Map Protector

Hello. I try using the weadder protector and the wz3 protector. They each work fine but I cant play due to the fact it takes people an hour to DL. Without the protectors they download very fast, with it it takes 20x longer. Any way around this? Or is there a better protector i can DL? Thanks

A) Don't use Zepirs protection until he fully institute better compression.

My protector SHOULD actually slightly reduce bulk.

i use it. But the time it takes to DL is still WAY too long. Its so long I cant even get a game going. Is there any other protectors? Or do I have to live with it? Thanks.

It doesn't make sense. Check the file size of your map it SHOULD decrease when you use my protector alone. (By atleast .01kb (most cases .1kb))
Zepirs adds atleast 300kb of bulk to a map which is understandable why it lags dl time.

Weaaddar, you're dumb or what???
I already told you that beta 8 compress maps better. It doesn't grow maps size anymore. I told you 100 times!
beta 7 did but not beta 8 anymore!
So stop saying something wrong everywhere!
My protection is better than yours! I "protect" more files and I add a watermark so even if someone gets arround the "protection" trick, the watermark is still there and really hard to remove.
Admit it, your map protector is dieing!
Right now, your protector is only usefull for maps with embedded waves because my editor doesn't use Blizzard wave compression. But once this is fixed, your protector will be outdated.

I'll just give a proof of what I'm saying and ask you where you see thos 300Kb!?

I compared the protection on Lost temple (the original map):

(4)LostTemple.w3m
size= 235,406 bytes

Protected with Weaaddar (1 file protection)
size= 235,178 bytes

W3Z Map protection (4 files protection + script protection + watermark):
-Level 3:
size= 318,437 bytes
-Level 3 with unprotect record:
size= 318,913 bytes


In the worst case, you add 81Kb (far from 300Kb isn't it? :) ) and these bytes only come from the watermark itself wich make some files harder to compress. But on the other hand the watermark gives you a better protection against author name stealing. Your triggers are also more safe with my methode: I did unprotect a map for Weaaddar protected with his protection and it wasn't really hard however, I can tell that unprotecting the same way I did a map protected with my protection is not possible (because of the 3 other protected files). Another benefit of my protection against Unlucky_footman/Weaaddar's (originally, Unlucky_footman found that protection) is that you can include an "unprotection record" that allows you later to unprotect your map with the password set (the author one). If you feel like your map is known enought and doesn't need to be protected anymore, you can give that password to other user and let them unprotect your map to edit it.
As you can see, there are many good features.
One last thing I'd like to add: soon, I'll be able to use a better compression than the World Editor's one which will make maps generated by my editor really smaller than they are now.

w00h00!
zepir got the power!
:D
If weaaddar wants to keep his uber1337 status, he must invent something really special now...

Zepir, i downloaded the new version of your editor, version 8 beta. But when I try to load a map, any custom map. 2 errors pop. "unknown war3map.w3e file version (-598848105) or bad header" and another one is
"files\warcraft 3\maps\download\w3zmeb8\W3ZMapEdit.exe"
I tried to load 6 different custom maps and the same error popped up every time. Could you offer some help? Thanks

Zepir that is very intresting as I compressed my own 256x256 map with yourprogram and It grew about 200kb (which is very bad!). Though I may have been mistaken about the numbers if you still allow the picture to be added it may grow even more!

Copy your storm.dll from your warcraft III directory into the directory you installed W3Z Map Editor. That usually solve this problem.

Edited because: Don't worry though, many people had this problem too. It's because of a dll conflict or an unclean install of Warcraft III. The thing I ue to open W3M files need to find storm.dll and if it doesn't, it can't open the w3m and it says the files are corrupted..

The thing is that the watermark "adds an information" into some of the files of the map and this information make these files harder to compress. You loose like 20% on the w3e, 10% on the shd, ... All this make the map grows a little. You save some space with the WTG, WCT, W3R and W3C if they are big.
So the bigger your map is, the more the watermark will take rooms but the more triggers and camera and regions and custom triggers you have, the more space you save too.

it works now, but the map still lags ALOT when people try to DL it. I open the map in the w3z editor. I go to edit, map protection. Enable the 3rd (full) protection and save it. It lags way too much when people DL it. I do the same thing but use weadder's protection it still lags ALOT. I try it without any protection it doesnt lag at all. Maybe I am doing something wrong? Any suggestions? Thanks

can anyone offer some help? If there arent any protectors out there that dont jack up DL time i just wont use one. But I do really want to protect this map. Thanks

What you're saying sounds really weird to me. I got hard time to believe that your download problem comes from the protections.
Your download problem should just fome from the file size.
Seriously, the more I think about it the less I think it can come from a map protector.
I know a lot about W3M files format, I also know some stuff about MPQ/W3M files, and about War3 engine itself. I'm not just saying you're not telling the truth but I think you should do more tests (like with other maps and with several people for the same maps).
I know how the protections are set and what you said is like:
1) you got 2 zip files called A.zip and B.zip
2) B.zip is a copy of A.zip
3) you remove one file from B.zip
4) B.zip is smaller than A.zip but it really takes longuer to download.

You see what I mean? It doesn't sound right. When you upload a map to someone, Warcraft III doesn't look the files "inside" the map (W3M).
Anyway, I suggest you do more test and check how many people are trying to download the map at the same time.

I decided to try this out myself, because i use zepirs protection system with every build.

I looked at all my unprotected versions of FM Vampire Hunters, and then at all the protected ones and i found that in most cases the map size was not increased that much at all.

Out of all the tests, this was the worst case scenario:

FMVH 1.62 Unprotected was 357 kb
FMVH 1.62 Protected was 403 kb

This map is gigantic, it has custom minimaps and sounds, and the protector only added 46kb. And that was using the version i downloaded a month or so ago.

The best case scenario was when the map got up to 660kb, and the map protector didnt add a single byte!

But even when the map was smaller, like in v1.34 the map file was only 332 kb unprotected, and 332 kb protected!

So anyway, thanks for the great program zephir.
jason