.w3m\.w3x file hash, used by Blizzard nowadays

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Nightingale
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Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2020 11:15 am
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.w3m\.w3x file hash, used by Blizzard nowadays

Unread post by Nightingale »

Greetings,

I am afraid, this might be quite a complicated thing, but since it became obvious that I would not be going to address the issue on my own, it seems as the forum is a great place to seek for advice.

As far as you might know, Blizzard use some kind of a 160-bit hash value to define each map (either .w3x or .w3m one). One of the easiest ways to get familiar to it is to check the "Documents/Warcraft III/Maps/Download/.." directory. The problem is to determine the origin of this 160-bit hash.

I have already looked through some of the great articles, covering the topic of the architecture of either an MPQ archives in general or .w3x map files in particular, but still I am pretty sure I have not noticed anything on the topic yet. According to my own research, here are some facts that might be useful:
~ the hash does not depend on a file name at all;
~ the hash DOES depend on any changes applied to the (attributes) file inside the archive, and thus depends on ANY changes to the whole map file;
~ the hash depends on a version of the map (since it is different to the same "standard" maps inside the "Maps" directory of different versions of Wc3);
The last one was quite obvious and could have been easily concluded by the second statement, but still might be a considerable detail.

I would be incredibly grateful to all of you who have any clue to the question.

Nightingale, 2020.04.27.
An example of a map stored by it's hash (done automatically by Blizzard nowadays)
An example of a map stored by it's hash (done automatically by Blizzard nowadays)
Cbsad8IrsfsdfDnDW0.jpg (80.32 KiB) Viewed 21643 times

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3ICE
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Re: .w3m\.w3x file hash, used by Blizzard nowadays

Unread post by 3ICE »

I wish I knew the answer to this super interesting and well stated question... Have you tried asking THW or w3edit? Maybe hacking communities where people might be more willing to reverse engineer.

Why Cbsad8IrsfsdfDnDW0? (attachment: An example of a map stored by its* hash (done automatically by Blizzard nowadays) Cbsad8IrsfsdfDnDW0.jpg (80.32 KiB) Viewed 6644 times)

Edit: I think it's really stupid Blizzard litters our downloads folder with random subfolders like this. Yes, I delete them but they come back each time there's an update or cache verification. I keep my melee maps backed up elsewhere to be able to compare changes in between patches. I don't need them in downloads root folder like this. A nightmare in game as well, can't search for the map I want, too much junk in the way
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