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?
Blizzard isn't going to do anything if we discuss about it, unless we start spamming on their forums.
Which we should, if you ask me.
In the meanwhile, teaching the remaining 99% of kids how to open locked maps is just wrong.
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.
Really? I thought i finally understood some of the "other sides" reasons. I think i just read a post about how people who want too keep their maps locked are greedy and selfish for not wanting to share and i was addressing that. If i missinterpreted the meaning of the poster then i apologize, but to me that sounded like "people should not be able to lock their maps".
But if it is as you say and no one is for cracking or opening maps, then i really dont understand. Because as i understand it its impossible to protect the information in your map or your bank if anyone can read it. And the only people who can change this is blizzard. Now spamming blizzard about the problem to get their attention is one thing, but i really dont agree with making the problem worse in order to get them to fix it.
Educating people in how to protect their maps is alright, but there is no need to allow detailed descriptions on exactly how to break the protection when there is no way to protect against it. And personally i think a lot of exposure will probly get the attention of the kind of people that is the real problem, the ones that will abuse the flaw and not so much the friendly map maker who might as well mail or pm you for help.
Edit: As for your sex-ed example, that is to educate the children just in case they do anyway. But i dont see a reason why we want people who unlocks map to know how to properly unlock maps just in case they will do it anyway.
But yeah, like i said in my post on page 1, ekcol was clear about me not spreading it; but, (like you said) he hasn't said anything here about unlocking it... so I think we just need to agree that this info is out now, and because of the drama of this post, it is now probably common knowledge.
Will I ever unlock a locked map? Probably not. Should it be known? Probably. Should SC2Mapster news it? Probably so that it becomes a bigger issue and maybe Blizz will budge (just like they're going to add protected banks soon). Should I stop asking myself questions? Probably.
It is actually quite frustrating. I'm sure there are many people how could use this for educational purposes and by the way educational purposes is more like copy pasting terrain or custom script code.
This further deincentives many mapmakers from making maps (as if we didn't have few mapmakers already).
The fact that Ekco's map was used as an example is a testament to his map's success.
It's a sad testament if it's marginally modified and uploaded by someone else with the other person's name in it.
Not saying that this'll inevitably happen, and not saying that people would actually play this fake.
Still, this is what happened frequently in Warcraft 3.
Most of us wouldn't be here if we didn't want to share our knowledge.
I can only speak for myself but I couldn't care less if people opened my maps to learn or take from them. In fact I'm happy about it, and I've posted most of my maps somewhere here on mapster for people to look at.
And I also don't think that anyone has the right from wanting to lock one's map to keep others from learning one's secrets. That's just unsocial and selfish.
So far I agree fully with your lengthy previous post.
But! There is always a percentage of people who don't just want to learn, but to satisfy their own greed - ergo re-publishing the maps with cheat packs or firguring out the banks' encyption to hack their stats.
This spoils all fun, breaks the game and is an affront for the map maker!
Warcraft 3's maps were a piece of cake to crack if you knew how. And the knowledge wasn't even that hard to acquire.
But all the major map making sites (hiveworkshop, wc3c, thehelper) didn't keep info on how to circumvent the protection and answered questsions regarding that with a "We're not helping you to hack maps".
And I believe that course of action prevented a lot of cheap rip-offs to appear in battlenet.
Because this held off a lot of wanna-be hackers who didn't know the "right" places to get their knowledge from. I've even been asked personally about how to hack maps several times. And I guarantee you that these people didn't want to learn from the maps.
I'm not trying to protect anyone's so-called Intellecual Property, or pieces of code or something like that - I just don't want the games itselves to get spoiled by some party poopers.
In the end it burns down to a matter of Security and Freedom.
You want more Freedom in expense of Security; others prefer some more Security instead of Freedom (and don't misinterpret this please. I'm not talking about extremes here).
I just think that the additional Freedom we get by having everyone knowing how to unlock maps doesn't justify the loss of Security, even though it isn't that grave.
Regarding the topic of map locking - this is even harder than in Wc3, because you need the editor to upload the map! In Wc3 you'd just try to break the map as much as possible to make the editor unable to read it. With Sc2 you can't even do that!
I've tried a little with corrupting the first bytes of the mapfiles and see if dig out something useful, but to no avail. And after digging in the dark I'm covered with mud and a broken test map :3
Publicly stating the means of deprotection will hardly help finding a new way to protect it again. Most of the people reading about it wouldn't even have a clue about where to start, and even those who think they have are mostly headed towards dead ends (no offense, but that's how I see it).
When we're already at it - does anybody happen to have a nice idea of how we could lock maps a little better?
Will I ever unlock a locked map? Probably not. Should it be known? Probably. Should SC2Mapster news it? Probably so that it becomes a bigger issue and maybe Blizz will budge (just like they're going to add protected banks soon). Should I stop asking myself questions? Probably.
Do not ever dare to try and draw conclusions to bring a discussion to a meaningful end! Never! This defeats the entire purpose to arguing till your heads explode!
Ok.. I think the wall of text is gone. You can come out of the bomb grammar shelters now.
Do not ever dare to try and draw conclusions to bring a discussion to a meaningful end! Never! This defeats the entire purpose to arguing till your heads explode!
Very few people are actually going to be opening maps to learn from them. It would be better for them to ask for help, then have someone actually explain how it works anyways.
Chances are, people will open these maps, take terrain/coding/whatever isn't bolted down, and give absolutely no credit to the original author (see: half of the spells in the original DotA). This is probably all fine and good if you never would care about this in the first place, but generally when people contribute resources to the community, they at least expect credit.
But eh. I admit, this is not nearly the problem it was on WC3, because people can't make hacked versions that are indistinguishable from real versions or get the popularity for anyone to play them. I still don't think that this site should be promoting the hacking of maps.
I agree with your post. Going further I had one of the most popular maps of SC. I added every sort of protection I could but in the end for someone managed to get past the compression methods I had. These people made modifications and pretty much either ruined it, rigged it, added hidden triggers or made it completely stupid. This hurts the community playing the map as they think one of their favorite maps is heading towards the wrong direction. They will later either switch to another map or switch game. It's that simple.
Warcraft 3's maps were a piece of cake to crack if you knew how. And the knowledge wasn't even that hard to acquire.
But all the major map making sites (hiveworkshop, wc3c, thehelper) didn't keep info on how to circumvent the protection and answered questsions regarding that with a "We're not helping you to hack maps".
And I believe that course of action prevented a lot of cheap rip-offs to appear in battlenet.
Because this held off a lot of wanna-be hackers who didn't know the "right" places to get their knowledge from. I've even been asked personally about how to hack maps several times. And I guarantee you that these people didn't want to learn from the maps.
This falls under the, "let's pretend it never happened" situation which in the end, does us absolutely no good. You can only hide for so long...
When we're already at it - does anybody happen to have a nice idea of how we could lock maps a little better?
This is why I believe it's something important. The fact that we know we can unlock maps will hopefully encourage users to discover a fullproof locking method.
To drive this thread off track, the only solution that I think can be feasible should come from blizzard itself regarding their own publishing and marketplace system. Bank can never be protected so long as it is saved offline and map can be opened. You can never obfuscate the map to the point that the client cant read it anymore. (and so long as there are people who want to hack it open)
( Btw continue in this trend after this thread will be the new way to protect map thread, then the new way to unlock the new way to protect map thread, then the better way to protect map then the new way to protect map etc ... )
Map protection has to come from the game client itself with an online server. (So long the only thing blizz can protect right now is their server). When a player publish a map version, it will be encoded and uploaded to battlenet. Any other player who click on the map will download an encrypted map on their computer, only with a key gotten from the battlenet server that they could decode the map and enable the client to load it (the key would be one time only). This does make sense for the market place, as whoever bought the map have access to the encode key. (But they could just prevent an account from seeing and playing a map also)
I'm no expert on encryption so I'm not sure how this can be truly protective (real hacker can hack the game memory and get the key value during encoding ) Some solution would be to change the key daily, key based on checksum or harsh value of the downloaded map.
Other than that I have no idea for a good enough protective method given the current way the client works
Sorry to jump in the conversation but this is something I have to speak my mind. Also I have no idea how curse's quoting system works so it really bothers you just PM on how to do it and I'll be sure to take into account for my next post.
“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. “
Umm I'm sorry can you address who are you talking to? Are you calling the community a bunch of greedy idiots? Even if they were and I'm not saying they are this is totally unprofessional by your part. Keep your cool.
“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. “
From a creative side point of view. You can learn a few concepts from playing music written by other people but your composing abilities probably won't be any good if you didn’t bother to learn the theory behind it. If anything it will just be some crappy improv based on the music you copied and of course that is a rather optimistic way of seeing it as most map-makers will simply just make a couple of modifications and take full credit. That is the reality. People will type in google “Map Deprotectors” and with some luck they’ll be pointed here.
“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? “
At your questions regarding sharing, this happens all the time in the world. It's called copyright infringement of course here we aren't making money and we aren't on our own engines and assets. Of course you could argue that science itself is better off with everyone sharing knowledge to everyone. However just as there is a big incentive to create there is also a less ethical incentive to copy, destroy and take credit. That is the issue and not copyright infringement.
How can they be so selifish? I don't think they are selfish at all, they are cautious. If you make a map from scratch, a big map, not just a minigame map and made every single line of code, placed every single doodad, worked countless hours in data editor and bother to make it good looking and balanced (this might take years) and you want to share that with everyone else, I think that is something honorable and I would admire you for that but it’s your choice. When you try to put your preferences on the rest then that wouldn’t be good would it? Choice is the only true freedom there is as Gabriel Tosh said =) (at least if you decided to stick with him instead of Nova).
I agree understanding hacking is good for better protect data but I don't agree in distributing the information to everyone in the world. Think of this analogy: understanding nuclear fission technology is good for the general welfare of society, given that knowledge to everyone around the world would be the complete opposite.
"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. "
Distribute that information to the general public, and you’ll go to jail in my country of course I’m not talking about the US but even shortly after 9/11 there was a citizen that was able to manage to get combustible materials on a plane to prove that security inspections at airport weren’t good enough. He was taken into custody and went to trail (I believe he settled instead of going to prison but still) His intentions as good as they were, were at the wrong channels.
“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.”
That is BE decision not yours or anyone’s here and they’ve decided to add locking mechanisms for users to use in their maps. Does that tell you anything?
I am entirely morally against the decision to allow this thread, but irregardless I will simply argue deleting it based on a legal viewpoint.
How is circumventing Blizzard's map protection and circumventing Blizzard's copy protection any different? You may argue that copy protection has a legal side to it, but if you've seen how Blizzard handles third-party programs in World of Warcraft you would know that they are VERY active in stopping people from circumventing their protective measures.
Another example: how is bypassing Blizzard's security on locked maps any different than bypassing blizzard's security to remove fog of war. The creator's of the programs that did that are now facing legal consequences.
By allowing a "How-to" guide on circumventing Blizzard's security measures on this forum you are opening up this forum to potential legal action from Blizzard. They could claim your activities damage the game... we've seen it dozens of times before. I urge you to delete this thread, Sixen.
If we're going to provide extra efforts in helping others learn how to create sc2 maps, I suggest creating the Tutor/Mentor system instead of this...
This is not educational at all; it is basically encouraging others to disregard Terms of Agreement. We must respect ones wish for credibility. Fortunately some of us in this thread still have good morals.
Heres a funny situation - Sixen, you have a bank account. You shouldn't put money in that bank account because it is out there and people will steal money from it anyway. Credit Card,PIN number? Who cares right? Lets take it for others to learn about money lol.
Education is an irrational excuse for this. Education and plagiarism doesn't mix. A better way to teach others how to map make is to show them that we don't even need to unlock maps, you can simply follow the many tutorials we have in out forums, ask a question in our IRC or play around with the editor.
I am entirely morally against the decision to allow this thread, but irregardless I will simply argue deleting it based on a legal viewpoint.
How is circumventing Blizzard's map protection and circumventing Blizzard's copy protection any different? You may argue that copy protection has a legal side to it, but if you've seen how Blizzard handles third-party programs in World of Warcraft you would know that they are VERY active in stopping people from circumventing their protective measures.
Another example: how is bypassing Blizzard's security on locked maps any different than bypassing blizzard's security to remove fog of war. The creator's of the programs that did that are now facing legal consequences.
By allowing a "How-to" guide on circumventing Blizzard's security measures on this forum you are opening up this forum to potential legal action from Blizzard. They could claim your activities damage the game... we've seen it dozens of times before. I urge you to delete this thread, Sixen.
Sorry, but are you comparing game hacking that involves writing memory to a process, sending false bytes of data to Warden, and creating external modules to a process, to deleting and adding files from an archive?
Please, adding and removing files from an archive in no shape or form breaches any agreement in the ToS or EULA. That's like saying it's illegal to add or remove files from a .rar I have downloaded from the internet.
Sorry I just have to argue with your posts because its too funny. (Not to assume that I tried to argue with any other point you make)
- Clearly this method does not involve hacking into the game memory or external modules, but as better protection is enforced, some of these will happen in order to unlock maps. Would you continue pursuing open source in this direction ?
- 90% of .rar file anyone download from the internet is either pirated software, music or movies (not really relevant)
- The game client composed of multiple archive that contains game data, which are mpq archive (you must have known this though). Any map is based on the structure of an mpq archive, even Lost Temple. Now is this break the TOS if you add another vespene geyser into Lost Temple ? Or adding 10 damage to Marauder in the game client ?
While custom contents does not belong to the client itself and might subject or not subject to the TOS, arguing that adding file to any archive does not break any agreement is just silly. (and sure sounds like from a hacker's viewpoint to me)
Reminder: We are still trying having to have a healthy discussion as s3rius recommended to argue until out head explode, any new points from any side is welcome, but please avoid repeating them unneccsary
@PeasantOpenSource: Go
- The game client composed of multiple archive that contains game data, which are mpq archive (you must have known this though). Any map is based on the structure of an mpq archive, even Lost Temple. Now is this break the TOS if you add another vespene geyser into Lost Temple ? Or adding 10 damage to Marauder in the game client ?
While custom contents does not belong to the client itself and might subject or not subject to the TOS, arguing that adding file to any archive does not break any agreement is just silly. (and sure sounds like from a hacker's viewpoint to me)
Sorry, I don't understand your logic: how does this relate to any agreement I have made with Blizzard (please show quoted evidence)?
Firstly, Lost Temple, being a Blizzard map, is unlocked. If I add another vespene geyser into Lost Temple, I will not be able to play that map with others unless they have also downloaded the exact same map. The map wouldn't be able to be published with the same name/title as the original Lost Temple, nor would it have the Blizzard icon next to it (also, no Blizzard related text in the map). If someone decides to play you in this altered version of the map, it is there fault for not playing the original map which obviously does have a Blizzard icon next to it, and clearly states that it is authored by Blizzard.
If you are referring to altering a file in the archive, such as the mapscript, and maintain synchronisation with others players, then this probably would be scratching at one of the agreements, and such abusers would probably be banned. However, this shouldn't occur as a similar scenario has already occured in WarCraft III, and I would hope Blizzard doesn't make the same mistakes twice.
We've taken the decision together with Sixen to make sc2mapster a place where we can freely talk about all the subjects concerning map making. This includes not so legal things like reverse engineering the Starcraft 2 files or changing the Galaxy Editor memory to add extra things. We believe in the community and have never used our position to impose our judgement: all the contests are judged by the community, we didn't censor any forum post ...
We feel that this is important that people know that their maps, even when locked, are not protected. This is not something people want to hear but this is the truth. We don't want to be a dictatorship that hides reality from people. With the internet you can't stop the information from spreading. If we delete this post I bet you that a website unlocksc2maps.com will open with a detailed tutorial and even a program to do it. Having the information here is a way to control it.
Note: This second part contains a personal philosophy that is subject to critics.
One of the reasons internet exploded was the fact that it was built on HTML, CSS and Javascript. Those markups and languages are completely revealed. This may seem crazy at first because anyone can copy & paste stuff and have the same website! In the end most people use it as a learning tool: if you want to know how an effect is done you just right click and show source. Since you don't have to ask the permission to the author you can do it even on small details and at a large scale. Information spreads faster and overall there are better products available.
What about map stealing. This is the one fear of the map makers. From my Warcraft III and Starcraft 2 experience, the "map stealers" are usually the entire map as a base, adding cheated units to the map in order to either win / make it more fun. They don't take individual heros / spells as it is complicated and do not improve the map quality. So they are unlikely to be more popular than the original one.
Another thing to take in account is the popularity system. As you know putting a map to the top of the popularity requires dedication. It is not likely the "map stealer" will have enough will to put it up there. Also you can't use the same map name, so people will know that this is a copy. Overall map stealing is a lot harder than in Warcraft 3.
Overall I feel that the benefits of having maps being exposed is good for the map making community as it will help to spread the knowledge. The threat of map stealing being greatly reduced by the popularity system.
@PeasantOpenSource: Go
I dont refer your post to any previous one you made. I'm also not getting your first sentence.
With Lost Temple and Marrauder, yes I was referring to adding thing while you still synchronize and play. But by saying the same logic that adding file to an archive gave no harm, I have a sense that you might go so far as doing that (though not publicly). Even now that you just defend that such abusers will probably be banned. (and just that)
Getting back on topics, this protection is silly, there's no way anyone can do about it. Exposing it is fine, opening map doesnt "seems" to break any rule.
However what I feared is this open attitude toward future map protecting and unlocking. If I can make a good protector, I would be now discouraged given the fact that the first site I want to public it on have an open attitude, such that within days another person could come up reverse engineer my protector. ( I totally respect reverse engineers as they have to be way better than yourself to figure you what you have done, but it sure piss you off that someone who is better than you make something that circumvent your work in less work then you did ) So in short I would not ever try to make this protector happen.
With this system, I can only rot for blizzard's implementation for a server side thing .. ( which can still be hacked, but then they should violate some rule and be banned from mapster )
If we delete this post I bet you that a website unlocksc2maps.com will open with a detailed tutorial and even a program to do it. Having the information here is a way to control it.
Could you clarify this point on controlling information ? For any I have known, controlling information means censoring and removing information you don't want to appear ? Or it just mean knowing the information is there or not ?
I want to add that you are welcome to create a project on sc2mapster for your map without uploading it. They are a great way to get feedbacks and to post content (eg: screenshots, infos ...)
Could you clarify this point on controlling information ? For any I have known, controlling information means censoring and removing information you don't want to appear ? Or it just mean knowing the information is there or not ?
"Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. Sun-tzu" People will think twice about sharing something controversial in a big forum as they know it's being read by many people including Blizzard. They will balance the pro and cons ... At the end the information will be of a greater quality.
If you let people be angry by deleting posts here, they are going to do extreme actions that have all the chances to be bad (example: making a program to rip the maps and spam Battle.net with ripped maps).
Blizzard isn't going to do anything if we discuss about it, unless we start spamming on their forums.
Which we should, if you ask me.
In the meanwhile, teaching the remaining 99% of kids how to open locked maps is just wrong.
Really? I thought i finally understood some of the "other sides" reasons. I think i just read a post about how people who want too keep their maps locked are greedy and selfish for not wanting to share and i was addressing that. If i missinterpreted the meaning of the poster then i apologize, but to me that sounded like "people should not be able to lock their maps".
But if it is as you say and no one is for cracking or opening maps, then i really dont understand. Because as i understand it its impossible to protect the information in your map or your bank if anyone can read it. And the only people who can change this is blizzard. Now spamming blizzard about the problem to get their attention is one thing, but i really dont agree with making the problem worse in order to get them to fix it.
Educating people in how to protect their maps is alright, but there is no need to allow detailed descriptions on exactly how to break the protection when there is no way to protect against it. And personally i think a lot of exposure will probly get the attention of the kind of people that is the real problem, the ones that will abuse the flaw and not so much the friendly map maker who might as well mail or pm you for help.
Edit: As for your sex-ed example, that is to educate the children just in case they do anyway. But i dont see a reason why we want people who unlocks map to know how to properly unlock maps just in case they will do it anyway.
Wow that is complete bullshit. Can we delete this post and warn the user please?
@ProzaicMuze: Go
This thread is just getting hilarious now!
But yeah, like i said in my post on page 1, ekcol was clear about me not spreading it; but, (like you said) he hasn't said anything here about unlocking it... so I think we just need to agree that this info is out now, and because of the drama of this post, it is now probably common knowledge.
Will I ever unlock a locked map? Probably not. Should it be known? Probably. Should SC2Mapster news it? Probably so that it becomes a bigger issue and maybe Blizz will budge (just like they're going to add protected banks soon). Should I stop asking myself questions? Probably.
@Kalekin: Go
It is actually quite frustrating. I'm sure there are many people how could use this for educational purposes and by the way educational purposes is more like copy pasting terrain or custom script code.
This further deincentives many mapmakers from making maps (as if we didn't have few mapmakers already).
I hope this gets patched and this post deleted.
[ALARM SIRENS] WALL OF TEXT INCOMING - - GET DOWNN!! [/ALARM SIRENS]
It's a sad testament if it's marginally modified and uploaded by someone else with the other person's name in it.
Not saying that this'll inevitably happen, and not saying that people would actually play this fake.
Still, this is what happened frequently in Warcraft 3.
Most of us wouldn't be here if we didn't want to share our knowledge.
I can only speak for myself but I couldn't care less if people opened my maps to learn or take from them. In fact I'm happy about it, and I've posted most of my maps somewhere here on mapster for people to look at.
And I also don't think that anyone has the right from wanting to lock one's map to keep others from learning one's secrets. That's just unsocial and selfish.
So far I agree fully with your lengthy previous post.
But! There is always a percentage of people who don't just want to learn, but to satisfy their own greed - ergo re-publishing the maps with cheat packs or firguring out the banks' encyption to hack their stats.
This spoils all fun, breaks the game and is an affront for the map maker!
Warcraft 3's maps were a piece of cake to crack if you knew how. And the knowledge wasn't even that hard to acquire.
But all the major map making sites (hiveworkshop, wc3c, thehelper) didn't keep info on how to circumvent the protection and answered questsions regarding that with a "We're not helping you to hack maps".
And I believe that course of action prevented a lot of cheap rip-offs to appear in battlenet.
Because this held off a lot of wanna-be hackers who didn't know the "right" places to get their knowledge from. I've even been asked personally about how to hack maps several times. And I guarantee you that these people didn't want to learn from the maps.
I'm not trying to protect anyone's so-called Intellecual Property, or pieces of code or something like that - I just don't want the games itselves to get spoiled by some party poopers.
In the end it burns down to a matter of Security and Freedom.
You want more Freedom in expense of Security; others prefer some more Security instead of Freedom (and don't misinterpret this please. I'm not talking about extremes here).
I just think that the additional Freedom we get by having everyone knowing how to unlock maps doesn't justify the loss of Security, even though it isn't that grave.
Regarding the topic of map locking - this is even harder than in Wc3, because you need the editor to upload the map! In Wc3 you'd just try to break the map as much as possible to make the editor unable to read it. With Sc2 you can't even do that!
I've tried a little with corrupting the first bytes of the mapfiles and see if dig out something useful, but to no avail. And after digging in the dark I'm covered with mud and a broken test map :3
Publicly stating the means of deprotection will hardly help finding a new way to protect it again. Most of the people reading about it wouldn't even have a clue about where to start, and even those who think they have are mostly headed towards dead ends (no offense, but that's how I see it).
When we're already at it - does anybody happen to have a nice idea of how we could lock maps a little better?
Do not ever dare to try and draw conclusions to bring a discussion to a meaningful end! Never! This defeats the entire purpose to arguing till your heads explode!
Ok.. I think the wall of text is gone. You can come out of the
bombgrammar shelters now.You sob! Lol..
Very few people are actually going to be opening maps to learn from them. It would be better for them to ask for help, then have someone actually explain how it works anyways.
Chances are, people will open these maps, take terrain/coding/whatever isn't bolted down, and give absolutely no credit to the original author (see: half of the spells in the original DotA). This is probably all fine and good if you never would care about this in the first place, but generally when people contribute resources to the community, they at least expect credit.
But eh. I admit, this is not nearly the problem it was on WC3, because people can't make hacked versions that are indistinguishable from real versions or get the popularity for anyone to play them. I still don't think that this site should be promoting the hacking of maps.
@s3rius: Go
I agree with your post. Going further I had one of the most popular maps of SC. I added every sort of protection I could but in the end for someone managed to get past the compression methods I had. These people made modifications and pretty much either ruined it, rigged it, added hidden triggers or made it completely stupid. This hurts the community playing the map as they think one of their favorite maps is heading towards the wrong direction. They will later either switch to another map or switch game. It's that simple.
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ModeratorsThis is by far, the best analogy yet.
This falls under the, "let's pretend it never happened" situation which in the end, does us absolutely no good. You can only hide for so long...
This is why I believe it's something important. The fact that we know we can unlock maps will hopefully encourage users to discover a fullproof locking method.
To drive this thread off track, the only solution that I think can be feasible should come from blizzard itself regarding their own publishing and marketplace system. Bank can never be protected so long as it is saved offline and map can be opened. You can never obfuscate the map to the point that the client cant read it anymore. (and so long as there are people who want to hack it open)
( Btw continue in this trend after this thread will be the new way to protect map thread, then the new way to unlock the new way to protect map thread, then the better way to protect map then the new way to protect map etc ... )
Map protection has to come from the game client itself with an online server. (So long the only thing blizz can protect right now is their server). When a player publish a map version, it will be encoded and uploaded to battlenet. Any other player who click on the map will download an encrypted map on their computer, only with a key gotten from the battlenet server that they could decode the map and enable the client to load it (the key would be one time only). This does make sense for the market place, as whoever bought the map have access to the encode key. (But they could just prevent an account from seeing and playing a map also)
I'm no expert on encryption so I'm not sure how this can be truly protective (real hacker can hack the game memory and get the key value during encoding ) Some solution would be to change the key daily, key based on checksum or harsh value of the downloaded map.
Other than that I have no idea for a good enough protective method given the current way the client works
Sorry to jump in the conversation but this is something I have to speak my mind. Also I have no idea how curse's quoting system works so it really bothers you just PM on how to do it and I'll be sure to take into account for my next post.
“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. “
Umm I'm sorry can you address who are you talking to? Are you calling the community a bunch of greedy idiots? Even if they were and I'm not saying they are this is totally unprofessional by your part. Keep your cool.
“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. “
From a creative side point of view. You can learn a few concepts from playing music written by other people but your composing abilities probably won't be any good if you didn’t bother to learn the theory behind it. If anything it will just be some crappy improv based on the music you copied and of course that is a rather optimistic way of seeing it as most map-makers will simply just make a couple of modifications and take full credit. That is the reality. People will type in google “Map Deprotectors” and with some luck they’ll be pointed here.
“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? “
At your questions regarding sharing, this happens all the time in the world. It's called copyright infringement of course here we aren't making money and we aren't on our own engines and assets. Of course you could argue that science itself is better off with everyone sharing knowledge to everyone. However just as there is a big incentive to create there is also a less ethical incentive to copy, destroy and take credit. That is the issue and not copyright infringement.
How can they be so selifish? I don't think they are selfish at all, they are cautious. If you make a map from scratch, a big map, not just a minigame map and made every single line of code, placed every single doodad, worked countless hours in data editor and bother to make it good looking and balanced (this might take years) and you want to share that with everyone else, I think that is something honorable and I would admire you for that but it’s your choice. When you try to put your preferences on the rest then that wouldn’t be good would it? Choice is the only true freedom there is as Gabriel Tosh said =) (at least if you decided to stick with him instead of Nova).
I agree understanding hacking is good for better protect data but I don't agree in distributing the information to everyone in the world. Think of this analogy: understanding nuclear fission technology is good for the general welfare of society, given that knowledge to everyone around the world would be the complete opposite.
"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. "
Distribute that information to the general public, and you’ll go to jail in my country of course I’m not talking about the US but even shortly after 9/11 there was a citizen that was able to manage to get combustible materials on a plane to prove that security inspections at airport weren’t good enough. He was taken into custody and went to trail (I believe he settled instead of going to prison but still) His intentions as good as they were, were at the wrong channels.
“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.”
That is BE decision not yours or anyone’s here and they’ve decided to add locking mechanisms for users to use in their maps. Does that tell you anything?
I am entirely morally against the decision to allow this thread, but irregardless I will simply argue deleting it based on a legal viewpoint.
How is circumventing Blizzard's map protection and circumventing Blizzard's copy protection any different? You may argue that copy protection has a legal side to it, but if you've seen how Blizzard handles third-party programs in World of Warcraft you would know that they are VERY active in stopping people from circumventing their protective measures.
Another example: how is bypassing Blizzard's security on locked maps any different than bypassing blizzard's security to remove fog of war. The creator's of the programs that did that are now facing legal consequences.
By allowing a "How-to" guide on circumventing Blizzard's security measures on this forum you are opening up this forum to potential legal action from Blizzard. They could claim your activities damage the game... we've seen it dozens of times before. I urge you to delete this thread, Sixen.
If we're going to provide extra efforts in helping others learn how to create sc2 maps, I suggest creating the Tutor/Mentor system instead of this...
This is not educational at all; it is basically encouraging others to disregard Terms of Agreement. We must respect ones wish for credibility. Fortunately some of us in this thread still have good morals.
Heres a funny situation - Sixen, you have a bank account. You shouldn't put money in that bank account because it is out there and people will steal money from it anyway. Credit Card,PIN number? Who cares right? Lets take it for others to learn about money lol.
Education is an irrational excuse for this. Education and plagiarism doesn't mix. A better way to teach others how to map make is to show them that we don't even need to unlock maps, you can simply follow the many tutorials we have in out forums, ask a question in our IRC or play around with the editor.
-End Transmission
Sorry, but are you comparing game hacking that involves writing memory to a process, sending false bytes of data to Warden, and creating external modules to a process, to deleting and adding files from an archive?
Please, adding and removing files from an archive in no shape or form breaches any agreement in the ToS or EULA. That's like saying it's illegal to add or remove files from a .rar I have downloaded from the internet.
@PeasantOpenSource: Go
Sorry I just have to argue with your posts because its too funny. (Not to assume that I tried to argue with any other point you make)
- Clearly this method does not involve hacking into the game memory or external modules, but as better protection is enforced, some of these will happen in order to unlock maps. Would you continue pursuing open source in this direction ?
- 90% of .rar file anyone download from the internet is either pirated software, music or movies (not really relevant)
- The game client composed of multiple archive that contains game data, which are mpq archive (you must have known this though). Any map is based on the structure of an mpq archive, even Lost Temple. Now is this break the TOS if you add another vespene geyser into Lost Temple ? Or adding 10 damage to Marauder in the game client ?
While custom contents does not belong to the client itself and might subject or not subject to the TOS, arguing that adding file to any archive does not break any agreement is just silly. (and sure sounds like from a hacker's viewpoint to me)
Reminder: We are still trying having to have a healthy discussion as s3rius recommended to argue until out head explode, any new points from any side is welcome, but please avoid repeating them unneccsary
Sorry, I don't understand your logic: how does this relate to any agreement I have made with Blizzard (please show quoted evidence)?
Firstly, Lost Temple, being a Blizzard map, is unlocked. If I add another vespene geyser into Lost Temple, I will not be able to play that map with others unless they have also downloaded the exact same map. The map wouldn't be able to be published with the same name/title as the original Lost Temple, nor would it have the Blizzard icon next to it (also, no Blizzard related text in the map). If someone decides to play you in this altered version of the map, it is there fault for not playing the original map which obviously does have a Blizzard icon next to it, and clearly states that it is authored by Blizzard.
If you are referring to altering a file in the archive, such as the mapscript, and maintain synchronisation with others players, then this probably would be scratching at one of the agreements, and such abusers would probably be banned. However, this shouldn't occur as a similar scenario has already occured in WarCraft III, and I would hope Blizzard doesn't make the same mistakes twice.
We've taken the decision together with Sixen to make sc2mapster a place where we can freely talk about all the subjects concerning map making. This includes not so legal things like reverse engineering the Starcraft 2 files or changing the Galaxy Editor memory to add extra things. We believe in the community and have never used our position to impose our judgement: all the contests are judged by the community, we didn't censor any forum post ...
We feel that this is important that people know that their maps, even when locked, are not protected. This is not something people want to hear but this is the truth. We don't want to be a dictatorship that hides reality from people. With the internet you can't stop the information from spreading. If we delete this post I bet you that a website unlocksc2maps.com will open with a detailed tutorial and even a program to do it. Having the information here is a way to control it.
Note: This second part contains a personal philosophy that is subject to critics.
One of the reasons internet exploded was the fact that it was built on HTML, CSS and Javascript. Those markups and languages are completely revealed. This may seem crazy at first because anyone can copy & paste stuff and have the same website! In the end most people use it as a learning tool: if you want to know how an effect is done you just right click and show source. Since you don't have to ask the permission to the author you can do it even on small details and at a large scale. Information spreads faster and overall there are better products available.
What about map stealing. This is the one fear of the map makers. From my Warcraft III and Starcraft 2 experience, the "map stealers" are usually the entire map as a base, adding cheated units to the map in order to either win / make it more fun. They don't take individual heros / spells as it is complicated and do not improve the map quality. So they are unlikely to be more popular than the original one.
Another thing to take in account is the popularity system. As you know putting a map to the top of the popularity requires dedication. It is not likely the "map stealer" will have enough will to put it up there. Also you can't use the same map name, so people will know that this is a copy. Overall map stealing is a lot harder than in Warcraft 3.
Overall I feel that the benefits of having maps being exposed is good for the map making community as it will help to spread the knowledge. The threat of map stealing being greatly reduced by the popularity system.
@PeasantOpenSource: Go I dont refer your post to any previous one you made. I'm also not getting your first sentence.
With Lost Temple and Marrauder, yes I was referring to adding thing while you still synchronize and play. But by saying the same logic that adding file to an archive gave no harm, I have a sense that you might go so far as doing that (though not publicly). Even now that you just defend that such abusers will probably be banned. (and just that)
Getting back on topics, this protection is silly, there's no way anyone can do about it. Exposing it is fine, opening map doesnt "seems" to break any rule.
However what I feared is this open attitude toward future map protecting and unlocking. If I can make a good protector, I would be now discouraged given the fact that the first site I want to public it on have an open attitude, such that within days another person could come up reverse engineer my protector. ( I totally respect reverse engineers as they have to be way better than yourself to figure you what you have done, but it sure piss you off that someone who is better than you make something that circumvent your work in less work then you did ) So in short I would not ever try to make this protector happen.
With this system, I can only rot for blizzard's implementation for a server side thing .. ( which can still be hacked, but then they should violate some rule and be banned from mapster )
Could you clarify this point on controlling information ? For any I have known, controlling information means censoring and removing information you don't want to appear ? Or it just mean knowing the information is there or not ?
I want to add that you are welcome to create a project on sc2mapster for your map without uploading it. They are a great way to get feedbacks and to post content (eg: screenshots, infos ...)
"Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. Sun-tzu" People will think twice about sharing something controversial in a big forum as they know it's being read by many people including Blizzard. They will balance the pro and cons ... At the end the information will be of a greater quality.
If you let people be angry by deleting posts here, they are going to do extreme actions that have all the chances to be bad (example: making a program to rip the maps and spam Battle.net with ripped maps).