True that. I dont support this one bit though. As a fellow map maker, I know how hard it is creating good maps, and then have dumb asses leech resources or data from it or republish it as their own. It actually sickens me. People learn through tutorials or working it out on their own. NOBODY learns through just opening a map. How do you learn from that?. You cant. There is no explanation or anything.
Educational purposes? pfft. Yeah right.
And no Blizz wont ban you for publishing someone else`s map. No proof of authorship.
So yeah OP. Riveting tale chap. Too bad Blizzard ALREADY knows about this. Too bad the chances of them actually changing it is slim. Too bad you are further destroying map makers by making this knowledge EVEN more common.
I beg to differ. I learned how to use the editor by downloading existing maps, piecing through them and editing them to see what the resulting change was. The reason for this being that it's 10x faster to take an existing map and alter fields than it is to stumble through a blank map trying to make something successfully and THEN tweak it to see the results. You cut out the hours of "I fail at life" and get straight to the "so THIS is how it works." You don't learn how to play an instrument by writing your own music to discover music theory. You learn by playing music written by other people.
This is rediculous... It's not about open source vs closed source. The person who made this map does not want people to see how he put it together and that should be respected amongst this community. Just because someone can use a few hacky techniques to unlock a map doesn't mean that anyone releasing a map to the public must accept that they no longer have a right to deny access to their work.
Just because Blizzard's current method of locking is inadequate shouldn't give this forum the right to open up other peoples work. As I said before, I have nothing against sharing work in order to benefit the community. If someone wants to keep a lid on a certain technique they are using inside their map we shouldn't be pasting it all over the forum.
Sure, there is nothing we can do about locked maps but that is no reason to encourage it by allowing this thread to sit on the forum. What would you do if the creator came on here and requested that he wants this post removed? Would you say no? The creator has already told us that he does not want his work to be public by locking his map.
This kind of mentality is just selfish. You come to a site that is full of helpful information and people willing to bend over backwards walking you through anything from the most basic of mind-numbingly easy steps to advanced concepts. Yet you seem to expect that you can take this knowledge you've taken from others and then hide it in your map because you don't want to share? Why would I want to support this at all?
The problem isn`t that Sotis is posted here, but rather the instructions how to unlock. So Sotis itself being posted here is of no consequence since we are already now equipped with the knowledge to hack it. Understand what I mean?
It has everything to do with respecting the privacy of authors. Meaning if I dont want you to open my map, even if it means to learn something, then NO you cant open it. I dont care about this open source argument, and I hate the fact you bring it up all the time. You are not a map maker, So you cant seem to understand this. Map making in Starcraft 1 does not count at all.
And you should know Sixen. Most people are DUMB. The average person does NOT know how to unlock maps!. Heck, before reading this thread, I did not even have a solid idea on how to unlock a map. But now I do!, and I am by no means a noob when it come to software/internet/etc etc. So NO. Most people dont know about this.
Im disappointed in the way you are dealing with this. Normally, you are very reasonable and logical, but here you just seem...arrogant. You completely disregarded everything that all the posters here have said. And who is the OP?. Is he your friend or something?. This all seems very strange.
Edit: Full proof protection from Blizzard will NEVER happen. We must always keep secret and safeguard what little protection we have.
One thing I've noticed about your posts is you generalize a LOT. By now it's pretty obvious that there ARE two sides to this and perhaps even three. You're missing a very important point that Sixen is calm enough to understand. Knowing HOW to hack helps you. Why? Because it diverts your efforts to avoid this problem away from relying on "lock map" to other methods of securing data.
Some of you may not know this, but prior to Rodrigo's banned NWW, his game was "sabotaged" via editing the banks he thought were unhackable. He brought it up on IRC and within minutes many, many people pointed out how easily this could have been done, what methods might have been used AND what he could have done to avoid it. Now he might think that having a guide on how to access encrypted banks is bad. I, on the other hand, know that if he had seen it ahead of time he likely would have changed his approach and possible been more protected than without the knowledge the guide provided.
Simply put, if I write a guide that claims I can teach you how to break into ANY car with certain locking method, efforts would be taken to develop a new method that was more secure.
Personally, I think it's just plain foolish to want to be able to use a program you didn't develop that comes with a game you didn't make to create maps using assets that don't belong to you. . . and then expect to have all the rights associated with the people who DO own all of the above. Now if you had created custom models, textures etc and imported them I completely support the protection of these kinds of assets. Unfortunately this isn't the case.
If author wants his map to be public he wouldn't lock it. You should feel bad for trying to unlock and read it, even for "learning purposes". If you open his map and look up stuff without his permission your as good as stealing his map ideas/designs.
No, if they took content from his map and called it their own THAT is stealing. That aside, you're attempting to argue on Ekco's behalf. If he had a problem with it he'd step forward and continue to speak until something was done. Oh. . . wait. . . he's not doing that. . . I guess he doesn't have a problem with it.
1. Only Sixen supports this. The other mods do not.(Well most of them I think)
2. You are definitely an asset to Mapster. We would not want to lose you.
3. This pisses me off just as much as you or anyone else here.
I actually gave Sixen an ultimatum about it backstage. There is a discussion going on there.
Basically, if he deletes it, then everything goes back to being cool
If he does not. I resign as mod, and yeah I dont know what the others will do, but we`ll see. Personally I cant stand this.
So if by tomorrow or the next day, you see my mod status removed or my name color gone back to green. Then you know I got demoted. Sixen did not change his mind, and I become a martyr;p.
So just give it some time and we`ll see what happens.
You're an idiot if you think that this action does anything other than make you out to be an arrogant fool. Keep in mind that while I AM working with you on your map and I have no problem continuing to do so, I disapprove of the attitude you've conveyed in the majority of your posts since becoming a mod. Sixen supports this site as a paid job. You're a token member of the staff by hobby. Thus you thinking that trying to strong-arm Sixen into backing down by threatening removal of your support is just childish. Not to mention the fact that you're willing drag what should be left to the staffing team out into the light in hopes of becoming a "martyr" is beyond self-serving.
I am a moderator and I support Sixen. I am also a DAMN good mapper who has done more than most of you to enable everyone to create great content for their map. I continue to help others at my expense and encourage others to do so as well. I also share EVERYTHING I make and then go out of my way to help you understand how to use it. That being said I'm greatly bothered by how many of you would opt to keep everything you make to yourself. I and many others teach you how to make your map and then you squabble with others over who "owns" the idea when you probably didn't even come up with it on your own. So stop with the argument "only Sixen and non-mappers support this" because the point is no longer valid.
It's pretty clear that Sixen feels that mapmakers should have no choice in how other people use their work, is entirely unsympathetic to the inevitability of people getting their maps stolen and lives in a fantasy where he has no responsibility for the content posted on his own website. Fair enough. It's been swell.
This is just wrong. He wants you to realize that you're simply avoiding the problem rather than addressing it. People are still trying to lock their maps with a method that this guide proves is ineffective. If they knew this, don't you think that they'd stop trying what doesn't work and move towards an actual solution?
You don't solve problems by hiding them from anyone who might want to exploit them. You put the problems on the table and see how people exploit them so that you can then take this knowledge and better protect yourself. The marketplace is no where near ready to be implemented and as long as we all pretend that unlocking maps isn't easily done it's never going to get here. We need a way to protect genuinely unique content and assets, but we're not going to get there by censoring everything bad and hoping Blizzard will fix the problem for us.
But I guess we should all stick our heads in the sand because we've got maps that aren't really ours to protect, right?
Some of the mods on here can tend to be a bit overzealous/arrogent but all and all i think Sixens point was more about, theres really no stopping people from cracking locked maps.
Its a good idea to let people who spend 100's of hours on mapping know that eventually someone might crack thier locked map and use it for ill gotten purposes.
The truth though is that if a map is actually good. Cracking it and republishing it really is kinda pointless unless the original author no longer intends to support the map. Which in this case Im all for a new person taking over the reigns and continue the development of said map.
Additionally I think everybody here on mapster has "stolen some knowledge" from ProzaicMuze, so technically I think he owns us.
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Anyone who really supports the exposure of cracking of maps: Put your ideals where your mouths are and post links to this thread in the battlenet forums, light this fire properly if you're so insistent on the nobility of keeping it alight.
The educational value of cracking maps does not trump the desires of those who create the maps themselves, nothing should trump what a creator wants to do with their work and its very arrogant to force that into any other position. There are many reasons besides greed to want to keep a map's inner workings from its players and as you mentioned with the bank system that is an excellent example. I guess its easy to support an all open environment when your strongest ambition is to teach, but for those that want to create maps that have any reliance on some of its workings not being accessible to its player's scrutiny this fails.
ED: Added a little qualifier to that first statement, I know that this is all basically to stop this sort of thing from happening in the long run.
How about you people getting your panties in a bundle find an example of one map that was on the first page of the popularity listing, that has been replaced by a cracked version of it...
The truth is none have.... mainly because unlike WC3 where someone could crack your map and leave it the same name. In SC2 blizzard hosts all the maps themself so every map has a unique name.
If you see your favorite map with a new name, chances are that it is a rip off.... dont play it.
For those of you who manually rename your maps after you update them or make big changes... well Im gonna have to LOL at you.
In regards to people stealing content...... Have you never done any WC3 mapping? This is like common knowlege anything you create can be looked at if the person wants too bad enough.
I just read the tutorial..... Its not really that indepth. I could prolly figure it out how do it, but that would take away from my time spent learning more stuff about the editor.
IMO theres nothing in sotis really worth cracking the map to look inside for anyways.
Oi. . . I'm about to lose a lot of popularity, but a lot of you need to
hear this: you're all a bunch of greedy idiots.
Quote from EternalWraith: Go
@TheZizz: Go
True that. I dont support this one bit though. As a fellow map maker, I
know how hard it is creating good maps, and then have dumb asses leech
resources or data from it or republish it as their own. It actually
sickens me. People learn through tutorials or working it out on their
own. NOBODY learns through just opening a map. How do you learn from
that?. You cant. There is no explanation or anything. Educational
purposes? pfft. Yeah right.
And no Blizz wont ban you for publishing someone else`s map. No proof of
authorship.
So yeah OP. Riveting tale chap. Too bad Blizzard ALREADY knows about
this. Too bad the chances of them actually changing it is slim. Too bad
you are further destroying map makers by making this knowledge EVEN more
common.
I beg to differ. I learned how to use the editor by downloading existing
maps, piecing through them and editing them to see what the resulting
change was. The reason for this being that it's 10x faster to take an
existing map and alter fields than it is to stumble through a blank map
trying to make something successfully and THEN tweak it to see the
results. You cut out the hours of "I fail at life" and get straight to
the "so THIS is how it works." You don't learn how to play an instrument
by writing your own music to discover music theory. You learn by playing
music written by other people.
Quote from Kalekin: Go
@Sixen: Go
This is rediculous... It's not about open source vs closed source. The
person who made this map does not want people to see how he put it
together and that should be respected amongst this community. Just
because someone can use a few hacky techniques to unlock a map doesn't
mean that anyone releasing a map to the public must accept that they no
longer have a right to deny access to their work.
Just because Blizzard's current method of locking is inadequate
shouldn't give this forum the right to open up other peoples work. As I
said before, I have nothing against sharing work in order to benefit the
community. If someone wants to keep a lid on a certain technique they
are using inside their map we shouldn't be pasting it all over the
forum.
Sure, there is nothing we can do about locked maps but that is no reason
to encourage it by allowing this thread to sit on the forum. What would
you do if the creator came on here and requested that he wants this post
removed? Would you say no? The creator has already told us that he does
not want his work to be public by locking his map.
This kind of mentality is just selfish. You come to a site that is full
of helpful information and people willing to bend over backwards walking
you through anything from the most basic of mind-numbingly easy steps to
advanced concepts. Yet you seem to expect that you can take this
knowledge you've taken from others and then hide it in your map because
you don't want to share? Why would I want to support this at all?
Quote from EternalWraith: Go
@Sixen: Go
Not really..
The problem isn`t that Sotis is posted here, but rather the instructions
how to unlock. So Sotis itself being posted here is of no consequence
since we are already now equipped with the knowledge to hack it.
Understand what I mean?
It has everything to do with respecting the privacy of authors. Meaning
if I dont want you to open my map, even if it means to learn something,
then NO you cant open it. I dont care about this open source argument,
and I hate the fact you bring it up all the time. You are not a map
maker, So you cant seem to understand this. Map making in Starcraft 1
does not count at all.
And you should know Sixen. Most people are DUMB. The average person does
NOT know how to unlock maps!. Heck, before reading this thread, I did
not even have a solid idea on how to unlock a map. But now I do!, and I
am by no means a noob when it come to software/internet/etc etc. So NO.
Most people dont know about this.
Im disappointed in the way you are dealing with this. Normally, you are
very reasonable and logical, but here you just seem...arrogant. You
completely disregarded everything that all the posters here have said.
And who is the OP?. Is he your friend or something?. This all seems very
strange.
Edit: Full proof protection from Blizzard will NEVER happen. We must
always keep secret and safeguard what little protection we have.
One thing I've noticed about your posts is you generalize a LOT. By now
it's pretty obvious that there ARE two sides to this and perhaps even
three. You're missing a very important point that Sixen is calm enough
to understand. Knowing HOW to hack helps you. Why? Because it diverts
your efforts to avoid this problem away from relying on "lock map" to
other methods of securing data.
Some of you may not know this, but prior to Rodrigo's banned NWW, his
game was "sabotaged" via editing the banks he thought were unhackable.
He brought it up on IRC and within minutes many, many people pointed out
how easily this could have been done, what methods might have been used
AND what he could have done to avoid it. Now he might think that having
a guide on how to access encrypted banks is bad. I, on the other hand,
know that if he had seen it ahead of time he likely would have changed
his approach and possible been more protected than without the knowledge
the guide provided.
Simply put, if I write a guide that claims I can teach you how to break
into ANY car with certain locking method, efforts would be taken to
develop a new method that was more secure.
Personally, I think it's just plain foolish to want to be able to use a
program you didn't develop that comes with a game you didn't make to
create maps using assets that don't belong to you. . . and then expect
to have all the rights associated with the people who DO own all of the
above. Now if you had created custom models, textures etc and imported
them I completely support the protection of these kinds of assets.
Unfortunately this isn't the case.
Quote from uiasdnmb: Go
If author wants his map to be public he wouldn't lock it. You should
feel bad for trying to unlock and read it, even for "learning purposes".
If you open his map and look up stuff without his permission your as
good as stealing his map ideas/designs.
No, if they took content from his map and called it their own THAT is
stealing. That aside, you're attempting to argue on Ekco's behalf. If he
had a problem with it he'd step forward and continue to speak until
something was done. Oh. . . wait. . . he's not doing that. . . I guess
he doesn't have a problem with it.
Quote from EternalWraith: Go
@RileyStarcraft: Go
1. Only Sixen supports this. The other mods do not.(Well most of them I
think) 2. You are definitely an asset to Mapster. We would not want to
lose you. 3. This pisses me off just as much as you or anyone else here.
I actually gave Sixen an ultimatum about it backstage. There is a
discussion going on there. Basically, if he deletes it, then everything
goes back to being cool
If he does not. I resign as mod, and yeah I dont know what the others
will do, but we`ll see. Personally I cant stand this.
So if by tomorrow or the next day, you see my mod status removed or my
name color gone back to green. Then you know I got demoted. Sixen did
not change his mind, and I become a martyr;p. So just give it some time
and we`ll see what happens.
You're an idiot if you think that this action does anything other than
make you out to be an arrogant fool. Keep in mind that while I AM
working with you on your map and I have no problem continuing to do so,
I disapprove of the attitude you've conveyed in the majority of your
posts since becoming a mod. Sixen supports this site as a paid job.
You're a token member of the staff by hobby. Thus you thinking that
trying to strong-arm Sixen into backing down by threatening removal of
your support is just childish. Not to mention the fact that you're
willing drag what should be left to the staffing team out into the light
in hopes of becoming a "martyr" is beyond self-serving.
I am a moderator and I support Sixen. I am also a DAMN good mapper who
has done more than most of you to enable everyone to create great
content for their map. I continue to help others at my expense and
encourage others to do so as well. I also share EVERYTHING I make and
then go out of my way to help you understand how to use it. That being
said I'm greatly bothered by how many of you would opt to keep
everything you make to yourself. I and many others teach you how to make
your map and then you squabble with others over who "owns" the idea when
you probably didn't even come up with it on your own. So stop with the
argument "only Sixen and non-mappers support this" because the point is
no longer valid.
Quote from RileyStarcraft: Go
It's pretty clear that Sixen feels that mapmakers should have no choice
in how other people use their work, is entirely unsympathetic to the
inevitability of people getting their maps stolen and lives in a fantasy
where he has no responsibility for the content posted on his own
website. Fair enough. It's been swell.
This is just wrong. He wants you to realize that you're simply avoiding
the problem rather than addressing it. People are still trying to lock
their maps with a method that this guide proves is ineffective. If they
knew this, don't you think that they'd stop trying what doesn't work and
move towards an actual solution?
You don't solve problems by hiding them from anyone who might want to
exploit them. You put the problems on the table and see how people
exploit them so that you can then take this knowledge and better protect
yourself. The marketplace is no where near ready to be implemented and
as long as we all pretend that unlocking maps isn't easily done it's
never going to get here. We need a way to protect genuinely unique
content and assets, but we're not going to get there by censoring
everything bad and hoping Blizzard will fix the problem for us.
But I guess we should all stick our heads in the sand because we've got
maps that aren't really ours to protect, right?
QFT, but a bit in your face?? However I loved your analogies; all of them are completely relatable. I think that the conclusion has ALWAYS been, don't hide the problem.
theres really no stopping people from cracking locked maps.
I think everyone here already knew that, Soul. Blizzard's map protection sucks, shocking news!
There's a huge difference though between experienced (or novice, but motivated) mapmakers cracking maps to find out how something very specific was done to take inspiration for their own projects and random Googleboys being now able to easily "tweak" and republish maps, possibly taking over your spot after the next popularity reset... given how the whole system sucks atm - and this IS going to happen, any Euro player probably knows what I'm talking about.
Can someone please elaborate how teaching them HERE how to do so is a good idea?
"Some other forum will come up with the same tutorial anyway" so SC2Mapster must be the first?
Anyone who really supports the exposure of cracking of maps: Put your ideals where your mouths are and post links to this thread in the battlenet forums, light this fire properly if you're so insistent on the nobility of keeping it alight.
The educational value of cracking maps does not trump the desires of those who create the maps themselves, nothing should trump what a creator wants to do with their work and its very arrogant to force that into any other position. There are many reasons besides greed to want to keep a map's inner workings from its players and as you mentioned with the bank system that is an excellent example. I guess its easy to support an all open environment when your strongest ambition is to teach, but for those that want to create maps that have any reliance on some of its workings not being accessible to its player's scrutiny this fails.
ED: Added a little qualifier to that first statement, I know that this is all basically to stop this sort of thing from happening in the long run.
Mmk, tell me where on B-Net you want me to post links to this and I'll go directly there. I have no problem with tackling this kind of problem head on.
The bottom line is that this site is primarily about the sharing of knowledge. That being said I shed no tears for anyone who is upset over people expecting that they share what they know while taking part in the community. I didn't come here to share my time and expertise so that self-entitled mappers who leech ideas could then defend their maps with hostility and greed. Especially when the map is a rehash of an older map or lacks truly custom content.
If you want your map kept private because you haven't released it yet or are in the process of updating it then I completely understand this. I also support those who have created custom content for their map. I will defend you and your map with thread deletions galore.
But if you want me to support a system that believes its ok for people to use the full resources of this site without being willing to share the results that wouldn't exist without this community, you're sorely mistaken.
Lastly, my ambition is not to teach at all. My true goal is to play epic games. Unfortunately, I've discovered that most mappers don't understand the Data Editor as well as I do. Thus if I want to see more epic games I teach others so that they can make these epic games for me to play.
@mParfait - I find being direct and aggressive is far more effective and helpful than trying to avoid offending anyone. If they have an opinion worth hearing they'll defend their points and understand that I respect people confident in themselves
I think everyone here already knew that, Soul. Blizzard's map protection sucks, shocking news!
There's a huge difference though between experienced (or novice, but motivated) mapmakers cracking maps to find out how something very specific was done to take inspiration for their own projects and random Googleboys being now able to easily "tweak" and republish maps, possibly taking over your spot after the next popularity reset... given how the whole system sucks atm - and this IS going to happen, any Euro player probably knows what I'm talking about.
Can someone please elaborate how teaching them HERE how to do so is a good idea?
"Some other forum will come up with the same tutorial anyway" so SC2Mapster must be the first?
I would rather be the one who controls the information and thus the first to prepare for it than one of the last because I was too afraid to accept the existence of it.
I was just making a joke, but seriously. Ive played on wc3 for over 5 years. Its never really been a huge issue. People know thier maps when they play them 5 hours a day.
The vast majority of people complaining dont even have a map that is on the top 3 pages of the popularity system.... Meh
That and people who crack maps dont update maps either... = people arnt gonna play it for long and will go back to the proper map that the real author actually updates.
I'd start in the custom games forum of battlenet myself. Against all probability it seems Blizzard does occasionally react to things posted in there, people like Rodrigo have proven it. Just that whole icky problem of the forum's mods historically not taking kindly to exposing such short comings of their products and invoking the ol ban hammer on anyone who does.
I'm also definitely all for the sharing of knowledge on how to do things with the editor, hell I'd be dead in the water long ago if it wasn't for yourself and countless others posting their discoveries and ambitions within these forums and the results of other people's input on them. I'd like to think I put in as much as I can towards the expansion of the knowledge as well and could hazard a rough estimate that way most of my posts here are helping others vs asking questions that I'm seeking answers for. Just for my personal map making ambitions I don't actually have any stake in trying to hide the contents of the project I'm working on, more a matter of until that 250ms lag is delt with for player actions it makes the whole thing kinda pointless so I keep it mothballed, also the code is very ugly and I'm not very proud of how some of it works :P Still doesn't stop me from explaining how a particular demo or aspect of it works to anyone who asks though that's for sure.
Beyond that though I definitely don't agree with a situation where people who are actively trying to keep their released maps from being dissected are getting cut off at the knees by people who point big neon signs at the holes that let it happen, unless those signs can also be seen and hopefully rendered moot by the people who left the holes in the first place.
ED: Speaking of holes, okay now I'm really curious: Why the hell aren't locked maps encrypted when they are taking off the server and then decrypted as needed by the starcraft client?
I would rather be the one who controls the information and thus the first to prepare for it than one of the last because I was too afraid to accept the existence of it.
Being able to launch protected maps locally means being able to cheat on any map making use of (encrypted or not) Banks.
You are obviously not interested in protecting maps, but we definitely are and for a reason.
Since there's nothing we can do to reliably protect them, it's up to Blizzard and this thread doesn't help anyone here.
Someone already knew how to, sure, but teaching every bored player out there is a fucking terrible move.
Being able to launch protected maps locally means being able to cheat on any map making use of (encrypted or not) Banks.
You are obviously not interested in protecting maps, but we definitely are and for a reason.
Since there's nothing we can do to reliably protect them, it's up to Blizzard and this thread doesn't help anyone here.
Someone already knew how to, sure, but teaching every bored player out there is a fucking terrible move.
How would it help people cheat the banks? People can already cheat the banks by hacking the bank data...... which blizzard has said they will be looking into to make more secure.
Hopefully access to this knowledge will help them see that it is a problem.
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How would it help people cheat the banks? People can already cheat the banks by hacking the bank data......
If the Bank is protected well enough, meaning it's not just encrypted but subject to global parity checks with recursive/obscure functions (hard to copy and reproduce) every time it's modified, everyone can look at the code and generate correct values but it can take a lot of time and since the author can manually purge every score he wants it isn't just worth it.
If you can launch the modified map locally, with full debugging powers, you can generate 100% correct values in a matter of seconds. Which is how they easily "hacked" Rodrigo's NWN by the way, except it was done by someone experienced enough and not the first random guy finding this thread on Google...
Sure, Blizzard said they will try to protect Banks somehow.
But it's Blizzard, and I'm not sure I'm willing to wait 2013 for that...
If the Bank is protected well enough, meaning it's not just encrypted but subject to global parity checks with recursive/obscure functions (hard to copy and reproduce) every time it's modified, everyone can look at the code and generate correct values but it can take a lot of time and since the author can manually purge every score he wants it isn't just worth it.
If you can launch the modified map locally, with full debugging powers, you can generate 100% correct values in a matter of seconds. Which is how they easily "hacked" Rodrigo's NWN by the way, except it was done by someone experienced enough and not the first random guy finding this thread on Google...
Sure, Blizzard said they will try to protect Banks somehow.
But it's Blizzard, and I'm not sure I'm willing to wait 2013 for that...
If thats how you really feel.... dont make maps for SC2.... Since nothing is protected anyways..
In a years time there are going to be tools where you just run an executable and it will unlock the hashed file you dl'd from bnet anyways. You wont even have to know how it works. That is unless blizz actually corrects the problem now.
If the Bank is protected well enough, meaning it's not just encrypted but subject to global parity checks with recursive/obscure functions (hard to copy and reproduce) every time it's modified, everyone can look at the code and generate correct values but it can take a lot of time and since the author can manually purge every score he wants it isn't just worth it.
If you can launch the modified map locally, with full debugging powers, you can generate 100% correct values in a matter of seconds. Which is how they easily "hacked" Rodrigo's NWN by the way, except it was done by someone experienced enough and not the first random guy finding this thread on Google...
Sure, Blizzard said they will try to protect Banks somehow.
But it's Blizzard, and I'm not sure I'm willing to wait 2013 for that...
I like your approach. Something that can already be done shouldn't be brought to light because it could cause what already happens to happen more. . . so let's bury it and pretend it can't be done while we wait for Blizzard to fix it. . .
Oh, but that doesn't actually solve anything, does it?
I like your approach. Something that can already be done shouldn't be brought to light because it could cause what already happens to happen more. . . so let's bury it and pretend it can't be done while we wait for Blizzard to fix it. . .
Oh, but that doesn't actually solve anything, does it?
All this talk about whether it acctually solves anything, or helps any is pretty useless. Obviously, if you dont want unlocking to happend you will try to not expose this flaw to people, if on the other hand you dont agree that it is a problem then exposing it makes all the sense in the world.
Hiding behind the fact that "someone else will do it anyway, so i might as well" is not OK (You can take any other example, like crime, unecthical behavior and the same will be true). Then again not all people agree it is a problem, but then the argument lies in that instead.
.
Edit: So i guess the question is: Should people be able to hide information in their maps? And if someone obfuscates the information in the map, is that a bad thing?
If someone does not share information they have with someone who asks, is that bad?
And if someone learns skills from this site and then puts it to use in a map, should he open the code of what he learned (or things he figured out for himself too?) for all the community to see (And is it the same if we talk about "real" programming, like someone learns C from a site)?
you obviously have not been following the thread as well as you think.. People who want to expose it are NOT doing it because they think it's right. Nobody here think it's OK to open maps. Everyone here think it's a problem. So stop misinterpretting and consequently putting words in our mouths.
The topic here is: Whether it's right to talk about map cracking if it's to spread publicity about it.
The main re-occuring arguement supporting map cracking is that it raises awareness to a problem, NOT BECAUSE IT'S OK TO DO SO!!!
Sexual education in high schools do not mean that the teachers want the teens to have sex, just to be aware of the risks if they do so.
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Oi. . . I'm about to lose a lot of popularity, but a lot of you need to hear this: you're all a bunch of greedy idiots.
I beg to differ. I learned how to use the editor by downloading existing maps, piecing through them and editing them to see what the resulting change was. The reason for this being that it's 10x faster to take an existing map and alter fields than it is to stumble through a blank map trying to make something successfully and THEN tweak it to see the results. You cut out the hours of "I fail at life" and get straight to the "so THIS is how it works." You don't learn how to play an instrument by writing your own music to discover music theory. You learn by playing music written by other people.
This kind of mentality is just selfish. You come to a site that is full of helpful information and people willing to bend over backwards walking you through anything from the most basic of mind-numbingly easy steps to advanced concepts. Yet you seem to expect that you can take this knowledge you've taken from others and then hide it in your map because you don't want to share? Why would I want to support this at all?
One thing I've noticed about your posts is you generalize a LOT. By now it's pretty obvious that there ARE two sides to this and perhaps even three. You're missing a very important point that Sixen is calm enough to understand. Knowing HOW to hack helps you. Why? Because it diverts your efforts to avoid this problem away from relying on "lock map" to other methods of securing data.
Some of you may not know this, but prior to Rodrigo's banned NWW, his game was "sabotaged" via editing the banks he thought were unhackable. He brought it up on IRC and within minutes many, many people pointed out how easily this could have been done, what methods might have been used AND what he could have done to avoid it. Now he might think that having a guide on how to access encrypted banks is bad. I, on the other hand, know that if he had seen it ahead of time he likely would have changed his approach and possible been more protected than without the knowledge the guide provided.
Simply put, if I write a guide that claims I can teach you how to break into ANY car with certain locking method, efforts would be taken to develop a new method that was more secure.
Personally, I think it's just plain foolish to want to be able to use a program you didn't develop that comes with a game you didn't make to create maps using assets that don't belong to you. . . and then expect to have all the rights associated with the people who DO own all of the above. Now if you had created custom models, textures etc and imported them I completely support the protection of these kinds of assets. Unfortunately this isn't the case.
No, if they took content from his map and called it their own THAT is stealing. That aside, you're attempting to argue on Ekco's behalf. If he had a problem with it he'd step forward and continue to speak until something was done. Oh. . . wait. . . he's not doing that. . . I guess he doesn't have a problem with it.
You're an idiot if you think that this action does anything other than make you out to be an arrogant fool. Keep in mind that while I AM working with you on your map and I have no problem continuing to do so, I disapprove of the attitude you've conveyed in the majority of your posts since becoming a mod. Sixen supports this site as a paid job. You're a token member of the staff by hobby. Thus you thinking that trying to strong-arm Sixen into backing down by threatening removal of your support is just childish. Not to mention the fact that you're willing drag what should be left to the staffing team out into the light in hopes of becoming a "martyr" is beyond self-serving.
I am a moderator and I support Sixen. I am also a DAMN good mapper who has done more than most of you to enable everyone to create great content for their map. I continue to help others at my expense and encourage others to do so as well. I also share EVERYTHING I make and then go out of my way to help you understand how to use it. That being said I'm greatly bothered by how many of you would opt to keep everything you make to yourself. I and many others teach you how to make your map and then you squabble with others over who "owns" the idea when you probably didn't even come up with it on your own. So stop with the argument "only Sixen and non-mappers support this" because the point is no longer valid.
This is just wrong. He wants you to realize that you're simply avoiding the problem rather than addressing it. People are still trying to lock their maps with a method that this guide proves is ineffective. If they knew this, don't you think that they'd stop trying what doesn't work and move towards an actual solution?
You don't solve problems by hiding them from anyone who might want to exploit them. You put the problems on the table and see how people exploit them so that you can then take this knowledge and better protect yourself. The marketplace is no where near ready to be implemented and as long as we all pretend that unlocking maps isn't easily done it's never going to get here. We need a way to protect genuinely unique content and assets, but we're not going to get there by censoring everything bad and hoping Blizzard will fix the problem for us.
But I guess we should all stick our heads in the sand because we've got maps that aren't really ours to protect, right?
@ProzaicMuze: Go
I completely disagree with everything in this post except for 100% of it.
@LordAbyss: Go
I only agree with 50%, the other half was .. quoted materials
@ProzaicMuze: Go
Good post ProzaicMuze
Some of the mods on here can tend to be a bit overzealous/arrogent but all and all i think Sixens point was more about, theres really no stopping people from cracking locked maps.
Its a good idea to let people who spend 100's of hours on mapping know that eventually someone might crack thier locked map and use it for ill gotten purposes.
The truth though is that if a map is actually good. Cracking it and republishing it really is kinda pointless unless the original author no longer intends to support the map. Which in this case Im all for a new person taking over the reigns and continue the development of said map.
Additionally I think everybody here on mapster has "stolen some knowledge" from ProzaicMuze, so technically I think he owns us.
Anyone who really supports the exposure of cracking of maps: Put your ideals where your mouths are and post links to this thread in the battlenet forums, light this fire properly if you're so insistent on the nobility of keeping it alight.
@ProzaicMuze: Go
The educational value of cracking maps does not trump the desires of those who create the maps themselves, nothing should trump what a creator wants to do with their work and its very arrogant to force that into any other position. There are many reasons besides greed to want to keep a map's inner workings from its players and as you mentioned with the bank system that is an excellent example. I guess its easy to support an all open environment when your strongest ambition is to teach, but for those that want to create maps that have any reliance on some of its workings not being accessible to its player's scrutiny this fails.
ED: Added a little qualifier to that first statement, I know that this is all basically to stop this sort of thing from happening in the long run.
@BumpInTheNight: Go
The point is..... Nothing is secure....
How about you people getting your panties in a bundle find an example of one map that was on the first page of the popularity listing, that has been replaced by a cracked version of it...
The truth is none have.... mainly because unlike WC3 where someone could crack your map and leave it the same name. In SC2 blizzard hosts all the maps themself so every map has a unique name.
If you see your favorite map with a new name, chances are that it is a rip off.... dont play it.
For those of you who manually rename your maps after you update them or make big changes... well Im gonna have to LOL at you.
In regards to people stealing content...... Have you never done any WC3 mapping? This is like common knowlege anything you create can be looked at if the person wants too bad enough.
I just read the tutorial..... Its not really that indepth. I could prolly figure it out how do it, but that would take away from my time spent learning more stuff about the editor.
IMO theres nothing in sotis really worth cracking the map to look inside for anyways.
QFT, but a bit in your face?? However I loved your analogies; all of them are completely relatable. I think that the conclusion has ALWAYS been, don't hide the problem.
I think everyone here already knew that, Soul. Blizzard's map protection sucks, shocking news!
There's a huge difference though between experienced (or novice, but motivated) mapmakers cracking maps to find out how something very specific was done to take inspiration for their own projects and random Googleboys being now able to easily "tweak" and republish maps, possibly taking over your spot after the next popularity reset... given how the whole system sucks atm - and this IS going to happen, any Euro player probably knows what I'm talking about.
Can someone please elaborate how teaching them HERE how to do so is a good idea?
"Some other forum will come up with the same tutorial anyway" so SC2Mapster must be the first?
@WhiskeeGX: Go
if you actually read the tutorial youd realize a novice would have no idea what the tutorial is talking about.
Secondly I think people are smart enough to play the map with the name they are used to.
Not
Nexus Warz
If anything I would like there to be rampant map cracking, it would light a fire under blizzard ass to fix the problem.
Mmk, tell me where on B-Net you want me to post links to this and I'll go directly there. I have no problem with tackling this kind of problem head on.
The bottom line is that this site is primarily about the sharing of knowledge. That being said I shed no tears for anyone who is upset over people expecting that they share what they know while taking part in the community. I didn't come here to share my time and expertise so that self-entitled mappers who leech ideas could then defend their maps with hostility and greed. Especially when the map is a rehash of an older map or lacks truly custom content.
If you want your map kept private because you haven't released it yet or are in the process of updating it then I completely understand this. I also support those who have created custom content for their map. I will defend you and your map with thread deletions galore.
But if you want me to support a system that believes its ok for people to use the full resources of this site without being willing to share the results that wouldn't exist without this community, you're sorely mistaken.
Lastly, my ambition is not to teach at all. My true goal is to play epic games. Unfortunately, I've discovered that most mappers don't understand the Data Editor as well as I do. Thus if I want to see more epic games I teach others so that they can make these epic games for me to play.
@mParfait - I find being direct and aggressive is far more effective and helpful than trying to avoid offending anyone. If they have an opinion worth hearing they'll defend their points and understand that I respect people confident in themselves
I would rather be the one who controls the information and thus the first to prepare for it than one of the last because I was too afraid to accept the existence of it.
I lol'd. Oh yes, yes they will.
It's the current Battle.net playerbase we are talking about.
@WhiskeeGX: Go
I was just making a joke, but seriously. Ive played on wc3 for over 5 years. Its never really been a huge issue. People know thier maps when they play them 5 hours a day.
The vast majority of people complaining dont even have a map that is on the top 3 pages of the popularity system.... Meh
That and people who crack maps dont update maps either... = people arnt gonna play it for long and will go back to the proper map that the real author actually updates.
@ProzaicMuze: Go
I'd start in the custom games forum of battlenet myself. Against all probability it seems Blizzard does occasionally react to things posted in there, people like Rodrigo have proven it. Just that whole icky problem of the forum's mods historically not taking kindly to exposing such short comings of their products and invoking the ol ban hammer on anyone who does.
I'm also definitely all for the sharing of knowledge on how to do things with the editor, hell I'd be dead in the water long ago if it wasn't for yourself and countless others posting their discoveries and ambitions within these forums and the results of other people's input on them. I'd like to think I put in as much as I can towards the expansion of the knowledge as well and could hazard a rough estimate that way most of my posts here are helping others vs asking questions that I'm seeking answers for. Just for my personal map making ambitions I don't actually have any stake in trying to hide the contents of the project I'm working on, more a matter of until that 250ms lag is delt with for player actions it makes the whole thing kinda pointless so I keep it mothballed, also the code is very ugly and I'm not very proud of how some of it works :P Still doesn't stop me from explaining how a particular demo or aspect of it works to anyone who asks though that's for sure.
Beyond that though I definitely don't agree with a situation where people who are actively trying to keep their released maps from being dissected are getting cut off at the knees by people who point big neon signs at the holes that let it happen, unless those signs can also be seen and hopefully rendered moot by the people who left the holes in the first place.
ED: Speaking of holes, okay now I'm really curious: Why the hell aren't locked maps encrypted when they are taking off the server and then decrypted as needed by the starcraft client?
Being able to launch protected maps locally means being able to cheat on any map making use of (encrypted or not) Banks.
You are obviously not interested in protecting maps, but we definitely are and for a reason.
Since there's nothing we can do to reliably protect them, it's up to Blizzard and this thread doesn't help anyone here.
Someone already knew how to, sure, but teaching every bored player out there is a fucking terrible move.
How would it help people cheat the banks? People can already cheat the banks by hacking the bank data...... which blizzard has said they will be looking into to make more secure.
Hopefully access to this knowledge will help them see that it is a problem.
If the Bank is protected well enough, meaning it's not just encrypted but subject to global parity checks with recursive/obscure functions (hard to copy and reproduce) every time it's modified, everyone can look at the code and generate correct values but it can take a lot of time and since the author can manually purge every score he wants it isn't just worth it.
If you can launch the modified map locally, with full debugging powers, you can generate 100% correct values in a matter of seconds. Which is how they easily "hacked" Rodrigo's NWN by the way, except it was done by someone experienced enough and not the first random guy finding this thread on Google...
Sure, Blizzard said they will try to protect Banks somehow.
But it's Blizzard, and I'm not sure I'm willing to wait 2013 for that...
If thats how you really feel.... dont make maps for SC2.... Since nothing is protected anyways..
In a years time there are going to be tools where you just run an executable and it will unlock the hashed file you dl'd from bnet anyways. You wont even have to know how it works. That is unless blizz actually corrects the problem now.
I like your approach. Something that can already be done shouldn't be brought to light because it could cause what already happens to happen more. . . so let's bury it and pretend it can't be done while we wait for Blizzard to fix it. . .
Oh, but that doesn't actually solve anything, does it?
All this talk about whether it acctually solves anything, or helps any is pretty useless. Obviously, if you dont want unlocking to happend you will try to not expose this flaw to people, if on the other hand you dont agree that it is a problem then exposing it makes all the sense in the world.
Hiding behind the fact that "someone else will do it anyway, so i might as well" is not OK (You can take any other example, like crime, unecthical behavior and the same will be true). Then again not all people agree it is a problem, but then the argument lies in that instead.
.
Edit: So i guess the question is: Should people be able to hide information in their maps? And if someone obfuscates the information in the map, is that a bad thing?
If someone does not share information they have with someone who asks, is that bad?
And if someone learns skills from this site and then puts it to use in a map, should he open the code of what he learned (or things he figured out for himself too?) for all the community to see (And is it the same if we talk about "real" programming, like someone learns C from a site)?
@ItsPawl: Go
you obviously have not been following the thread as well as you think.. People who want to expose it are NOT doing it because they think it's right. Nobody here think it's OK to open maps. Everyone here think it's a problem. So stop misinterpretting and consequently putting words in our mouths.
The topic here is: Whether it's right to talk about map cracking if it's to spread publicity about it. The main re-occuring arguement supporting map cracking is that it raises awareness to a problem, NOT BECAUSE IT'S OK TO DO SO!!!
Sexual education in high schools do not mean that the teachers want the teens to have sex, just to be aware of the risks if they do so.