What?

What?

WHAT?!

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU--

My awesome idea for the most tragic single-player SCII map storyline ever has just been permanently ripped to shreds, never to be revived.

Everything is censored, whether it be auto-censor, or investigated censor (as in, someone from Blizzard inspects the map).

The map that got deleted, 'Ultimate Tank Defense', was deleted, just because the pathing of the units just HAPPEN to make the nazi symbol.

It is EVERYTHING that is censored.
Map Name, Map Description, Unit Name, Weapon Name, Building Name, Author Name, any text you might put in that could be seen as anything bit of offensive by someone, any layout or 'picture' that could be seen as offensive, etc.

ADD @David:
My desire to do much SCII mapping was slaughtered by the difficulty it would be to create a campaign now because of the Battle.net 2.0 map publishing system.

Well, my map probably wouldn't've been allowed on Battle.net even without Blizzard's current Orwellian censorship... Graphic depictions of murder and suicide, etc.. But that doesn't at all hinder the fact that


EDIT: Come to think of it, it's even more of an outrage. It's like banning all rated-M games and R-rated movies permanently, so no one's allowed to buy them in stores or see them in theaters.

Ok, so everything is censored, but you didn't answer the question.

Are map strings auto-censored to the point that you can't publish maps? If auto-censoring is applied to map strings to the point where you can't publish maps, is the list of censored words the same as the list of words that has been identified to be illegal in the map name/description?

If this is blanket auto-censoring to the same extent for all map strings, then indeed Blizzard has gone too far. But if there is a (much narrower) subset of auto-censored words in all map strings, then that isn't necessarily so bad.

I'll answer your question with a question: why the hell would there be [a narrower subset of auto-censored words in all map strings]?

David, you can just go back to sc1 and make an awesome campaign with free reign, like me.

No, trust me, what I want to do is completely impossible in SC1.

Then again, giving the massive loading time involved in opening other peoples' maps in GalaxyEdit and the fact that those maps use far fewer custom assets than I'll need, it may be impossible in SCII as well... Hmm...

The point is, this censorship is completely fucking retarded and hence THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!

Or use another game altogether to map/mod with.

SC2 isn't the only option for good modding, you know.

As far as I know, the automatic censoring applies to Map Name and Map Description.
After that, internal changes (like renaming a Marine to 'Slutty Ho-Bag'), would get picked up by whoever inspects the map.
For all I know, after you upload a map onto the Battle.net server to be published, they might have some more extensive search ability to scour each piece/string within the map for anything like this.
But the first blockade, as far as I know, is the map name/description. But since after it's uploaded, it's in Blizzards hands, if you've tried to hide something, they're going to call you out on it somehow I'm sure.

ADD:
And yes, they do go through the maps... again, I refer to Ultimate Tank Defense... it was removed ONLY because the units that spawned, just HAPPEN to make a Nazi symbol.

I thought I already made that clear.

It seems that Blizzard's primary concern with censoring is to stop people spamming the game creation list with offensive map names/descriptions, hence these are auto-censored and have a very unforgiving match list (kill, transport and blow up are all banned).

But, outside of that, once you're in a game, words like kill, transport and blow up are free to use wherever you want by default, unless you're being deliberately offensive with them, in which case manual censorship would remove the map.

Look at it this way, what has a higher chance of offending lots of people:
1. A map called "I'm gonna rape your butt" that shows up on the game list whether you join it or not
2. A map, that once you join, says "I'm gonna rape your butt"

Clearly #2 will only apply to the small subset of people that join the game, whereas #1 applies to everyone that looks at it on the game list. Hence why auto-censoring game names/descriptions is the correct thing to do - the alternative is to have ALL submitted maps sit in a queue for Blizzard to manually approve before they can play. You could then be in the situation where if you submit your map for publication late on Friday night, that it isn't approved for distribution by Blizzard until midday Monday when they get a chance for someone to come in an check the hundreds of maps that had been published over the weekend. But by having an auto-censor in place, they can let you publish your map right away, and manually censoring the in-game map strings can be done later at Blizzard's convenience without a high chance of offending many people even if there really was something offensive in the map. Also pure offensive spam maps are unlikely to be repeatedly hosted on b.net, so wide distribution of a map containing offensive map strings is unlikely, especially as it's really got a pretty low pay-off for someone who was deliberately trying to do this (too much effort for minimal reward, vs offensive map names that are low effort with higher reward).

Now, put in that context, I think Blizzard's decision makes more sense. I still really don't agree with the level of filtering they are doing, especially with substrings like butt in butterfly and colours and country names, but on the assumption that there is no *auto-censoring* of in-game map strings, I really don't think it's as bad as people are trying to make out.

Someone is now obliged to make a very popular map and cunningly smuggle gay porn into it that activates only after a certain date or other assured-but-difficult-to-prematurely-activate condition.

Why not go the "Tyler Durden in the theater" route and show hardcore mansex for exactly one frame of animation?

They can't filter models.

Yes, but I'm sure that anything seen as offensive would be reported immediately. Someone go test it; replace the marine model with a giant penis.

Yea but make it really big, just so everyone in blizzard becomes jealous because they apparently have really small ones.

Well durr. It just needs to get really popular before it is.

HAY GUIS I MAEKD GUD MAP BUT U NO CAN HAS IT CAUS ACTIBUZZARD NO LIEK MAN STICKS



Aw but seriously uptight censorship policies are just begging to be trolled. Commence with the juvenile behavior!

There's no better community for the job than SEN. So yea! Roger that sir!

I shall erect something right away.

The topic on battle.net forums is hilarious, people actually think that's a serious map.

On a more serious note, I hadn't gotten into the SC2 mapping yet, but I don't think I will after seeing this bullshit. Maps being deleted because it resembles a Swastika? Seriously? Fuck you Blizzard. ESRB doesn't even rate online 'interactions', so why do you even care? Moreover, Rated Teen means Teens are supposed to be allowed to play, and show me one teen that would be fazed in the least bit by obscene language.

Look on the bright side: for single-player maps, websites' download databases -- such as those provided by Nibbits, SC2M, and SEN -- should allow evasion of the censorship rules. And hell -- I'm sure someone'll work up a LAN hack and even a full alternative to Battle.net... I'm quite confident that if Blizzard doesn't curtail their idiotic bullshit, the community'll just leave Battle.net empty and barren, and map for and play on servers that aren't run by pseudo-moralist corporations.

EDIT: Also, about trolling Blizzitch,... I wonder if someone could do a DDoS-style mass upload of porn... Get a botnet, flood Battle.net with pr0n maps?