Yeah yeah yeah, I've been gone for a while

Graduating HS and work really eats up your time. Anyways, I was thinking about starting my TechMPQ project back up with a new version. A couple features such as basic settings(default listfiles, internal listfile support), drag & drop, MUCH BETTER UI, and speed and stability increases. Most of the underlying work is finished, I just need to keep working. Post any comments in opposition or support. I'm not going to keep working on it if everyone oopses it. Also, the current version in the downloads section is bad, so here's a new one that runs much faster.

There's a basic principle I live by when writing my programs (at least the ones I intend to release): don't write anything that isn't the best (at least when it's released). Really, what's the point in spending your time writing a program when it's already #2 (or worse) from the get-go? MPQ2K was the first stable MPQ editor there was, and remained the best MPQ editor until SFMPQAPI was released (before then, WinMPQ was far too slow to compensate for it's convenient GUI). MPQDraft was light-years ahead of anything out at the time, and arguably still holds the lead in game patching (although I'm going to have to release the up-to-date betas that have been floating around for a year or two).

Right now, TechMPQ doesn't stand the slightest chance against WinMPQ. While you COULD spend weeks straight programming to pull into the lead, your rate of progress thus far makes that highly unlikely. If past trends dictate the future, I would recommend dropping TechMPQ and finding something more worth your effort to work on.

Nice to see you both again:D
@Technetium: It depends how much time you have to continue it. As Quantam already stated it would but much work and not easy to be as good as or even better than WinMPQ. If you just enjoy to program a MPQ tool, then do it. I voted No.

@Quantam: When comes a new version of MPQDraft?

BTW, does anyone of you know Ladiks MPQ Editor. It's completely storm-less and sfmpq-less. I have posted a thread here about it (the New MPQ Editor thread). It's still beta, but it has a very nice GUI and has some professional features, which even WinMPQ doesn't have.

I use it StarcraftFreak, mainly to discover unknowns. I have some new listfiles btw. Starcraftdat.mpq only 4 unknowns and some others.

Ya, Ladik's MPQ editor looks good. It is still quite unfinished, and it did some weird things to my comp, but it could easily be the best mpq editor when it is finished.

Hey, can you send me this list? Ladik started with me a project to detect all unknowns (especially of the older games, for WC3 it is not necessary). We need many people as you know that the name breaking needs much time.

BTW, BlacKDicK and JollyOven, did you know it before I posted the information about it here?

Ladik's been in MPQs longer than I have. Too bad I didn't even hear about him until relatively recently (that is to say that I was done with MPQs by that time). He wrote a Stormless MPQ reading library way back (no, he didn't do the old MPQEdit, which I'll avoid commenting on). Although he didn't add writing capabilities until after LMPQAPI and MPQ2K.

His name breaking project has been very impressive. Last I heard he'd identified more than 100 unknowns. I recall when he first told me about it, before his editor even had the name breaker in it. Me and Skywing were considering doing a massively distributed version of that with him (think Seti@Home), but Skywing never was that interested in it, and without him I lost my enthusiasm pretty quick, and it eventually got dropped.

As for MPQDraft... it's been around. A War3 version has been out for months and months in beta. The most recent build was on 3/30/2003. Of course, I'm notorious for releasing betas (usually closed) and then never releasing them publicly :-p I can send it to you and anyone else who wants it.

Hey cool, yes, I'd appreciate if you send it to me (I think you are able to find my email adress in my signature ). My last version is 2002.12.17.01.
Another question: Am I allowed to make this non-public version available for download?

Yes, Lad has been around for quite a time, altough I never checked back his stuff before I saw your recent post ScFreak. I have an old version of stormlib somewhere around my HD but it is completely out-dated by now. I got some advances using lad name-breaker, my stardat.mpq "list" only has 4 unknowns, wich I´m 100% sure that are ".SMK", wich can also help later on. (Get it atached on this post).

Btw check this out ScFreak and Quantam, this is another MPQ-Related HP: http://athena2000.myrice.com/mpq/index.html


How!! I'm also interested, please send me to [email protected]

Quantam, wouldn´t it be a good idea to UPDATE your MPQ2K on campaingcreations to use SF api instead of yours? I´m thining about something like I did here:
http://www.wc3campaigns.com/forums/s...5&pagenumber=3

How did you find out BTW? Did you just try because you thought that it should work because the function names are the same?
But this would be good, as the size of a full pack of MPQ2k would shrink.:D

ShadowFlare is smart. She designed SFMPQAPI to be compatible with programs that use both Storm and LMPQAPI. I knew about that from the beginning, as she consulted me on occasions on the MPQ format. I just never bothered to update MPQ2K because it's kinda obsolete now. WinMPQ is fast enough, it has a GUI, and it can run MPQ2K command lines and scripts.

But for patches for mods we need something that is easily distributeable and WinMPQ needs those damn runtimes (you can't imagine how many people there are who are unable to get WinMPQ to work just because of the runtimes; OK, the real reason is that they are too lazy to read reame files and all the information provided with a tool). But think of a small update for a mod. With MPQ2k, you put the new files + MPQ2k + a script and sfmpq.dll (renamed to lmpqapi.dll) into an archive and you have the patch. Then you just tell the user in the readme (in case he reads it...) to extract everything and execute the batch file -> done. OK, Ladiks MPQ Editor has also a scripting interface (with the same commands like MPQ2k).

Yes I know but as Scfreak stated, MPQ2K is still usefull. Besides that, some users are still using MPQ2K. It´s popular on the D2 and SC/BW mod community.

I guess nobody bothered to read my farewell address on http://www.campaigncreations.org/starcraft/mpq2k/ that I posted 6 or 7 months ago...

Hmm. Maybe after I finish this little utility I'm writing for my own personal use, I'll see if I still have the source to MPQ2K and see about rebuilding it with SFMPQAPI (yes I know I could just hex-edit it). Should only be a couple more hours of work, as it's a very small little utility.

Q> Haha, no kidding about the private betas. You should just .zip all of your stuff like that and release it publically, regardless of it's current state :P

BD> It is indeed popular, seeing as I prefer console > GUI for MPQ editing.