Just so I'm clear on this, @Ascend Hyperion and @Egggnog - Are you guys upset about people 'saving' another persons map and making changes to it? Is this issue coming up as a result of simply seeing altered versions of maps in a persons 'saved' files? Because that's the only conclusion I can come to when it's said that the "game implies you created it".
It all boils down to simple thing called 'Respect'. Respect is a hard thing to learn, but I know most of us here spend COUNTLESS hours, designing, forging, testing, re-forging, more testing, etc. One map can take up a months worth of hard work and for someone to prefab, remix, or do whatever they felt on the map without any consent of the original author, that person has no respect for the time and effort that was originally put into it. Instead of remixing the map, if the author is willing, how about you provide feedback to the original author and hope that your suggestions will make the map play and look better. I'll take Bloodsport for example, prior to me even recreating the Chichén Itzá by @NOKYARD, I contacted him and asked permission to do it. He was super excited and granted me permission do so. When I finally posted the map, I credited him on allowing me to do so. In my opinion, I was following a forger's unspoken code. I know this goes beyond forging, but you can see my point. I totally get the point of prefabs, they are meant to be shared and used on other people's maps. But if I were to use a prefab, you bet I would credit them.
To be clear my issues are as follows: -The constant saving of and reposting of files creates terrible clutter in the browser -This clutter dilutes the original file and makes the browser annoying to navigate -Passing an obscure map off as your own is very easy, especially since the Waypoint site does not have the "Original Author" bit -Remixes should be made to the knowledge of the OC -Taking another persons work and passing it off as your own depreciates its value and is disrespectful to the OC -Posted prefabs are fair game to use, but prefabbing someones stuff (without their knowledge) is not cool -We need to make sure there is palpable consequence for those that hijack maps.
As far as I can tell, these opinions are common to most/all people here. Perhaps the content browser should be 'opt in', that is, maps should be hidden by default. I think that this would solve a lot of the clutter, and would sort out those who are intentionally trying to push content that is not theirs.
@FrostPhoenix0 I believe that if the "Save As" option could be toggled that would help tremendously. It would reduce the reposts dramatically because a map couldn't be republished at the push of a button. On top of that, map steals could be easily found and reported because the intent would be more clear.
Agreed. However, the fault for this lies entirely on the people who developed and approved the file system. It's not fair to lay any blame on forgers for this. See above See above That depends. If someone remixes a map for their own personal use, and makes no attempt to pass it off as their map, then I see no harm in remixing a map. I don't think anyone should be making minor changes to a map and attempting to pass it off as their own. Ideally, if a person intends to remake or remix something from another forger and publicly share it, I agree that it would be best if they ask the author for permission first. However, I don't feel it's a necessity. I think I've always been in the minority with this opinion, and I'm okay with that. As an aside, I would never personally remix another forgers map and publish it without asking first. I just don't see it as a big deal if someone does that. Again, I'm probably going to be in the minority on this one... I don't really agree. If it's something that a person cares about, there are very easy ways to save evidence that you are the original author of a map. If it bothers a person that much, it would make sense for them to take those steps. Whether or not it's disrespectful to the OC depends upon the OC. I personally would take it as a compliment. Of course, those original author tags we've talked about would render this entire issue irrelevant. My response to the previous point should cover this one too. Depends upon what you consider 'palpable', and what you consider 'hijacked'. There's a lot of grey area here. I'm still not clear on what your referring to regarding 'map steals' and 'hijacked maps'. I haven't heard you say that anyone is claiming ownership of another forgers map. If this is in reference to people 'saving' another forgers map and making changes to the file without any intention of publicly claiming it as their own map (which is the only conclusion I can logically come to based upon what you've said and not said thus far), then I VERY strongly disagree. Forgers have been doing this since the beginning days of forge. I've personally done this probably a hundred times without any malicious intent (in fact, it was almost always an attempt to test out different ideas that could potentially help improve the map, and share those ideas with the original author). Don't blame the forger, blame the file system.
Microsoft owns all our works. If you aren't interested in sharing content, forge isn't the medium you should be using. Move to a different software that allows copyrighting. If you stay with forge people can, will, and have every right to use your content in whichever manner they see fit. End of story.
This isn't about legality. There's a certain group of people who change a few weapons on "obscure" maps and try to get others to bite. They aren't harshly promoting it because that would draw too much direct attention, but they refuse to credit the original author. A remix is something different, where someone takes the original theme and style the author used, but convert it into their own map. This is a grey area, because the amount of work used to make it a "remix" vs "map theft" isn't set, but it should be about half, if not more the amount of time the original author put in. While the file browser is still broken and cluttered, 343 didn't expect it to be filled with 10000 prefabs on the first night of the update. They gave us a broken system, but we're also using it wrong. Some community members not only use prefabs (which is what they're intended for, I promote the use of prefabs (not the overuse)) but they then repost them as they're own rather than just liking and bookmarking them to help others see them. Now that I have that out of the way I can come back to this thread. I believe @Preacher001 might be feeling a little accused of "map theft" or the promotion of it, but for myself at least, that's not the case. He brought up an issue that's inflicted by a minority of the community upon the majority of the community. While I may not agree with him entirely, for instance I believe if you want to make changes to a map you should contact the original creator or play it in a testing lobby, because the chances are that someone else feels the same way, I still don't believe what he is defending is the large problem. Hell you can even put 5 rockets on a map, but then again, so can anyone else, so I don't think you should publish that. The larger problem is the actual reposters of maps, where someone wants to disrespect the time a more diligent person spent making a map and claim it as their own. This is why some people believe it should always track the original author, or notify them when someone has modified it.
A prefab is a group of blocks, arranged, and saved to allow future use. A prefab is not intellectual property, nor does anyone own it, however, i'm not going to make a post to pull a legal card. If someone "steals" a prefab, it is an opinion whether that is right or wrong. If someone uses your prefab on their map, it is an opinion whether that should be done. If you use someone else's prefab, the majority's opinion doesn't make it right or wrong. If you copy someone's map, and post it as your own, it is an opinion whether you should do that. There are two things I have learned in this world. Everything you believe, is an opinion. (unless you believe something factual, ex. Earth is spherical.) And in theory no opinion is better than another, thus it is an opinion that the majority's opinion matters. But in practice, people force their opinions to matter, and it is a matter of who can enforce their opinion. In this situation, it is the ForgeHub admins have the power to enforce an opinion. The majority's opinion. (common opinion) And it is my opinion, that it matters. End of my philosophy.
Arguing about the legality of it all is just a conversational diversion from the real issue which is the morality. Legality is a mute point. That's already understood by everyone here (hopefully). So anyone arguing the legality side has nothing to offer to the real discussion which is about morality, which is what I think Ascend is getting at, and for which I agree.
Make something so good it doesn't matter if they "steal" it. You know how much knock off ****ing Mickey Mouse merchandise **** is out there? But I bet you know who made Mickey Mouse.
Before I start my rant I want to thank @a Chunk for saying things as diplomatically as I hope to and @SaltyKoala for being as blunt as I want to be. -If you have bookmarked more than 12 maps you straight up can't access more than the last 12 bookmarks. What does this mean? It means that if you want to play something other than that first page of your bookmarks you will have to download the map. That maps saves itself as the downloaders work. That-map-saves-itself-as-the-downloaders-work. As such, fileshare files can not, even sort of, imply that someone has clamied it as their work. Rant incoming: This is the most corporate, bully, vindictive ex kind of thinking and absolutely not something a gamer should ever utter. Before ideas were monetized people shared freely. Now we are so concerned with making money that people don't even share research on cures for disease, and could you imagine how few food choices we would have if the world existed this way. This way of thinking is exactly why people hate being forced to use dedicated servers. Once the dev decides to stop supporting their online only game, no-one gets to play anymore. If Apple shuts down itunes, poof, no more music. No-one should have the ability to tell anyone else how to, when, or if they can play their game. If unconditional sharing is not what someone wants, then I highly recommend they play somewhere else. This is exactly why a society craving change cannot have it. We are a society lost in red tape. Hey lets leave our fun up to the whim of some random on the internet. With very and I mean very (even @a Chunk is confused) little clarification on this subject I am only left to believe that what you mean is, whenever someone wants to modify a map and save it, making it appear in their fileshare. This is wrong. What anyone chooses to do with a map once it has been downloaded is their prerogative. If people want to modify or destroy their copy of someone elses artistic vision, so be it. If they want to make it available in fileshare, so be it. If they want to publish somewhere in the real world then they should not have to ask permission. It's polite, but not necessary. Kind of like asking a father if you can marry his daughter. The only thing I feel is morally obligatory is listing the OC's GT. If a map/prefab is listed in the standard fileshare without the OC's GT, just assume there was no harm intended. Where? I know you can't be talking fileshare. I would argue that this is all the same. Whether a person changed one or a hundred things should be viewed no different in the falsehood of claiming they made a map. If the one thing thing a forger changes on another forgers map dramatically effects gameplay then it is relevant. Also dropped maps that are partially broken are important. We're not all awesome forgers and not all OC's give a **** after they post a map. When in doubt about posting remixes of maps styles or gameplay, the only consideration should be, are the changes cool or fun? If the answer is yes, then post and credit the OC. Since this just doesn't seem to be sinking in no matter how many times I say it, I will say it again. I do not condone the reposting (non fileshare) of someone elses work and claiming it as your own. Please I implore anyone to show proof that someone is blatantly advertising a map as their own work. This requires the person to actually say that they made the map. Hell I'll accept an in depth post where it is heavily implied that they made the map. Anyone ? ? ? @Ascend Hyperion Please understand that I don't hate you for some of your opinions, I just hate this way of thinking. I mean no ill will.
There is no morality issue. We don't live in a perfect little world where everybody knows everybody and we all sing kumbaya holding each other's flacid dicks. Among circle jerk fests like ForgeHub sure, we can have common courtesy to let each other know we want to share ideas. But nobody should expect random people going through the file browser to reach out to them to ask their permission or whatever else. The only problem we had with Forge up to this point was that the option to keep our stuff private wasn't provided to us, so none of us had that choice. But now that we do, we all willingly sign onto the fact that when we release something, we are opening it up to being modified by anyone and everyone. I'm not going to sit here and say it would not bother me if it happened to me. I think it's really shitty that someone would try to pass off a modified map or prefab as their own. However, given the logistics behind the whole thing I find it hard to care in the grand scheme because 1. we don't own anything we make in this game, and 2. it's impossible for the system to exist in any other capacity. There is literally no way to prevent people from copying prefabs and uploading them as their own. The entire system is based on groups which are inherently dissectable; these are not flattened assets that we export. Nevertheless, the pros of this system VASTLY outweigh the cons, of which you are saying are based on something arbitrary. "Honor rules" essentially. The original author should remain attached to a file when it is saved - the same as it was in Reach. If that stamp isn't already implemented, then it needs to happen. Beyond that, the system is functioning exactly as intended, and in the healthiest way for the community as a whole. Now if we want to propose a "flatten" option for Halo 6, I'd be all for that. What flattening does is it makes the asset or the map uneditable by deleting the unused polygons, therefore optimizing it by removing the noise. If this option were available in Forge, then theoretically nobody would be able to overwrite your prefab or your map because they wouldn't be able to edit any of its existing geometry. However, even then there's still no system that prevents people from recreating the prefab and uploading it under their own name.
Ninja Edit: Agreed, im sure most of us have gone onto someone elses map and thought something along the lines of "that's a good idea, and would work great on my map." I'm a bit different, I'd see something on a friends map and i'd tell them something along the lines of "That looks dope, I'm using that." **** asking for permission. Brb while I go ask Bungie if i can remake one of their maps and put my name on it. "Be the change that you wish to see in the world." -BodeyBode