Map Protector

Reversable meaning getting rid of the protection. Well this may be the only version of my map protector released as [3millioncheese] aka unlucky footman is working on a password method of encryption which should remove the need for a backup (know your password though) and thus replace my program.

Just as a side note:

For those who have overwelming emails from "fans" or what not, no one seems to realize you can use the orgainizational features and condiction setting of outlook to automatically fillter emails like that and even auto respond to them.

15 minutes worth of work to set it up is worth a hell of alot more to me then hours of answering messages only to turn around and piss off the community by getting pissed at everyone asking a simple question.

We're in the information age people! Make information easy to handle both on the sending and recieving end.

Well, good luck modding then. It's yet to be seen how people are going to learn modding in general (I have not seen any tutorials covering basics of editing yet, only some very special tuts that are really needed when you are intermediate-to-expert level WC3 modder... Especially taking into consideration the fact that Blizzard does not directly support the world editor... And the docs that come with it are very very very general...). We'll see anyway. In the end, map protector may still be somehow useful, practice will show. There's no 100% n00b-proof protection still, and I bet that at least 50% of those map thieves that lurk around here are good enough to crack the protection and modify the map (because they DON'T WANT TO LEARN anything, but instead they only need to CHANGE THE AUTHOR'S NAME and E-MAIL to their own, then pack things back). So, good luck shooting into your own infantry. Won't bother you any more.

Aparently you missed that about not being reversable meaning that its there and its stuck for good. You can get it to open in worldedit but if you save all triggers that were orginally there are gone.

Please do not assume your opinions are right or try to force them upon others. I view the release of this program as giving back peoples right to choose.

Not that I doubt ways around it will be here soon enough ..

1. It's still possible to edit the .j file
2. WE has a rough idea of what should be in the .wtg file, and just changing a few random bytes causes a crash. Somewhere WE has to store what it thinks should be in there.
3. It's probably possible to make a program that will generate .wtg files from the .j. Granted, the triggers would have nonsense names like Trig0102, but it could be done.
4. It was stupid of blizzard to make trigger names not implemented in the .j file itself. Not only have they made .j editing harder, they're making map size larger. Jeeze blizz it would've only taken a little more coding work ;)

This, in reality, offers very little protection against the kind of people everyone on this forum is complaining about. The kind of people that just beef up a specific hero, etc. It's called the Unit Editor :p Deleting the .wtg file all together from the .w3m makes the map openable in WE, but the triggers are missing -- but the unit editor still works. Furthermore, although I haven't tested it, I'm pretty sure it's possible to still add triggers no problem. So at map init they just run a clear text messages action and message saying "dude I made this map and I'm l33t." Not only that, but they can change all the loading screen info still to give credit to them.

My personal opinion, is that if you want to protect your map, just delete a few files from the listfile. Unlike weaaddar's method, this is 100% reversable, and although it'll keep ultra-stupid people out, anybody with the motivation can still go on the net and find out how to reverse it if they're really interested in learning. Unfortuneatly a password protection method doesn't have this advantage.

Worse, these protection methods rely on these things still crashing WE in the future. If blizzard considers them bugs, they may make it stop the crashing (although weaaddar's method would still show no triggers unless blizz supplies a way to rebuild the .wtg data from the .j).

I think the mapping community should keep in mind that the vast majority of map stealers know jack shit. Deleting files from the listfile should be enough to keep them out.

Well Thanks Dataangel for posting TO EVERYONE How to reverse it :). But no I added triggers and oddly enough all the triggers i added were there but then Ones originaly seemed to be gone in the .j.

I don't agree with the -Jack- part, but you got a nice point and I surely believe deleting files from (or the whole) listfile is sufficient protection.

But hey, it's your map, so IMHO you can do with it as you want.

Greetz,
DJBnJack

Ok, i´ve made evything as listed but the secured map doesnt show up...i wonder why...in protector.exe appears a file a believe it´s a ".wtg"....but like i said the secured map doesnt show up! whats the problem?

you have to define where your protected map will apear (the 3rd dialog box). By defualt its C:\Mymapprotected.w3m. Also if you entered the same string in the bottom 2 boxs then you protected the orignal sorry.

i know that man, but still it doesnt show up!

i tried in a different folder i tried in the same(but never overwriting the original map) and it cant!!!

maybe this has somethin to do with my mpq2 version...i think i download the one of this site but its about starcraft not about war3...

It is really hard to use this program when MPQ2k is nowhere to be found. Can you show me where to download mpq2k?

Okay here it is my map protector program using [3millioncheese]'s protection method. After much talk it is being released to the public.
What do I need to run this?
1). You will need Visual Basic 6 runtime drivers.
2). You will need MPQ2k package found from the download section of wc3campaigns.
3). A program able to open zip files (duh!)
So how do I use it?
1.) FIRST EXTRACT THIS ZIP TO ANY DIRECTORY OTHER THEN YOUR WARCRAFT III DIRECTORY. (this is important if you want to actually be able to open maps...)
2.) Choose the place where MPQ2k is located.
3.) Choose the map you wish to protect.
4.) Choose the name of the protected version of the map.
5.) Hit the Start! button and your done with in a second your map will be protected.
6.) MAKE SURE THAT PROTECTOR.EXE AND WARCRAFT III ARE NOT IN THE SAME DIRECTORY. If you didn't listen delete the file war3map.wtg from your directory.
Disclamer:
I'm not liable for ANY problems induced by using this program (most notably the I can't load any map problem cuased by placing protector.exe in your war3 directory.), Though it has been proven safe and 100% reversable if you did screw up (e-mail maps you need to deprotect).

Alright I hope you read all that. Here it is to download!
http://www.skizot.com/~cookie/protector.zip

How do i know if I have visual basic 6 runtime drivers?

Choose the place where MPQ2k is located? wtf?

Just a suggestion, but you should really zip your program with MPQ2k, a README, and any other stuff we might need to run your program. Of course you should get permission, i guess from the author of mpq2k?

Ok whenever I try to open the protector, I get the following error:

RichtX32.OCX or one of its dependencies not correctly registered: File invalid or missing.


Please help...what do I do to correct this? I have vb6 runtime installed.

Download RichtX32.OCX and put it in your windows/system directory. When I needed it I just searched google for "RichtX32.OCX download" and found it easy.

Finding the right MPQ2k is harder, it's not available from this website itself.