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Piracy is a problem on the Android app store, and many devs have to take things into their own hands to deter it: http://www.androidtapp.com/android-developers-deter-piracy-with-automatic-application-licensing/
Are you really gonna pay $2.99 for a map if you can just as easily go get it from someone else? Of course not. Piracy on both the Apple app store and the Android store is deterred by the fact that it's a lot more work to do, but it still happens. By doing what they're doing, Blizzard is gonna be able to cut map piracy down to almost 0%.
That being said, I think Blizzard is going overboard with the censorship of certain words in maps, I'll give you that, but I do think they have a right to control the content somewhat, or at least make sure there isn't content that's grossly offensive in maps+mods.
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On June 01 2010 01:58 ElectricGrandpa wrote:Piracy is a problem on the Android app store, and many devs have to take things into their own hands to deter it: http://www.androidtapp.com/android-developers-deter-piracy-with-automatic-application-licensing/ Are you really gonna pay $2.99 for a map if you can just as easily go get it from someone else? Of course not. Piracy on both the Apple app store and the Android store is deterred by the fact that it's a lot more work to do, but it still happens. By doing what they're doing, Blizzard is gonna be able to cut map piracy down to almost 0%. That being said, I think Blizzard is going overboard with the censorship of certain words in maps, I'll give you that, but I do think they have a right to control the content somewhat, or at least make sure there isn't content that's grossly offensive in maps+mods.
They have arbitrarily made names of countless countries and words that are common-language words in other languages censored. Taiwan is censored, Africa is censored, geil, the german/dutch word for horny is censored, but horny is not, lmao is not censored but the word ass is, and many many more weird/strange censoring. You can easily turn off the mature language filter, but I'd really love to see why they figured to censor the random words they have selected.
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I want to say its because of all the legality issues of making a game right now since Gaming is becoming more popular than movies so it needs more specific control. Like MW2 + 9 year olds and GTA being blamed for violence and Piracy. I think thats one of the many causes for censorship but honestly, WTF! Its distasteful stupid and exaggerated at the lengths they're going to apply this kind of control especially with the size restrictions and why they are even placed there in the first place. Theres little to no justification for most of the crap they've punched out on SC2. It already feels like a Burning Crusade expansion or a Microsoft takeover but I feel like Microsoft would've done better. Its not like Blizzard NEEDS the money this badly since they've already have a perfect cash cow producing revenue like a Zerg 4 base.
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On June 01 2010 01:58 ElectricGrandpa wrote:Piracy is a problem on the Android app store, and many devs have to take things into their own hands to deter it: http://www.androidtapp.com/android-developers-deter-piracy-with-automatic-application-licensing/ Are you really gonna pay $2.99 for a map if you can just as easily go get it from someone else? Of course not. Piracy on both the Apple app store and the Android store is deterred by the fact that it's a lot more work to do, but it still happens. By doing what they're doing, Blizzard is gonna be able to cut map piracy down to almost 0%. That being said, I think Blizzard is going overboard with the censorship of certain words in maps, I'll give you that, but I do think they have a right to control the content somewhat, or at least make sure there isn't content that's grossly offensive in maps+mods.
But ultimately, the android model is a lot better... open platforms have been shown to be hugely beneficial in the past, even if closed ones have success in the short term. I'm sure you've seen how companies inevitably abuse complete power over devs. Map DRM is just not worth it.
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spent all my evening playing custom games...
then i watched streams here playing custom games....
i want those US server maps, they're way cooler! 
so i tried uploading some i got off sc2mapster, but i have no idea how to get something publicly "recognized" that is not battlecraft....
do not like
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The maps are all locally stored (C:\ProgramData\Blizzard Entertainment\Battle.net\Cache on Vista) so not having local hosting of the maps is pretty pointless as it stands right now.
If they so much as make Premium maps show up in that folder or anywhere else locally then all it goings to take is 1 person to buy it for everyone to play it.
We don't know what kind of protection Premium maps will have but their current protection scheme is worthless if you can make the connection that .s2ma files are .SC2Map files, locked maps can be opened without restriction in the editor.
The only difference between a locked map and an unlocked map is the lack of the GUI data for the triggers with the galaxy script itself untouched along with everything else.
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Not to mention that any protection they do use will eventually be cracked if there's enough demand for it (and/or if someone just has a bit of free time). From there, the map can likely be modified ever so slightly and either uploaded as a free, published map (forcing Blizzard to police that excessively or to try and implement some automated method of detecting these maps which would likely require name/unit recognition and which would have a high probability of false-positives and screwing-over regular mappers), or played on a cracked server or local crack or whatever.
I mean, if we're going to use the whole "app store" analogy (not the greatest of analogies) for this, consider that there is plenty of piracy on the iPhone courtesy of the fact that jailbroken iPhones completely subvert the system and remove the tight integration and total control that Apple relies upon. Granted, you could argue that it's the difference between console and PC piracy, but then this is a PC game so while Bnet may try to exert Apple-like control...
And again, this all ignores that when you give the developer more control, you're generally going to get a better product which, well we could have Blizzard eat their own words there about the best way to combat piracy being to simply offer people what they want  But if Blizzard actually meant that I'd be able to play with my friend from Norway on Bnet and I could partake in a LAN party where the game is unplayable for 8 hours because Battle.net is down.
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Bill307
Canada9103 Posts
On May 27 2010 03:02 Xanrae wrote:
- Region locking for published maps! If you have an Euro account, you can only publish maps in Europe. To publish them elsewhere, you need to ...buy more accounts. Gee, I wonder why this would be.
To be fair, that's really not a big deal. Just ask a friend with a European account to publish the map on the Euro server, for instance.
But ideally, there shouldn't be region-locking for players at all.
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Australia6113 Posts
I think this needs a bump.
For most of the beta I've been playing nothing but custom games and the current system is so bad. Throughout the few months of beta you will pretty much only see around 20-30 games on the list. Every single day its the same games on top of the list, you never get to see any different games.
What needs to happen is for a better search. For example:
- Search by popularity
- Search by ratings
- Serach by categories (eg. tower defence, sports, shooters...)
- Search by date uploaded (eg. anytime, this week, today...)
Right now Battle.net 2.0 is soooo underwhelming, in fact it's crap.
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On June 01 2010 01:58 ElectricGrandpa wrote:Piracy is a problem on the Android app store, and many devs have to take things into their own hands to deter it: http://www.androidtapp.com/android-developers-deter-piracy-with-automatic-application-licensing/ Are you really gonna pay $2.99 for a map if you can just as easily go get it from someone else? Of course not. Piracy on both the Apple app store and the Android store is deterred by the fact that it's a lot more work to do, but it still happens. By doing what they're doing, Blizzard is gonna be able to cut map piracy down to almost 0%. That being said, I think Blizzard is going overboard with the censorship of certain words in maps, I'll give you that, but I do think they have a right to control the content somewhat, or at least make sure there isn't content that's grossly offensive in maps+mods.
The big question here is: Should mapmaking be turned into "just another business"? IMO the answer is NO. People have made maps and mods for free all the time just for the fun of it and its only recently that businessmen have barged in and closed doors to this possibility. Sure there are tons of "variations" of certain maps where only minor tweaks are applied by someone, but shouldnt that be solved easily by being able to have "read and use only" capability on a map in the editor unless you know a password to avoid such a flood of different versions? Sure this can be cracked, but those people wont be deterred by anything Blizzard cooks up either and they are a minority.
In any case THIS IS A GAME whose primary purpose should be to make our lives happier and not to make money for anyone.
In any way comparing making custom maps and mods with apps is quite ridiculous IMO.
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Well, if blizzard does everything to make your life miserable as a modder why don't you just show them your middle finger and mod some other game? o0
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On July 11 2010 00:18 David Dark wrote:
Well, if blizzard does everything to make your life miserable as a modder why don't you just show them your middle finger and mod some other game? o0
Maybe because Starcraft 2 is a game we all love and there is not exactly a replacement available? Its not like your bread or cheese or meat, where you can get something similar from a different brand easily if one of them pissed you off. Starcraft is Starcraft and there isnt anything remotely like it.
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This was an awesome post and and really opened my eyes to how limited the SC2 editor really is.
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God, well said OP. These restrictions are ludicrous. Starcraft: Brood War, and Warcraft 3 both spawned multitudes of great custom games and related content thanks to the editors and the mapping/modding communities. Now, Starcraft 2 having even greater potential for custom content, it pains me to see these ridiculous restrictions.
Although they have done many things right, it shocks me to see activisionblizzard create so many wrong things with this release. I cant help but think we would be in a better world if it wasn't for that fateful merger.
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So as long as you save your maps, whats wrong with only being able to share 5 at a time? You can always change your mind or bring one back later,,right? Lame, sure. But it's not like it's one and done,is it?
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I'm no modder or mapmaker but i absolutely loved the work people did in BW and the easy to use and understand interface we were given play these maps.
like i remember playing a ton of Helms Deep Annatar and often somebody would lag out cuz it takes a lot of players and then somebody could just say "re" and you could easily find the same game with the same people simply because of it's name. well now that isn't possible unless you have those people as friends and join stupid parties like it's WoW. even though half what you wrote didn't make sense to me cuz im very ignorant to how modding and mapmaking works i really agree with you about all the failures that are in this Battle.net 2.0. honestly I don't see why they felt they needed to change anything except adding a good ladder system. i would have been completely and 100% happy and satisfied if bnet 2.0 was EXACTLY like the original except with obviously updated graphics and menu look and all the goofy lil awards and achievements for the people who care about that type of thing. I just can't get it through my head how somebody could fail this miserably at making an online multiplayer service. all it seems to work for is for people who literally have no friends or talk to nobody on battle.net and just ladder 2 or 3 games a day and say sup to their facebook buddies. this service is downright god awful and i just wish that somehow magically it would just change back into the regular battle.net. It actually makes me so angry to even talk or read about it that i feel like storming in blizzard's front door and smackin the lot of them. i really wish people got right into a riot about it at blizzcon when they presented it. i feel like that was our only chance to actually voice our opinions.
NOTE: to everyone that is going to the next blizzcon plz for the rest of us. start bitching at them about the new battle.net until they can't take it anymore PLZ!
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I despise the 5 map limit but that's about all.
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On July 10 2010 20:54 Highways wrote:
I think this needs a bump.
For most of the beta I've been playing nothing but custom games and the current system is so bad. Throughout the few months of beta you will pretty much only see around 20-30 games on the list. Every single day its the same games on top of the list, you never get to see any different games.
What needs to happen is for a better search. For example:
- Search by popularity
- Search by ratings
- Serach by categories (eg. tower defence, sports, shooters...)
- Search by date uploaded (eg. anytime, this week, today...)
Right now Battle.net 2.0 is soooo underwhelming, in fact it's crap.
How about currently occupied lobbies? I thought that's what the "new only" checkbox did, but 95% of the time I chose a custom game past the first 2 pages, there was no one in the lobby. Meanwhile, people on page 5 and 6 sit and sit and sit in the lobby for their awesome new map and no one will EVER join without it somehow being publicized outside of the game list.
It doesn't make any sense. You can have a dozen people all wanting to play a new custom game, and all will randomly choose some new one on page 23, but they'll all end up just sitting in a dozen different empty lobbies because there are 30 maps with "1 game in the last hour." I'm hoping they fix the "new only" or have SOME way of at least having the option of giving the list priority based on what games ACTUALLY EXIST.
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thx for the bump. what blizzard has done with this whole system is crazy. who comes up with this shit?
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EPT
