Mapmakers, Reclaim your Maps

Angelspit · Unread postby **Angelspit** » 21 Mar 2007, 18:17

Some mapmakers told me to take a look at the <a href="/http://www.heroesportal.net/maps.php?lang=english">map section of HeroesPortal</a>, a long-time fan site with a fairly large map database. Some well-known Heroes V maps are listed there (including Fury of the Elements, Tales of Silentia and A Death Knight's Journey), but without credit to the original author and without any readme file. I got the following explanation from one of their administrators:

<i>"When our players send us a map and we don't know who created it, it is being placed there temporarily until the author appears or we find him. Readme files we do not post at all in our "Maps" section, so even if a map contains such a file, the fans who send it to us remove it in purpose. (...) I cannot look for the author of each map myself, but what I will gladly do - if you or somebody else will give me the names of our HMM5 maps which are currently posted under "unknown" user, I'll create author profiles in our database and transfer all their works to them."</i>

Since HeroesPortal is willing to make the appropriate changes with the missing information, I suggest all mapmakers take a minute to search for their maps there, and <a href="mailto:team@heroesportal.net">contact the HeroesPortal team</a> to request any change. I still don't understand why Heroes mapmakers have a hard time getting the recognition they deserve, compared to Neverwinter Nights modmakers for instance, but hopefully we can work together to improve the situation.

If you would like to take a look at the original page visit this link:
https://www.celestialheavens.com/1174501035

Sir Charles · Unread postby **Sir Charles** » 21 Mar 2007, 19:14

Sleazy practice. That just really irritates me. :-( They can make the effort to add an attached readme file that contains a link to thier site (as if THEY made it) but they can't type in the map's name in a search engine to get the author's name? Give me a break.
Edited on Wed, Mar 21 2007, 12:16 by Sir Charles

arturchix · Unread postby **arturchix** » 21 Mar 2007, 19:25

Well said, Sir Charles. I hope HeroesPortal will clear up this matter themselves and not wait when mapmakers will start to send in protests.

Campaigner · Unread postby **Campaigner** » 21 Mar 2007, 19:48

I guess the admin don't care who made a map.

Angelspit wrote: I still don't understand why Heroes mapmakers have a hard time getting the recognition they deserve, compared to Neverwinter Nights modmakers for instance, but hopefully we can work together to improve the situation.

I can explain that. NWN is a popular game. Heroes is a nichegame which people don't like as much as NWN.

arturchix · Unread postby **arturchix** » 21 Mar 2007, 20:01

Does that mean you don't value user made maps highly? And what kind of excuse is that their admin doesn't care who made a map? I'm sure HeroesPortal wouldn't be very happy if someone copied content from their site and reposted in his own site without a permission and reference to HeroesPortal. He just wouldn't care who made all that content, see?

Hehe, Heroes is a nichegame and NWN a popular game?

nevermindspy · Unread postby **nevermindspy** » 21 Mar 2007, 21:54

Haha that site looks like a sad joke , My map is there only they managed to got almost everything about it wrong..

The version is wrong.

The minimap of the above area is of another map .

The underground minimap is of the above area of my map

And the map is under homm category instead of hof category..

Frankly i could care less about credit it can stay unknown forever i do my map for people to enjoy not to get a recognition of some sort.

finkellll · Unread postby **finkellll** » 21 Mar 2007, 22:30

wow XD howd my map get over there... my name is on it here, at elrath and maps4heroes.... so i dont see how finding out who the author is would b an issue

myythryyn · Unread postby **myythryyn** » 21 Mar 2007, 23:37

i suppose i should contact them as well, though id rather instead ask them to remove my map. its an embarassment that my map is on their website. but im sure they wouldnt listen, its part of the risks of releasing a map into the public domain i guess.

there is absolutely no excuse for them putting "unknown" author. it just shows laziness and complete lack of respect for the efforts the author put into making the map. and we all know how much work goes into making a map with the HOMMV editor, especially scripting....
Edited on Wed, Mar 21 2007, 16:38 by myythryyn

Neckie · Unread postby **Neckie** » 21 Mar 2007, 23:41

I contacted them few weeks ago and they never answered so i guess they don't care! The only problem is that they've got an old version of my map.

Psychobabble · Unread postby **Psychobabble** » 22 Mar 2007, 08:13

And the moral of the story is, if you want your maps to be the latest version and have proper attribution, get them from Celestial Heavens

LaBoule · Unread postby **LaBoule** » 22 Mar 2007, 11:24

Let me clarify something. This issue is so old as HeroesPortal itself. Its roots lie in their system of rewards for players of their tournament (Quotation from http://www.heroesportal.net/maps.php?lang=english: “If you want to see your map on this site AND TO GET PRIZE POINTS (which you can spend in one of our offline tournaments…”). So unfair player can send any map downloaded from Internet and say that it is his/her map, and if you catch this, Portal’s administration can always answer: “O! This is not his/her map? We’ll punish him/her, but we (administration) are good people and do our best”.

P.S. I started to fight on this issue with Portal’s administration some 3 years ago, but the progress is hardly seen till now.

Silence · Unread postby **Silence** » 22 Mar 2007, 20:40

From their shop it looks like they even sell CDs with the maps.

Even if they have a link to CH (I could not find any links to other Homm sites) , i would recommend removing their name from the CH Homm sites/links list.

Edit: and certainly ban all IPs from Kiev

Logan Warbringer · Unread postby **Logan Warbringer** » 23 Mar 2007, 00:36

Well... I'm sorry for making such a comparison, but according to some very unpleasant posts in this topic it seems like the Cold War is still going on. People, fans.. it's a game and we are just talking about several unnamed maps, so... why do you behave like this? I just don't understand such a violent approach.

Let me first introduce myself. I am Dmitry Logan, the current official administrator of HeroesPortal "Maps" section. From now on, all your questions and requests that concern our maps database, should be sent to me directly to my mailbox logan@heroesportal.net

Now.. let me reply to some of you personally.

2Neckie: The next day I've got your letter, I created your profile. Here is the direct link to your map: http://www.heroesportal.net/maps.php?se ... mode=graph

See now? I'll just create all the missing profiles if there are such in this way.

2LaBoule:

Mr. Savenkov (I think that's your last name, is it?)! I don't know you personally, never contacted you and never got acquiainted with you, but what I DO see is that you frame the whole site because of your personal negative attitude to Gorbik, our site owner. About your very negative opinion about him I DO know according to some old talks, so - what you're doing now is wrong and very ugly, no matter is there any problems with maps or not.

2all:

Listen, good people. I know there were some bugs and problems in our "Maps" section, but...

HeroesPortal moved three weeks ago to another hosting server and the whole programmer team was fully replaced. Some scripts, including the "Maps" section script, were fully replaced. From now on, all the mistakes can be easily corrected (for example, whose with wrong map previews).

From now on, I, Dmitry Logan from Israel (not Kiev as you, mre. Silence, may see)

)), am the official "Maps" section administrator and can do everything in this section myself (before the moving I had to wait for the programmers to remove a map from section, for example). Now I am going to rebuild all the section, and I need YOUR help.

ANY uncredited maps will be credited. Now I can also create user profiles and I'll do it for every map, no matter the size or version. Send me ALL the map data to logan@heroesportal.net and it will be done within a day or two.

About the "Readme" files - I've talked with a new programmer and it will be probably added to the section soon. But this I cannot promise because it doesn't depend on me directly.

ANYTHING you find wrong in pur database - write me an e-mail and I'll care to fix it.

2CH administration: Some things posted here are too offensive. I really hope I will not see or read such things again.

Thank you.

finkellll · Unread postby **finkellll** » 23 Mar 2007, 00:48

we find the fact that u can post our maps w/o looking 2 inches away to look for who actually made the map offensive.....

seriously u want to know what is wrong? i busted my ass on a death knight's journey and it still took over a month to make....

were just talking about a few unnamed maps? how about a few unnamed maps that happen to be some of the best player made?

wow never thought id loose it like that

Logan Warbringer · Unread postby **Logan Warbringer** » 23 Mar 2007, 00:56

Mr. finkelll, I personally made 36 maps and campaigns and there are just the published ones. And all of them of decent quality at least. 4 you can find even here on CH, if I am correct (check for Logan as an author and you'll find some).

I understand. But if you get about 40+ maps each month coming from all kind of fans? I seldom have an opportunity to visit CH and I see no more than 6-7 maps get posted in a month. And there we post much more works. Never mind - the section is fully in my hands now and I'll correct any mistake, you have my word.
Edited on Thu, Mar 22 2007, 17:57 by Logan Warbringer

Logan Warbringer · Unread postby **Logan Warbringer** » 23 Mar 2007, 01:09

My ICQ is 273668978, anyone who has a problem to contact me via e-mail, can do it this way. I am available on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and I speak English, Russian, Hebrew and a bit of French.

P.S. 2Nevermindspy:

Perhaps you'll be surprised to find out that I work in 012 (Kavey Zahav) technical support:)
Edited on Thu, Mar 22 2007, 18:57 by Logan Warbringer

LaBoule · Unread postby **LaBoule** » 23 Mar 2007, 10:57

2Logan

Ok, being saying "Portal's administration" I meant your chief Gorbik only, not you, and I contacted with Gorbik only. These contacts always been quite negative: Gorbik ever say many words (as you now) and promise that all will be alright, but as I have already said, the progress is hardly seen till now.

And please remember that the problem of pirated, "unknown authors" maps etc is YOUR (Portal's) problem, not the the problem of the Heroes community or authors of maps. Nobody exept you is obliged to search for your mistakes, mismatches and son on. First of all you must follow copuright laws and moral rules, and how you achieve this - it is YOUR buisness, we shouldn't care about YOUR problems. And please don't try to diminish this problem to problem of just few maps, it is the problem of Portal's system at whole.

Logan Warbringer · Unread postby **Logan Warbringer** » 23 Mar 2007, 12:00

2LaBoule:

I suggest you stop offending HeroesPortal. What you say about piracy is a complete nonsense, since an "unknown author" profile is an administrary temporary map placeholder and no user at all. "Piracy" is when somebody posts a map and claims it's him and it appears it ISN'T him at all, but was done by other person. Nobody out there stole a thing and I don't sell and don't get anything, even a penny, for doing the job with maps. So, don't mix "A" with "B" and think twice before you accuse anything or anybody. If you continue to offend us in such an ugly way, I'll just ask Angelspit to remove your comments.

You really exxagerate. Have any suggestions or personal problems with HeroesPortal - contact me directly, you have an ICQ number or an e-mail address. I speak 4 languages, as you may see, and I am not Gorbik.

P.S. For those who don't know - Mr. LaBoule is not a simple CH user but an owner of Heroic Corner - another big HoMM-oriented Russian site (here is his profile: http://forums.ag.ru/?action=viewprofile ... me=LaBoule). Since HeroesPortal and Heroic Corner always competed for attendance, I sense that his behavior shows nothing but a use of rare opportunity to try and strike the rival site. At least it seems so.
Edited on Fri, Mar 23 2007, 06:42 by Logan Warbringer

Starbatron · Unread postby **Starbatron** » 23 Mar 2007, 15:25

While I can certainly understand surprised that the authors weren't listed by the players providing the "so called" pirated maps (by some anyway), I am not sure why the "outrage." The maps weren't "pirated" in the sense of one person claiming another's map as if he, not the originated, created it. They are listed as "unknown" author. Now that the issue is becoming widely known, those who know the right authors can be kind enough to provide the correct names of the authors for those maps. But there is no need to be ugly about this issue. There was no intentional deceit here, at least on the part of the site. I am inclined to think it was also unintentional in regards to those who posted the maps, but there is no way of knowing that for sure....

Silence · Unread postby **Silence** » 23 Mar 2007, 15:54

Starbatron, and what about readmes that consist only advertisment to the site? On all other sites, readmes list the map info, *not only the author* but also credits to playtesters and possible spoilers to those who may get stuck. Even more, some maps (WoG) use external files, like custom protrairs for heroes. These files are missing on maps loaded from hp.

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