So I have the final version of my map but I'm having no luck protecting it. I've tried every protector there is. Some of them glitch up the triggers, some simply don't run on Windows 7, and some fail to protect. My latest attempt was Starcraft Map Cracker, but the application closes down every time I click the "Open" or "Save" buttons. Anyone else experiencing the same problems?

If I post the map, could someone protect it for me?

Thanks in advance.

Use http://www.staredit.net/topic/10081/ for compression (with protection as a side-effect). Trying to use a ridiculously powerful protector can cause issues with your map, and really the only gain is that people won't be able to unprotect it for say, two months until the protection is inevitably beaten. Really, any basic level of protection keeps most map stealers out, and any level of protection can be beaten as long as SC can read the map.

Compression is the best option.

(Also, if you have issues trying to save with TinyMap2, change the compression type on the CHK to Type 1.)

I've had issues with TinyMap2 as well. Any other options?

GUEdit. It's the absolutely weakest protection there is, but it won't mess up your map.

Also, what's wrong with TinyMap2? Does it cause problems for your map?

Not like map protection strength really matters anymore.

And yet I've had several people rip off DS Night and make lame versions of it.

Unless you get a hold of an obscure Korean protector that doesn't screw up the workings of your map, it won't matter if you protect with GUEdit or Shadow Protector or TinyMap2; people will break in if they want to. Protection only stops one group of map stealers.

I had a long PM discussion with somebody who was looking into methods of preventing his map from being stolen. He, of course, was asking what the strongest protector on the market was, and I didn't know. But I was sure to tell him map protection wasn't the only way to protect his work.

For example, sprinkling some protective EUDs in your map could help. Using http://www.staredit.net/topic/14408/, you can generate triggers to check the map title, force names, etc. and make sure they aren't modified; if they are modified, you can break key components of your game (e.g., causing some mandatory initializations to fail, causing drops and/or defeats, lagging the game severely). Since map stealers are very unlikely to be very sophisticated in triggering, they wouldn't know how to fix the issues caused when trying to modify a game or steal credit for it. The more complicated your map is, the easier it is to make a convoluted EUD protection system that prevents anyone from modifying the game.

So if you're interested in truly protecting your map, you may want to consider doing something other than using a protector on it, since protectors can be automatically beaten by a click of a button in an unprotector.

Also, MetalGear, I am really curious as to why TinyMap2 doesn't work for your map. Could you explain in more detail, please? If it's because it crashes when you try to save, I already explained how you can remedy that.

Except then you end up with the same problem that happened with Arkham Asylum: they put in a form of DRM that made the game unbeatable if you pirated it. When the game was officially released, there were heaps of online reviews saying the game was bugged and unbetable - posted by pirates who couldn't beat the game. This in turn helped to depress sales because legitimate customers heard it was buggy. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/94524-Arkham-Asylum-Pirates-Get-a-Gimpy-Batman

If you make the game bug up when someone modifies your map, the map players won't know why that's broken, they'll just know that it's broken and won't trust your map any more.

Also, once the map cracker tweaks, they can just look at the weird-looking EUD triggers and delete them and see if that fixes it. Of course if you have EUD triggers as a genuine part of your map, that would make such an approach much trickier.

One thing that would work quite well, if Farty would get around to releasing it, is a version of tinymap that supports the Preserve Trigger property on the triggers, rather than making it an action in the trigger. Scmdraft 2 supports this flag, but there's no way to see it or edit it. Thus if they unprotected a version of your map in which all preserve trigger actions had been replaced with flags, they would have no way to prevent the triggers from being preserved. It might also confuse them why triggers were preserved when there was no preserve trigger action present. Some unprotectors might even dump the flag data, resulting in an unplayable map if it was unrprotected (all triggers would fire once only).

The same argument could be made for someone breaking in and making a crappy version of your game. New players just know that the game has severe playability issues and won't trust your map anymore.

And also under your argument, someone could easily title their map the same as your map's name and copy its basic appearance but make it a broken game to achieve the same effect.

Well, wouldn't that be unfortunate when they delete the EUD check you have that causes the game to progress forward only if everything seems to be okay? No, deleting all the weird-looking EUD triggers would break the map if you did it right, even if the map itself doesn't rely on EUDs.

But an example from DS Night is probably useful here. All of the edited versions just changed unit stats and costs, no other trigger systems. So on the surface of it, it just looks like one of my own version bumps. But if the apparent new version bump had bad playability issues (as a result of the EUDs you deliberately put in that detect map name changes) then the new version would appear fucked, and people might be weary of trying new versions in future. Or you'd get people saying "version 1.34 is bugged" because it was a rip-off version, and when you put a real 1.34 out people wouldn't play it because they didn't trust it, etc.

Yes, it's pretty theoretical, but intentionally gimping things like this does have a potential cost.

Yes, that's true.

Try compressing it with OSMAP2?

Try Special Protector. It's under the Programs download section here. It is only unprotected by one map unprotector, so that's the best bet. I also have a good Korean one if you would like to try it out.

"One or more unknown files were found in the MPQ.
Please update your listfile in the options window and try again"

Update about what... This is simple file .scx just with many many triggers and locations... How can i protect it ??

start a new thread if you have problems, and be much more descriptive than you currently are, possibly with pictures of the error, program you're using, map you want to protect, etc...