dummy files in the map when you have a 'large' content and assets in your project. We don't exactly know the mentality of other mappers but I do respect the effort of mappers and reasons why they protect their work. Maybe reasons that they don't want their maps to have another parallel version of it, like something made out of it. That doesn't look good or maybe they don't want you to spoil yourself from triggers or stuff that makes their map challenging or maybe they want you to effort on your own work without copying and completely taking things for your own. However, if you are nice, they might actually give and share their protected stuff with you.

If Icefrog did not protect his map really well, there will be possible crap spin-offs or plagiarized or modded version of his map which invalidates and voids all of his efforts.

 

[The_Silent]

Wc3 maps does not have owners, they have authors. The intellectual property used to be unowned and we're a grey zone, which is why DotA 2 could happen, but I'm guessing what is going to happen (if it hasn't already), is what already have happened to sc2 maps. Aka, blizzard owns everything made in their editor,
intellectually and otherwise.

 

[Wareditor]

EULA never hold up in court.

Depending on our country you might even have protected author rights. So effectively you own in some capacity what you create.

 

[SadisticLeprechaun]

I don't really understand where you want to get this, because it is pointless, there will always be people who want to do the bad stuff and will find any means necessary, but still it's a low amount
1. People who want to learn how something is done, are a fan of the map, are curious about something of the map can't do it because X person protected it, restricting any one to gain knowledge from it.
2. Other map makers want to copy another map maker's amazing system, but can't because it's protected.
3. People experience bugs when playing a certain map, ask a friend to fix them. He either can't because it's protected or he can but will take a long time because he has basically to re-do the map.
4. Map maker is gone/unreachable, can't fix minor stuff in map.
You might say: "people might edit my map and publish it as their own".
Counter-argument: First of all, I have never seen an instance of a map that is actively being made being stolen. Second: if you are an established mapmaker in any forum or discord, people will play your official version over any other. Third: any edit is likely to be crap. Editing someone else’s map is not easy (especially complex maps) and someone who’s good enough to do that probably won’t be stealing your work. They’ll be making their map. Or, perhaps, editing a map that’s been dead for years.
The disavantages and situations outweight the idea of protecting maps.
It looks is unnecessary drama, you know, we're talking about a game inside a game, not about Top Secret Heavy Nuclear Weapons Area 51.

#1 is especially true.

I would love it is someone could point out one or two instances of map "theft". I mean come on...

Best tutorial I can get is opening a map to see how it works. All this nonsense about "my work being used without credit" or posting a copy with tiny changes" ... it's a game, who cares?!? If every map was unprotected, we would have more cool maps I think.

 

[anufis]

Problem usually is not map theft but cheating in save/load based maps.

 

[Chaosy]

Which can happen anyway.

For example, anyone can give me a save/load code to give me a super mega character. Which is basically cheating.
Or for codeless, send me the data folder and change the name to suit my own.

 

[SadisticLeprechaun]

You all have me confused now lol, how can you cheat on a single player map. Sure, you can use codes or whatever, but I thought cheating was like multiplayer hacking, not putting in a "cheat" code or discovering a weakness to an enemy by opening a map. I find it strange a map maker would actually care about someone bypassing part of a map or going into GodMode or whatever. Anufis, could you elaborate?

 

[Tal'Rarity]

Well, map and game protection was possible and still is somewhat until the next patch coming next month. Bots. =) They can provide server possibilities and mapmakers have been using them.

Though without bots the only methods will be weaker corruption then before thanks to recent patches, replays and screenshots which can be easily faked though even easier without bots since no decent way to check for maphackers(vision cheaters), hidden code/files. Without bots the next best protection is to not release your map for a long while hoping for something from Blizzard.

 

[Chaosy]

Develop single players maps to avoid the problem.
Obviously people do still cheat but it wont affect others so it wont matter.

 

[Astrella]

I used to care a lot more about protecting maps, but now I care a lot more about open source. Determined people will get access to your code anyway, but making it open means a lot of novice mappers can learn from it. Heck, even when you're experienced you can learn from others. I know I can credit a lot of my knowledge to checking out other people's projects and figuring out their approaches. I would recommend crediting people if you end up reusing their code though, is a nice thing to do.

 

[pick-a-chew]

Map protection is a bit overrated. Any serious project will become so inherently complicated that it protects itself in the sense that if some outside eye looks at it, they won't really understand why you've structured your trigger/object data that way and why. The only thing it is good for is to secure your own developmental integrity (worst case scenario: your secret twin tries to steal your map but you're always one step ahead as you're always working on the next version whilst he's trying to deprotect the current).

The way you build a map is (usually) crucial to its functioning, this is why when you see light edits of (deprotected) maps it's usually just the insertion of cheats, balance tweaks or minor content like a random new hero with an anime skin. Most people wont bother to invest time learning how the whole of your map works and why. And that's what they need to do to actually "steal" your map for their own spinoff development/modding.

I'd argue that map protection is a by-product of map optimization. Optimization on the other-hand is very useful for reducing map size and loading time.

The sad thing is that WC3 is very old, there are loads of quality maps that have ceased development for years or even a decade, because they were protected before they were abandoned. Ultimately it means these maps have a smaller legacy compared to old popular maps, such as the original enfos, which was released to the public before being abandoned.

Map protection is generally a very damaging practice to the map making community; it prevents people from learning from your work and has the potential to limit the influence of your map long after you are gone.

 

[deepstrasz]

The sad thing is that WC3 is very old, there are loads of quality maps that have ceased development for years or even a decade, because they were protected before they were abandoned. Ultimately it means these maps have a smaller legacy compared to old popular maps

Just consider it as a game that doesn't get more expansions and works properly in the state it was released in.
Problem with Warcraft III is patching that most of the time breaks that stability.

 

[Eye]

I'd argue that map protection is a by-product of map optimization.

There is no such thing as a map protection, indeed. The reason this thread was created.

 

[SpiritTauren]

Map protection is a bit overrated. Any serious project will become so inherently complicated that it protects itself in the sense that if some outside eye looks at it, they won't really understand why you've structured your trigger/object data that way and why.

Hey, that is one way to put it. Example: I'm using raw integers in hashtables instead of advanced functionality. Saving any data as [x] of [y]. All integer indices (x,y) are generated procedurally (via loops) through data design (stats, items) functions upon map initialization. And all the index numbers appear physically only when they are called by functions. So, a random lad won't understand, why I'm loading [27] of [195] in this particular segment, without reading and spending hours to study the whole map structure. I keep the array grid in an excel file. So, in my opinion, if some1 is brave enough to shovel this junk code of mine, they deserve to get all the info they want on their own I won't object or protect any map. Ever.

Now that I think of it: would you know by any chance, if Blizzard increased the number of available hashtables? The latest hive member-driven research claimed 255 hashtables max per map.

 

[Wrda]

There's no point in increasing the number of available hashtables anyway, pretty sure no map even reaches 100 hashtables, so it doesn't seem worth it.

 

[pick-a-chew]

There's no point in increasing the number of available hashtables anyway, pretty sure no map even reaches 100 hashtables, so it doesn't seem worth it.

I use 70 spread across multiple core systems , but it's unlikely i will ever reach the hard cap, and before then i'm pretty sure i could merge a lot of them together.