Purposely broken "exclusive" server maps

[sneaK]

Hey guys, I just wanted to start a little discussion here, and mods if this is in the wrong section I apologize. The off topic section for some reason is nested under AMX, and this is more sourcemod related than it would be AMX related.

Tonight while testing maps for my new CS:GO B-Hop server, I ran across a map that had an additional bhop_*.txt file along with it. This file read (censored server and author's name):

Map Created By <Author>

Property of <Server X> - <Author>

Server IP: <Server X>:27015

Website: www.<ServerX> .com

**This Map Is Exclusive To <Server X>. If You Are Playing This Map On A Different Server, Please Report Them To Our Staff.**

Now, presented this in the loading screen I was taken aback. Back since I started playing in CS 1.6, map authors were nothing but excited to get their maps out, into the community. Nowadays I see surf maps ported from CSS, purposely broken teleports that need to get fixed using stripper, now this.

This seems incredibly petty, and a cheap "draw" for server owners to use. "Hey, we have more maps than the next server!" Funny enough, most of these "broken" maps are patched with stripper files by anyone knowledgeable, and fairly quickly as well. For typical players, they don't care at all, but seeing this makes me lose all respect for server owners who do this sort of thing.

I just wanted to hear everyone else's opinions about this. Is it fair game that some servers have their own exclusive maps, or is it just a cheap trick?

[PartialCloning]

Many mappers did this in 1.6 too. But again anyone with a little knowledge of how maps work were able to bypass these protections.

I don't see the problem with them doing that. It's nice to share but it's also nice to keep things private if you're running a community and you want it to be unique. It's no different to running private plugins, they just have to take different measures to try to keep others from taking their maps.

[aexi0n]

First off the map wasn't simply ported, that would be stealing. It was created from scratch for that specific server. It's certainly okay for server owners to do this as many mappers spend a lot of time creating a map only to have it be played improperly or be broken on servers using it without the proper plugins.

Honestly in terms of petty I would say going to all the trouble to decompile/recompile a map just to blatantly go around the creators wishes is pretty sad on its own.

[sneaK]

Many mappers did this in 1.6 too. But again anyone with a little knowledge of how maps work were able to bypass these protections.

I don't see the problem with them doing that. It's nice to share but it's also nice to keep things private if you're running a community and you want it to be unique. It's no different to running private plugins, they just have to take different measures to try to keep others from taking their maps.

That's an interesting take on it, I suppose it is similar to private plugins, however isn't something like a custom model/map that anyone could use. Also, I didn't even realize this happened in 1.6. A long time ago in 1.6 I used to host a few FY/AIM servers, and those didn't really have this issue.

First off the map wasn't simply ported, that would be stealing. It was created from scratch for that specific server. It's certainly okay for server owners to do this as many mappers spend a lot of time creating a map only to have it be played improperly or be broken on servers using it without the proper plugins.

Honestly in terms of petty I would say going to all the trouble to decompile/recompile a map just to blatantly go around the creators wishes is pretty sad on its own.

Right, sorry if I was unclear, I was trying to hit both points, newly created maps AND ported maps. For a port example, Mr. Cow created surf_milkyway for CSS, and it was eventually ported by someone for CS:GO. Whoever ported it (who was NOT the map author), purposely broke teleports and released it to a certain few server owners. The map wasn't his creation. While it was nice of him to port the map, it is scummy to use someone else's hard work for his own personal gain. Within 20 minutes (when I had no idea what I was doing with Stripper) I was able to fix all but one teleport. Most of the time you don't even need to decompile the map, simply dump the entities and figure it out from there. There are actually a lot of surf maps that have been broken, in fact with Zipcore's timer there was a huge list of stripper files that fixed a lot of errors and/or purposely broken things.

The map I was looking at was indeed "made for a specific server", but it only appears as though the spawns were broken. Overall, it's a pretty low quality map that I don't plan on including in my server anyways, but what's to stop me from fixing that and running it? If someone notices and runs to "Server X" admins and tattles, what could they do about it? Hint: Nothing.

Players want variety, and if they don't want to play a good map on some shit server, they should have the opportunity to play it somewhere else. As with surf maps, it's only a matter of time until the map makes its way around to begin with.

[aexi0n]

If it was low-quality why were you so compelled to decompile it and create a thread here regarding it. Now you're just wasting everyone's time with a question that you already knew the answer too. Is it ethical/respectable to use something that was meant to be private? No. Will you continue to do it anyway? More than likely.

Honestly not sure what response you were looking for.

[sneaK]

If it was low-quality why were you so compelled to decompile it and create a thread here regarding it. Now you're just wasting everyone's time with a question that you already knew the answer too. Is it ethical/respectable to use something that was meant to be private? No. Will you continue to do it anyway? More than likely.

Honestly not sure what response you were looking for.

Wait, what? Did you read what I wrote? The map that I ran across that I believed to be low quality, I didn't touch. Did a quick run through, didn't like it, so I'm not going to waste my time on it. I haven't needed to decompile any maps to fix with Stripper, in fact I don't even know of what tools are available to decompile maps. stripper_dump is the only tool I need. :)

Obviously I know where you stand on this, considering you recognize the text from above. I didn't make this thread to start an argument, I created it simply because I was curious to see what people's opinions were on the topic, and create some healthy discussion/debate. If you don't wish to be a part of the discussion/debate any more, you don't have to be, the only time you're supposedly wasting is your own, since it's your choice. There's no right or wrong answer, and ultimately people can do what they want with their content.