Bear with me as I announce the return of the downloads and site sections of the site!

After a long time pondering the pros and cons and making test environments for the new scenario, I have finally deployed the final solution to the live site, the software we are using now is a newer version of the same one we were using before, hopefully this version is free of the security flaw that lead us to two hacks.

Since the software version has a lot of different configuration options, let me know if anything is behaving oddly for you guys.

Enjoy full AtS once again.

May the Shadows never embrace us,

Nif.

Ladies and gentleman, AtS is back in action!

Since the site has been completely offline for 2 entire days, I would like to give everyone a heads up on what is happening. Last week the site was hacked by a hacker that self entitles himself as Maestroz, the hack was pretty minor and was quickly fixed by myself, but the means he used to enter was unknown.

I contacted my host, replaced the hacked files and couldn't get more done. This week the same hacker used the same door to compromise the entire server's vulnerability and thus compromised all sites in the AtS server. Pretty big, I know. My account was suspended until everything was fixed to avoid more hacking, thus the "Account suspended" message you may have been seeing.

The database though is intact, so no posts at all were lost in the process.

Now to theme, main page and everything else. My host asked me to avoid using the main page / downloads / articles mod I was using because it presents a series of vulnerabilities, or at least update it to the latest version, which I was avoiding because it is a beta one (or release candidate thus slightly more trusting), so in the next series of days I will be testing the means to upgrade it to that version but keeping an eye out for alternative portals and download modifications.

As for the theme, it seems replacing the files of the software with the clean install package files somehow broke the them files, but I won't work in themes until I got the front page and downloads mod working.

So for now bear with me on the freely downloadable themes for the SMF software.

AtS is alive, live and will live.

Nifelhein
AtS Admin and Proud Member

An excellent map by Dain has been uploaded to the site, it is huge and very detailed, a must have for anyone seeking quality maps with detailed information.

Give him your praises here

As LA plunges into an occult gang war, mob sorceress Domino Riley must unravel a conspiracy that reaches beyond the magic-soaked mean streets into a world of myth and legend.

Former RPG designer and developer Greg Benage (BLUE PLANET, MIDNIGHT Campaign Setting) makes his fiction debut with MOB RULES, written as Cameron Haley, coming September 1, 2010, from Luna Books.

MOB RULES (320 pp., tbp, $14.95) is an urban fantasy novel of murder and magic, betrayal and redemption set in the supernatural underworld of Los Angeles. Over a ten-year career in the hobby games industry (Biohazard Games, Fantasy Flight Games), Benage wrote and developed dozens of RPG games and supplements, including the ENnie Award-winning MIDNIGHT and DAWNFORGE fantasy campaign settings.

Diana Rowland, author of MARK OF THE DEMON, says of his debut effort, “MOB RULES is exciting and fresh, with a complex and conflicted heroine who grabs your attention and doesn’t let go. This book will make you fall in love with urban fantasy all over again!”

In its starred review of the novel, Publishers Weekly calls MOB RULES a “zippy debut” whose “fast pacing, pungent wit, surprise twists, thoughtful discussions of morality, and escalating, cinematic battles keep the pages turning.”

A ten-year veteran of the hobby games industry, Greg Benage (writing as Cameron Haley) holds down a day job as a senior product manager at a large commercial bank and lives with his wife in Minneapolis. A prequel to MOB RULES, the novella “Retribution,” will be published in October in HARVEST MOON, an anthology with NYT bestselling authors Mercedes Lackey and Michelle Sagara. Benage is hard at work on a sequel, SKELETON CREW, coming in 2011.

MOB RULES
By Cameron Haley
http://www.cameronhaley.com

ISBN-10: 0373803206
ISBN-13: 978-0373803200
 
In bookstores everywhere September 1, 2010

I have finally come around and installed another measure against spamming registration on the forum, now when registering users have to fill-in a captcha code and properly reply a "Are you human?" question.

Also I have approved two new downloads: a spreadsheet to calculate population by city/village size and a chart with all midnight languages and their relations.

Thanks go to their authors.