I just had a thought: Couldn't you make a trigger to display "Map made by <whatever>" when the map starts, and use a EUD to detect it? Then you use that EUD somewhere else in the map. Then if anyone changes/removes the message, the map fucks up, right?

I suppose it wouldn't be /that/ hard to beat it, but if you "hid" the triggers (eg. made the EUD look like it did something else) and combined this with normal protection and some other tricks I've thought of (I'll post them if anyone wants) it will get /some/ map stealers frustrated enough to give up, I think.

It wouldn't be that hard, and I'm sure most map stealers would have no idea, it would actually be funny, seeing them try to steal it, then when they play it have it screw up. I think it might be possible to just check the string table to see if it's right.(Not sure if that's within range of EUDs)

I kinda dont like the idea, because most people will not know why the map is screwed, so they will dislike it.

It's better than it being stolen and rigged.

Only the stolen ones would get fucked. People wouldn't dislike the working unstolen one; which is the fucking point.

This should work really well, unless they alter the string in any way (like if they put 'Originally made by' instead of just 'Made by' or just changed some text colors around.)

Or they could create another string instantly after the first string plays.

"Map Created By: LOL"
wait 1 milisecond
"Map Created By: OWNED"

...What?


In which case they are stealing your map...

So, anyone want to make a test map? I would, but I don't know how to use EUDs...

Always,

Wait 1 milisecond.
Display text message "Map Created By: LOL".
Wait 1 milisecond.
Display text message "Map Created By: OWNED".

It still detects the original string, but an additional string overlays it.

No, they would be properly crediting you.

I would, but I am lazy.

Question: Can force names or Leaderboard labels be detected with EUDs? People can't override those with a trigger like Vi3t-X mentioned doing to beat text message protection.

And I see what you're saying about people accidentally changing the strings. You could add a comment, "DO NOT CHANGE THIS TRIGGER AT ALL", or something like that...

Yes.

I don't know where the leaderboard label is, but it can be (as it is) altered by triggers.

Yeah, they could just keep your string and then put their new one, right over it, they could even have a bunch of blank lines so yours is erased.

Although, most people would give up as soon as it doesn't work the first or second time.

That would still make the trigger fail, and you could check it for a duration rather than once.

Well, I thought of another problem with this: If a patch comes that screws around with your EUDs, your map is sure to not work anymore

Not necessarily true. 1.15.3 didn't explode my EUD map.

That's why I said if a patch did mess them up, I know it won't necessarily, but as soon as it happens, your map becomes immediately obsolete and everyone who it was spread to now has to redownload, so unless it was super popular, you'd never get it there.

Then add a trigger that checks if a EUD that can't be changed easily (eg. Control type [Computer/Human], or if you can detect it, map type - it would be almost impossible to change a Brood War map into a non-BW map without messing something up) is the right value. If all of the players detect the wrong value, then turn off the "fuck-up-the-map" triggers. The end result is that if a patch messed up the EUD, then the map will still play. In theory.

And then your map also completely loses its protection it had before, so as soon as a patch comes out that messes with EUDs, it becomes wide open to steal.

Well, still it's better than nothing.
I'm not familiar with EUDs, but it seems that if someone edited the map, they would almost certainly credit you in the wrong way



Thank you Farty. So they might change it to Made by Tazz and RandomEditor instead of Originally made by Tazz. I don't know EUD's but it seems like the way to fix this would be to simply detect if the word "TassadarZeratul" is used in the mission briefings or whatever. That way it'd still be editable. Course there's ways around this, and if the player knows EUDS, after a while of checking out the triggers they would see that there's an EUD condition making sure your name is there, right? Alternatively you could simply make the mission briefings un-editable, which would make it so that the player would have to have a trigger that's like

Always
Display "MADE BY (X)FOXCHEATERER(X) NOT TASSADARZERATUL"
"MADE BY (X)FOXCHEATERER(X) NOT TASSADARZERATUL"
"MADE BY (X)FOXCHEATERER(X) NOT TASSADARZERATUL"
"MADE BY (X)FOXCHEATERER(X) NOT TASSADARZERATUL"
"MADE BY (X)FOXCHEATERER(X) NOT TASSADARZERATUL"

Anyways, clever idea, Tazz.