Unprotetion Tutorial

How to Unprotect Maps - by Scyze

Along with learning about manual protection.

DISCLAIMER: I have put this together to easily teach people how to unprotect maps. This skill should ONLY be used to look at a map's triggers or whatever they want, for LEARNING PURPOSES ONLY.

What we will need:

1. WarCraft 3 World Editor (Duh)
2. WinMPQ - www.wc3sear.ch
3. This tutorial. (Also duh)

About protecting and the files of a map.

There are 3 files we must pay most attention to that we will be messing with in WinMPQ.

1. war3map.wgt - This is the GUI (Graphic User Interface) of a map. This is not READ by warcraft 3, but it IS used by the map. So, inserting your own war3map.wtg text file would ‘corrupt' the map (causes a crash because the file is invalid when you try to open it in WorldEdit--the GUI would look real ugly I'm assuming if we could see it). By setting the war3map.wgt text file to…umm… war3map.wgt, overrides the original.

2. war3map.j - Almost the same as GUI, but all the information from the GUI gets sent here, and converted into a coding language which WC3 can read.

3. (listfile) - This is the file that is automatically created with each map. WinMPQ is specially designed to read this. If the map protector was clever enough to delete this file, you will come up with a bunch of unknowns.

The first level of unprotecting

Now, grab WinMPQ, and open a map that you know is protected. If your lucky, you'll be able to see everything, including the list file, all the Customs, and a bunch of war3map .(insert extension here). Now all you have to do is delete war3map.wtg. It is recommended to save a backup of the copied map just in case. Now, try to open it in WorldEdit. It should open. If not, dunno then. Now, if you go to the trigger section, it will be all blank--don't panic, we'll cover that later.

The second level.

Come up with a bunch of unknowns? No problem! Create a notepad file, and list all the war3map. (insert extension here) you saw in the map you just opened. LIST IT! Like so:

war3map.wtg
war3map.j
war3map.w3a

Etc.

Then choose to use the saved notepad file as a list. It should all be there. Now just delete the .wtg. If there are custom imports and such, or any other file, those will show up as unknowns.

Here, I have included the list file that you can use.

DISCLAIMER NUMBER 2: I do NOT disregard you from using your unprotecting skills to scare certain enemies, but NEVER, EVER, go to the length of releasing a map onto public battle.net with changed data, or anything like it! If you do, then the consequenses will be severe. You will be branded as a map thief, an asshole, and nobody wants to be branded as either of those. And if you do, then you need help.

DISCLAIMER NUMBER 3 (Sheesh!): I'm sure I will get a lot of bad rep for this, but thats what I pay to help people learn certain triggers. Also note that newbies will have a hard time learning triggers if they dont have a lot of common sense.

- Scyze

Yeah, even I will give you bad rep for this one. Its not the fact that people are learning triggers, but when someone spends hours designing some type of unique system, or something that has never been accomplished before, any newb could steal their ideas, steal everything they worked on. Stealing a map isn't really anything but stealing triggers and terrain, as they make up the entire map. So what your doing is just handing over 50% of a map to someone. They can easily get the terrain on their own by a similar method.

Aye I'v come to a conclusion. My rep is going to go down the drain on this one (not that I had much to start with) so I'll put up a poll. If it gets enough votes for removing it, then I'll request for it to be deleted (if it isn't already), and make sure to only teach people how personally.

Bleahh, wont let me make a poll. So, here it comes down to enough complaints. Sigh.

Personally, I don't see why you should get so much bad rep for it. The guys at wc3sear already have most of this information available to the public. They don't go so far as to provide an actual tutorial, but they do explain how all forms of map protection work.

That said, making an entire tutorial over it is a bit overboard. Tutorials are for people who don't know what they're doing, most of the time. I wouldn't like someone who didn't know what they were doing to be possibly modifying my map... Then again, this tutorial itself helps me because I've often wanted to learn from maps that always end up protected.

In summary, this whole thing is bitter-sweet (actually protecting a map included). But perhaps teaching personally is just the best you can do. I suppose that the best you can really do is teach the newbies yourself, and make tutorials explaining the WE's many functions. Or, you can just answer their questions.

Completely true. I'm going to offer 'positive' opposition to this whole idea and express what a lot are thinking. Firstly though, I won't be neg repping and it's a lame to do so, you've done this responsibly to a degree. But I want to raise a point with you Scyze.

I agree it's wrong to withhold work that was done in cooperation with others. Users should be able to contact the owner and get it released to them undamaged, or at least be able to view the work that went into it. I am doubtful that people contributing unique work for someone else wouldn't hold on to a copy anyway.

This is unsubtle but needs to be said: What gives anyone the right to learn all the secrets off a map anyway, without express permission ??? Many of the top trigs took hours of fiddeling and creative work. The creator will recieve no credit and lose the uniqueness they have worked so hard to make. I am yet to find more than about 10 mappers in any field (apart from when they're busy or in a shitty mood) who won't offer advice on technique or appearance. What will be the use of spending all that time creating exceptional work when someone can clone it in 5 minutes ???

And the last point, although your disclaimers are admirable, you really have no ability to enforce who does what with the information (a pitty). For every 10 honest noobs there will undoubtably be the odd thief. We're going to lose great people who are sick of that behaviour and I for 1 enjoy playing they're work to much. Again, my opinion, but it is backed up by facts.

You made it afterall? I thought it would be an unprotection tutorial instead of a doing the obvoius things tutorial. will work with map protection methods from 2002?

*Closed to avoid flamewars like always happen with these things*