slope 2 The Xtreme - Chronicles of Quizorthia Logo endicon

Account

Anonymous Avatar
Good morning, Guest


 ► Register
 ► Member List

Username:

Pass Word/Phrase:

Remember Me for



Whos Online
Active over the last 15 minutes

Currently Online:
• Members: 0
• Ghosts: 0
• Guests: 0
• Bots: 0
• Total: 0

Members/Bots Online:
None

OpenRPG Server
Our OpenRPG Traipse server
2 The Xtreme is
Offline
Stats
The News page has been viewed
16,355 times.
We received
2,361,462
page views since
June 09, 2002


84 Total (17 Pages, 5 per page)

1 2 3 4 5 ... Next Last


  Site Updates      
Posted by: GM-Alex on Dec 18, 2020 @ 22:30 EST
Last Edited: Jan 10, 2021 @ 22:49 EST

There have been several updates to the site.

Updated: Jan 10, 2021

I have been working on a "Locations" system that's tied to the rest of the RPG system. I have also went ahead and added several locations to it as well. Most of the locations should sound familiar to anyone with knowledge of the game, and/or my history. While it may not look like much, there is a lot going on behind the scenes with the Locations system as the way it integrates into the rest of the system. It is still early yet, but there is more integration to be done. Also while working on the Locations system, I have updated the stylesheet a bit to more standardize the HTML headings. I have also reworked the side blocks and the header to use CSS media queries and have done a fair bit of testing to make the system behave a little better on smaller screens.

Once the Location system is completed, I'll be continuing to do the update with the other systems to make use of the new styling, and the new Locations system. At which point when I get to the Space database, there may be a full re-write of it to import the astrosynthesis files to streamline my updates.

Why am I doing all this work for an old RPG that is essentially dead? Simple, nostalgia. I grew up with this world, and I'm sure as hell going to keep it, even if I'll be 40 this year. Time is an evil bitch.


Updated: Dec 24, 2020 - Merry Christmas/whatever everyone...

There have been several changes that have occurred since the last update. One major change is the left side blocks will disappear and the site will shift to full width when the horizontal resolution goes below 1100 pixels. The top menu is a bitch to use on mobile devices though, but turning your device horizontal will probably help. I mainly did it to make it easier to read longer pages on smaller devices. Another visual change is I've replaced the boring sterile cell black backgrounds to stars. This is an RPG site, not some commercial property. If everyone else can waste 800KB on a stylesheet I can burn 1.4K for an image.

• Another change is to the Characters system.The "cards" are now more static sized and will shift with the page width. This also works with the overall scaling as well.
• Completed the new look for the Characters database. All systems will end up with this appearance.
• Revamped additional back-end RPG functions namely the itemlink() function to eliminate excessive database queries. Also addressed the visual display of valid and invalid links. Good links look like this, while bad ones look like this. The bad links will have to be hand edited.
• User created characters, and the front-end for editing characters has been disabled to address database/visual inconsistencies due to the new changes. The user character front-end editor will be updated eventually, but I'm not sure if I'm going to allow anonymous character creation and that function may be removed.

More changes are coming...


The first main change is some core system updates that allows "module header" files to load additional stylesheets into header.php for use on-site. This way module CSS styles can be in their own file versus all CSS in a single file. The anti hammer has been adjusted a bit as well, this should only affect any single addresses that have more than 10 new sessions active in the span of 3 minutes.

The RPG system has undergone several changes as well.
• RPG Core: I've started backend framework to track marriages, family lines, etc much more efficiently and removed some dead functions.
• Characters Database: Visual overhaul and several dead functions removed and additional fields added. This almost wiki-like appearance will be slowly migrated to the other systems.
• Magic Database: A lot of the magic functions, spells & curses have been added. Names and brief description primarily.
• Space Database: Edited some fundamental code for the physics calculations, and streamlined and standardized all the scientific constants. This will allow easier use of the math. Eventually, I plan on having the system read the Astrosynthesis DB files itself.
• Spacecraft: Added several spacecraft, and some placeholder information. Also added a function to add spacecraft "Register" (tail numbers) to tie them to the owners.
• Store: Updated code to address the user sessions, and some logging in not properly "sticking" after using the store until relogging.
• Other Content: Started the framework for a "Factions", "Locations" and "Technology" addons that will show common things within the game world.
• RPG/CG Related: Several characters have "new" portraits that were rendered in DAZ Studio where the quality that far exceeds those renders done in Poser6.

Comments are disabled for this story

     

  My Name change      
Posted by: GM-Alex on Nov 29, 2020 @ 20:17 EST
Last Edited: Nov 29, 2020 @ 20:23 EST

My Name change

Effective immediately (Nov. 29, 2020), the MGCJerry name has been retired. My new name onsite is now GM-Alex. Once a few more site changes are implemented, MGC* names as well as GM-* names will be invalid for registration. Current users who have names that match that pattern are exempt.

The old name will still show on my profile. All username changes need to be done manually as there is no front-end or back-end system in place to change names. Optionally, past aliases can be hidden from view as well (except by main admins).

With luck, I can make my actual name change soon as well. I have the paperwork, I just have to start the legal process. The old name will be removed off the site once my actual name change is official.

Comments are disabled for this story

     

  Site Updates      
Posted by: GM-Alex on Aug 15, 2020 @ 21:40 EDT
Last Edited: Aug 23, 2020 @ 20:01 EDT

New Site updates: Aug 23, 2020

A few new changes.
• Added 24 hour session capture time to help configure the anti-hammering system. Its not very aggressive right now.
• Implementation of an anti-hammering system. Many connections from the same address and rapid pageviews will trigger the system. It is IP based, and not permanent at this time.
• Admin permission system has been updated. Admins can now see their permissions
• Contact form now has a feature where messages can be sent to a specific admin, or all admins if they have "contact us" permission. Superadmins see all messages.
• Theme icon panel improvements. The control panels now size based on screen size and will resize.
• Began framework for users to see where they were logged in from in the last 24 hours, and the option to logout those addresses. This is currently tied into the session handling.
• Various code changes to improve performance.


I have made several changes to the site. Below is a list of changes.

• Started playing with a "responsive" look for the site along with modern notification bars and shit. You can see the proposed sample at https://2thextreme.org/test.html.
• There is now an option to make the top menu bar "sticky", as such it will scroll with the page.
• Improvements to the Whos Online function as well as session handling.
• Improved the admin control panel (ACP) & user panel system. The tiles now fit within the width of your device and respond to screen size. This renders the "Columns" option obsolete in some areas.
• Due to the above changes, there has been quite a bit of code optimizing and streamlining.
• Admin permissions system has been improved with all the new changes.
• Began framework for the social subsystem which includes user messaging (priority), item comments (2nd priority), friend/foe, user voting, etc.

That's it for now, but there's lots of changes coming. One notable change is my name change. This will ultimately affect my username as well. MGCJerry name is soon to be retired after 21 years.

Comments are disabled for this story

     

  Back at Home - Bye Facebook      
Posted by: GM-Alex on Jul 11, 2020 @ 19:21 EDT
Last Edited: Aug 5, 2020 @ 18:25 EDT
downvote story upvote story Score: 0.0 0.0
0 people like this story! 0 people hate this story.
Update #3: August 5, 2020 6:20PM

Most of the updates have been to the user accounts system.

• Now has a current users online (only visible to members).
• Provision a user option allow users to hide themselves from the "Whose Online" function (still visible to admins though).
• The system also counts the number of pages all visitors view. This will make it easier to track down and block bots that like hitting many pages a second.
• Added avatar upload preview function and improved some database/ logic back-end.


Update: July 25, 2020 9:25PM

Update #2
I've found a bug that prevented some people from logging in properly. I have corrected the bug, you should be able to login now.


As of July 19, 2020 8:42AM, my facebook account is now pending deletion. If it gets reactivated, its not by me so report it or just harass the ever loving fuck out of them. Not that facebook will do anything if its reported.


For those coming over to "follow me" from Facebook, and mgcjerry/net/com/org ... I will once again be hanging out here so I don't have to deal with Facebook, or maintaining multiple sites. I'm doing this for several reasons.

1. Less of a mangled mess.
2. Facebook's scripting makes it very heavy and cumbersome to use, especially on a mobile device.
3. Got more control over my own information.
4. No nagging. I hate few things worse than a program or place that feels its need to nag me.
5. I can pretty much say what I want here, if you don't like it, then go pound sand. Complaining to an admin will not solve anything. I AM the admin.
6. Spam is not tolerated here. I gave up reporting blatant violations to Facebook only to get told "nothing is wrong".
7. Porn is not tolerated here. See #6.
8. No sudden random changes here that breaks things.
9. I can actually upload stuff here. 100% of the time, compared to some of the time on Facebook.
10. Actively stops me from trying to make an occasional post or send an occasional message.
11. Being incredibly slow to send messages to people. It sometimes takes at least a minute for messages to be exchanged.

Do I plan on replacing Facebook for my use? Yes. This site has a minimal, incomplete user system, but registration is possible. I dont know if/when I will ever complete the user system. Other than that, Welcome to my OLD place (if this site/domain was human, it could legally drink). If you don't want to follow me here, or text/call me or whatever, that's on you. Anyway, its been here awhile.

I will also be posting all my other misc projects here as well, it will be just be piled onto an old RPG site.

Comments are disabled for this story

     

  Security Update      
Posted by: GM-Alex on Feb 25, 2017 @ 20:19 EST
Last Edited: Feb 26, 2017 @ 11:34 EST

Been getting lots of bot searching for database dumps in many kinds of formats.

Update:
Its getting out of hand. ALL of the exploit searching now results in the entire block getting server side banned. They are also commented in the lists so I know not to remove them.

Oh let me count the ways why all 106 or 206 attempts WILL fail:
• Full database backups are NOT stored in /public_html. Actually database backups are downloaded to my machine. The only backups I have on the server is "default settings", and RPG Manager backups. This way I can factory reset the CMS if needed. And that backup has a salted password hash that the system forces me to reset on restore.
• The requested filenames are all wrong too. Not even close.

Nice try, but here's your YOU FAIL award.

The next CMS update will have an anti-hammering system in place so these excessive requests will get rejected by the CMS. Completely. Right now I have to do them by hand. Also during the next update all block-lists from my sites will be merged, and I will chop as many class B & C addresses as possible to eliminate an excessive lists. This will become an automated function as well after the next security update.

Comments are disabled for this story

     

84 Total (17 Pages, 5 per page)

1 2 3 4 5 ... Next Last


This page was generated in 0.01579 seconds using 18 queries.
This page consumed 9.4 MiB of memory during its creation.

2 The Xtreme - Chronicles of Quizorthia
Copyright © 1992-2006, 2008-2012, 2015-2017, 2020, 2021 (GM-Alex) Alex Jackson
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Powered by SimpleCMS
Best Viewed with any standards compliant browser.