Map Protection Policy

Map Protection Policy

In lieu of recent (and large quantity of) topics regarding map protection, I will post this topic here so the policy can be made more clear.

You can read the whole things in the FAQ section located among the other section tabs at the top of the page. But to make it short and sweet, here it is:

Pro and Cons to Map protecting

Pro:
- Keeps Newbies from opening and altering your map
- It makes you feel smart
- Due to some deleted files the map is smaller
Cons:
- It's useless
- People cannot learn from your maps
- people lost the original copy of the map and cannot work on the protected ones
- As long as Warcraft can open your map, anyone can.
- Blizzard encourages people to open other maps to learn (see picture below)

http://www.hiveworkshop.com/gfx/war3screen.jpg

Whats the state of The Hive Workshop concerning map protecting?

I (Darky27), the owner of this site am highly against map protecting. I think map protecting screws the mapping community.
Protected maps which are submitted to this site are accepted, but will receive a flag that they are damaged.
As you might noticed, my scripts can extract any informations out of your map, no matter how good or bad your protection application is. Fact remains you cannot protect a map from me.

That's the official stance of the site owner. Here's my own two cents- you can take it for what its worth.

By protecting a map, more times then not you are screwing with someones ability to learn from your skill and better their own. Its true that sometimes n00bs will do the dirty deed, change something and think that gives them the right to call the map their own, but in my own experiences, the only maps that are frequently ripped are the ones that are commonly played on b.net. (i.e DotA, Parasyte, Life of a Peasant, Skibi TD, ect...) So unless your map is really popular, you really don't have anything to worry about.

No one plays custom melee maps, so protecting a melee map is completely ridiculous.

Besides, if you are worried about not receiving proper credit for maps after someone altering it, thats what sites like these are for. If someone is prancing around saying your map is theirs, its credible ammo for you to say "Nope, thief! That map is downloadable at wc3sear.ch, warcraftiii.net, warcraft.org, ect...and what name do you see on them...? Mine! Not yours...mine! Hahahhaha!"

What can they possibly say to that...? Most likely it will just be blank stare at their monitor and a "Uuuh..." (not typed of course). So when you finish a map, submit it to sites before spreading it on line, so it can be immortalized in your glory first! And you can still help out your fellow man by allowing them to observe the inner working (what I call "intestines") of your map.

But perhaps the most effective method of map protection is actually the opposite. Don't submit your map. Anywhere. Do not play it on line. Ever. Do not let it transfer to other players. Not even your friends. Do not not send it to other people. No way will it ever risk being ripped then .

But seriously, with all humor aside...let me reiterate the rules:

Do not Request how to protect your map

Do not Tell people how to do it or write tutorials on how to.

Do not discuss it at all. If you really want to help someone to protect their map, explain it to them over PM. Not in the forums.

-VGsatomi

Personal opinion: when I think of people who use map protectors, I think of paranoid bed wetters, but that's just me...

There is another way to defend your authorship of a map, one which I use: Digital watermarking.

Good tool for doing that:
http://www.spychecker.com/program/stools.html

Mark the preview, mark a couple textures if you want, maybe even include an unused TGA just to watermark it.

I completely understand where you are coming from VGsatomi. I have been very annoyed at people who protect their maps and prevent you from looking at their custom abilites etc, and also think that learning from maps is the best thing possible for map making.

However, it is my hope that the map I am currently building will one day be as popular as maps such as Enfo's or Skibi's. High hopes, I know, but one does have to aspire to something. But if(when) my map becomes that popular, I do not want millions of cheap copies of the map flooding the net.

So when my map is released on this site, it will be in a zip file of two maps: The playable map which is protected, and the unplayable, unprotected map which has had a number of key things removed (ie most terrain, a number of triggers), but allows the aspiring map maker to see how my triggers are working.

So would you/wc3sear have any objections to that way of doing my map?

Bort

You can do that, if you wish. People have submitted "open" and "protected" versions of their maps all the time. But keep in mind, even with protection, you map is not always safe. If I recall, Enfo and Skibi were protected maps, and they still got ripped. If someone is determined enouph, they can break the protection. So like I said, more times then not you are usually just screwing over somone who's just trying to learn something.

If you are protecting a map to protect a model skin...well, if you don't want them leaked into the community then the only real way of protecting them is to not make them. Seriously.

Well, this topic was made to show the rules. I don't want it turned into a debate topic. But what Wow_WhatAnoob posted is also a really good idea, about the watermarks, so even if a map is ripped, your name is still on it. That looks like something that could be recommended.

If anyone has questions, you can PM me.
-VGsatomi

*LOCKED*