I can't believe you guys are still arguing about this !

It's only been a couple years.

Mtg is still very popular, I still see The Thing too (although maybe not as much), same goes for racoon city. On a side note: JaFF's new The Thing map rocks my socks and should make a The Thing map super popular again. As for the other 4, I don't really know anything about them.

There would have to be teams of mappers releasing lots of good maps regularly for anything to happen on B.net. However, all the best mappers like to be lone wolf, or have retired.

racoon and gunship and both good examples, but being part of the 'elitist' mtg community, I know that there are no hosted ripoffs out there. Space pirates has been essed with lots, but the orininal 'final' release was bugged and had you stuck on a certain mission, so ppl went and tryed to fix that. Ofcourse then they think they know better when the start changing ship stats and things start going to shit. Now normandy. The only copy that I 'think' might be illegitimate is (no timer), but panzer could have actually done it by popular demand, and it doesn't totally ruin the game.

Besides you cant just assume that people stop playing maps because they don't want to play rigged versions. It is also possible that they have had their fair share of time on battle.net. As the saying goes, "All good things must come to an end." So it is that maps fall out of popularity, you can't expect people to keep playing the same maps over and over again. (Excluding C&M, DBZ, MASS etc.) Most maps have their time and then fade away. For example most people on battle.net probably have not seen or played a lot of Millenium's early maps where as the mappers on SEN/Maplantis/WB are more likely to have played them. Even today finding one of his maps on battle.net is a rare occurance and to be honest I have never come across any rigged versions to this date.

Racoon City was open source from what I heard :l.

The reason C&M, DBZ and Mass arn't dying out, is because there is still people just buying SC, and they play a UMS game and they like it, so then they start hosting it too, but the maps popularity will die eventually...

As for the playing MA's maps, i've only played a few of them, but I don't really like them I see no reason to rigg his maps, they're all just stuff like board games which you can't really rigg...

I believe a popularity of a map in a given gateway is a sinusoid, so they fade away and then return in some time.

lawl.

I'll say it again:

One thing I'm wondering about is why all of you care so much about this. OSMAP is here. Get used to it. Stop bickering about it. Also, I don't understand why most of you who are arguing here feel that is your responsibility whether someone uses protection or unprotection. You guys aren't the boss. Blizzard is. Blizzard seem to not care, why should we? Let people do their own thing, it's a free country. It's just a map. It's not your life we're trying to save here.

Then support the right to choose; that is freedom.

As we've been saying over and over, we know that a super-determined map cracker can find OSMAP, but that doesn't mean SEN should abandon morals and help it proliferate even more.

You exaggerate things too much. OSMAP and map stealing isn't growing/didn't grow like mushrooms after a summer rain. Maplantis hosted it for some time, so what? I think I've already said this, but I'll sait it again: you people are overacting.

Me and IP have decided on that we will not host OSmap or allow direct links within public view. We are also going to put in a rule that you cannot debate protection/unprotection unless the topic is specifically about debating the two due to the actions of some people.

The reason for doing this? Honestly some of the bullshit arguments (morality and whatever, which doesn't apply at all to the issue) we're hearing honestly was making us lean more towards hosting OSmap because they're just so stupid. This topic was intended to be how we handle discussion on these issues, not to actually discuss it, but for some people that's simply too much to ask. People keep insisting on completely distorting and warping the issue with carefully chosen words.

So we looked at the facts. There is already one site with OSmap that supports it, so we'll keep SEN the way it is for the time being. Although a lot of the community has changed their views to the point where it would actually be okay to host it, two different sites with two different policies sounds much better.

I will still be spreading Open Mapping. Just so you people know:
Protection = Mappers corrupting maps to prevent other people from learning or editing them.
Open Mapping = Mappers leaving their maps as open and allowing people to edit or learn from them.
Unprotection = Mappers unprotecting or "fixing" corruption on maps so they can edit or learn from other mappers maps.

Really, the mapping community gives so much to you with free information like tutorials and downloads. I've been with the community for years and I don't usually ask for much, but leaving your maps as open is giving back to the community that gave so much to you. Consider it, if you will.

Also, me and IP previously talked about how to handle the maps db with the "do not edit flag" idea I had back at maplantis. It will be considered that authors who do not come on and claim if they want their map to be able to be edited or not are considered as "abadonware" until the author comes on. Anyone wishing to edit abadonware maps must look for any mappers wishes notices, and are encouraged to contact the original author. If the map was originally protected and the author did not come on and mark their map and "do not edit" on SEN, it will still be free to edit if the person who wishes to edit it can unprotect it. Most battle.net maps have been edited and then reprotected, so it makes no sense to limit people unless the authors are still around to "protect their investment" as "time is money" as some people say.

The discussion on protection vs unprotection is now basically over and going nowhere. You can now discuss these policy changes we'll be implementing.

Summary: No change in current policy.

Incidentally, this is slightly off-topic, but if anyone has any, I'm now collecting good maps that cannot be hosted on SEN or Maplåntis due to current regulations. My goal is to archive endangered maps, ones that are of decent quality but would otherwise disappear due to current protocols. This archive is especially aimed at versions of maps that make positive changes to the map but cannot be hosted because they were made without the consent of, or against the wishes of, the original creator of the map. Other maps that for whatever reason cannot be hosted here and are of decent quality are also eligible for submission to the archive. Just send it to me however you can with a detailed (1-2 generous paragraphs) description of why your map is endangered but worth preserving, and it will be considered for entry into the archive.

Maplantis supports edited maps. Unless it's against the author's "Do Not Edit" flag.

How do you know they were made against the consent of, or against the wishes of the original map creator? If he does not state that he does not want edits on his map and simply protects his map, we at Maplantis assume the protection was for the maintenance of proper credit.

Editing helps maps and the entire community. Changes in a map can help people see the benefits, or the failures of that particular change.



Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Sep 24 2007, 9:41 pm by LegacyWeapon.

Great logic there. If a woman doesn't expressly tell me no, she obviously wants to make love to me.

You protection advocates are so stubborn in your metaphors.

Think of maps as inventions. Would you not want people to improve upon inventions?

Anyways, I'm not here to argue. I'm simply clarifying Maplantis policy.

Of course, because a woman's body is equal to the value of a map.