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EDIT::  The situation with "littletroubles" has been resolved, and deviantart administrators spoke with the person harassing me.  If she says, does, or tries anything again she will be immediately and permentantly banned on all her accounts.  I would like to thank you all for your support ^^
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<sup>Not too long ago, I had a rather nasty incident with one of the FeralHeart players over my custom map, Desolate Coast.  Now that I'm looking back on it, it was rather clear from the start that all she had wanted was to make a map similar to mine without actually lifting a finger to make her own world.

This person first introduced herself to me by briefly commenting on my map before immediately asking for the sky file that I had created to go along with it.  Not seeing the seriousness in sharing a sky, I emailed said file to her on the condition that she would give me credit.... for now, let's just call her Littletroubles.

Over a week later, Littletroubles returned to the same page, now asking if she could have my map folder with all its raw material, including the height map for Desolate Coast.

Now, those of you who have read the FeralHeart guide would have noticed this particular passage:

"What I do is go into the Watermill map folder and 'copy' the heightmap (The grey picture) and rename it. Be sure to name it 'MapnameTerrain' (Ex: SuferiaTerrain) This way you have it already preset to the correct size and format without having to make a new file. (DON'T steal anybody else's height-maps!)

Open this newly created map in Gimp, or Photoshop. This is where you edit the map and make it your own.

Grab the paintbrush tool and make it large. COMPLETELY erase the map that is already there by covering it over with black or a middle shade of gray. If you don't.... people have ways of finding out; and then things get ugly. Make sure every map is 100% your own!" -The FeralHeart Staff

Now, that statement was obviously put there for a reason; people who put a lot of work into making a unique world for others to explore, would naturally be upset seeing clones of their creation.

With this in mind I politely declined Trouble's request to have my map folder.

Clearly upset by this, she resorted to asking for only my height map.  Again, I refused, earning only more very determined nagging for a copy of my map.  I continued to refuse, instead offering to still give my object files and even make a height map of a slightly different make-up that Littletroubles could enjoy instead.

She seemed to have trouble making her points clear.  Her response consisted of asking why it was such a big deal for her to have my height map, and also talking about all the things she would like to see in a custom map.  Mistaking this for a list of the things she would like to see in the height map that I was offering to make her, I responded as calmly as I could that I didn't appreciate her tone or attitude or the way that she had driven me to this point, and that with college classes fast approaching again I simply wouldn't have the time to make a map for Littletroubles in the first place.

Littletroubles responded first by telling me that my final post was too long for her to read before making an even longer reply.  She then went into long detail about how inconsiderate I was to be selfishly keeping my files to myself instead of sharing like a good FeralHeart member.  I found this incredibly bold of her, considering that the height map and mask were creations of mine and never meant for other people to have in the first place.

I'll have to admit that I was rather impatient at this point, so after telling Littletroubles in three sentences to fix her grammar, I blocked her from harrassing me further.

Littletroubles then reacted by creating a new account and responding to me.  This time, the words were malicious.  After being cursed out very thorougly, she parted ways with a threat; she would spread the word that I was a terrible person and that all my maps were fake, also stating that she would not give credit to the sky file I had given her a week ago.  I highly doubted she held such power, but when I went on the FeralHeart forum to see that my healthy collection of karma had been pulled down into the negatives, I knew I needed to speak out.

I have written this journal not so that I can have a "clean reputation" or to have an all out war, or to get back any karma points because that is not what I care about.  If I wanted a war, I would have exposed this person's name just the way that they are tainting mine right now.

What matters to me most is that people continue to enjoy my maps; they were never made for selfish use, and each one was made with the hopes of contributing to the FeralHeart community by sharing worlds with others.  Never would I have thought that this simple act of friendliness toward the FH community would actually not be enough to some people, or that simple refusal to give  up the originality of my worlds would cause a person to believe that spreading rumors about others is the noble way to go.

Please, all FeralHeart artists, whether you are painters or preset-makers or map-makers, never let anyone make you think that you are wrong to be protective over things you spent tender love and care into making.  Your art is your own, whether on paper, a photoshop file, or a three-dimensional map file.  

That is basically all I have to say on this topic.  You are more than welcome to see the actual discussion between me and "troubles" in my Desolate Coast deviantart submission.  The entire conversation should be in the earlier comments.

The two things that I will always fight for are artists' rights and people being bullied, and if there is one thing I have learned about bullies, it's that protecting their name never solved anything.  However, if all goes well and my dA report is successful, there will be no need to release this person's name.

So in the meantime, Map-makers must be aware of people who act like this.  If someone asks, nags, or harasses you to borrow any of your files, refuse it.  Don't be afraid of them or afraid to stand up for what belongs to you.  People can say all they want about you, but they can never change who you are or the brilliant talents that you own.  People who attack others mercilessly for not getting what they want are weak.  They expect other artists to make up for their own lack of work-ethic and artistic motivation.  They will hide like a coward behind thrown out insults like "b****", "retard",  "whore," "piece of sh**," or the very popular "go f*** yourself."  But when it comes to proving themselves worthy to be given something so precious as a world you spent hours, even days or weeks creating, they'll fall silent because they know that they deserve nothing of the sort.

Stand up for your art, and stand up for yourself.</sup>