I wonder if they are making this move because it is cheaper? No one has mentioned this. People forget PWE/Cryptic is a business first and foremost. Like all businesses everywhere they are continually looking for ways to reduce overhead and extra expenses. If this is the idea behind the move to vanilla and it frees up some capital which then gets allocated towards STO, can it be a bad thing?
I think that would depend on the number of vB licenses they actually own and use. Vanilla isn't cheap, but if the STO forums is any indication of how they have maintained all their other vB forums, then switching to Vanilla forums might be cheaper, if only for the short term. Long term they can probably still save money since the all the various forums will be merged into one single forum, with a category for each game. I can see the possibility of some redundancies and potential opportunities for some reduction in paid staff. Especially if they turn forum moderators into global moderators.
I wonder if they are making this move because it is cheaper? No one has mentioned this. People forget PWE/Cryptic is a business first and foremost. Like all businesses everywhere they are continually looking for ways to reduce overhead and extra expenses. If this is the idea behind the move to vanilla and it frees up some capital which then gets allocated towards STO, can it be a bad thing?
Of course it gets cheaper. Simply because they won't need as many people working on the forum maintenance/moderation.
That's good for PWE. Of course that doesn't mean it's good for the users of the forums.
TOIVA, Toi Vaxx, Toia Vix, Toveg, T'vritha, To Vrax: Bring in the Allegiance class. Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider. Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
(...)
Everything PWE/Cryptic does is: The least possible expenses, the most possible profit.
Simple. Chinese logic for ya. Thats why the game got screwed over
(...)
That's called capitalism, and every profit-oriented enterprise in existence works that way or they needn't bother with providing wares and services
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
followed your links to some swordsmen game? where can you discuss things in (our) game?
getting redirects claiming this may not be perfect world yadda yadda. changing random proc crafting/ upgrading is important to me. i want to be able to keep discussion rolling but i fear no one will find it.
I try not to be too word, but... just checked two of my old literary-challenge pieces, and one of them was a bit over 32,000 characters, and the second a bit under 39,000. So, either I learn to be briefer, or I do my fanficcing somewhere else, I fear.
So a while back we were discussing moving over to the Vanilla forums. After looking at the migration carefully, discussing it with the team, we wanted to make some changes to the forums before we felt like we could move over. We've decided to make some significant changes to the back-end and feel that we are now ready to start the migration process.
I try not to be too word, but... just checked two of my old literary-challenge pieces, and one of them was a bit over 32,000 characters, and the second a bit under 39,000. So, either I learn to be briefer, or I do my fanficcing somewhere else, I fear.
Not necessarily. I got us enough of an increase that you may be able to get post breaks to fall on section/scene breaks. If you go over there to the test thread, you can see a sample, to see what that looks like in practical terms. Let me know if you can't find it and I can give you instructions.
Right now I intend to continue here as well as potential other venues simultaneously.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-) Proudly F2P.Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
I try not to be too word, but... just checked two of my old literary-challenge pieces, and one of them was a bit over 32,000 characters, and the second a bit under 39,000. So, either I learn to be briefer, or I do my fanficcing somewhere else, I fear.
I thought you were already doing that, to avoid certain unfortunate (and inveterate) nitpickers who believe their headcanon superior to yours? (Loved the story, by the way, and really looking forward to whatever you write next...)
Because it was in a test thread where I didn't want to cause clutter, the story text only shows if you push the spoiler buttons. What you see in those three posts, I did in one on this forum, but at least the breaks between posts now fall on natural scene breaks, where with the 12000 character limit, they weren't.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-) Proudly F2P.Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
Ofcourse its cheaper.
Everything PWE/Cryptic does is: The least possible expenses, the most possible profit.
Simple. Chinese logic for ya. That's why the game got screwed over
PWE Space Battles Online!!!
I normally don't mind ignorance. But I find smug ignorance to be really depressing. One can only hope at this point strands of DNA which exhibit these will not be allowed to procreate.
A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
Well I can't even log into the Arc forum today. Click the log-in button and I just get a blank page and when I click "Having trouble logging in?" I get this error message:
An error occurred during a connection to www.arcgames.com. Cannot communicate securely with peer: no common encryption algorithm(s). (Error code: ssl_error_no_cypher_overlap)
The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because the authenticity of the received data could not be verified.
Please contact the website owners to inform them of this problem.
The Arc forums do have TLS encryption do they not? cause you know Poodle has compromised SSL3.
Yes, that is the button I was clicking and it goes to the next page loads the header stuff and leaves the window below where the log-in should be empty (blank).
The log-in at the top of the page just spins endlessly doing nothing..
But thank you for the info and pics. At least now I know what I'm looking for..
I thought you were already doing that, to avoid certain unfortunate (and inveterate) nitpickers who believe their headcanon superior to yours? (Loved the story, by the way, and really looking forward to whatever you write next...)
Well, it seems a bit, I dunno, churlish to write STO fanfic and not put it on the STO forums... um, unless that actually becomes necessary for *ahem* some reason.
(I ought to get back to some original writing anyway - and have been thinking of using the blog for that purpose. Just at the moment, though, an awful lot of my time's being taken up by another project - I'm reading, and capsule-reviewing, this year's Hugo award nominees. In some cases, that is a lot of work!)
I am sorry if this has been asked before but how do you log out of the new forum?
I mangaged to work out how to get in and change my avatar. The sig will have to be worked out but I think I saw a post earlier about that so will take another look but I can't find a logout button or option anywhere?!?
I am sorry if this has been asked before but how do you log out of the new forum?
I mangaged to work out how to get in and change my avatar. The sig will have to be worked out but I think I saw a post earlier about that so will take another look but I can't find a logout button or option anywhere?!?
Don't think it has.
Click on your user name in the top right corner and you'll get a drop down menu. You'll find the sign out button there.
(Very logical I might add. Sort of like having to click on Start in Windows to turn off your computer. :rolleyes:)
Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end of it.
Sighs... 2 major errors I detected. I use safari on computer and mobile.
Problem 1:
I can't login at first but later somehow I was able to login on the browser. Can't promise I will be able to repeat that. Also..
. Logging in on your mobile browser doesn't work. When I click on sign in on the different locations this is linked I get transferred to the page where all games are listed. I get two copies of the top cryptic menu. And I am logged into the cryptic site but not into the forum. Very annoying.
Problem 2; the signature. It says it you can use bb code but it does not work. I had to use html code to get a signature image show. Also the menu for making a signature like inserting an image doesn't work. Nothing happens.
I think I'm going to skip the new forums for a week or two till They work out the BUGs.
I'm not looking forward to this change.
My join date will probably jump another three years.
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
After signing in, I see that my email address is still associated with my Vanilla Forums account. Am I to assume that Perfect World has agreed to share our email addresses with Vanilla Forums?
Here are steps to view your email address at perfectworld.vanillaforums.com:
1. Copy and paste the following URL into your address bar. Then, press Enter.
2. Click "Sign in" (located in the upper right).
3. Type your user name and password. Then, click the "Sign in" button.
4. Copy and paste the following URL into your address bar. Then, press Enter.
6. Click on your forum name on the left.
7. Click on the "Preferences" button on the right. Your email address will be shown below your forum name on the left.
I don't think it's actually necessary to give Vanilla Forums our email addresses. The sharing of email addresses is part of their single sign-on (SSO) implementation, which they call "jsConnect". According to their documentation, you can pass a dummy email address:
Can we use jsConnect without providing an email address?
No. You absolutely must send an email, which is the only method for mapping users. If you are importing forum users without email addresses and need a way to map them over SSO, we recommend using dummy email addresses that follow a formula like {uniqueID}@yoursite.com.
However, even if you change the code on PWE's side to pass dummy addresses, that may not erase the email addresses already stored in Vanilla Forums' database. You may have to contact the admins at Vanilla Forums to get them to manually delete the old addresses.
While browsing Vanilla Forums' documentation on jsConnect, I discovered something strange. They distinguish between two kinds of SSO: site-wide SSO and embedded SSO.
I'm doubtful that this construction has a security proof. Why are they making up their own MAC instead of using a standard construction? It's especially strange because, in their documentation on embedded SSO, they use HMAC.
Why use a standard MAC in one place, but make up your own in another? Unless you are a cryptographer, you shouldn't be devising your own cryptographic schemes instead of using a standard library.
And in case anyone thinks that arcgames.com uses only embedded SSO and not site-wide SSO, I'm pretty sure that when the user goes directly to perfectworld.vanillaforums.com, that box on the left uses site-wide SSO to check if the user is signed in.
After signing in it doesn't reload the forums page. Instead it takes me to what looks like the Arc games page and the top part of the page is messed up. You can see it showing in the upper right that I'm not logged in and below I am logged in. http://s31.photobucket.com/user/MonkeyGuts69/media/arc%20log%20in%20messed%20up_zpseojofri8.jpg.html?sort=3&o=2 While on this messed up page after logging in, clicking the refresh button in my browser loads the Arc forms with me logged in just fine. Somewhere in the transition while logging in it doesn't take you to the correct page.
It's been that way since they announced the forum migration a month and a half ago. The "Sign In" button on the left takes you to
Well I can't even log into the Arc forum today. Click the log-in button and I just get a blank page and when I click "Having trouble logging in?" I get this error message:
An error occurred during a connection to www.arcgames.com. Cannot communicate securely with peer: no common encryption algorithm(s). (Error code: ssl_error_no_cypher_overlap)
The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because the authenticity of the received data could not be verified.
Please contact the website owners to inform them of this problem.
The Arc forums do have TLS encryption do they not? cause you know Poodle has compromised SSL3.
I encountered a similar problem while investigating another issue. My problem was slightly different: I could log in to www.arcgames.com, but I couldn't navigate to
I received an error message similar to yours, possibly even the exact same error message. I wish I had saved that error message, but I was focused on another problem at the time. You wouldn't happen to be running Firefox, would you? Other people are reporting the same error message as yours in the thread below.
In my case, I fixed the problem by deleting all cookies from arcgames.com and entering a new PIN. I suspect that TLS may be misconfigured on the servers that host arcgames.com.
The thing is, if you notice my response here... these forums don't have that issue. Why then should the Vanilla forums have issues such as that, and why would it be desirable to use them when these forums work better? Come to think of it... why not migrate the Vanilla forums here?
I think they're trying to save on server and maintenance costs. The Vanilla forum software is open-source, so they could download the software and run it on their own servers.
The fact that they're using vanillaforums.com as a host means that someone at PWE has deliberately decided not to host the forums on their own servers.
I have provided feedback on the forum migration and on Arc and arcgames.com. The comments on Arc and arcgames.com would stand even if there were no forum migration. Some of the comments are technical in nature. Please pass this information to the right people.
Click on your user name in the top right corner and you'll get a drop down menu. You'll find the sign out button there.
(Very logical I might add. Sort of like having to click on Start in Windows to turn off your computer. :rolleyes:)
Thanks Ilithyn, I'll take another look today.
Someone also has reported that the insert image function on the sig creator isn't working, I can confirm I had the same problem as well.
Someone also has reported that the insert image function on the sig creator isn't working, I can confirm I had the same problem as well.
Note that the page says BBCode is accepted in the sig area, but while BBCode uses [] to surround its terms, Vanilla code uses <>, similar to HTML.
I was able to paste a pic into the sig, one I have stored in my Photobucket. Now I should try to find a smaller one, because the one I have is a little -- sizable.
I think the settings are different for signatures and the body of posts for some reason...BBCode started working on Friday in post bodies.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-) Proudly F2P.Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
When I click on the link, I don't see STO listed as a sub-forum.
What am I missing here...?
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
Comments
Of course it gets cheaper. Simply because they won't need as many people working on the forum maintenance/moderation.
That's good for PWE. Of course that doesn't mean it's good for the users of the forums.
Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider.
Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
Don't make ARC mandatory! Keep it optional only!
That's called capitalism, and every profit-oriented enterprise in existence works that way or they needn't bother with providing wares and services
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
getting redirects claiming this may not be perfect world yadda yadda. changing random proc crafting/ upgrading is important to me. i want to be able to keep discussion rolling but i fear no one will find it.
Why can't I login over there?
Anyone else having this problem?
Not necessarily. I got us enough of an increase that you may be able to get post breaks to fall on section/scene breaks. If you go over there to the test thread, you can see a sample, to see what that looks like in practical terms. Let me know if you can't find it and I can give you instructions.
Right now I intend to continue here as well as potential other venues simultaneously.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-)
Proudly F2P. Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
http://perfectworld.vanillaforums.com/discussion/comment/36933/#Comment_36933
Because it was in a test thread where I didn't want to cause clutter, the story text only shows if you push the spoiler buttons. What you see in those three posts, I did in one on this forum, but at least the breaks between posts now fall on natural scene breaks, where with the 12000 character limit, they weren't.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-)
Proudly F2P. Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
I normally don't mind ignorance. But I find smug ignorance to be really depressing. One can only hope at this point strands of DNA which exhibit these will not be allowed to procreate.
Yup..
and I'm still
(I ought to get back to some original writing anyway - and have been thinking of using the blog for that purpose. Just at the moment, though, an awful lot of my time's being taken up by another project - I'm reading, and capsule-reviewing, this year's Hugo award nominees. In some cases, that is a lot of work!)
I mangaged to work out how to get in and change my avatar. The sig will have to be worked out but I think I saw a post earlier about that so will take another look but I can't find a logout button or option anywhere?!?
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Don't think it has.
Click on your user name in the top right corner and you'll get a drop down menu. You'll find the sign out button there.
(Very logical I might add. Sort of like having to click on Start in Windows to turn off your computer. :rolleyes:)
Problem 1:
I can't login at first but later somehow I was able to login on the browser. Can't promise I will be able to repeat that. Also..
. Logging in on your mobile browser doesn't work. When I click on sign in on the different locations this is linked I get transferred to the page where all games are listed. I get two copies of the top cryptic menu. And I am logged into the cryptic site but not into the forum. Very annoying.
Problem 2; the signature. It says it you can use bb code but it does not work. I had to use html code to get a signature image show. Also the menu for making a signature like inserting an image doesn't work. Nothing happens.
I'm not looking forward to this change.
My join date will probably jump another three years.
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
Here are steps to view your email address at perfectworld.vanillaforums.com:
1. Copy and paste the following URL into your address bar. Then, press Enter.
http://www.arcgames.com/en/games
2. Click "Sign in" (located in the upper right).
3. Type your user name and password. Then, click the "Sign in" button.
4. Copy and paste the following URL into your address bar. Then, press Enter.
http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums
5. Copy and paste the following URL into your address bar. Then, press Enter.
http://perfectworld.vanillaforums.com
6. Click on your forum name on the left.
7. Click on the "Preferences" button on the right. Your email address will be shown below your forum name on the left.
I don't think it's actually necessary to give Vanilla Forums our email addresses. The sharing of email addresses is part of their single sign-on (SSO) implementation, which they call "jsConnect". According to their documentation, you can pass a dummy email address:
http://docs.vanillaforums.com/features/sso/
However, even if you change the code on PWE's side to pass dummy addresses, that may not erase the email addresses already stored in Vanilla Forums' database. You may have to contact the admins at Vanilla Forums to get them to manually delete the old addresses.
While browsing Vanilla Forums' documentation on jsConnect, I discovered something strange. They distinguish between two kinds of SSO: site-wide SSO and embedded SSO.
http://blog.vanillaforums.com/help/vanilla-jsconnect-single-signon-on/
In their documentation on site-wide SSO, they construct a MAC by computing a SHA-1 hash of the message concatenated with the secret key.
http://blog.vanillaforums.com/jsconnect-technical-documentation/
I'm doubtful that this construction has a security proof. Why are they making up their own MAC instead of using a standard construction? It's especially strange because, in their documentation on embedded SSO, they use HMAC.
http://blog.vanillaforums.com/jsconnect-technical-documentation-for-embedded-sso/
Why use a standard MAC in one place, but make up your own in another? Unless you are a cryptographer, you shouldn't be devising your own cryptographic schemes instead of using a standard library.
And in case anyone thinks that arcgames.com uses only embedded SSO and not site-wide SSO, I'm pretty sure that when the user goes directly to perfectworld.vanillaforums.com, that box on the left uses site-wide SSO to check if the user is signed in.
It's been that way since they announced the forum migration a month and a half ago. The "Sign In" button on the left takes you to
http://perfectworld.vanillaforums.com/entry/signin?Target=categories
which redirects to
https://www.arcgames.com/en/sign/in?src=http%3A%2F%2Fperfectworld.vanillaforums.com%2Fsso%3Ftarget%3D%252Fcategories
The login page for arcgames.com is located at
https://www.arcgames.com/en/sign/in
The login form that drops down when you click "Sign in" actually posts to the above URL. After you're signed in, the login page redirects you to
http://www.arcgames.com/en/games
What's happening is that the login page is redirecting to the above URL as usual instead of redirecting to perfectworld.vanillaforums.com.
I encountered a similar problem while investigating another issue. My problem was slightly different: I could log in to www.arcgames.com, but I couldn't navigate to
https://billing.arcgames.com/en/
I received an error message similar to yours, possibly even the exact same error message. I wish I had saved that error message, but I was focused on another problem at the time. You wouldn't happen to be running Firefox, would you? Other people are reporting the same error message as yours in the thread below.
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1468171
In my case, I fixed the problem by deleting all cookies from arcgames.com and entering a new PIN. I suspect that TLS may be misconfigured on the servers that host arcgames.com.
They might not have fixed anything. My guess is that your cookie expired, and that's why you could log in.
I think they're trying to save on server and maintenance costs. The Vanilla forum software is open-source, so they could download the software and run it on their own servers.
http://vanillaforums.org/
The fact that they're using vanillaforums.com as a host means that someone at PWE has deliberately decided not to host the forums on their own servers.
On the forum migration:
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=24275121&postcount=77
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=24276281&postcount=83
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=24297701&postcount=142
On Arc and arcgames.com:
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=23847111&postcount=1
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=24276821&postcount=6
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=24288661&postcount=14
Thanks Ilithyn, I'll take another look today.
Someone also has reported that the insert image function on the sig creator isn't working, I can confirm I had the same problem as well.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
I was able to paste a pic into the sig, one I have stored in my Photobucket. Now I should try to find a smaller one, because the one I have is a little -- sizable.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-)
Proudly F2P. Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
Style. I like that.
SCM - Hive (S) - [02:31] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 30.62M(204.66K) - Fed Sci
Tacs are overrated.
Game's best wiki
Build questions? Look here!
What am I missing here...?
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion