Protecting Wads From Editing

[stealthredneck]

Heh, a simple question really. I always make maps for my friends, and man i enjoy torturing him (lights turning off, doors shutting behind him) but he has a tendency now to open them up in doombuilder before playing them. Is their any way i could protect a .wad file from being editied or possible password? But still be able to actually play it? I'd imagine this would help other users with possible problems as well.

Thanks,Stealth

[CodeImp]

No, thats not possible.

[wildweasel]

Not only is this impossible, I don't believe it should be possible to do something like this.

[Chopkinsca]

I suppose if there any source ports that can run wads from a zip file (I vaguely remember one that can), you could put a password on the zip file.


Edit: The newest version of GZdoom supports using zip files instead of wad files. It was more than a year ago since I read about another source port that could do this.

Although, it would be easy to use 'dumpmap' on the passworded zip-wad once it's loaded.

[Enjay]

GZdoom does support zip files. However it can't get past the password protection, which of course is not really a surprise. If you load a password protected zip, the password protected data will be ignored.

Perhaps stealthredneck should put a more positive spin on this. If your friend is now getting to the point where he can inspect and understand a WAD using an editor - start trying to persuade him to make you some levels too. And remember, don't check them out in an editor before you play them. ;)

[stealthredneck]

haha good idea Enjay. thanks for the replies guys, i figured the answer would be no, but hey it was worth a shot!

thanks,
stealth

[Ezxariarch]

Well, the official Doom, Doom2, Doom Ultimate, Hexen, Heretic, Strife wads don't allow editiing. Atleast that is true for wintex, maybe the program itself didn't allow these files to be edited. I hvaent tried to mess with them using other editors though, so I don't know.

[Mancubus II]

Ezxariarch said:

Well, the official Doom, Doom2, Doom Ultimate, Hexen, Heretic, Strife wads don't allow editiing. Atleast that is true for wintex, maybe the program itself didn't allow these files to be edited. I hvaent tried to mess with them using other editors though, so I don't know.

it absolutely is possible to edit the IWADs.

[Graf Zahl]

Ezxariarch said:

Well, the official Doom, Doom2, Doom Ultimate, Hexen, Heretic, Strife wads don't allow editiing. Atleast that is true for wintex, maybe the program itself didn't allow these files to be edited. I hvaent tried to mess with them using other editors though, so I don't know.

If you make a copy and change the first character from an I into a P you can persuade any software available into editing them, even software that disallows changing an IWAD.

[doom2day]

Mancubus II said:

it absolutely is possible to edit the IWADs.

But if it is your only copy, don't touch it until you have a backup.