All:
I brought the server up for a few minutes this morning to see how things were going on the reconstruction. It's about 80 percent there. I expect to have something by tomorrow morning at the latest.
steve
****** 07/03/98 @ 9:50pm *****
the realm: town hall
Update on data restoration...
from StephenNichols (StephenNichols), Fri Jul 3 21:50:49 US/Pacific 1998
All:
We made much progress today and are currently testing the login/password reconstruction programs. This has been a very complicated procedure since the majority of the login and password information had to be derived from log files. What we have so far is quite promising. We may get this thing back up as early as tomorrow.
Now, there's been a lot of anger on this board regarding the power failure... I understand exactly where you're coming from. Each and every one of you have every right to be angry with us right now. We will do whatever it takes to make you happy.
I'll take another moment to let you know what happened:
At 2:00am PST on 7/2/98 our server lost power. This power outage was caused by a "software glitch" that affected our co-located ISP during routine maintenance. (By co-located, I mean that the server is not in our offices, but in a rented cage at a major internet hub. The issue of power management falls directly on them)
The abrupt power loss corrupted some data on our 20 gig RAID drive. The data that was corrupted included the information that allows our server to locate large amounts of vital game data.
We immediately consulted our most recent daily backup, from 3:00am 7/1/98. This backup was corrupted due to an Operating System limitation of which we had no knowledge. The specific limit that caused the failure was the maximum file size limit. The operating system only allows a single file to consume 2 gigabytes of space. If the file tries to grow beyond the maximum size, nothing happens.
We were able to salvage all character and house data from the backup, being that the backup program stores files in alphabetical order. The directories that contain character and house data begin with both "C" and "H". Once the backup program got to the "magic mail" directory, it hit its file size limitation (magic mail take a LOT of disk space). That means that all directories that fall after the letter "M" were lost. The data that falls in that category is the player-login data and quest information. We do have the means to reconstruct all player login data and are doing so at this time.
What does this mean to you? A few things...
1) All character and house data is being reverted to what it was at 3:00am PST on 7/1/98.
2) Many of you that had converted from a 30-day account will find that your account is a 30-day account again. Don't panic, all of your characters and houses are still what they were on 7/1/98 at 3:00am PST. Once normal service to The Realm is restored, you will need to revisit the 30-day account conversion page (http://www.realmserver.com/30day.html). Remember that you will need your proof of ownership letter or the login and password information off the back of your CD to use this page. We are very much aware that some of you may have misplaced this information. We will work with each of you on a case-by-case basis to resolve the issue. I would suggest to each of you to search for the login information that we sent to you.
We are very sorry that this happened. Personally, I am at a loss as to what I could have done to avoid this problem. Certainly, if I had the knowledge of the system limitation I would have avoided it. Alas, I had no such knowledge nor did anyone else on the team. We have had to call on our backup system about 5 times before and it gave us no indication of any problems. Rest assured this mistake will not be repeated.
Please try to remain patient as this is finally resolved...
steve
****** 07/03/98 @ 6:20pm *****
the realm: town hall
MESSAGE FROM STEPHEN (Repost)
from Mona (Monamia), Fri Jul 3 18:20:51 US/Pacific 1998
Fri Jul 3 12:05:16 US/Pacific 1998
All:
Here's the rundown on why we're having all this downtime:
At 2:00 am on 7/02/98, our ISP (Exodus) was running some maintenance procedures on their UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply). During this maintenance there was a "software glitch" (that's what the support guy told me) that caused the majority of the building to lose power for one minute.
This power outage caused the directory structure on our hard drive (the one that holds all game data) to become corrupted. While this is a minor problem, we soon noticed something more terrible. It took us 4 hours to get the hard-drive useable again. After we got the HD working, we went to our daily backup (we make one every day at 3:00am) and began restoring the system. We found out, however, that the backup file had gotten too large for the file system on our server to handle. (The uncompressed backup file is over 2 gigs) Unknown to any of us here was the fact that our OS has a file size limitation of 0x7FFFFFFF bytes, or just over 2 gigs. This limitation made our backup file corrupted and we lost some data. All character and house data was able to be recovered, and that's the good news. The bad news is that all of the login names and passwords were lost in this tragedy. All is not lost, however. We are in the process to reconstructing all login names and passwords from our extensive logs that we keep. This means that your accounts will be restored to full working order in a day or so. There is a catch, however. We are unable to determine who had converted their 30-day accounts to 12-month accounts. This means that if you have performed this conversion since November of last year you will have to do it again. All of your character and house data will still be on the account, you'll just have to revisit the 30Day.html web page to reconvert your account. You may want to spend some time locating the 12-month login name and password that you originally used for the conversion to make the process smooth for you.
So, this is the situation straight from the horse's mouth. The reconstruction of your account data is a complicated task that will take the majority of today to complete (and maybe tomorrow too). We're working as fast as possible to get you back up and running.
steve
****** 06/30/98 @ 3:54pm *****
the realm: town hall
A Message from The Realm Team
from WebladyKimmus (WebladyKimmus), Tue Jun 30 15:54:43 US/Pacific 1998
As you know, The Realm recently was assaulted by a group of players using "cheat programs." These players not only abused the game but also hurt other citizens of the community. The Realm Team and Sierra will not tolerate the exploitation of bugs or cheat programs in the game.
The accounts of all players involved have been disabled. In addition, an "auto disable" feature has been added that will automatically disable the account of any player attempting to alter The Realm.
We appreciate your patience as we dealt with this situation. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this caused.
Sincerely,
The Realm Team
Yosemite Entertainment
A Sierra Company
****** 06/23/98 @ 11:52am *****
We are quite sick of having to deal with these hacking issues here at Sierra. We've plugged yet another hole that existed in the spell casting system. This hole allowed people to abuse artifacts (like wands) to cast spells other than what they were designed to cast. The most popular of these being the Head of Death spell. This hole has been plugged and we will continue to monitor and remove any new holes that pop up.
On another note, we have disabled the 30-day account creation system until we have created a more secure system for generating 30-day accounts. Sadly, most of these hacking attempts have been perpetrated by cowardly 30-day account abusers. While this is a blow to any new customers trying to enter the game for the first time, we feel that it is necessary for the security of the game.
****** 06/22/98 @ 3:58pm *****
The latest plugs a few more holes in the server to prevent character hacking. Please note: If you use a memory editor or hextool to change things, your account could potentially be automatically disabled. Please do not use such "tools". Fair warning.
****** 06/19/98 @ 3:20pm *****
My, oh my... What a day it's been today. We've been made aware of yet another dumb hack made by a few players that allowed certain players to engrave objects with bad names. Now, these bad names would crash the server under some circumstances. We've fixed the problem and have banned those who have been found to use this tiny gap in our security. While this is bad news in one sense, it's good news in another. It means that the hackers are getting so desperate for things to change that they had to fall back on the engraved names. How sad. Sorry for the problems... and if you see anything bizarre, please /complain on it immediately.
****** 06/17/98 @ 3:30pm *****
Today's patch fixes a gap in the system which allowed nasty little hacker players to change their characters to abnormally large or tiny sizes. Also, corrected a possible gap that would allow combat spell casting out of combat.
In addition, there is a One-Time Registration form now presented on initial login for our own internal records.
****** 06/13/98 @ 12:13pm *****
The unexpected downtime this AM was due to some equipment relocation at the Realm server site. Please accept our apologies for your interrupted game play. Due to technical difficulties on site, the time was far beyond that which was planned.
****** 06/04/98 @ 2:26pm ******
Today's patch fixes a nasty problem with line jumping. Simply put, if you exit a dungeon and try to re-enter it within 5 minutes you will not be allowed. The 5 minute timer starts as soon as you enter a dungeon, so if you stay in a dungeon for at least 5 minutes nothing will appear differenf. This is to correct the problem with players who enter and exit a dungeon in an attempt to monopolize it.
We have also fixed the phantom blocked forest screen bug. Sorry for the problems.
****** 05/29/98 @ 10:05pm ******
the realm: town hall
Hacking and Cheating
from Weblady Kimmus (WebladyKimmus), Fri May 29 19:05:44 US/Pacific 1998
The following is a message from the Realm Team:
Hacking and Cheating
Sierra takes a firm stand against hacking or cheating in the Realm.
Neither will be tolerated, and players who engage in either offense are
subject to disciplinary action. Accounts will be promptly suspended,
pending a decision on disciplinary action, in the following situations:
> Any player who develops or promotes programs that implement cheating or that alter performance of the game.
> Any player who actively advocates exploiting bugs or loopholes in the Realm to cheat or to alter the performance of the game.
> Any player who uses an outside program to cheat, to alter game performance, or to capitalize on bugs in the Realm.
Depending on the nature of the offense this suspension will result in disciplinary action of a one-time warning, a two-week suspension, or permanent disabling of the account.
****** 05/29/98 @ 3:11pm ******
Today's patch fixes many "look at" messages for miscellaneous items in the game. It also fixes yet another text color hack that players have been using as of late. Enjoy.
****** 05/26/98 @ 3:36pm ******
Over the weekend we were made aware of a program that MeanOne created that would allow him to create fake Info and Tell messages. MeanOne had all kinds of fun with this program. He blatantly told everyone, using fake messages from staff members, that there would be a wipe today. That's just not true. We've been working all day today to solve this issue and have done so. We have made it much more difficult for good ole MeanOne (or anyone like him) to create fake messages. We have also been forced to add a packet encryption key system to stop any further attempts to create such programs in the future.
Summary of changes include:
1) MeanOne's hacking program should no longer work properly.
2) 30-day accounts are no longer allowed to send Magic Mail messages.
3) A major quest bug was fixed. Geezer (who is a major point for many quests) is now available in the Potions shop (room 5310) in Monmouth.
****** 05/20/98 @ 3:41pm ******
Our new programmer started today. He'll be dealing with most issues from now on. Today's patch fixes a rather peculiar problem with some player's characters. It's a simple bug fix... nothing more.
****** 05/12/98 @ 9:00pm ******
There are some problems with the dungeon reset logic after our line jumper fix. We have reverted the change regarding the line jumping fix and will fix it tomorrow. Thanks to all of you who had to deal with the downtime while this was worked on.
****** 05/12/98 @ 4:00pm ******
We have made quite a few fixes today. The list follows:
1) All teleporting bugs have now been fixed. Instead of patching the client to address the house-robbing teleport bug, we have made extensive changes to the server. These server changes make it impossible for anyone to teleport to a place that the server has not authorized.
2) Summoned monsters will flee from combat as soon as the summoning player leaves the combat cloud.
3) Throwing weapons now do damage based on dexterity instead of strength.
4) The encumberance penalty in combat has been reduced a bit to help the wizards.
5) The suspension timer for suspended accounts no longer resets.
6) To deal with the rampant problem of dungeon line jumping we have made it so that only players who are grouped together can enter a dungeon together.
7) We have made some changes to help with the rampant house-lag that people have had problems with. We will continue to monitor the situation.
These are the most recent changes to date. We will continue to address problems as they arise.
****** 05/01/98 @ 4:15pm ******
Breaking into houses has become a favorite attraction for our newest wave of users who use programs like Cheat-O-Matic. There is a new program being used out there that allows the cheating user to trick our client software into letting them into someone else's house. This program is called the Magic Trainer Creator. This program took advantage of a very obscure flaw in our client software to modify the destination room when the cheater entered the game or when going through a door. This allowed the cheaters to randomly appear in other player's houses to rob them blind. Both of these flaws have been fixed with today's patch and any player caught using it will be banned from The Realm permanently. In no way were your Strong Boxes available to these cheaters; just the valuables you left on your floor.
****** 04/27/98 @ 4:00pm ******
We have made a few patches to the game today to fix various minor problems with security on the client.
****** 04/17/98 @ 2:30pm ******
We added an early warning system to let you know about your account expiring.
We fixed the stamina regeneration bug.
The server stability is looking much better, but we will continue to monitor it and fix any problems that pop up.
****** 04/03/98 @ 3:25pm ******
30-day trial accounts are no longer allowed to type on system moderated channels 0, 1 or 2. This is due to the blatant abuse of the 30-day account system by some folks.
We have added three more dungeons today. They are located in the Ascetos Desert, Wexfordshire Valley and The Downs. Enjoy.
We have also enabled riddles in some of the dungeons. Be sure to "Look At" any doors that say they are strangely sealed. You must speak the answer to the riddles to enter.
-- Sorry for the bumpy shutdown period when we updated the dungeons... it was a little problematic. All better now.
****** 03/30/98 @ 4:39pm ******
We have made some changes to the combat system. The list follows:
1) Movement Rate: The base calculation of movement rate was modified to be based on both strength and dexterity. So, if your strength is 20 and your dexterity is 10, your movement rate will be 15. (15 is the average of 20 and 10).
2) Encumberance: The amount of equipment your character is carrying directly affects how well he or she performs in combat situations. If your character is laden with lots of goods, you can't possibly use your weapon as often as someone who is not laden. Encumberance now is more important than ever in melee combat. The more encumbered you are, the less attacks, dodges or blocks you can make in combat. The encumberance penalties start after you exceed 35 percent encumberance. For every percentage point above 35, your combat abilities will be reduced by one percent. So, if your encumberance is 100 percent, your combat abiliteis will be reduced by 65 percent. Remember, these penalties apply only to the number of times your can dodge, attack or block... not to how well you can do them.
3) Action Delay: Each combat action is now subject to a time delay penalty. The amount of this time penalty is subject to what action is being performed as well as your character's encumberance. For instance, a wizard casting the Mass Berserk spell will go after someone who is throwing a knife in most situations no matter what their dexterity attributes are. This is simply because casting the Mass Berserk spell is far more time consuming and complicated than throwing a knife.
4) Melee Shields: Melee shields no longer block all damage when used to deflect a blow. The amount of damage blocked depends on the type of weapon being deflected. For instance, 50 percent of all damage from a maul will go through a melee shield when used to deflect such attacks.
5) Magical Protections: Magical protections, like Protection from Fire, no longer fully protect you from the effects of the magic that they work against. Instead of offering 100 percent protection, the protections now offer 50 percent protection.
6) Invulnerability: The amount of protection that the invulnerability shield spell provides has been reduced from 80 percent to 70 percent.
7) Duach's Crystal has been changed to do 100 to 1000 points of fire damage instead of the flat 5000 points that it did before.
8) The immolation spell was changed to do 1-12 points of damage plus one point for every level of skill in Elementalism the caster has.
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