Another community has been stealing my community's official map

AwesomeX

L1: Registered
Jan 26, 2014
15
1
So after talking with some of my community members, they've convinced me to finally try and get some help on the matter.
Personally I think there's nothing that can be done about this, which is why I haven't asked about this in the past.

So basically.. About 2.5 years ago, I decided to create an official map for my TF2 community. This map features minigames, spycrabbing, boxing rooms, and countless other games and things. I'm actually still working on this map to this date. "I'm currently getting it ready for a Holiday update"

It was great for a while, I felt like I had something really special going on that no other server had at the time.
Until another community whose name I won't disclose for now. Decided to start using it without my permission. A community member of mine saw this and showed me.

A few days later I ended up getting in contact with the Owner of this community. Long story short, he believed I had "stolen" things from this map, and he deemed I wasn't worthy of being the only one using it, or something like that.
He also said he was going to decide to stop using it or not, depending on what he thought when he decompiled it.

I tried telling him it wasn't his decision to stop using it. But after 1.5+ years now, him and his community are still using it, even as much as putting various decals on the spawn's walls to bash my community. Although I haven't checked in a while, so I'm not sure if they're still there.

And about a month or two ago, during a period of time that my community's server had it's Sourcemod installation messed up. Him and a bunch of his people joined and "raided" the server, spamming countless racist remarks and just saying generic insults and what not. It was pretty pathetic and laughable, but it was still a completely terrible thing to do.

Anyways, before I get off track too much. I just was wondering if anything could be done to stop these people from using my map, that I spent hundreds, and hundreds of hours on. All while bashing myself, and my community?
 

Exactol

Certified Hammer Hacker
aa
Jul 11, 2013
421
537
To prevent them from updating their map to the latest version, try using a program that prevents map decompiles
 
Sep 10, 2015
142
39
So after talking with some of my community members, they've convinced me to finally try and get some help on the matter.
Personally I think there's nothing that can be done about this, which is why I haven't asked about this in the past.

So basically.. About 2.5 years ago, I decided to create an official map for my TF2 community. This map features minigames, spycrabbing, boxing rooms, and countless other games and things. I'm actually still working on this map to this date. "I'm currently getting it ready for a Holiday update"

It was great for a while, I felt like I had something really special going on that no other server had at the time.
Until another community whose name I won't disclose for now. Decided to start using it without my permission. A community member of mine saw this and showed me.

A few days later I ended up getting in contact with the Owner of this community. Long story short, he believed I had "stolen" things from this map, and he deemed I wasn't worthy of being the only one using it, or something like that.
He also said he was going to decide to stop using it or not, depending on what he thought when he decompiled it.

I tried telling him it wasn't his decision to stop using it. But after 1.5+ years now, him and his community are still using it, even as much as putting various decals on the spawn's walls to bash my community. Although I haven't checked in a while, so I'm not sure if they're still there.

And about a month or two ago, during a period of time that my community's server had it's Sourcemod installation messed up. Him and a bunch of his people joined and "raided" the server, spamming countless racist remarks and just saying generic insults and what not. It was pretty pathetic and laughable, but it was still a completely terrible thing to do.

Anyways, before I get off track too much. I just was wondering if anything could be done to stop these people from using my map, that I spent hundreds, and hundreds of hours on. All while bashing myself, and my community?
If they allow point_client_commands or server_point_commands, you could disable them on your server and do some pretty nasty stuff. I beleive you can even make it automatically disconnect people as soon as they join, I'm not sure though. But exactol has a good idea as well, take as many steps to stop decompiling as possible.
 

Exactol

Certified Hammer Hacker
aa
Jul 11, 2013
421
537
I believe point_client and point_server commands require sv_cheats 1, which almost all server owners disable
 
Sep 10, 2015
142
39
You sure, I recall getting my SRCDS running tr_walkway with proper bot function without using sv_cheats 1.

edit: although it was ~4 months ago.
 

Exactol

Certified Hammer Hacker
aa
Jul 11, 2013
421
537
I know that point_client command is sv_cheats because it allowed malicious maps to access your hard drive or something
 

AwesomeX

L1: Registered
Jan 26, 2014
15
1
Currently, they're not decompiling the map "atleast not publicly" they're just using it.

As for the decals, we're guessing they're using a Sourcemod plugin to apply those, not quite sure though.
 

Exactol

Certified Hammer Hacker
aa
Jul 11, 2013
421
537
Then their server is running a really outdated version of your map?
 

AwesomeX

L1: Registered
Jan 26, 2014
15
1
What? No. Every time I release a new version of the map for MY community, they steal it, and start using it as well, quite fast might I add..
 

Exactol

Certified Hammer Hacker
aa
Jul 11, 2013
421
537
try using a program to prevent decompiling, then see if they update their map. If they do, its either they found a way to get around the decompile prevention or its a plugin
 

R0GAN

L1: Registered
Oct 16, 2015
18
0
Maybe put in some decals or something in spawn rooms identifying which community the map belongs to and then maybe the anti-decompiling measures people suggest.

Actually maybe making a sign out of brushes might make them unable to put sourcemod decals to disguise it.
 

killohurtz

Distinction in Applied Carving
aa
Feb 22, 2014
1,016
1,277
@Exactol @R0GAN They already said the other community is just taking the .bsp, so decompiling protection isn't going to solve anything.

Unfortunately I don't think there's anything you can do about the map versions this community already owns, but to prevent them from taking any more versions, you may have to restrict availability of the map to your server's fastDL and use a STEAMID whitelist. Ugly solution, but I can't think of any other way.
 

Exactol

Certified Hammer Hacker
aa
Jul 11, 2013
421
537
I believe they are decompiling becuase "even as much as putting various decals on the spawn's walls to bash my community." which would mean that they decompiled it or used plugins
 

AwesomeX

L1: Registered
Jan 26, 2014
15
1
I appreciate your suggestion, but I don't think restricting the fastDL would help at all. They have a lot of people willing to do anything for them.. For reasons I have no clue. So I'm sure they'd just send out someone to download it.

The only other thing I thought of, was to spawn entities in the map, using Sourcemod. So basically only my server and my plugin would allow the map to run properly. Unfortunately I have no idea how to do that.
 
T

The Asylum

There's no 100% foolproof way to protect maps against being decompiled. If they're "raiding" your server and being nasty, you can just ban them, can't you?

You're taking this way too seriously IMO
 

Exactol

Certified Hammer Hacker
aa
Jul 11, 2013
421
537
There's no 100% foolproof way to protect maps against being decompiled. If they're "raiding" your server and being nasty, you can just ban them, can't you?

You're taking this way too seriously IMO

Its not that they are raiding the server, its that they are stealing the map while insulting the server he made the map for.

Also there's no legal action you can take. Preventing them from decompiling will slow them down/ possibly annoy them enough to stop trying to steal your map
 

Frosty Scales

L2: Junior Member
Mar 22, 2015
93
30
I know that point_client command is sv_cheats because it allowed malicious maps to access your hard drive or something
not sure of point_clientcommand, but point_servercommand definitely is not. It's controlled by sv_allow_point_servercommand, and enabled when set to always.

You tried contacting valve? Maybe theres legal action you can take.
There is no action you can take legally on the map itself. But, an idea that I did have at one point was to insert an original piece of music (as an mp3) into the map, and pack it with the bsp. (bsp_repack so they can't easily remove it) that way you can claim infringement (public showing of a non-visual work) and send a DMCA their way, which could scare them off. But if you aren't making a new map: you're pretty much boned
 
T

The Asylum

Its not that they are raiding the server, its that they are stealing the map while insulting the server he made the map for.

Then my suggestion is to grow a thicker skin. It's harsh, I know, but such is life.
 

Blade x64

Logical insanity
aa
Sep 3, 2009
239
633
I recall a certain map released during the early days of tf2. It was a server exclusive, and they were able to keep this mostly enforced via one method: Critical gameplay entities were not stored in the map, but instead placed upon map load by a plugin. If they're smart, though, they'll be able to work around that and any other measure you put into place.

As long as you have the appropriate entity data, I'm sure that you can just make a list that the server executes when the map loads to spawn every one. Now may be a good time to learn how to make plugins if none can fulfill that purpose.
 
Last edited: