So, the version of MyBB that we are currently using is out of date. As such, I am going to be upgrading us to the most current version on Tuesday during the afternoon around 1 or 2 pm EST.

Not sure exactly how long it will take but hopefully it won't take more than an hour. These forums will be down. Not sure if the old forums or FETO will be down as well during this time period but I wouldn't be surprised if they do go down.

Once this is done then hopefully we can start working on some skins for the forum to make it look more Fire Emblemy with the new game coming out and everything.

Subject.

Also, temporarily disabling pink flashing screen names. (sorry Mizu ;_; it's for developer-y reasons)

Downtime reason: Generate full site mirror/backup image, including databases, FETO, Forums, data, assets and software.
Downtime duration expected: 5 to 30 mins.

I weeded through the activation queue, and found a surprisingly good amount of activations that went unnoticed. So I've activated the accounts that I felt weren't bots. There were some potential accounts that were hinging on 50/50 chances that I feel I shouldn't take chances on.

Anyway, I've posted this as a reminder that, if you register, immediately post in this forum to request your forum activation. Do NOT request FETO activation in that forum. Instead, you go to this thread to request activation on the (old) forums, which grants you access to FETO.

This is a very confusing roundabout way of doing things, and I'm sorry for all the confusion, but there isn't much we can do about it. The Captcha system sucks, and FETO, as well as the main site, being tied to the old, outdated, and breaking down IPB platform is doing us no favors whatsoever. So the one thing I ask of everyone, members and guests alike, is to be patient.

Thanks for your time.

Want to join the FEPlanet/FETO dev team? Tinker with the code? Improve the site and the game?
We're opening up development in an invite-only private group first, and will later open the source and development once it's production-ready.

We're looking for:
Beta Testers
- Testers willing to report bugs and work with us on making the platform better.
- Anyone may apply!
- You will get access to secret beta/alpha builds deployed on the server, and be able to submit bug reports on the bug tracker.

Developers
- Developers willing to get their hands dirty in the code that drives FEPlanet, and submit changes too.
- If you know PHP, HTML, CSS, JS, and SQL then you'll fit right in.
- Bonus points for webGL, audio/video, responsive design and other "HTML5"-ish things.
- We have a number of projects inherited from FEPlanet which need some retooling, including a game, a chat system, a forum, a website/CMS, and a media depot.
- You will have access to review the source, and submit code patches for integration into the running beta, and eventually the final project.

If you think you're up to the task, post here or PM me!
I'll let you know if you've been approved to join the development.
You will need a Gitlab account if you're approved.
If you are selected, just send me your Gitlab account name, and I'll add you to your group.
I'll then send you a link to the project, the beta/alpha build, and any passwords or information necessary.

It's a beta, but I might as well put it up for testing.
http://chat.feplanet.net/standalone/

FEPChat v0.1β
Changes as of 1/20140627:

• Admin and mod functionality now work.
  
• FE10 sound effects added.
  

• Theme support and MyBB template plugin
  

Hello there, forum-goers! It is I, Falaflame, and I will bring you up to date with what has been going on. I feel like I have not been posting a whole lot of updates outside of the FEP skype chat, so I figure I'll give you guys a bullet bill so you can catch up to the pack.

First off, staff issues. Now, I'm not sure if I've posted this before (I have on the skype chat, but I don't think I did here), but there has been a massive staff overhaul in the past month or so.

A couple of people have been relieved of their staff duties, and those are:

-Sui-Kun
-Crimea River

We thank them for their large contribution to the site, and should they return to the site and show interest in being staff again, they may retain their roles. But the reasons why we've relieved them was because they were inactive. But moreso, our staff page has felt kind of bloated for quite a while. 5 admins for a community as small as ours doesn't look too good on us. So I spoke with sirocyl about it, and we felt me, sirocyl, and fensti can handle the site just fine.

But with that move, we've also promoted Vaike - IX to Super Moderator. If you haven't given him any congratulations, please do so now. He's deserved it with his work ethic and general positive attitude.

So that's all and dandy, because we're still--





"What in tarnation is going on here!?"

Well, what happened was, sirocyl has recently decided to step down for a number of reasons. One, his workstation may or may not be forcibly taken away, and two, me and a few of his friends decided that due to the large amount of stress, it was the best of his and FEP's interest to take a long break. He will be back, however.

I will be retaining his place as the 2nd in command for now, until his return. Sirocyl is currently working on handing me the reins so I can finally do FETO resets, and possibly activate accounts on FETO. And who knows, since I will be handed full power, I may start FETO tournaments again.

I do have the theory of general coding locked down, but that doesn't necessarily mean I know what exactly to do around here. So the bad news is, our plans of restructuring FEP as a whole (not just FETO, but the forums, as well as the site index itself) have suffered a setback. Our plans were to pry FETO off of the IPB platform, and separate the site from the IPB as well, and have them all standalone. That way, it will be miles easier to handle each individual feature we have here. But for now, we will be putting that on the backburner. I know most of you are sick of hearing this, but it has to happen for his sake and for FEP's.

So with that being said, we are open to having assistant coders again. We've had 2 potential assistants before, but they've since disappeared without any trace. So before I say anything further, having consistant activity is a must if you want to apply to be an assistant coder for us. As well, you must have an extensive amount of knowledge in coding experience (PHP, Javascript, SQL, HTML, CSS, Linux Command Line, Java, and more). If you don't fit this profile, you can still help! If you know anyone else who has the knowledge and can potentially be an assistant coder here, refer them here and have them PM me. We'll work it out from there.

More good news is coming, too! We are currently in talks with Petalburg Woods Network about possibly becoming affiliates with each other. PWN's current leader, Felly (You may have seen her around before), as well as I, have been friends for about 4 years now, dating back to the Triforce Dashers clan I used to lead. She is talking it out with the rest of the staff there, myself included. (I am also staff there as well) We're still trying to come to terms with an agreement. If an agreement is reached, not only will we benefit each other quite well, but we do share common ground, too. I will let you know what happens when a deal is confirmed.

Also another thing that will soon be done, and is currently being worked on is, the profile system here will be revamped. It just looks really bland, and unused, and I just want to find some more use for it. I will be adding Visitor Messages, User Profile Customization, and YouTube Video support. That way you can communicate with other people using your profiles, too, and make it a lot more colorful.

That is pretty much all there is I can share that I haven't already brought to light. Much thanks to WyvernSlayer and his crew for reviving the RPs here, as it has certainly brought more activity and general interest here. If there are any questions, please post them here and I'll help you out as much as I can.

Thanks for stopping by!

I am pleased to announce that the FEP Roleplay Moderation team has officially released the first site-run RP of the new forums!

Hey, just a quick status update.
I'm not going to be able to do too much with FETO for a while.

My 2TB HDD, with my development workspace, FETO intormation, prototypes, source code, backups and data, just died.

I can recover the information, but it's paramount to me finding another 2TB HDD to backup onto.

The in-progress 4.0 version was on that drive. But I do have a grasp on the workings of the lost code, it's just a matter of doing the work again.

The 3.0 version was only minorly affected, as the work for 3.0 is being done live, on-server, and in production.
Because I'm testing in production, the backups are EXTREMELY important.
The map cache/"start battle" bug which surfaced in early January, wouldn't have been repairable without the backups I had.

I do not have enough HDD space on my computer to download and store all 12+ GB of backups from FETO.
So I'm halting all progress on the 3.0 changeover, the FETO resets, and the rest of the reworking of the base code, until I get something to backup on.

Furthermore, any work-in-progress, beta, alpha or test builds of any software on server are to be effectively shut down and archived until something works out.

FETO will not shut down, I will not be leaving, and no contingency plans need take place. I'm just having a severe technical meltdown which only replacement hardware can fix at this point.

Rest assured, development will continue as planned once it's fixed.
I may continue to make small changes here and there, but the major overhaul planned for this June is going to be held off.

P.S. @fensti: If you plan on gamesharking the database for any reason, I HIGHLY recommend you keep a recent DB backup. It's a lifesaver.
And make sure it's done through the webhost's backup tool.
PHPMyAdmin and any local scripts, run the server out of memory halfway through and give you an incomplete backup.
If you change any code, you should also grab the root tree backup of all the site files, too, through the backup utility.

This is a post to remind you that FETO's downtime compensations are STILL underway. We clearly don't have enough people claiming their consolation prizes, so post now while you can! Because, now, we we have decided to put a deadline on the compensations! So it is important to claim them now! We still haven't decided on a deadline, but rest assured, there will be a point of time where we WILL stop handing them out. Time to stop putting off your claims and get to this thread, now!

http://forums.feplanet.net/thread-67.html

Recently, a huge, unprecedented and serious hole in OpenSSL, a widely-used free/open-source security and encryption suite, was found and disclosed to the public by security researchers.

Dubbed the "heartbleed" bug, due to its (mis)use of the TLS Heartbeat mechanism, it could display a (somewhat) random 64kbytes of memory from the server, without as much as a trace of access, by default.
Repeating the attack, sometimes millions of times, gets enough samples from server memory to include data on the server/being processed, such as:
- Encryption keys and authentication information
- Unencrypted (plaintext) Data being passed through encryption, such as passwords, e-mails and session keys
- Anything on the server's RAM at a given time, such as assets, source code, even an SSH session log.

What it means for FEPlanet:
Our webhost, Surpass, uses an insecure version of OpenSSL currently (OpenSSL 1.0.1e-fips 11 Feb 2013) as of 2014-04-11 5:03pm EST.
They have apparently issued a statement about Heartbleed, but I don't see it on any of their public spaces.

If you use the same password on other sites, make sure they've patched their OpenSSL (if applicable), and change those passwords.
Also, don't use the same password on other sites. It's not a good idea.
If you want to change your password here, feel free to, but expect that you will change your password again once they patch the OpenSSL here.
You should change both the FEPlanet Forums, and FETO/oldforums password.

FEPlanet, FETO and our server do not use any public-facing HTTPS/SSL/TLS services. We planned on setting them up for certain functions (admin/management, and the user login page) but we will wait until Surpass updates their OpenSSL implementation.
This does not mean that FEPlanet and FETO are 100% safe, but we can ensure that we have no secure public services which can be bypassed.

An attacker can make their way into the site from our webhost. Your passwords are securely hashed, but if the database tables are leaked, a brute-force attack could crack one password at a time.

What it means for FETO:
Your FETO account is linked to, but independent from, the oldforums account.
If you suspect any suspicious activity or foul play, contact us, and we can mitigate the game from our side.

Finally,
Anyone caught hacking the game's code without authorization, cracking/penetrating our server's defenses, or accessing specially-privileged areas on FEPlanet or FETO, is subject to investigation and prosecution under the fullest extent of US law, as per Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
We take your security very seriously.

No compromise can be confirmed, but it should be assumed that the server is currently INSECURE, and should be treated with skepticism until confirmation from Surpass that they've fixed their implementation of OpenSSL.

Regards,
~sirocyl