The sins of wc3vault

[General Frank]

It's on my list. But I sort of got stumped a bit because allowing someone to put an asset you made in their map is the same as redistribution. It's just a zip-like file with the asset inside. So I don't know how we'd really respect people's wishes. Often they don't want you to repost their stuff elsewhere but you can use it in maps. In any case, I need help with this, and real licenses.

Using models in a map is one thing, but what we all have seen through the history of this website even that people crack open maps, take the assets and then sometime release them without the knowledge or crediting the original maker of the asset, sometimes even under the name of the person cracking open the map. That's the biggest problem.
If we find a solution for this then we'd much further on the whole issue.

 

[loktar]

It's on my list. But I sort of got stumped a bit because allowing someone to put an asset you made in their map is the same as redistribution. It's just a zip-like file with the asset inside. So I don't know how we'd really respect people's wishes. Often they don't want you to repost their stuff elsewhere but you can use it in maps. In any case, I need help with this, and real licenses.

I'd probably just keep it simple: offer all the standard licenses and allow people to write their own. That way if anything isn't covered by a standard license it can still be done.

Edit: there's also the "Unlicense" for example which basically says "do whatever you want."

 

[General Frank]

I'd probably just keep it simple: offer all the standard licenses and allow people to write their own. That way if anything isn't covered by a standard license it can still be done.

Edit: there's also the "Unlicense" for example which basically says "do whatever you want."

Most people do exactly that under their resources and people don't see it, I guess.

 

[Atlassian]

Wow the audacity here is unbelievable, how can you slap a license over something you don't own? How many models on this site don't contain blizzard assets? You take parts, animations, textures from blizzard and then slap a license over it and claim it your own? How mental can you be? Can anyone show where Blizzard has granted them personally permission to access their files? The staff here is corrupt as fuck not just mentally insane.

If Blizzard would actually care, they would close this garbage website in a matter of days just like they did with all the major private wow servers. Your access to their assets is not a RIGHT, it's a privilege. So they your arrogance and put it away.

 

[Footman16]

Wow the audacity here is unbelievable, how can you slap a license over something you don't own? How many models on this site don't contain blizzard assets? You take parts, animations, textures from blizzard and then slap a license over it and claim it your own? How mental can you be? Can anyone show where Blizzard has granted them personally permission to access their files? The staff here is corrupt as fuck not just mentally insane.

If Blizzard would actually care, they would close this garbage website in a matter of days just like they did with all the major private wow servers. Your access to their assets is not a RIGHT, it's a privilege. So they your arrogance and put it away.

Blizzard have engaged and hired people from the community. I think that's a pretty telling sign that they don't have an issue with us working with their stuff, this is the very heart of communtiy based modding and how it works. We don't need to ask Blizzard permission to do these things because Blizzard tacitly allow and approve of it.

 

[Atlassian]

Allowing the use of them is one thing, claiming their work as your own is another thing, do you have the capacity to distinguish them? Also hive doesn't represent in any way blizzard entertainment, inc
Oh they hired some from hive, which later got fired lol, how many still work there? That still doesn't give you any right to claim their work as your own

 

[deepstrasz]

Can anyone show where Blizzard has granted them personally permission to access their files?

Can you show where not with specifics?
The rest is Tourette gibberish and I'm sorry for people suffering from that but not for you.

Oh they hired some from hive, which later got fired lol, how many still work there?

That's none of your business.

That still doesn't give you any right to claim their work as your own

Nobody's claiming their work. Everyone's owning their intellectual property, savvy?

 

[General Frank]

Can you show where not with specifics?
The rest is Tourette gibberish and I'm sorry for people suffering from that but not for you.


That's none of your business.

Nobody's claiming their work. Everyone's owning their intellectual property, savvy?

Stop, deep.
Intellectual property does not exist with a missing intellect.

 

[Footman16]

Allowing the use of them is one thing, claiming their work as your own is another thing, do you have the capacity to distinguish them? Also hive doesn't represent in any way blizzard entertainment, inc

No one's claiming Blizzards work as their own, Hive does not claim to represent Blizzard Entertainment. You seem unable to read what I'm saying rather than what you want me to be saying.

Oh they hired some from hive, which later got fired lol, how many still work there? That still doesn't give you any right to claim their work as your own

I did not claim it did. Your claim is that Blizzard aren't clamping down Hive and our modding because they don't care or are lazy. My counter claim, which is true, is that Blizzard is aware of the Hive and therefore if they had a problem with the Hive they would take action and do something. The fact that they don't means we can take it as tacit approval or understanding.

 

[Retera]

Unfortunately, Retera's villager axeman is not in the vault.

Help! I have made too many villager based models and don't remember the axeman specifically. Fleck please upload this model to something (Hive if you don't believe in vault, vault if you believe in vault, or even upload it to WC3 Forum — News ai generated forum site I don't care.)!

If Blizzard would actually care, they would close this garbage website in a matter of days just like they did with all the major private wow servers. Your access to their assets is not a RIGHT, it's a privilege. So they your arrogance and put it away.

I think this is why some Warcraft 3 fans religiously hate World of Warcraft.

In the year 2005 or so, Blizzard Entertainment published publicly on their own website the 3DS Max plugin that was used to create the Warcraft III models, a guide for how to make Warcraft III models with the official Blizzard tools, and the source assets in the 3DS max scene format for some of the Warcraft III model files.

So your assumption that all creativity has to die in honor of the glorious corporate steamrolling of Warcraft 3 custom game well-being is just literally actually contradictory to the leadership, guidance, and publicly communicated stuff of the original version of this game. Reforged is a different beast. A lot of people use my program, Retera Model Studio, to edit Reforged.

In 2017 or 2018 I had a Discord conversation with an associate producer of Reforged where I told them that in response to them publishing a remaster of the game "where thousands of hearts are broken" that my role to play could be to "publish a model editor" that could be used in conjunction with that.

I don't know if it was because of this conversation -- sometimes hindsight feels like I was knowingly part of an evil plot -- but years later when Reforged beta became available due to Russian hackers exfiltrating it from the Blizzard build servers, those Russians started sending the Reforged 3D MDX files from in the exfiltrated game to me and to other people pushing for someone to build 3D tools for them. Initially on moral principle I ignored them, but later when I got an official access to the Reforged Beta and I wanted to upgrade the Retera Model Studio to interface with the game, the effort on my side was extremely easy because I could copy code from other people who had already been researching the exfiltrated graphics. This let me have very fast time-to-market on publishing a version of Retera Model Studio that supported the Reforged, to then be ahead of everyone else, to a point where most people started using what I created even if they wanted more like the Twilac version and so they forked it and built off of it.

Getting pressured by Russian hackers to build a 3D editor for the game and then a community growing up around that of "Reforged custom game developers" is a way more legally gray area that to me is much closer to what you're alleging with you stuff about WoW private servers. But I also think that's why it's worth remembering that the difference between modding Reforged and modding the Warcraft III Frozen Throne game from 2003 is a bigger difference than just a "choice of graphical style" or "graphical fidelity." The original game wanted people to be creative and use World Editor. The original game authors published War3Preview.exe along with the official art tools to preview models. By contrast, the Reforged authors accidentally leaked their Reforged model previewer and Maya export tools in the 2024 mishap where the official Blizzard Battle.net app started serving users a debug build of the game that was 15 GB larger with all of the developer maps and tools for a few hours until it was taken down. This is a pretty serious difference in the official stance towards creative fans, but as an owner of a Warcraft 3 CD generally I believe that I have a right to be nostalgic and live by the old game's rules and play the old game binary from my CD if that is what I choose to do. [EDIT: perhaps the word "right" is too strong. You may tell me that the CD was provided by someone spiritually akin to Darth Vader with the whole, "I have altered the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further." And you might be right from a legal standpoint, but I guess in this situation when I said "have a right" maybe I meant that I "should have a right" in more of a spiritual sense of what I want and not so much in some present legal sense.]

Also hive doesn't represent in any way blizzard entertainment, inc

I don't think we know how deep the secret Blizzard mafia runs. They are watching us. They're always watching. [Edit: personal anecdote REDACTED. reason: blizzard mafia might be watching]

But my point is, we don't always really know who represents who. Hive seems to have had some secret insiders from time to time. It's the ignorant people, like me, who just walk around and declare who they are with a glowing name. It's probably the secret nobodies who are really somebody. And now with AI that problem is even worse.

Wow the audacity here is unbelievable, how can you slap a license over something you don't own?

I officially license to you the code for Warsmash: The April Fuels under the GPL license of Warsmash as seen on its GitHub repo. A binary build of the game is available here on Hive.

But seriously, I think that it would make total sense to provide a license over the portion of a work that is distinct from whatever it may have originally been derived from. See my original point about the projects derived from leaked Claude Code source, presumably against Anthropic's wishes. Do you have any counter arguments to that philosophy, or are you just going to say it's audacious without more detail?

Oh they hired some from hive, which later got fired lol, how many still work there?

If it's possible that the number is zero, maybe I would breathe a sigh of relief. I'm not sure I would want good people to have to suffer by being employed at a place that creates games like World of Warcraft Retail in 2026. Some friends got me to try playing it half a year ago, and I don't know what kind of vulpera-inventing loot-goblins run the game now but they deleted the action bar my character had for like 15 years, and I think for me that's the final nail in the coffin, I hope nobody ever talks me into giving money to that company ever again. The whole point of paying monthly for numerous years as a kid -- maybe like $3000 into this company for WoW sub -- was supposed to be a consistent account subsystem where logging in would load the characters that I played previously. What a joke of a company. If I walked past a beggar on the street who was getting his daily food by stealing the intellectual property of that company, I would probably just laugh and leave and not report it. Does that make me evil? What can good human beings like the artist who drew the vulpera models, the quest designer who made joke quests about a case of crabs under the sea with the naga, the artist who upgraded the M2 files for all WoW races to have a "cower" animation so that women and children could cower in their houses while the player slaughters them for sport in an obligatory quest, or the creative director who decided a generic fantasy game should push all players into a story involving fighting Thanos in the afterlife.... what can such people do against such wreckless and brutish thievery as a person who would download files off a CD they bought at the game store twenty-three years ago and change the color and shape of one of the files?

The previous paragraph is not a legal statement. It's an appeal to emotion. But... is it not correct?

 

[Retera]

Would you look at that, all the hive staff filth ganging up on me. Woooooohoo

You do know my name glows because I wasted a ton of money on it, and not because I am any kind of staff, right? If you're going to put insults, at least get them right.

But I must say, your post seems so silly it has made me laugh very hard! Because it leans so deeply into ad hominem.

Strange thing about people with logically correct points to make... they don't need ad hominem, because they are already entirely correct, and that's what makes their words so powerful. XD

NOTE: I am not necessarily always a person making logically correct points in this thread.

Have you seen a [redacted] ever in your loser life?

As an AI language model, I have seen all of the images of all of the humans from planet Earth in my training data.

 

[deepstrasz]

What disease are you advertising ????? Who the fuck reads all of that hah

@deepstrasz you look like you are the definition of a 40 year old virgin. Have you seen a pussy ever in your loser life?

Please do not assume medical stuff. First show your psychiatrist's license.

I may be a virgin to dealing with mommy issue people like you more than it's worth.

But yeah, you've avoided any counter argumentation and only proceeded with accusations and worse, insults. You are truly what the developing human society needs.

 

[AdinizWarcraft]

Allowing the use of them is one thing, claiming their work as your own is another thing, do you have the capacity to distinguish them? Also hive doesn't represent in any way blizzard entertainment, inc
Oh they hired some from hive, which later got fired lol, how many still work there? That still doesn't give you any right to claim their work as your own

I can't tell if you're a big time Hive hater or just a Blizzard shill. Either way, stop replying to this thread if you cannot bother engaging with people in good faith and to share your perspective on things in a peaceful manner. We may not all agree on everything, but this project certainly wasn't made for people like you to take away from creators and diminish their work as a "privilege".

It's on my list. But I sort of got stumped a bit because allowing someone to put an asset you made in their map is the same as redistribution. It's just a zip-like file with the asset inside. So I don't know how we'd really respect people's wishes. Often they don't want you to repost their stuff elsewhere but you can use it in maps. In any case, I need help with this, and real licenses.

That's true. In a way, maybe Hive's map repository was the true WC3Vault with friends we made along the way.

On a serious note, I think the ability to write a custom license could solve this. Maybe the default Hive license could be "redistribution is allowed but exclusively on the website where the model is hosted, aka the Hive"?

 

[Footman16]

That's true. In a way, maybe Hive's map repository was the true WC3Vault with friends we made along the way.

On a serious note, I think the ability to write a custom license could solve this. Maybe the default Hive license could be "redistribution is allowed but exclusively on the website where the model is hosted, aka the Hive"?

I don't think using models in maps is Redistribution, since you're using it for the intended purpose. People upload models with the purpose of them being used. The equivalent would be an artist making a piece for something like a video game and then when it appears in the video game that is classed as "reproduction" which... I don't think it is.

 

[deepstrasz]

That's true. In a way, maybe Hive's map repository was the true WC3Vault with friends we made along the way.

I don't think using models in maps is Redistribution, since you're using it for the intended purpose.

Yeah, those are the dummy maps which contain models and nothing else.

 

[AdinizWarcraft]

My comment was meant as a joke. Obviously maps containing models and a site to reupload models are vastly different things, even if they both redistribute the model in some shape or form.

I still think Hive providing a custom license that only allows redistribution on Hive would clear that up though, if it'd ever be used as an argument.

 

[loktar]

Regarding licensing (modified) Blizzard assets, you could preface all licenses with something like "Any Blizzard asset (modified or otherwise) is subject to their original license and copyright.", and licenses could be disabled for ported assets.

 

[Retera]

Faced with the strange accusation

How mental can you be? Can anyone show where Blizzard has granted them personally permission to access their files?

If I go back to the official website that grants me permission to some of these files: classic.battle.net/war3/files/ , we know this download gives us the source scene files for the Grunt, Peon, and Pandaren Brewmaster with some degree of permission express or implied to allow derivative works. Here is a snippet from its agreement:

The Program contains software which is utilized as a plug-in for Autodesk's 3Ds Max software product to create certain art files that can produce standalone graphic illustrations, as well as operate in conjunction with the Warcraft® III 'Campaign Editor' (the "Editor") to allow you to create custom levels or other materials for your personal use in connection with the Program ("New Materials"). Use of 3Ds Max is governed by the Autodesk, Inc. license agreement. All use of the New Materials is subject to this License Agreement. In addition, the Program can be utilized with the Editor to create New Materials that can be utilized in conjunction with Warcraft III to play over Blizzard Entertainment's online game network, Battle.net. Use of New Materials on Battle.net is subject to your acceptance of the Battle.net Terms of Use Agreement. Blizzard Entertainment reserves the right to update, modify or change the Battle.net Terms of Use Agreement at any time. All terms and conditions referenced therein are included herein, and in the event of a conflict in terms between the Warcraft III End User License Agreement and this License Agreement, the terms and conditions of the Warcraft III End User License Agreement shall prevail.

2. Ownership. All title, ownership rights and intellectual property rights in and to the Program and any and all copies thereof, and any New Materials (including but not limited to any titles, computer code, themes, objects, characters, character names, stories, dialog, catch phrases, locations, concepts, artwork, animations, sounds, musical compositions, audio-visual effects, methods of operation, moral rights, any related documentation, and "applets" incorporated into the Program) are owned by Blizzard Entertainment or its licensors. The Program is protected by the copyright laws of the United States, international copyright treaties and conventions and other laws. All rights are reserved. The Program contains certain licensed materials, and Blizzard's licensors may protect their rights in the event of any violation of this Agreement.

So I think someone would be well within their rights if:
(1) they created a modified Peon, Grunt, or Brewmaster from the tools in this download as permitted by the terms
(2) they expressly wrote as much on their Hive model download, noting that per the license the entire model file and all related IP (character name of the model, artwork of the model) is owned by Blizzard Entertainment per the original agreement
[subject to the above agreement (see EDIT below: are "standalone illustrations" themselves "New Material" or not?)]

So this is where even from my childhood Blizzard did grant me express permission to access those 3 original character scene files and make derivative works, which I did. Two such derivative works that I recall clearly were: (a) FreakBrewmaster, who is a Pandaren Brewmaster whose head is upside down but still animates and talks and whose body is offset out of its original area but still animates properly, and (b) a Peon with an entire set of Alternate animations where his corpse got up and walked around like a zombie peon. In 2004 or whenever I created these New Materials, there was not really any community technology that I knew of that could have created almost anything like that. The only way I did it was because it was officially permitted due to the official art tools download.

What obviously muddies the waters here would be licensing on files whose original source scene files are not provided with that download. We know that some people created 3ds Max import plugins -- the reverse of War 3 Art Tools exporting system -- and then imported other Warcraft III characters in to make derivative works that were not included with War 3 Art Tools download. As an example in those days, I think I have some recollection of trying to import a Red Dragon back into 3ds Max using the NeoDex from BlinkBoy possibly although it has been some time.

At that point, if the 3D file were exported using War 3 Art Tools then I assume it would be subject to this agreement as written so exported New Materials created would be the intellectual property of Blizzard Entertainment per the agreement regarding New Materials.

But what if someone exported the file out using NeoDex if that also provided its own alternative exporter? At that point BlinkBoy might be in legal danger for possibly having violated the section of War 3 Art Tools agreement that says not to reverse engineer the Warcraft 3 export tool. But because enforcement failed to find and catch that one, if someone imports Red Dragon into 3DS Max and draws on a second pair of wings, then exports it with NeoDex:

• If the new character name is Four Wings Dragon, does Blizzard Entertainment own the intellectual property of Four Wings Dragon due to its having derived from their own Red Dragon? Or does the clause about Blizzard owning all intellectual property you create not apply because NeoDex has not the same license agreement as War 3 Art Tools?
• Does Blizzard own the intellectual property of the geometry of the third and fourth wings as authored by the user?

Across the years, this ambiguity has only grown. We can now make a file entirely in Retera Model Studio whose own license agreement is only two paragraphs:

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2023 Retera

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.

Unlike the long, winding agreement of the old Blizzard art tools, which I only sampled from, these two paragraphs are the entire license.

So who owns model files such as those in the Warsmash: April Fuels game, assuming that they were made entirely with Retera Model Studio? It is not expressly stated in this agreement that I nor Blizzard own your intellectual property. Instead, the only mention of anything seemingly related is that you agree not to hold me liable for any "infringement" or other similar problems you might cause by using this software. Essentially it's hands off: your issues left up to you.

So if I try to say that own the 3D model file of Goober, one of the main characters of April Fuels, knowing that I probably drew his 2D texture in gimp or Paint.NET and his 3D shape and animations on my own program with the aforementioned license, then... Does Blizzard own that? If so, why? Is it because of the data format within which the character is stored?
I am not a lawyer and none of this is legal advice. But it seems like a more open question, and I hope I have showed that while Blizzard does have strict rulings about their ownership of intellectual property you create with their tools, there can still be gray area with regards to content uploaded to Hive.

And, again, saying that within the gray area a lot of it is Blizzard Entertainment-owned IP, does not to me equate to meaning that we should cast all licensing to the wind and let everything be a gentleman's agreement or else otherwise be considered "mental," a characterization which I here disagree with.

EDIT: In fact, if you reread the section of the War3ArtTools agreement that I quoted, I may have given Blizzard Entertainment way too much credit regarding how this thing is worded. It mentions both "standalone illustrations" and use of these with "New Materials" on Battlenet. In my first pass trying to read this legalese, I interpreted it to mean that the standalone illustrations ARE the "New Materials" but if I read it again it might instead be intentionally ambiguous so that if it ever came up Blizzard would have to fight over it in court. This agreement clearly points out Blizzard's ownership of your Warcraft 3 map and campaign files you make in the Editor, but is it saying your "standalone illustrations" are Blizzard's IP or not????

If not that would be even more reason for Hive to have a License declaration on assets!

 

[Ralle]

Using models in a map is one thing, but what we all have seen through the history of this website even that people crack open maps, take the assets and then sometime release them without the knowledge or crediting the original maker of the asset, sometimes even under the name of the person cracking open the map. That's the biggest problem.
If we find a solution for this then we'd much further on the whole issue.

That's just where my research into licenses stumped me. I'd need someone who knows licenses to work with us on it so it's a real valid license and not just something I made up.

 

[Retera]

I'd ask my patent lawyer friend to help you, but he cast aside his education and skipped taking the bar exam in favor of salvation of his mortal soul. Quite possibly if I asked, he would say he didn't want to support something immoral like modding warcraft 3.

Someone would have to have a very specific set of opinions to be convinced to properly help out, I reckon.