Posts by Beta

The server was closed on April 2nd, 2023
https://pwmirage.com/forum/thread/342-we-are-closing/

  • Mirage Editor Backlog

    14.05.2020 done:

    * optimize icon loading even further (loading from cache takes miliseconds instead of hundreds of miliseconds)

    * optimize item loading (again, miliseconds instead of hundreds of miliseconds)

    * add missing template functionality (conditions and loops)

    * finish rewriting recipe lists to templates

    * start showing real data in the preview pages

    - minor issues found, will need to redesign preview data format a bit

  • Mirage Editor Backlog

    10.05.2020 done:

    * add recipe tooltips in recipe lists (on hover)


    to do:

    * implement a javascript template engine (so that HTML-like code can include variables)

    * finish the recipe lists preview page -> complete with diffs

  • Mirage Editor Backlog

    06.05.2020 done:

    * Added item icon caching -> opening a page for the first time should take seconds, then only miliseconds. This was crucial if we wanted to show item icons outside of editor on a regular page that's quickly switched.

    * Added a skeleton of a project preview page


    to do:

    Make the project preview page functional -> make recipe lists showing correctly

  • It's been half a year

    On Oct 29th we launched this site, started writing down ideas for the server and began working on the editor. In a blink of an eye it's been half a year already.


    That's that's how the editor looked after 2 days of development, on Nov 1st:



    No backend, no project management, no npcs, just a draggable map and some windows.


    It's documented on here on the forums, but if I try to think back now it was probably designing the project database (New database format in the editor and its possible benefits) and figuring out PW quest format that took us most time. Each of those about a month. Integrating with the forum also took us a while. Then we had to make all the bugfixes in the patcher to make the changes display correctly.


    Figuring out the quests took us a lot of time but didn't really contribute to the game so far. Maybe that's something we should have left for later. Other than that I think we've spent the time well. It was fun.


    Huuge thank you to Zeva  Escanor  fallenknighte  foxi aaaand Satine for making all of this work. <3 And it's only going to get better!

  • A list of things we'll never have on PWMirage

    This was suggested by ToastyMarshmallows . Let's create such list, but what do we put there? A few things off the top of my head:


    - no tideborn or any newer races, we'll stay with the original 3 races, 6 classes

    - no autopath, (ctrl+click on the map to move in a straight line - maybe, but no automatic navigation)

    - no high rates. we stay as a low rate server

    - no r9 or any other OP gear

    - no packs or gambling

    - no forced PvP mode. you can always stay blue-named

  • A word about security

    We did have an incident on the server yesterday. One of our players Gameruk started logging in on someone else accounts and transferred most of the gear and money to another character. He was also asking people in faction for more money, which he eventually got, so more than 1 person was affected. Was PW Mirage hacked? I doubt it.


    PW server is indeed a black box. Even with the full source code leaked last year it's just too much code for anyone to wrap his head around. Nevertheless, there's a lot that can be done to protect a server. PW 1.3.6 came out over 10 years ago, and the server files appeared on the internet not much later. It's easiest to run those server files on the architecture that was normally used at that time, over 10 years ago. Software is always full of bugs though. Something that PW based on 10 years ago now has a list of known vulnerabilities on the internet just waiting for someone to exploit. Literally, right now there's a PW server around using Apache Tomcat 5.0.33 for hosting the GM web panel. This piece of software is over 8 years old and has its vulnerabilities listed e.g. here: https://tomcat.apache.org/security-5.html

    Just pick one with high priority, google it, grab some exploit script from github, run it against that server and boom you're a great hacker.


    On Mirage we use latest OS and software that's still supported and has security fixes applied as soon - or even sooner - as the vulnerability is made public. We still have a high risk of getting hacked though because of the PW server itself. It's old piece of software and some people may know a few exploits for it. PW might have fixed them in later versions, but we do want to stick with the old 1.3.6 to keep the 3 races and the old look&feel. And there's no list of PW vulnerabilities on the internet, so we need to get hacked in order to understand the issue and be able to fix it. The best we can do to protect user data is to do backups. Every 3 hours. If someone hacks us and affects someone else on the server we look at the logs and try to understand what and how that happened. When we finally introduce some mitigation for the vulnerability, we try to estimate how much impact an intruder has done, and in the worst case we pull out backups. We have them stored on the PW server machine itself as well as a separate machine which just pulls them periodically - in case the PW machine dies or all of the backups there get deleted by the intruder.


    For the yesterday's incident there weren't used any vulnerabilities on the PW server. Gameruk did get access to someone else forum account, from where he was able to see in-game account names and to reset their passwords. Forum is hosted on a yet another machine and the game server doesn't even know about it, so the scenario of using a PW vulnerability to get access to someone's account is very unlikely.


    Supposedly gameruk was banned yesterday on PW Warzone server for sending out some of their account names to the public. I can't say how much of that is true and it's none of my concern, but I do see that gameruk did try a bunch of credentials both in the forum and the game on PW Mirage - not all of them worked. My guess is that he did find a vulnerability on PW Warzone, retrieved user account names and passwords there (PW keeps them in plaintext by default), then tried them on PW Mirage.


    It's always the weakest pillar that fails - and in this case it was probably the passwords themselves. If there is something to be learned from this, please keep your passwords secure. Using a complicated password with numbers or symbols doesn't mean anything if you use the same password everywhere. My best recommendation - a long password that's easy to remember. A nonsense story that's crazy enough to always remember. A single number thrown there won't hurt either.


    -- Edit


    I talked with PW Warzone Admin and apparently no credentials were leaked from their server. It seems like Gameruk just guessed the password.

  • Server Roadmap (as of April 2020)

    Messaging is incredibly important and I just realized that apart from occasional updates on discord I didn't give much info on where we're heading with the server / what's the plan / what I'm working on right now / etc. Let me fix that.


    I keep saying this is a community-driven server. I hope it really is. The main feature here is the editor and ability to contribute to the server yourself, so that the growth isn't bottlenecked by a few privileged people (admins, GMs). I put my trust in this community and I hope the tools I make will make this server different from all the others which already went down. I think the concept is something completely new - nobody created such tools before. At least for PW - I didn't do research on other games.


    The last two weeks were rather busy:

    • We launched the server!
    • We had to launch a separate test server to test things on.
    • Some of the backend code blew up on the first day. It just wasn't tested with this many players online. Specifically, a bug prevented backups from being created. The first backup we have now is from April 17th. It's a shame, as I wanted to analyze the data from the launch and make some graphs of how players develop their characters.
    • One custom quest was bugged, allowing people to complete it more than once and get unfair advantage. A few people did so. One was banned for purposely abusing it.
    • We prepared a basic vote system - no shop yet, but you can already collect vote points.
    • FB exchange npc offered 8 XP scrolls for lv70+ instead of just 1. A bug in the editor didn't let us change this.
    • Players were able to dupe items & coins on server restarts. To fix it, we had to fix those 5 minute rollbacks on restarts
    • The project preview completely broke. Even today, clicking the link on project page on the forums gives you a black screen.


    That last one... I'll get back to it later. There's also a few unresolved issues:

    • BH appeared to be very unreliable - Occasionally you're unable to pick up a quest or finish it. It's a bug in the original server files.
    • ^ Similar with crazy stone.
    • Fashion exchange doesn't work. There's a bug somewhere in the editor
    • Everyone is low on bank and inventory space. There's a lot of bank alts around.
    • TW is disabled.
    • FC/GV is completely broken.


    It is probably expected of me to deal with those issues quickly. Yet, I don't seem to be working on them - I don't. I know we'll have to fix those at some point, but an absolute top priority to me is getting the editor functional. We say it's a community-driven server, but we can't even preview the community-created content right now. Fixing those issues takes time that could be used to be fix our tools instead. Eventually, with the tools working it could be anyone to fix BH or prepare a questline for inventory stones. I know fixing the issues is important, but even with all of those fixed we're still just a standard PW server which will likely rot in the following weeks. We have to do better than that - focus on the community-driven aspect.


    Nevertheless, we're in the middle of testing TW and have a solution for inventory stones ready, waiting on us, GMs to agree with the idea. We'll fix things that are critical or require not that much time, but everything else needs to wait.


    Not all of the issues that need our attention can be made public immediately. That's why I stopped giving daily updates, but let me get back to it now.


    I hope this makes our position a bit clearer. Thanks!

  • Welcome messages

    The welcome message is actually sent by the server whenever somebody logs in. It could be customized, there could some message-of-the-day from your faction (as a replacement for the faction slogan, which is terrible in this PW version).

  • My List of Suggestions, Ideas, and Bugs

    So I just added a rough version of customizable hotkeys here: PW Client Enhancements

    I also explored some possibilities of modifying the client just to know what's realistically doable (by me). There's certainly a lot! Modifying the client isn't too difficult, just a bit time consuming.


    Quote from HotPinkSocks

    Suggestions:


    A stats page would be cool, stuff like number of accounts and characters and classes/gender, levels, number of factions, etc

    That's a great suggestion. It should be in the works soon.

  • PW Client Enhancements

    PW 1.3.6 certainly lacks some features we could try to add:

    * Tab targetting

    * Customizable hotkeys

    * Remaining effect time (buffs,debuffs)

    * Mob HP numbers

    * and so on


    I just finished implementing a rough proof of concept for customizable hotkeys, which leaves with the first two points somewhat done. The patcher below contains those changes. I posted it earlier today on discord [1]. It could use some testing before we publish it through an auto-update. I know it has a lot of rough corners, but any feedback is welcome.


    [1]

    Quote

    This is an experimental launcher with customizable hotkeys. You have to change them manually in a config file with a text editor of your choice. The file's at PWMirage/patcher/keymap.cfg. Please extract this archive in your game directory and run through patcher. I would be grateful for any feedback. This will eventually become a default Mirage patcher fetched through auto-update, but for now we're just experimenting.


    Some additional food for discussion:

    * Use PW-built-in version number for our patches and forbid outdated client to connect to the server

    * Provide forum credentials in the patcher, select proper account, then login inside the game automatically

    * Allow hotkeys for all skills (way more than 16)

    * Show stacked buffs and their remaining time (like cleric's IH)

    * Make mount call/stow instant - or at least much faster

  • My List of Suggestions, Ideas, and Bugs

    I'm happy to see posts like this. It means someone cares. Thank you!

  • My List of Suggestions, Ideas, and Bugs

    That's a good content! See comments below


    The changes which landed in the "backlog" might need some effort to implement and I probably won't start working on them within the next month or two. There's just a ton of other things to consider first. A lot of those suggestions don't require any changes server side, so I encourage the community to do it though. If anyone shares instructions how exactly to change something I'll be happy to add it.