The Neverness to Everness (NTE) community relies heavily on third-party interactive maps to track down Anomalies, hidden encounters, and valuable resources across Hethereau. However, a recent controversy has sparked a discussion about the ethics of community-created resources and data scraping.
On June 13, 2026, the co-creator of ZeroLuck, one of the most popular NTE interactive maps, published a detailed post on the r/gachagaming subreddit detailing their ongoing frustrations with a competing map site, interactivemap.app (IMapp).
The Core Issue: Scraping Editorial Work
The controversy does not stem from datamining the game itself. As the ZeroLuck creator noted, extracting raw marker coordinates and internal asset names (like Eibon_PaintingMan) from the game files is standard practice and fair game for any map maker.
The issue lies in the scraping of custom editorial work.
Because NTE does not organize world events into neat, predefined categories in the game files, the ZeroLuck team had to manually invent and categorize them. For example, they created a “World Encounters” group and split it into nine custom sub-types, such as “Talking Painting,” “Sanzo the Tanuki,” and “Parallax Puzzle.”
According to the ZeroLuck team, whenever they publish a new update with these custom categories, the exact same structure, naming conventions, and marker counts appear on IMapp within hours.
The Evidence
The ZeroLuck creator provided specific examples to back up their claims:
- The June 12 Update: ZeroLuck published a new “World Encounters” group containing 31 markers, plus 96 markers added to existing groups. On the exact same day, IMapp announced a “Map Update” featuring a new “World Encounters” group with 31 markers and exactly “+96 markers in existing groups.”
- The “zlv2-” Tag: Every marker in the ZeroLuck system carries an internal project label:
zlv2-(ZeroLuck v2). The game’s code does not produce this prefix. However, when inspecting the public JSON data for IMapp, thezlv2-tag was found attached to their markers (e.g.,zlv2-world-encounters-Eibon_PaintingMan), proving that the finished output was directly copied.
Adding fuel to the fire, the ZeroLuck creator pointed out that IMapp’s copyright page claims the marker data as “created by the operators of this website,” while simultaneously using a robots.txt file to aggressively block AI bots and scrapers from accessing their own site.
Community Reaction
The Reddit post quickly gained traction, with many players expressing sympathy for the ZeroLuck team’s hard work. Some users suggested adding “trap” markers, fake entries, or meme images into the ZeroLuck data to catch the scrapers in the act—a tactic commonly used by map makers and database sites to prove copyright infringement.
Other users pointed out the unfortunate reality of hosting information websites: scraping is a widespread issue across many gaming communities, with massive databases like Serebii (Pokémon) facing similar challenges for years.
The ZeroLuck creator clarified that their post was not meant to start a harassment campaign against IMapp or force players to switch maps. Instead, they simply wanted to “say it out loud” and acknowledge the frustration of watching their hard editorial work being taken without credit.
For players looking to support original creators, the ZeroLuck interactive map remains a primary, community-driven resource for navigating the complex world of Neverness to Everness.