7 Days to Die - and How I'm now Spoiled

[userzero]

Yeah I knew as soon as I typed that it was harsher than I meant it to be. Really I totally agree about constantly revising as you go along. I work in programing and in fiction and in both instances what you start out making and what you finish creating are often far apart. I can't count the times half way through something I've had an aha moment and decided to completely trash a week or more of work to go in an entirely new direction.

I guess my point was that this is such an early build that we honestly have no idea where the game is going to end up. I don't think I'll regret buying it at any point though. Hell after playing this thing for a few hours I had so many little aha moments I've been in a coffee induced coding frenzy ever since.

[userzero]

First patch is being pushed now. err maybe not.

[FlowerChild]

Any info on what it contains? Can't find a list.

[userzero]

I may have jumped the gun. There was a version conflict for a few minutes.

[FlowerChild]

They seem to be having extended difficulties. The official site and forums have been down for around 2-3 days now. Anyone have any info on this? I must admit a tinge of fear that they may have kickstarted and ran with the money :\

[userzero]

They posted late last night that they will be back up with new servers and forums in a few hours. I tried a directory listing on their website when it first went down and the files for the game were gone. Also right before it went down everyone got pushed a message that their version of the game did not match the one on the servers. I almost posted that maybe they took the money and run, but I think it's likely they got hacked. I would change any passwords that match the one you used on their site just in case.

[FlowerChild]

Yeah, it would really surprise me if this were just an elaborate scam. They've obviously got the development chops to complete this thing, and with the attention they're getting, I suspect they'd stand to make far more from completing the project.

Just my suspicious nature posing the question to myself about the possibility :)

[Sarudak]

For some reason your comment made me think of this.



Given they'd already gone through so much effort actually making a game. :)

[userzero]

Yeah I didn't think it likely. just a passing thought. But honestly most of what they have released for the game so far is default stuff from Unity. You can buy a voxel engine for it for under $45 and there are a bunch of free ones. I'm more of the opinion that their site got hacked, based on the unexpected way it went down and that it took them almost 48 hours to say anything about it. I have been joking that they might follow the same development cycle as they took for "Duke Nukem Forever". But since the game actually was finished after they took it over that might not be a bad thing.

[userzero]

That's not to belittle what they've done. What they have so far is awesome. I'm just saying that in terms of actually dev hours it probably represents less than you might think.

[Sarudak]

Haven't actually played the game I was just operating on the fact that flower liked it.

[Dralnalak]

For some reason your comment made me think of this.

Given they'd already gone through so much effort actually making a game. :)

You know, if we're going to fake the footage of the actual game while people play the actual game, instead of taking down the servers and running with the money, why not just leave the servers up so it takes longer for the players to figure it out? It doesn't increase the catering budget at all!

;)

[userzero]

Wow, still down. Seriously. WTF. They must be shipping the server trans-Atlantic by carrier pigeons.

LMAO at the video.

[userzero]

Looks like it's back up, just waiting on DNS to propagate. If you're still getting the maintenance page just flush your dns.

[userzero]

Can anyone tell me what this is all about?

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[FlowerChild]

Got to be a hack.

[userzero]

yeah, that post is gone now. Guess they missed one before bringing it back up. They got hosed.

[userzero]

I've got to say I'm more than a little pissed off with how they are treating everyone. Claiming that a forum upgrade is why everyone's passwords are gone. That's insulting. Anyone who knows the first thing about anything knows better than that. How hard is it to back up a password DB and import it into a new forum. They switched from phpBB to VBulletien it's automatic for the most part. More likely someone gained access to their server and copied/trashed the database.

[userzero]

It has officially been a week since their servers first went down, they are still mostly down and the game can now be downloaded from the website with no need to login or verify purchase.

We are currently undergoing server maintenance but do not want to keep you from enjoying this game. Please download the game below and login with a random username / password for the time being. When our new database is up you can then activate and register your account!

I think they either lost all their customer data when they were hacked and are thus unable to verify anyone so decided to just let anyone download the game. Or B, they still are locked out of their own server and someone else is in charge. Either way I'm kissing this one goodbye for now and I may dispute the charge on my credit card.

I don't trust to run the game since it connects directly to the forum and website and I'm fairly certain those were compromised. I've changed every password that matched the one I used for their forum/game.

[FlowerChild]

Oi...what a mess.

I think at this point they really need to prioritize getting 1.1 out to start restoring player confidence.

[userzero]

I wanted to see if my concerns were justified so I put the game on a test box and setup a network sniffer and then captured the traffic from the game. The game broadcasts your username and password in clear text over the network. So if you were to use this game on a public network, like school or a coffee shop, your password would be viewable by anyone else on the network (if they were using a sniffer). And since they use the forum login and passwords for the game.... All you'd have to do to get admin access to the forum/web server is capture a packet anywhere between the admin and the website when an admin logged into the game.

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[userzero]

I imagine that might be how the site was breached and why verification was subsequently disabled.

[userzero]

So it probably went something like "fuck, I can't get into the forum, crap my passwords been changed, Errmygawd, delete the forum and tell everyone where giving them upgraded forum."

[FlowerChild]

I think a certain amount of chill is in order man. I can sympathize with the hell they are likely going through with this. Yes, they likely fucked up, but to my knowledge, they're game developers, not security experts, and considering they just publicly released this thing, I'm sure they're scrambling to try and contain the damage not only to accounts, but to the reputation of their game.

What they've put together so far is the beginnings of a damn fine game IMO, and it would be a shame if the actions of what is likely a teenage vandal derailed that.

[kregoth]

Yeah I am not interested in this game to be totally honest, but that's a different matter. I'll wait to see where they take the game before I put my money on it.

But FlowerChild is right, for now treat this as a mistake. Think of this as a very similar situation to Project Zomboid when they lost all their backups do to a robbery. Right now they are probably focusing on damage control and fixing their mistake, at some point I am sure they will tell everyone what happened.

Though this is a pretty serious mistake, lets just hope they can solve the problem and hide account info.