Staredit Network

A good way to prevent someone from stealing credit for your map is by creating a simple text file with the map credits in it. After writing the text file, place it inside of the SCM/SCX mpq. Most will not look inside the mpq for the map credits.

Also if you want to keep that file hidden, delete its listing from the (listfile) inside the SCM/SCX also. That way if you need to prove that you made the map you know the file name and you can retrieve it.

If you really want to get complex, make a 1 or 2 second wav file then hex it and put your name inside of it in plain ASCII then load that into your map with NO compression.

It will appear to be static/garbage to anyone who plays it!

For when you are really desparate

• When using less than 4 forces, and you have your name in a force, reserve the first force so it can be the "bogus one". Now in the first force, put your name and some other random junk, copy and paste a few times, it doesn't matter how long it is. Now for your real name, put colour code in-between the letters. Example: Your name is in red, so then you would do [red]Dea[red]t[red]hkn[red]igh[red]t2[red]004

• Next is short and sweet. Using either a hex editor or something that can support "secret" triggers, add them in every trigger(or rather the important ones). Next, with an old version of Starforge, add more than 64 actions for a trigger, and don't have a comment. When Staredit tries to read the triggers, it will crash. When Starforge tries to read the triggers, it will crash.

• Set some player races to "random"(Most likely with a hex editor), and it will crash Starforge when you go into player settings.

• Make the map an irregular size, it crashes Staredit.

• Under unit properties, change a unit that isn't suppose to be able to burrow, to have burrowed checked, or lifted checked. Opening the map in Staredit will crash.

• Use sprite-units. They will be removed in Staredit.

• Place an extended unit that crashes Starforge, but has no effect in Starcraft.



Now I'm all out.

Does that really work? I experimented with that kind of thing a while ago, and it just made it so you could check any weird properties for units that shouldn't have them, but it never had any effect.

And on top of all that, protect it with ProEdit 1.4.1 and hex it up so no known unprotection methods will work on it.

Or don't give the map to anyone who would try to steal the credit.

ohh i like the last one! lol

heres some from one of the created topics that is stickied

-Put your name in fog of war
-creat a location in several cordinence all around the map(write them down)
-set unused unit names to your name or something
-change the unused upgrades to +1 or something
-hide units all around the map that no one can see with your name
-do all of the above posts
-kill all map stealers

Oh nevermind about the burrow checkbox one. I thought it would work.

Kenoli, that's like saying "don't release your map", which makes it pointless to make it.

Oni-Sei, we know about the topic that is stickied, so there is no need for your foolish spam.

LegacyWeapon, that is more obvious than anything else.

You could also try to keep people from wanting to steal your map.

I would like to add those of deathknight's to my list. However, I cannot unlock my own topic.

So can someone either:

1. Edit it to add in DeathKnight's stuff.
2. Or unlock it so I can edit it.

Thanks.

Or don't even make a map
Pfft.

Not making a map is essentially Kenoli's idea.
Kenoli said not to release the map, so what is the point in making the map if it is not released?

why not just take a screnshot of the file where u can see the last modified date?

Photoshop.

Ooo, I noticed a cool thing that some people do that works really well when it comes to keeping people from stealing your maps. It's really quite genius, if you will stay with me on this one. What they do is, they make a Bound! Yes its right! They just make a bound and magically NO ONE steals it! I think I am on to something!

Edit : No offense to boundmakers, they are fun, it's just that there are already too many out

Theres no real point in what I call "hyper protecting" your map... where theres a will theres a way. If YOU can protect it and there is a path in doing it, obviously someone with enough devotion to unprotecting it shall eventually suceed in following the correct path backwards... trust me, all of the methods that you have mentioned above can easily be reversed, fixed, seen, and unhexed. Besides, if the unprotectee suceeds in opening your map; they can protect it again and release, disallowing for you to access it allowing; for a seemingly authentic map produced by that specific person.

Who cares... things are stolen all the time... but see... the beauty of it is: if someone yearns to steal it, its obviously good enough for being noteworthy or popular, but by the time they get it unprotected; the popularity of the map exceeds the work the unprotectee could manage to pull off. SO, if the map was stolen people would be able to see that it is a fraudulent map.

Come on... say someone steals "Kill Me[1.0]", ask 10 people; 7/10 of them would know who created it. Good 'ol tux.

(btw that particular map WAS stolen, but people knew who the real map maker was, proving my point.)




and so this post doesn't get erased or noted as spam...


If you want to further protect your map, create the maximum amount of locations, label each comment and location with a blank or space and max out the text strings. Doing so would cause for the locations to glitch and crash the user in any editor when viewing the locations.

Gimme 2 minutes and I'll add them.

I just thought of a wonderful way to insure that most map stealers are unsecessful.

Give your maps a short prefix that have to do with your name.

For example, if im doing a turret defense:

For me its "Yoshi's Turret Defense"
For BeeR_KeG[eM], its "Beer's Turret Defense"

Heck, if you have a shorter name, just plop it in.

Now, when a map stealer goes in, hes going to replace it with his own name right?

So then it'll be "Bob's Turret Defense"

People looking for "Yoshi's Turret Defense" aren't going to join Bob's now are they?

If Bob forgets to replace his name, then there's going to be some obvious map stealing noticible.

a way thats would work but would take a long time to do would be to when your 100% done with the map, to change every location's name to the map creators name either in starforge or in staredit.

That won't work... Proedit and other protectors screw up location names

Heh, that was essentially my logic when I was fighting that mini-war on BlizzForums .

PROEdit and the like ignore and erase every string pertaining to comments and location names. That, and your map will be bigger than it could be.

I think Yoshi's idea is probably the best since I can't think of anything that would prevent that... Of course, I'm not sure it will work for the people that want to name their maps using some other name.

"You could also try to keep people from wanting to steal your map."
Hmm.. I know how to do this! Make sure it's not fun, it's patheticly short, buggy, cheesy, and stupid!

"Give your maps a short prefix that have to do with your name."
On a similar note, me being in clan cC., I could make it be cC. Defense, then cC.2 Defense, then cC.3 Defense, and so on.

I'll post something useful when my mind is working better...

Sounds like i need it...People have stolen mostly ALL of my maps,so i quit...

yoshi has the best idea so far, lol. and i have seen ppl who have done that to stolen maps, ye didnt change the name, it was messed up.

happy killing ßïtçh£§
(no offense if that little remark offended anyone)

This unprotecting stuff is really overrated.

Everything is stolen.

Ideas are stolen all the time.

Innovations are basicly stolen ideas of other people upgraded to a point to where it still has a "feeling" of the old invention.

We cannot hold anything dear to ourselves. We cannot claim it entirely ours.

We do not own the actual game, or its placement of units. No one owns a right to using strictly zerglings in their map.

You didn't create the program that creates the maps you create. You didn't make Starforge (Hemidal did.), so how is it possible that you can claim to have invented a certain type of tile formation, or color scheme using certain types of tiles? It may be possible, that all the square tiles that you create, were actually been created by Hemidal, or whoever created Isom, GUEdit etc.



To me, mapping is not about the actual creation that you have created, but rather, the fact that you created it. Its not the actual map things that you create, but rather, the principle. Each thing you do in your map signifies kind of like your "essence" within the map. This non-physical element is what says its yours. No matter what others do, this "essence" cannot be stolen from a map. Its kinda like a signature. For example Tuxedo-Templar. All of his maps are created with the version number within the map file itself. His title screen (the message that displays within the beggining of a map), is always present within his maps. All of these things contribute to the map's "essence". This essence cannot be stolen, thus a map's non-physical entity cannot be stolen...

Take into example the people in the world, famous people. I can name simple things that you would be able to reconize from the top of your head. Who wears a band-aid on his face? Who has the million dollar "butt"? Who represents both white and black?

These simple "signatures" allows for us to detect who created it.




So stop thinking about ways to further protect your map, but rather, find ways to create "essence" within your map.

Upon having this "essence" in your map; it creates the best, strongest, and most unpenetratable protection there will ever be created for any given map.

blahblahblah...

[center]Maybe having a map stolen isn't such a bad thing; it does mean that someone liked it so much that they wanted it to be associated with them..
But it is a bad thing, so ignore what I just said. When people steal a map, they're going against the entire map making community. You can't claim yourself a map maker if you steal maps.[/center]