pull the map.
I changed his map completely and I clearly credited him for the base landscape. The best I could do not having a clue who to contact. Who would know that he has two virtual names.
Seems like he's happier to have his work limited to the respawners (did he even notice that I made a respawn version of the map - in the same zip - as well, only for his crowd ?). But fine with me. It is amazing how protective folks get once they invest a lot of time into making things, even if there's absolutely no gain in it beyond actually being able to play on the terrain. If somebody felt like reusing one of my terrains, I'd be happy to see another map on it. The more the merrier. Heck, just last month I posted 3+ hours of tutorial videos to help others make more maps, which ultimately is what this is all about. But pride wins this time, so now there are a few million variations less that his terrain can be experienced in. Loss for the community, nothing else happening here.
Why I did it? To create more maps to play on. Why not? He came out of the woodworks and claimed his terrain back - fine. Responed. Map is gone and will resurface in a new version, with 100% non-Hitman-crosshair content, so that it will replace the maps already in circulation. give me a few weeks, as I am heading for some backcountry skiing in the coming weeks and will be completely offline.
And full disclosure - you can pin this on any map making thread: my maps are available for anyone to take apart and use, terrains, scripting, etc - I don't care one bit - they are out there, and trying to control copyright on something like that is futile and pointless, and in fact counterproductive to making the game better and attracting more players. It is the custom maps that attract people to this game, the fact that you can play so many different scenarios, and many of them on the same terrain. It takes 50 hours to make a decent terrain, while it takes 5-10 hours to create a completely new complex random mission on existing terrain. That's the simple reason behind reusing maps. Go grab some of mine - there should be enough for any map maker to come up with something new and save days of terrain work - invest the time into a better mission instead.