The machine hosting the site was hacked, and I finally noticed over the weekend. Took the machine down Thursday night, and then (unfortunately) went out of town -- I had a conference over the weekend, and was stuck with minimal connectivity. Due to the nature of what was running through my pipes though, I didn't want to leave the machine online.
I've been goiing through the codebase, and the content of the database, generally trying to clean out the spam and the cruft, and finishing a Rails3 upgrade. Got most of that done last night, but I didn't want to put the site back online at 2 in the morning; I'll be putting it up on a new host, in a somewhat diminished capacity, when I get home from work tonight.
The short of it is that I'm not sure _what_ hole was used to get in, and if it was in the site code or another service. I'm not inclined to thing that someone took the time to craft a targeted attack at a block of custom code, so it's more likely to be another service, but I'm still treading carefully. Most of the more spam-prone-than-useful features of the main site have been removed (comments on articles, playtest reviews, etc) and I'm not including the arena in the first round of back-to-life.
When, or if I do bring the arena back up, it's probably going to be under different software -- the specific forum software I was using is largely unmaintained, and the authentication hacks I had to go through to get a seamless single signon weren't pleasant. The original reason I stood up the arena is long past anyhow -- it was a response to when WotC, pre-4e, collapsed all the dead-world forums into a single forum. Obviously, that's not the case anymore.
Anyway, the main site should be coming back on line tonight. I'll be keeping an eye on it to see how it behaves, and we'll see where it goes from there.
Haven't used Arena in years. Athas.org is still very useful, though, and the Wiki was great while it lasted, I'd love to see it back online. So many people are over at the WotC forum that we could have a steady flow of Wiki entries.
wish they'd drop an EMP weapon and napalm right on their useless heads :p
wish they'd go do something useful, constructive with their skills.
:king hackersWhy would any one even feel the need to hack Athas.org??? I can't think of any financial pay-off or anything they would gain...
SERIOUSLY
When, or if I do bring the arena back up, it's probably going to be under different software -- the specific forum software I was using is largely unmaintained, and the authentication hacks I had to go through to get a seamless single signon weren't pleasant. The original reason I stood up the arena is long past anyhow -- it was a response to when WotC, pre-4e, collapsed all the dead-world forums into a single forum. Obviously, that's not the case anymore.
While your logic is understandable, the official forums seems to feel hostile towards the 3rd edition players still using the arena forums. Also there is a lot of information contained on the arena forums that would be a shame to lose.
I had just stopped to look at some arena threads the other day, and thought there was some pretty good information there.
While your logic is understandable, the official forums seems to feel hostile towards the 3rd edition players still using the arena forums.
Check out The Piazza. A multi-setting forum likewise created to promote fandom in all TSR/WotC settings regardless of rules era, with an emphasis on the setting, not the rules.
The Piazza was also setup in the fiasco of the collapsed setting forums by the Mystara community, but boards for all settings and rules eras were created. Spelljammer has also migrated much of its community postings there, and Greyhawk fans are growing in number. Dark Sun has a forum for discussion there as well, hop on over, with the recent products coming out it has just gotten a small uptick in activity. Edition wars don't get far there, we're fans of the settings more so than the rules used to interpret them.
www.thepiazza.org.uk/bb/index.php
I always found the cumminity there friendly and helpfull, and the pdfs were the best. So even if it doesn't go back online I'd like the to this time to say thanks to flip and everyone else for helping me Re-discover such a great setting!
-Toothpaste
EDIT: I'm not saying 4e is bad I play all editions, Box set-4th and my own versions and takes. Edition wars is just another form of trolling. Sorry if it came off like that, no hating from me.
Anyways, sad to see the Arena go, but its time may be past. Perhaps a static archive of the material posted there could be created?
been running a Play By Post Dark Sun game there ;)(sorry, full up!)
the Edition wars on the Atha sorg forusm were ridiculous, or rather, a couple of...people....ahem...who went ape over 4th ed were the problem, damn the rubbish they spouted &^%$ me right off!
I love 4th ed, it has problems, so what? IMHO, I am allowed an opinion, 4th ed is the BEST incarnation of D&D, so far.
3rd ed was a massive change in the right direction
But...
*- went too far into over complexity, made the game so complex it was no longer fun to be DM anymore!!!
*-Didn't adress the over-powering nature of magic items and made it worse actually (characters should be #1, not items)
*-Only casters could do "interesting" things. Although 3rd ed did introduce core mechanic for bull rush etc, melee folk were basiclaly standing there trading blows, playing "whack-a-rat" which is BORING and completely unrealistic. D&D isn't realism but it breaks the suspension of disbelief to suggest folk stand there trading "full attacks". Any damn real combat I've ever been in or seen is very, very fluid. You stand there you get your butt kicked, even Aikido ends up moving the opponent. I absolutely love that 4th ed makes the environment and movement such an integral part of combat.
And yes I have played and loved every edition. Each has it's flaws which eventually left me wanting something better
TOUGH, deal with it folk, each edition had problems, always will have, probably. Stop looking at things through myopic rose tinted glasses and be honest, stop wallowing in nostalgia ;)
Think I don't yearn for those heady days when D&D was new to me? But you cannot ever bring that back, that was like a first love, first mountain you climbed, first...whatever. You can't re-capture that, it's unique. It's perverse, actually, to try and grasp backwards for that too much.
It's not wrong to preffer one edition over another: some folk like coffe, some like tea...some like beer others like whisky...everyone has their own tastes. But, much of the edition wars has been "bunker mentality", poorly thought out yearnings for nostalgia to the denial of all else, not actual care about the game play.
Also, as we get older, it's more dificult to pick things up as our brains ain't so adaptable, partially from physical issues but mostly because of plain old ossification of the mind by fear and hurt and other things that make us inevitably resistant to change to some extent.
E G Gygax et al were fantastic innovators
but they weren't perfect: new ideas, new problems etc all hone the game over time, this is good, if D&D stagnates it *DIES*.We cannot rely on an increasing elderly group to be "D&D", or one day, your kids won't play it, hence the need for constant re-invention.
There is a basic rule of life you have to grasp: Change or die.
the one true certainty in life is CHANGE.
It can be a pain in the butt, oh I know OMG, lol, but that's life.
And the changes are what HAVE brought us the htings we care about. Change created D&D from miniature war gaming and fiction novels Gygax and Arneson loved, there were no MMORPGs etc back then!
The settings D&D has created, the mythology etc have been fantastic
I hope to still be playing Dark Sun, Spelljammer etc in 10th, 15th edition or whatever!LIFE GOES EVER ONWARDS....
I *think* Greyorm's and Mr Toothpaste's posts were more directed at how they disliked edition war posts in general... not that they wanted another pro-4th edition edition wars post.
I *think* Greyorm's and Mr Toothpaste's posts were more directed at how they disliked edition war posts in general... not that they wanted another pro-4th edition edition wars post.
Yeah. Edition wars make me want to start drinking.