Staredit Network

I read about in Clan U section how through Hex editing you could change the string containing the map makers name, without even unprotecting the map. Couldnt this be prevented, or at least for the most part make it horribly hard for the stealer if you were to make a trigger where on Mission Objectives where it gives credit to you, you have your name constantly flash with hyper triggers hundreds of times, constantly doing the

C
Cr
Cri
Cris
Crisp
Crispi
Crispie

over and over. With color. And also doing the same for display text at the end of the map. Would this make it extremely difficult for the stealer to change all that to put his identity into it? Or just have tons of random un used units named after you and only have 1 within view for people to see. Just some ideas? Probably wouldnt even make much of a difference, just wondering what other people think about this.

I have a better idea. Use hex editing to hex-protect your map or something, like screw up the hex things. Or turn your map into like, 256 bit data thats impossible to crack... Something like that. And your idea: He could probably just delete all of that and make something simpler.

You can't encrypt the map or SC won't read it though.

Well from what I read if you dont replace everything in the string with the exact same amount of text then it screws up the whole map. Thats where Im getting this from.

Make every string one letter. Then your text can look like
t
h
i
s
!

And they can still spell their names out with it.

Although spreading it out would make it incredibly difficult to screw with the strings, it's still possible. But that could work. The most EFFECTIVE way is to spell your name out in terrain, which would be impossible to change via string editing.

You can't stop your map from being hex edited... That's like saying "Omg ! They are editing the binary data of my map! I will use 2's and 3's instead of 1's and 0's. Hahahahah!"

Yeah, guess the only way is to make a crapload of strings with your name in it in the objectives, and put it into your map somewhere. Hopefully no ones that desperate to put that much work into stealing maps...hahah

[center]I think someone should pin the following post somewhere:

The Best Ways To Stop Map Protection[/center]

Although no map is completely safe from protection, you can effectively give the "map stealer" a hard time stealing your maps. Although many people on battle.net might think you are "flaunting" your name, it is better to do this then to have your map stolen. Try to do at least SOME of these things in your maps.

In Briefings, make your name appear as many times as you can. For instance, in briefing have your name appear like this:

M
Mi
Min
Mind
MindA
MindAr
MindArc
MindArch
MindArcho
MindArchon

These means that the map stealer would have to edit ALL of those strings without corrupting the map. This is hard!

At the start of maps, do a trigger to put your name back in the mission objectives. Chance has it that the map stealer will forget to look for this trigger. For instance, you would do something like this:

Trigger

Players:

¤ All Players

Conditions:

¤ Always

Actions:

¤ Set Mission Objectives To: "Created By: MindArchon"

Put your name in the terrain. This will give the person trying to steal your map a hard time as it is harder to change terrain by hex editing then to change strings. Spell out your name!

Put your name in the fog of war. This will really piss the map stealer off. The map stealer will most likely forget about fog of war and anything related to it.

Put your name on unit names. Yup! Add your name on every unit you can find. Yes, it looks tacky .. but heh, its fun!

Overlap everywhere you can. Overlapping is quite fun, and it makes hex editing harder. Although some people thinks that it doesnt look quite good (and they may be right), it does slow people down!

Have a short battle.net name. The shorter your name is, the harder it makes your map to hex. If the map stealers name is shorter then yours, he can add spaces to make up the rest of the length. If its longer then his, hes kind of screwed.

At the start of the map, use a create trigger to spell out your name. Yes its newb, and it wastes a load of locations. However, this will stop the map stealer fairly well.

Fit your name into the plot so a player would notice if it was replaced. I can't really explain what I mean by this, but sometimes a creator will put himself into the plot, and make it noticable if his name was replaced by someone elses.

-------------------------------

The best way to stop map stealers is to put your name everywhere you can.

So if protecting against hex is impossible for SC, then is it impossible for the rest of the programs? Well, maybe not, cause by now it would have caused serious issues. Maybe if a patch changed text from strings to pictures... But then you'd need strings to tell SC to make the pictures, which means the hacker would edit those strings. If protecting against hex hackers is impossible, why protect at all? Your map will eventually get stolen. Sure, it makes it harder, but they can still do it. Hacks and viruses to pentrate patches and protectors come out weeks, days, even hours after the program is released. Oh damn, im babbling on like an idiot again

bother protecting it because many would-be map stealers are too lazy to hex to unprotect or hex to change a few strings.

MindArchon's post should be stickied.

Another way is to put credits at the end of the game.
Like This.

Trigger

Description:

Credits

Players:

¤ Current Player

Conditions:

¤ The Conditions to Defeat The Game

Actions:

¤ Display Text message: Made By: BeeR_KeG[eM]

¤ Display Text message: Made By: BeeR_KeG[eM] ______________________Help From: Someone else ______________________ Special Thanks to SEN

¤ Display Text Message: Look at http://www.staredit.net/MapTopic

¤ Any other Actions

¤ Victory

You people dont understand, if someone were to use a good hex editor and replace every instance of your name with a click, it will replace EVERY INSTANCE OF YOUR NAME! Including the one's in triggers and mission briefing.

It's kind of unprofessional to have your name everywhere, anyway. Just make it with sprites or terrain.

The ones in the mission brefiing wouldn't be cought by that though. It would end up saying

M
Mi
Min
Mind
MindA
MindAr
MindArc
MindArch
MindArcho
MapstealerGuy

If i recall correctly when you hex edit those feilds the new string must be the same leanth as the previous one or you will screw stuff up.

I also belive alot of the things you put in there mindarchon are newbish. But on a side note i put my name in the terrain in Time Up Bound. Can you find it?
If the circumstance ever arises where some one tries to prove they made the map you will be able to look at his unprotected version and there is almost a full proof chance he didn't notice my name in the terrain. He wouldn't notice it because it is spelled out in null tiles next to black ones. So when you scroll your mouse over the tiles the smearing of the screen spells out my name.

Besides who would belive some one made a map if they didn't have a unprotected version of it. Even more so if someone else did.

The only reason I can see you would need to write your name on a map is to become famous on B.net. As long as you beta test it with people, you will have someone who can vouch for the fact that you made it.

Unfortunately by B.net name is long so they can replace it with "MapStealer " quite easily, maybe leaving a funny gap in some text but nothing too bad.



A tool to fill the remaining (/1000) strings with your name and spaces (M apstealer, Ma pstealer, Map stealer, etc.) and put the new strings in the mission briefing would be nice. That way it would be a horrible amount of work to replace it, especially if you changed it every minimum lenght of time so if they didn't change them all it would flash your name.

Actually, you can change the terrain of a protected map.


I like the idea of spelling your name with fog of war.

These means that the map stealer would have to edit ALL of those strings without corrupting the map. This is hard!




If what I heard is true, and you must replace the strings with the exact same amount of text, then no, copy and pasting or whatever will just screw up the map. If you do enouph counter measures for protecting, its very possible to make it so difficult most people would give up on it. Especially if you put your name into a small spot of the terrain;).

You see the biggest problem as stated above was that you can't Hex Protect your Map, because then Starcraft couldn't read it. Anyhow, if i made a map, and hosted it here, and someone stole it online, everyone here would know it was mine, and their mates, so who cares about some damn newbs on Battle.net?

Not everyone on Bnet knows about this site, and furthermore do you want some map stealer to get a reputation of being a great map maker for things he never did?

Lets say i put the name MindArchon in the map, and someone wanted to rename it to FagSteal. Its two letters short. Filling the rest in with spaces works.

However, you can change the length, but it is difficult (as you actually have to change the hex, not the strings).

Having a short name will make it harder (I will add it to my post above).

Programs are hexed all the time. Archn hexed Proedit and SCU to his name. However, with programs you can add hex protection, as you cannot in a starcraft map. Starcraft reads the maps in a specific way, changing ANY of it wil it up and make it corrupted.

I will add some other methods I thought of to my post above.

The best thing to do is to only make GoSu maps that get really popular. Like mine. No one can question that I made them, everyone knows I did. All the way from someone cool like... Yosh.... I mean Bol.... I mean Tu.... well I can't think of anyone right now but someone really cool all the way down to the lowliest newb who just bought SC 6 years after the game came out. Who hasn't played Don't Click the Flag!

Look to the right center in the minimap, says Crispie. Hardly noticable, so it doesnt interfere, yet you are able to see for sure who made the map. Id like to see someone hex that! awe yeah.

Uhh... Maybe I'm blind but I don't see your name anywhere on the minimap.

Its pretty tiny, look to the center right, its tiny, and you have to put your eyes close to it.

People will hardly notice that crispie.

Another way is to spell your name with doodads/sprites/units/buildings/resources

It's pretty much very hard to hex edit that.