Over Battle.net, Blizzard has to let people play your map(s) without your consent. If you were to claim the rights to the map and wish to charge, they would be liable for disabling the map or paying you some sort of royalty for its use...
This sort of language only makes sense. They probably won't begin screwing customers, seeing as they'll want to do good business...
Claiming ownership is not a prerequisite of being able to let others use a map, just take an example from Curse, they don't claim ownership over WoW addons that you upload(and i assume the same is true for maps on this site), instead they license a right to host the material, I'm sure that Blizzard's lawyers could find something equally valid for maps.
Ownership is not a prerequisite of selling maps either. (Unless of course you intend to sell it without "permission" and without any royalties to the author)
Well... if they only sold you the right to use their pens and paper, and if you furthermore agreed that all documents written with their pens belong to them... yes.
And people, WC3 had pretty much the same. And I guess even SC1 has it. It's not like Blizzard's going to snatch away your maps -.-
You can't write away ones rights, that would be the same as arguing that they could murder you if they wrote it into their EULA, and you would be ok with that (and it would be legal), luckily it isn't.
WC3 didn't claim any ownership and i doubt the previous games did either.
My guess on this is that this version is exactly the same one as the version copied on retail DVD with a small modification on install timer. The retail DVD will let you install on midnight July 27 while the digital download is 10 hours later.
After installed, the only thing you need to play is login to a bnet account with a starcraft 2 license (your account must be in the same region as the client). So your cd key will work for the digital download one, just that you have to wait 10 hours. The only problem is whether your cd key with the retail box is region-specific or just the client in the box is
No, they've already stated that the downloader will let you install at midnight, you simply can't buy the game(therefor it is of no use to you) until 10:00 CEST.
This post assumes you are familiar with creating MPQ archives and using Ladik's MPQ Editor, i won't make any detailed instructions, but merely go over the basics, Ladik's MPQ Editor can be found here: http://www.zezula.net/en/mpq/download.html
First of all, the following locales currently are supported by SC2:
1. Open the map you want to add locales for, .SC2Map files are just MPQ archives, so Ladik's MPQ Editor will have no trouble reading it.
2. Extract the map to a folder, for example c:\Maps\Mymap
3. Go into c:\Maps\Mymap and you will usually see 2 folders, and a bunch of files, depending on your locale it'll be either enGB.SC2Data, enUS.SC2Data or any of the other locales (xxXX.SC2Data), along with that there will be a "Base.SC2Data" folder.
4. Copy your locale folder (Example: enGB.SC2Data) and rename the copy to the locale you'd like to add (Example: enUS.SC2Data), personally i recommend doing this for all locales, there may also be french people who can speak english and would like english text over "param\blabla\blabla"
5. When you're done you must add it to the components file of the map, otherwise the editor will not pick it up (It will still work, but if you change anything in the map it'll delete it again), to do that you must open up "ComponentList.SC2Components" with an editor of your choice, it's just XML, so it's no big deal, anyway you have to add the correct locale to it, for reference here is the total list of locales you can add
6. Once you've added the locales you want to the componentlist, then you simply save it and open Ladik's MPQ Editor, you will select "Create new MPQ Archive"
7. Name of the archive will be the name of your map, just remember to mind duplicate names, so call it mymap.SC2Map
8. Select "Build the MPQ archive from a file or directory, and input the working directory you made earlier (c:\maps\mymap\)
9. Size of hash table should be set to atleast twice the amount of files you expect to have in the archive, however the default would work with most maps, as there aren't that many files.
10. Select to create the archive with the 2.0 format, and create (attributes)
11. You should now be able to open the file in your Map Editor, and verify that it works by opening the Overview Manager (F12), and verifying that the locales exist.
And you're done, of course the locales themselves will not be translated you will, however, be able to see the original english text in all clients now.
As it stands now it's about to give me a braintumor, and either there's something i'm missing or this probably is the most silly way of localizing a game i've ever seen, some points:
1. enGB (English) and enUS (English) are two different locales, i can understand you should be able to modify them both, but that they're not automatically replicating the enUS(or current) locale to all locales is just beyond my imagination.
2. Datawise locales are a matter of some strings put in the appropiate place, for example enGB.SC2Data\LocalizedData\Game\GameStrings.txt, infact as it is now it would be easier for me to extract the enUS locales and manually translate them in notepad, then repack them into the map itself, than it would be using the editor.
3. You can't even modify the other languages locale through the editor, you need a client with the specified locale to do so.
Here's how it works in the Galaxy Editor, unless there's something i've missed, you manually find where every piece of text is, and the funny part is that it actually (in most places anyway) USES the enUS locale, but doesn't actually create it in the enGB locale before you've clicked on the text and clicked ok.
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Claiming ownership is not a prerequisite of being able to let others use a map, just take an example from Curse, they don't claim ownership over WoW addons that you upload(and i assume the same is true for maps on this site), instead they license a right to host the material, I'm sure that Blizzard's lawyers could find something equally valid for maps.
Ownership is not a prerequisite of selling maps either. (Unless of course you intend to sell it without "permission" and without any royalties to the author)
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You can't write away ones rights, that would be the same as arguing that they could murder you if they wrote it into their EULA, and you would be ok with that (and it would be legal), luckily it isn't.
WC3 didn't claim any ownership and i doubt the previous games did either.
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Yes!
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No, they've already stated that the downloader will let you install at midnight, you simply can't buy the game(therefor it is of no use to you) until 10:00 CEST.
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I didn't really consider it tutorial worthy, which is why i posted it here, but i don't mind if it gets moved, or improved with pictures.
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This post assumes you are familiar with creating MPQ archives and using Ladik's MPQ Editor, i won't make any detailed instructions, but merely go over the basics, Ladik's MPQ Editor can be found here: http://www.zezula.net/en/mpq/download.html
First of all, the following locales currently are supported by SC2:
1. Open the map you want to add locales for, .SC2Map files are just MPQ archives, so Ladik's MPQ Editor will have no trouble reading it.
2. Extract the map to a folder, for example c:\Maps\Mymap
3. Go into c:\Maps\Mymap and you will usually see 2 folders, and a bunch of files, depending on your locale it'll be either enGB.SC2Data, enUS.SC2Data or any of the other locales (xxXX.SC2Data), along with that there will be a "Base.SC2Data" folder.
4. Copy your locale folder (Example: enGB.SC2Data) and rename the copy to the locale you'd like to add (Example: enUS.SC2Data), personally i recommend doing this for all locales, there may also be french people who can speak english and would like english text over "param\blabla\blabla"
5. When you're done you must add it to the components file of the map, otherwise the editor will not pick it up (It will still work, but if you change anything in the map it'll delete it again), to do that you must open up "ComponentList.SC2Components" with an editor of your choice, it's just XML, so it's no big deal, anyway you have to add the correct locale to it, for reference here is the total list of locales you can add
6. Once you've added the locales you want to the componentlist, then you simply save it and open Ladik's MPQ Editor, you will select "Create new MPQ Archive"
7. Name of the archive will be the name of your map, just remember to mind duplicate names, so call it mymap.SC2Map
8. Select "Build the MPQ archive from a file or directory, and input the working directory you made earlier (c:\maps\mymap\)
9. Size of hash table should be set to atleast twice the amount of files you expect to have in the archive, however the default would work with most maps, as there aren't that many files.
10. Select to create the archive with the 2.0 format, and create (attributes)
11. You should now be able to open the file in your Map Editor, and verify that it works by opening the Overview Manager (F12), and verifying that the locales exist.
And you're done, of course the locales themselves will not be translated you will, however, be able to see the original english text in all clients now.
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Ok have any of you tried localization yet?
As it stands now it's about to give me a braintumor, and either there's something i'm missing or this probably is the most silly way of localizing a game i've ever seen, some points:
1. enGB (English) and enUS (English) are two different locales, i can understand you should be able to modify them both, but that they're not automatically replicating the enUS(or current) locale to all locales is just beyond my imagination.
2. Datawise locales are a matter of some strings put in the appropiate place, for example enGB.SC2Data\LocalizedData\Game\GameStrings.txt, infact as it is now it would be easier for me to extract the enUS locales and manually translate them in notepad, then repack them into the map itself, than it would be using the editor.
3. You can't even modify the other languages locale through the editor, you need a client with the specified locale to do so.
Here's how it works in the Galaxy Editor, unless there's something i've missed, you manually find where every piece of text is, and the funny part is that it actually (in most places anyway) USES the enUS locale, but doesn't actually create it in the enGB locale before you've clicked on the text and clicked ok.
psyduck inc:
Image 1, already added map info
http://images.gammatester.com/pics/7039c92146cd788fc70d0487a06d9953.jpg
Image 2, Adding "localization" for "
LEVEL 2" (Click the green link in the bottom)http://images.gammatester.com/pics/ec7acf4df74c29a5a0a488c72604c366.jpg
Image 3, Adding localization continued
http://images.gammatester.com/pics/8505c8d15ce869b1927a82d6bb0c9966.jpg
Image 4, Done! And it couldn't have been done easier!
http://images.gammatester.com/pics/e5e184fdb4ecefade1f647cc5690efa9.jpg