Greetings,
Staredit.net is issuing the following warning to all map makers and players, advising that the individual known as 'Alykzandir' has engaged in map theft at an egregious level. It is possible from the information we've gathered that Alykzandir may be the most prolific thief in all of Stacraft history. We believe the following maps have been outright stolen or had meaningful credits removed on his account:

-Pokemon Battle Stadium (Original by Darkghost_1)
While the newer versions Alyk had put forth include significant changes and improvements, the removal of the original author, combined with all underlying locations/systems seeming to be preserved would indicate that this map is not properly credited.

Location Comparisons from original and stolen versions available here.

-Diablo 2 RPG / D2 Town RPG (Original by Bo[KEL])
Originally a Korean map that was translated by pct.zero. Alykzandir seems to have removed any reference to the original map maker.

You can readily compare the original and stolen versions on SCMSCX.

-Gauntlet RPG ChapelofSkorm / Gauntlet RPG: 2023 (Original by Zpothu)
The first of two Gauntlet maps bearing Alykzandir's name. On Alyk's edits, Zpothu's name is completely omitted.

-Gauntlet Zero RPG (Original by Zpothu)
No, this is not a duplicate, Alykzandir stole the same map, twice. Gauntlet Zero which he has represented and credited as his sole creation is actually a further edit based off Zpothu's original map. When analyzing the locations, strings, and triggers it becomes very apparent that it is the same map being further modified. While we recognize the significance of the changes in Zero from the original, we once again condemn the removal of Zpothu's name.

The original Gauntlet by Zpothu is here. You can see further edits by others here here here here, the underpinnings can be seen in the 'Skorm' version Alykzandir has stolen here, becoming 'Gauntlet 2023' which direclty underpins early Zero versions.

You can compare Alyk's 2023 and Zero's demo version here.


-ImScn - Master of Pain / Impossible - Master of Pain (Original by -fishgold-)
While -fishgold-'s name is still preserved in some of the strings we believe this to be an oversight as Alykzandir credits only himself in the map description. The changes look to be exceedingly minor in scope.

-Legend Of Qua'Teras / Qua'Teras RPG (Original by Big-Fat-Homo)
Another blatant theft, the original and stolen versions can be seen here and here.


Speculative:
Although we cannot identify the original, based on comparisons to other Alykzandir credited maps we believe Castle of Koopa to have its underlying systems ripped off of another bound.


Post has been edited 8 time(s), last time on Apr 23 2023, 4:34 am by Excalibur.

Thank you for the proper representation, Ex.
Tom (Zpothu) was a good friend of mine for many years. He would be appreciative to know members of the community defending his works.

We live in a society.

I still remember your RIVE vs Zpothu series

What a shame. Recently, I've been noticing him hosting various obscure games (namely EUDs) which I'm unfamiliar with but I was curious when the Map Theft warning was coming up. He seems to be extremely unresponsive to talking (even in explaining custom games unrelated to this issue). I'll be on the lookout from this from now on.

I understand the that people will often modify content of maps and what not and while I usually don't mind, I find it awful not to provide credit to others that put in effort of previous versions. (I usually don't like modified maps anyways because people like to add quick edits that benefit themselves too)


I don't know if he edited certain games himself but here are a few games that I've joined that he hosted:

• Sorcery RPG 2 (I know he didn't make this one but he left before I could play it and see what was credited)
  
• Worms EUD (This is a KR game similar to worms the flash game / tanks where you move around, fire a projectile and damage opponent and possibly ground around them)
  
• KR Game [Not sure called, but think it was Ball Bounce] (Another KR EUD game, you control ball with WASD keys)
  
• KR Game [Not sure called, but think it was Ball Bounce 2] (Sequel to above game. Apparently there are multiple sequels but this one is more "refined")
  
• Tower Defense RPG (Might have named this wrong but this is a "new?" KR EUD map which involves going to towers. I've never played this but seen him play it)
  

Apparently he has a Twitch account but he seems very irresponsive on it too.
And yes, he did tell me when I first met him that he was a map maker (This was before all the warnings that popped up from other people)

Thanks for the info Happy. The sad thing is he uploads most of his thefts to SCMSCX.com so its pretty easy to see what he's stolen.

I have tried multiple times to talk with him prior to his map theft coming to light and he would not converse with me.

I tried again after to ask him to explain himself for these thefts, and he would not do so.

I wish I had some screenshots/video of the lobbies hes ruined while spamming racial slurs, but I do not. His behavior is reprehensible and I hope people will stop playing in his lobbies and force him to take some responsibility.

Why someone would behave like this has always been a mystery to me. Is that guy some 12 year old who cannot behave responsibly yet?

Others have taken and used mechanics without giving any credits to authors, using stuff from other maps is widespread, only few share origins of mechanics used and etc. Copying maps is a different thing removing authors not a cool thing to do, no matter how much the original map is edited.

the times ive talked with alyk he seemed alright, ive readed bad things about him from discord and this could be an reaction of what readers dont see here, im not sure i believe that alyk have bad intensions by it as i cant say neither is wrong. info here and other places could be biased without knowing for certain. so be critic when readin info here and there.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on May 2 2023, 9:50 pm by GGmano.

First of all your english is particularly bad in this post so its hard to understand you from the get. I advise you work on that.

This is obviously not about reusing mechanics or ideas from other maps but in some cases making some slight edits and taking the author's name off.

ayylmao had SCMSCX do an analysis of one of the maps he stole. There was one trigger and one location added.

There are not two sides to this issue and his actions are not defensible by any reasonable human being.

He is alright until you disagree with him on anything, at which point he goes nuclear. The reason you see that repeated is because it is true, and can be verified by multiple sources. While his intent may have been to fix or modernize certain maps, the fact of the matter is that he removed the authors from their maps which is not a defensible thing to do.

I will Paypal you 100$ USD if you can give me a valid explanation of how screenshots showing he is stealing maps with the same underlying terrain, location, and unit placement could possibly be biased.

Note: Explanation cannot be delivered in broken English, and must satisfy the functioning brain or similar organ provision of the SEN ToS.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on May 3 2023, 12:53 am by Excalibur.

By biased, id say lots of players do like alyk and he prolly will be able to get hes friends to join when he load lobbies, even youre side of the bias trying to put shame on him. Truely i dont know and i dont care much, ive meet alyk few times and talked with him, cant say whats hes done and what not.

If you read my above post, i did say its not ok to copy or take maps remove original author name no matter how much the maps edited, i did same when i was new before i even knew this site, i didnt understand the work people put into the maps and how respect is shown by their name on the maps.

Do you @excalibur have issues in reading neutral post and point out faults if others post doesnt suit you? English is not my native, yet i have no trouble in communicating with others in english, people are able to think above spelled faults and sentence errors, if youre not capable than i dont know how i can fix that.

I can say for certain ive tryid same thing happening couple years ago, one guy took my map removed my name changed 1 price on 1 building everything else was same, only hes name instead of mine, and where ive worked 1000+ hours on it, he maybe used like 15min idk, but every player knew my map and he didnt get succes with it. that doesnt make it ok at all but stealing maps is not new and alyk is not the first to do that. Yet its the first time ive ever seen this much attention around a player stealing maps and that makes me think it could be biased without me knowing for certain.

Maybe excalibur youre way of life is clean, youve never done anything that could be measured as bad behaviour, said in other words do you excalibur consider youre self a saint?

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on May 3 2023, 10:43 pm by GGmano.

I don't think you understand the words you're using or how they are used in common conversation. Allow me to try and help:

When you imply bias in a topic like this you are effectively saying that what is being presented is either untrue or slanted. The further implication is that when someone makes a claim (Alykzandir stole maps) that that claim is either fully or partially untrue, and is being presented that way due to how someone feels about the accused. While I may not like Alykzandir due to his actions, even if he was my best friend I would be unable to dispute the evidence presented here. The reality of what he has done is not up for debate, and when you invoke bias your suggestion is either that something is untrue or is not as bad as stated. I think with the number of examples we've been able to provide, as well as the screenshots, that it is completely invalid to suggest either regardless of how you or anyone else feels about Alykzandir personally.

It doesn't matter how many friends he has, how well they get along, or if he donates his time to animal shelters. None of that is relevant to the topic at hand.

This is why I offered 100$ bounty to a reasonable explanation of how, with the evidence provided, that anyone could claim that due to bias, Alykzandir was somehow not guilty.

In order to claim bias one of the first things you would probably need to do, is refute any of the examples provided. I invite you to do so. And even if one of these was his legitimate creation, how does that factor into the others where the same underlying locations, triggers, and unit placement show its origin?

My implication, which I will reinforce here, is that in your previous post you seemed to either put very little effort into conveying your point, or failed at it to a spectacular degree. Your previous post was below what even Google Translate would be able to produce, but I will say on this post you're doing quite a bit better. Maybe you have good and bad days with your English, or perhaps you put more effort in this time.

While I agree that putting in the effort to expose your map to players and having it uploaded in multiple locations can help in mitigating the risk of map theft, it is obviously not a feasible solution for everyone or all situations.

The reasons that Alykzandir is getting so much attention for his thefts are as follows:

1. The number of maps he has stolen. In 22 years of Starcraft I am unaware of any one person who has stolen this many maps.

2. Confirmation of the theft. SCMSCX made it extremely easy to pull the originals for comparison and confirm they were stolen.

3. The lack of effort in the theft. Alykzandir changed so little on some of these maps that it is inconceivable that anyone could think they were not stolen when presented with the original.

4. Alykzandir's complete refusal to discuss or take any responsibility. He has been approached by several people and has refused to explain himself or address any of the evidence presented.

5. The continued risk of further maps being stolen. Because he refuses to admit any fault, it is likely he will continue to steal the maps of others. Some of these thefts were very recent. We are not dealing with a child who does not know better.


I have done plenty of bad things in my life, and there are many moments both in and out of SC that I am not proud of. That said, I am willing to take responsibility for those actions, and apologize to those I may have wronged. As I listed above, Alyk's continued refusal to take responsibility is a key issue here. He resists any level of accoutability or discussion.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on May 4 2023, 3:43 pm by Excalibur.

@excalibur, yea i might not have put much effort into the first of my previous post, tho its not that hard to understand id say.

in matter of biased, one guy used the word some time ago about the map desert strike, i believe what he meant by biased was some likes this version and some likes others, this guy ran from the discussing by silence, a sign of beeing biased loopsided so to speak, where if you as you do put arguments and evidence in the discussing, is sign og experience or knowledge, id say. This link says biased could be understood as: "Being biased is kind of lopsided too: a biased person favors one side or issue over another" link from here https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/biased. and this is what i meant by biased you favor the side who dont like alyk and alyks actions and put effort in spreading that bias, and others might bias the opposite site, that disagree on youre point, this is nothing about beeing untrue or true.

i understand youre point that when evidence is given the word biased doesnt fit in anymore, cause than its not loopsided anymore, yet i havent seen youre evidence etc and cant trust what you say fully.

If what you say is true i surely do agree its not an action id compliment at any point. But theres many actions i wouldnt compliment in the matter of sc, using smurf names, hidding youre id, using ip scan and hack others. By any means sc remaster is still peer to peer and its not that hard to collect ip data and use in bad manner. but if it cannot be proven what then, than its okey or?

in matter of stealing maps its not ok as i also mentioned, but its not that easy to unlock maps, neither eud maps or other lock typed maps as im aware. By any means Alyk could be any of youre friends or you?

But when putting up bad reputaion about a player id, having evidence surely helps for the sake of trustworthyness, yet in a digital world, the evidence it self is valid or?

I dont know, i respect youre words and explanation and the answer you gave, sounding legit in some way to me.

Im a person beeing very skeptic, like dont trust a man from hes clothes.

If you understand my posts as if i put credit to those who steal maps in any manner, you misunderstood me. I just dont believe in neither papers or media or networks just like that.

Can i ask you, what happent 9 11 world trade center? i think alot of people would put money on the evidence that what the media did release was true, yet you are 100% that this is the truth? im not, neither im 100% that its false.

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on May 4 2023, 9:17 pm by GGmano.

@GGMano
If you look at the links in the original post, we have screenshots showing maps Alyk has stolen where the underlying locations, triggers, and unit placement all match. This is the evidence I refer to, and the evidence I would assume anyone posting in this topic would look at before replying.

For this not to qualify as evidence, you would have to claim either Alyk made exactly the same map in exactly the same way with all the things in exactly the same spot, that all the ISOM was generated exactly the same way with the same tiles in the same places, or, the more simple answer is the map was stolen.

Its a very simple matter on some of them, such as Qua'Terras, where so little was changed that is very obviously the same map. The name is effectively the same with RPG swapped for Legend. How would you defend such a blatant theft I wonder? If this was your map, and it was changed this little, wouldn't you feel a little ridiculous if someone asked 'WELL WHAT EVIDENCE DO YOU HAVE?' Its similar to if someone hits your car with their car, and when you ask them for their insurance, sitting there with their car up against yours they say 'WELL WHAT EVIDENCE DO YOU HAVE?'

If I said these two images were of completely different maps by different people, do you think that would be a reasonable thing to say or do you think I might be insulting your intelligence a bit?



Do you see what I mean here?

As reasonable people who possess working brains, we have to consider how many levels of coincidence we're willing to accept. Eventually we have to be willing to look at what is in front of us and make a determination on what we believe, and what is a reasonable thing to accept. I believe with this kind of proof in front of us, there is no other reasonable conclusion.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on May 4 2023, 10:45 pm by Excalibur.

Map theft, still as contentious as ever, I see..

The topic made me remember a map I made a long time ago that got stolen: Control the Ball. Just looked it up on SCMSCX.com out of curiosity and found that the prick who stole it was named Dark(DvS). They renamed it to Capture the Ball and increased the version to the 2s. Ironically enough, someone else (maybe the same person with a new username, name seems similar-ish) named Ds)Orochimaru stole it again, left the name the same but forwarded the version to the 3s.

These days I just laugh at those folks. Imagine how pathetic and sad their lives must be to go around putting their names on other peoples' work and trying to pass it off as their own in hopes of getting some trivial praise from strangers on the internet. Especially as an adult. I can kind of see how kids might think that behavior is cool and rewarding, but to be that desperate as an adult is just sad. I personally take comfort in the knowledge that this sad sack's life is undoubtedly more miserable and torturous than any amount of karmic retribution could be for his acts of plagiarism.

Fanmade content is often just people making "cool stuff" in their free time. As a result, it isn't really often regulated to any degree but there are often unspoken rules. I'd say that a good portion of people are okay with their map being modified and "improved" but would NOT be okay with just removing all credit. I often hear posts from people stating that they are okay with their fanmade content (whether its music, draws, maps, etc.) be used, but they would at least like to be given credit and/or a mention.

In my own personal style, I generally don't mind people modifying my stuff as long as they provide a honorary mention on who the original designer was. I made sure to mention in my posts on the SC1 Reverse series that the original maps I got them from was the Coop-Campaign by r4z0r84. Now the maps look nothing even remotely like they do, but I still used that as a baseline and added their names for honorable mentions in my posts. I also credited the maker of the Starcraft II Reverse series for giving me inspiration for making the maps. The maps themselves, honestly weren't the most well made as I focused on more personal enjoyment and decided to share it (no joke, all 6 campaigns took me about as long as it takes me to make 2 RPG maps).

Finally, a person also emailed me when I was gone asking for permission to modify the map in a different language (which I gave). He responded even after I was absent for 4+ months and I appreciate it.

Long story short, if an author puts themselves in the credits, a person shouldn't be actively removing that original author unless they explicitly stated they wanted to be removed, regardless of whether new stuff was added.

@excalibur i do see what you point out in that screenshot is not hard to see, as i said i tryid same and didnt feel happy about my work beeing covered by another guy.

@ultraviolet, i do find map edits legit tho, if original authors names are keept and more than just one string name is edited, if changing a map from 1s to 2s thats a legit edit to me, i dont know the excakt map you refer to tho, Yet the original authors name should ofcourse be keept. id actually have the openion that even created mechanic systems should be linked to the author, like the spell system on buildings for excample and such mechanics. but who made what mechanics is often not shown. But here the player base really helps cause they know old maps and what author made this and that. without editors that improve and change maps into something even better than original, than the sc map development wouldnt be this good.

ive solved many bugs and created many work arounds for issues that different maps posses, by trial error and reading (many hours of work) yet i havent seen any credit for any of it. ive also invented new mechanics and systems that neither had any credit for its use and purpose, at least not from this network. I did get lots of credit from the players.

Is it possible one person not beeing alyk changing the name string on the qterras map you link too, just to put shame on alyk? or that is not possible? I mean it look like it could have taken less than 10 seconds to do. Why would a map maker long term with respect for him self do such and host the maps still using hes name, wouldnt he be stupid to do so. the only intension in that name string change is bad, but whether it comes from actually alyk or another guy, is hard to see no?

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on May 5 2023, 6:35 am by GGmano.

Being critical and thinking independently is one thing, but ... Occam's Razor; that's all I have to say.

We've been able to confirm through his SCMSCX account activity that he is the source from which all these maps come. Alyk also hosts these stolen copies frequently, including while streaming on Twitch. Any suggestion that someone is impersonating him in these thefts would be, for lack of a better word, stupid.

It isn't a smart thing for him to do, but until I took notice no one had called him out. Like a lot of dumb criminals, he simply assumed he could get away with it.

@nude hehe i like youre excample,,,, if we just used that as main rule for all the decisions humans take, why did we even search for nuclear weapens or chemichal weapons in iraq, rather assume the simple and go into iraq without spending money on some investigators

@excalibur i take youre word on it, since you seem to have so much proff on it, to me it doesnt matter that much, im not friends with alyk, just spoke very few times with him and didnt get the feeling he would steal maps, actually didnt even know he was map maker using hes name, the maps i joined and he hosted was created by others than alyk, so i got the idea that he was helping map makers releasing their maps.

Im surely as others here, against people taking credit for others work and or not respecting others work as they remove original authors names.

Glad to see the community is still active and cares about these types of issues.