How to protect my MPQ archive?

[Istari.Radagast]

Hello everyone
i used "search" over this forum and found several threads about protecting maps, but nothing (and in google too) about protecting a MPQ archive. I mean, is there any way to protect an archive from opening in WinMPQ?(or extracting from an archive) In your site i read, that it's possible to spoil the header, those HEX 20 00 00 00, and i even wrote my own little C program to do it (as notepad can't do it correctly) but combining different ways of changing of first 8 bytes (and even deleting them) every time WinMPQ was able to open it or Warcraft3 TFT was unable to work with it.
thx

 

[The_wand_mirror]

Why would you protect your MPQ?

 

[ragingspeedhorn]

Wrong forum, moved.

 

[Jacek]

Well... the most basic protection, and the only one I know - remove the listfile...

 

[Rui]

This forum supports not Map Protection, but I think we can always tolerate MPQ protection. Don't know exactly what you pretend, but still, try Jacek's suggestion.

Please introduce yourself to the community, if you wish to do so. Click here to be redirected to our Introduction Forum.

 

[ragingspeedhorn]

Don't we support map protection? I thought only Wc3search was against that...

 

[Tonks]

This forum supports not Map Protection, but I think we can always tolerate MPQ protection. Don't know exactly what you pretend, but still, try Jacek's suggestion.

Wc3 maps are MPQ's, essentially. In this instance, I'm positive he's talking about the mapfile itself, because noone would want to protect War3.mpq..

 

[The_wand_mirror]

So, you want to protect your own MPQ ? so you cant open it anymore? .. wtf?

 

[Istari.Radagast]

Hey people haven't you ever heard about Mod Laucher, the program, which launches Frozen throne.exe adding your own external mpq archive? and WC3 will search for files such as Units\NightElf\DruidOfTheClaw\Bear.blp or Sound\Interface\Warning.wav first in your archive and only then in War3Patch.mpq, War3xlocal.mpq, War3x.mpq and at last War3.mpq.
And I'm talking about protecting MPQ archive, not map. If you don't know how to do it, who knows? is it possible to ask Shadow Flare team?
Jacek thx, but i know about deleting a listfile... files are still extractable and they're extracted _correctly_ and you can just add .wav or .mp3 and hear them in winamp.. if it was an audio file. Actually my archive consists of only audio files

 

[Rui]

Don't we support map protection? I thought only Wc3search was against that...

I haven't seen threads with a big welcome to map protectors, but I might have been wrong.


As for the sound files, well, newbies can do so if they know it's music. Since Warcraft III only reads .mp3 sound files, newbs can simply add the .mp3 at the end and it's fixed.