I lurk on these forums a lot and I've noticed one really annoying trend among many SC2 mappers, they don't share their editor discoveries. Far to often do I see threads like this or an even better example here.
I think this trend is extremely annoying and detrimental for the whole community. And here is a short list of some reason from the top of my head of why this is bad,
It halts progress, the community would move forward a lot faster if we all could share and build on each others ideas.
The person who originally discovers it is not going to get credit for it if they do not reveal how it is done, once someone else discovers it and reveals it they get the credit.
It is quite rude and selfish as I am sure everyone in this community have learned something from other people in the community through tutorials, forum posts or simply going through map files. So why not give something back to the community?
Now I am not saying that people should share everything they make, merely that new concepts and methods of doing things should be shared for the greater good. If you create a cool system then by all means don't release the source map, but if you are going to post a bragging video of your new cool map system then at the very least give out the general idea of how you do things. If the idea is not shared we just end up with lots of people trying to replicate it (and they will manage eventually) instead of spending their time on doing further research and discoveries.
I will keep this post short, it is late right now and I just rambled down these thoughts as I've seen this trend a lot lately and I really don't like that the community is heading in this direction.
At the moment there isn't any real moderation on the forums. As the game is going to be released and the site will explode, we are going to recruit a moderator team. This will hopefully help keeping a productive climate around here :)
Well, instead of just sharing how it was done he told people to dump the list from the sc2 executable and then he started talking about where you could track it back from. He could have typed out the function name he used on a single line instead of making 4-5 people waste their time digging through the sc2 executable to try to find it.
Well I would suggest maybe writing up an article about why sharing discoveries is important and how it helps the community and progress. As we can't force people to share their discoveries we could maybe convince them by linking them to an article explaining why they should share. I'd be happy to help write up a first draft for such an article if you think this is a good idea.
It's often difficult to balance the interests of individual map makers (let's face it, we do need some unique features to stay ahead of the curve) and the community as a whole.
Personally, I've decided to go with an open source philosophy, and let all of my map's work go completely unprotected. Because my main project is a fairly niche community, I'm hoping that rather than make additional maps unnecessarily, people will simply contribute to my very open codebase. I've even created guides for using the libraries and mods I'm making in their maps.
This doesn't necessarily work for everyone though. It'd be impossible to do that for example, with an RPG map. A good balance, I find, is to release stuff like that on your map only, and then by the time you have a new unique feature to show off, post how you did the old one. Everyone wins that way, some people just win later, and the person who discovers it gets to reap the rewards first.
I'd say just make it so talking about some great thing you did while refusing to explain how you do it is bannable (or at least probatable) except in the Project Workplace forum. If people want to brag about some cool thing they did whi go for it but it doesn't belong in any of the help forums unless its in the context of helping people.
I'd say just make it so talking about some great thing you did while refusing to explain how you do it is bannable (or at least probatable) except in the Project Workplace forum. If people want to brag about some cool thing they did whi go for it but it doesn't belong in any of the help forums unless its in the context of helping people.
I completely disagree. The more you show off your work the easier it is for people to pick apart at it and learn from it (ie. reverse engineer it). There's usually only so many ways to create one effect, and they're usually obvious after a little study.
Banning people for their progress is just stupid and reeks of jealousy when it does happen.
That said, it makes them look like asshats. But that's their prerogative.
Also remember early on there was a demonstration of a physics engine that had a ball floating around. It made it to the front page and afaik I never saw source for it. It was nonetheless an important discovery and inspired other people to strive for even more advanced things in the editor, and showed the extent of what you could do with SC2's physics.
I completely disagree. The more you show off your work the easier it is for people to pick apart at it and learn from it (ie. reverse engineer it). There's usually only so many ways to create one effect, and they're usually obvious after a little study. Banning people for their progress is just stupid and reeks of jealousy when it does happen.
That said, it makes them look like asshats. But that's their prerogative.
I didn't say ban them for their progress. I said ban or probate people who brag in the help forums without offering anything constructive. In case you hadn't noticed, those forums are for helping people. If you just want to show off there's a forum just for that.
I don't give a damn about people not sharing their "secrets" but if you want to maintain a good signal-to-noise ratio in a forum (especially a technical help/advice forum) you need to enforce a policy of constructive posting only.
Sorry, I missed the exception "except in the Project Workplace forum." People who ask for help and only get bragging about features would simply fall under existing rules that I assume cover topic hijacking or just general off-topic behavior.
I lurk on these forums a lot and I've noticed one really annoying trend among many SC2 mappers, they don't share their editor discoveries. Far to often do I see threads like this or an even better example here.
Anyway, I completely agree. Sharing knowledge is the way to go. I don't think it would be a good idea to ban bragging, because people would just stop posting about it then. This way we wouldn't only not know how to do it, but not even if it was possible.
agh i know what you mean man, im pretty bad for keeping things to myself lol, and especially with my recent post about the map im working on =/ maybe i might hyave a change of heart
Anyway, I completely agree. Sharing knowledge is the way to go. I don't think it would be a good idea to ban bragging, because people would just stop posting about it then. This way we wouldn't only not know how to do it, but not even if it was possible.
That is indeed good news, glad to see they decided to share how to do that.
This doesn't necessarily work for everyone though. It'd be impossible to do that for example, with an RPG map. A good balance, I find, is to release stuff like that on your map only, and then by the time you have a new unique feature to show off, post how you did the old one. Everyone wins that way, some people just win later, and the person who discovers it gets to reap the rewards first.
While the idea is good I think this still is not good for development progress, once you show off a cool new feature or that you discovered how to do something many people have been asking for you will most likely have lots of people trying to reverse engineer it. Thus if the basics of the idea (not the entire map) is shared right away we don't end up with lots of people wasting time trying to re-invent the wheel. In many cases it will probably be bad for the person who originally discovered it as well, because:
As I mentioned earlier you won't get credit for it if you don't share how to do it before someone else does it
If you don't share you get a reputation for being an ass.
If you reveal how to do something chances are other people will improve on it and perhaps discover new things that you can benefit from
When one person doesn't share others will follow their example and keep their code to themselves as well
I think what we need to do is work to change the mindset of the people in the community who currently do not share. Because their reluctance to share will most likely influence other people/new people in the community and we just get into a bad circle where everyone think they should keep their discoveries secret so no one else "copies their ideas".
If we look at the WC3 mapping community we all know how futile this is, no new concepts or ideas stay secret for very long. And the maps that make it big are not the maps that implement some new fancy feature that no one else has, in fact I can't think of a single map that is popular just because of some niche feature that only that map has. All the popular maps are the best of their genre with plenty of not as good clones floating around.
I think we need to avoid punishing people for not sharing as that will never work, but rather we should encourage sharing. I think the first step in that direction would be to write up an article about why sharing is important and why it is futile and pointless to try to keep a new discovery a secret. Then I think we need to get the major contributors in the community to try to spread the idea that discoveries should be shared, perhaps by posting said article in the news on mapster and whenever someone refuses to share simply link them over to the article (instead of flaming them/punishing them for it).
If someone has any better ideas or other good ideas on how to change the mindset of some of our community members then please share them with us.
THAT WAS NOT MY SYSTEM AND I HAD NO PERMISSION TO LEAK IT.
Would you be happy that you are developing Highly Advanced Nuclear Bomb, and you are sharing progress with me.
Now I take those "beta" scripts and show them to russians so they can get all the reputation instead ?
I AM ALWAYS SHARING MY THINGS, AND I AM HELPING PEOPLE ON THIS FORUM. I always use open source maps. So get off my back.
I feel really offended now.
Because some brainless kids cant understand thing, OR DONT KNOW HOW TO READ PROPERLY, and then they start blaming people THAT ARE TRYING TO HELP EVERYONE else.
Im following up on this community quite alot and i don't quite see this as a "trend".
There are a few who show-off their descoveries for their upcomming maps but don't nesesarily post details about them, but i would much much rather see their show-off than not seeing anything at all. First of all its inspiring and you maybe get new ideas on how to approach stuff.
And both of the examples are not that great in my honest oppinion.
For the first example serval people have allready told and talked about how its possible to track the mouse cursor in 3D space by creating invisible units and use the highlight check to see where your mouse is located, the 2nd one was me babbing on about something i was not 100% sure how i did. So i decided to post just the direct memory offset to the cvar so anyone who had the time could find the function (its not like im deliberately trying to hold something back there).
But don't get me wrong. I am 100% with you on the fact that i think that people should share their knowledge and that it is healthy for the community, just seeing what some of the posts in the tutorial section have done to the maps made in the days after their publication.
But with that said, i don't see any "trends", rather some rare occasions and usually people speak up when you ask them about it, atleast that is my impression from my surfing around on these forums.
Wait, calm down, don't lose control over something this trivial, remember you're both just trying to help further improvement, you can have your differences but please try to resolve misunderstandings before these sorts of things happen.
Anyways, I really don't agree with people having to share their 'discoveries', it helps mappers if they find these things out independendly sure sharing to some extent would be nice but it's fine now as it is, as long as you show the possibility and maybe give a hint or two then I think that'd be fine
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I lurk on these forums a lot and I've noticed one really annoying trend among many SC2 mappers, they don't share their editor discoveries. Far to often do I see threads like this or an even better example here.
I think this trend is extremely annoying and detrimental for the whole community. And here is a short list of some reason from the top of my head of why this is bad,
Now I am not saying that people should share everything they make, merely that new concepts and methods of doing things should be shared for the greater good. If you create a cool system then by all means don't release the source map, but if you are going to post a bragging video of your new cool map system then at the very least give out the general idea of how you do things. If the idea is not shared we just end up with lots of people trying to replicate it (and they will manage eventually) instead of spending their time on doing further research and discoveries.
I will keep this post short, it is late right now and I just rambled down these thoughts as I've seen this trend a lot lately and I really don't like that the community is heading in this direction.
I completely agree.
At the moment there isn't any real moderation on the forums. As the game is going to be released and the site will explode, we are going to recruit a moderator team. This will hopefully help keeping a productive climate around here :)
the second of your examples is actually contradictory to what you said. He showed how it was done and which values he tested.
@BlinkHawk: Go
Well, instead of just sharing how it was done he told people to dump the list from the sc2 executable and then he started talking about where you could track it back from. He could have typed out the function name he used on a single line instead of making 4-5 people waste their time digging through the sc2 executable to try to find it.
@vjeux: Go
Well I would suggest maybe writing up an article about why sharing discoveries is important and how it helps the community and progress. As we can't force people to share their discoveries we could maybe convince them by linking them to an article explaining why they should share. I'd be happy to help write up a first draft for such an article if you think this is a good idea.
I shared my discovering that animated portraits are actually normal model files. Where's my medal?
It's often difficult to balance the interests of individual map makers (let's face it, we do need some unique features to stay ahead of the curve) and the community as a whole.
Personally, I've decided to go with an open source philosophy, and let all of my map's work go completely unprotected. Because my main project is a fairly niche community, I'm hoping that rather than make additional maps unnecessarily, people will simply contribute to my very open codebase. I've even created guides for using the libraries and mods I'm making in their maps.
This doesn't necessarily work for everyone though. It'd be impossible to do that for example, with an RPG map. A good balance, I find, is to release stuff like that on your map only, and then by the time you have a new unique feature to show off, post how you did the old one. Everyone wins that way, some people just win later, and the person who discovers it gets to reap the rewards first.
I did it watching first gameplays before beta. I saw few with different graph settings and found out.
Seriously: People are keeping their secrets like they thought that there will be a marketplace.
I'd say just make it so talking about some great thing you did while refusing to explain how you do it is bannable (or at least probatable) except in the Project Workplace forum. If people want to brag about some cool thing they did whi go for it but it doesn't belong in any of the help forums unless its in the context of helping people.
I completely disagree. The more you show off your work the easier it is for people to pick apart at it and learn from it (ie. reverse engineer it). There's usually only so many ways to create one effect, and they're usually obvious after a little study. Banning people for their progress is just stupid and reeks of jealousy when it does happen.
That said, it makes them look like asshats. But that's their prerogative.
well you can always use an MPQ editor once he releases his map to learn of it ;).
Plus you guys know the say: "A good wizard never reveals his secrets". The ugly truth, isn't it?
@BlinkHawk: Go
Also remember early on there was a demonstration of a physics engine that had a ball floating around. It made it to the front page and afaik I never saw source for it. It was nonetheless an important discovery and inspired other people to strive for even more advanced things in the editor, and showed the extent of what you could do with SC2's physics.
I didn't say ban them for their progress. I said ban or probate people who brag in the help forums without offering anything constructive. In case you hadn't noticed, those forums are for helping people. If you just want to show off there's a forum just for that.
I don't give a damn about people not sharing their "secrets" but if you want to maintain a good signal-to-noise ratio in a forum (especially a technical help/advice forum) you need to enforce a policy of constructive posting only.
@RileyStarcraft: Go
Sorry, I missed the exception "except in the Project Workplace forum." People who ask for help and only get bragging about features would simply fall under existing rules that I assume cover topic hijacking or just general off-topic behavior.
Regarding the first example: http://forums.sc2mapster.com/general/team-recruitment/5180-any-coder-out-there-wiling-to-help/#p9. I know that wasn't there when you made the thread, but it's still good news :)
Anyway, I completely agree. Sharing knowledge is the way to go. I don't think it would be a good idea to ban bragging, because people would just stop posting about it then. This way we wouldn't only not know how to do it, but not even if it was possible.
@s3rius: Go
agh i know what you mean man, im pretty bad for keeping things to myself lol, and especially with my recent post about the map im working on =/ maybe i might hyave a change of heart
That is indeed good news, glad to see they decided to share how to do that.
While the idea is good I think this still is not good for development progress, once you show off a cool new feature or that you discovered how to do something many people have been asking for you will most likely have lots of people trying to reverse engineer it. Thus if the basics of the idea (not the entire map) is shared right away we don't end up with lots of people wasting time trying to re-invent the wheel. In many cases it will probably be bad for the person who originally discovered it as well, because:
I think what we need to do is work to change the mindset of the people in the community who currently do not share. Because their reluctance to share will most likely influence other people/new people in the community and we just get into a bad circle where everyone think they should keep their discoveries secret so no one else "copies their ideas".
If we look at the WC3 mapping community we all know how futile this is, no new concepts or ideas stay secret for very long. And the maps that make it big are not the maps that implement some new fancy feature that no one else has, in fact I can't think of a single map that is popular just because of some niche feature that only that map has. All the popular maps are the best of their genre with plenty of not as good clones floating around.
I think we need to avoid punishing people for not sharing as that will never work, but rather we should encourage sharing. I think the first step in that direction would be to write up an article about why sharing is important and why it is futile and pointless to try to keep a new discovery a secret. Then I think we need to get the major contributors in the community to try to spread the idea that discoveries should be shared, perhaps by posting said article in the news on mapster and whenever someone refuses to share simply link them over to the article (instead of flaming them/punishing them for it).
If someone has any better ideas or other good ideas on how to change the mindset of some of our community members then please share them with us.
haha, cut me out of here.
THAT WAS NOT MY SYSTEM AND I HAD NO PERMISSION TO LEAK IT.
Would you be happy that you are developing Highly Advanced Nuclear Bomb, and you are sharing progress with me.
Now I take those "beta" scripts and show them to russians so they can get all the reputation instead ?
I AM ALWAYS SHARING MY THINGS, AND I AM HELPING PEOPLE ON THIS FORUM. I always use open source maps. So get off my back.
I feel really offended now.
Because some brainless kids cant understand thing, OR DONT KNOW HOW TO READ PROPERLY, and then they start blaming people THAT ARE TRYING TO HELP EVERYONE else.
@Beider: Go
Im following up on this community quite alot and i don't quite see this as a "trend". There are a few who show-off their descoveries for their upcomming maps but don't nesesarily post details about them, but i would much much rather see their show-off than not seeing anything at all. First of all its inspiring and you maybe get new ideas on how to approach stuff.
And both of the examples are not that great in my honest oppinion. For the first example serval people have allready told and talked about how its possible to track the mouse cursor in 3D space by creating invisible units and use the highlight check to see where your mouse is located, the 2nd one was me babbing on about something i was not 100% sure how i did. So i decided to post just the direct memory offset to the cvar so anyone who had the time could find the function (its not like im deliberately trying to hold something back there).
But don't get me wrong. I am 100% with you on the fact that i think that people should share their knowledge and that it is healthy for the community, just seeing what some of the posts in the tutorial section have done to the maps made in the days after their publication.
But with that said, i don't see any "trends", rather some rare occasions and usually people speak up when you ask them about it, atleast that is my impression from my surfing around on these forums.
Wait, calm down, don't lose control over something this trivial, remember you're both just trying to help further improvement, you can have your differences but please try to resolve misunderstandings before these sorts of things happen.
Anyways, I really don't agree with people having to share their 'discoveries', it helps mappers if they find these things out independendly sure sharing to some extent would be nice but it's fine now as it is, as long as you show the possibility and maybe give a hint or two then I think that'd be fine