Working again. I estimate I have between 4-8 hours left of work before I can launch, so it's highly likely that that will happen later tonight.

So, around an hour ago from my perspective (~1:00am 11/25/2020) the site was hit with a pretty bad attack that destroyed all of the site's post titles. The old mod tools appear to be vulnerable to SQL injection and my account is also compromised somehow. There have been a lot of attacks like this in the last few months and earlier, which is also why MyCards have been broken for a while. This one was pretty bad though. While I do have backups, recent ones are awkward -- I should be able to restore the titles for the last month and anything before september or so.

In any case, the site itself is in bad shape and has been for a while. It's apparently very vulnerable to all kinds of stuff (especially professional vulnerability scanning software), and these aren't easy things to fix because of how many different interacting pieces there are. A large part of the core scripts are ten years old and about as well-programmed as you'd expect from someone first learning how to code. This has been a kind of cascading problem for many years, which is why new features have been abandoned or why various things haven't been fixed.

In any case, I've been thinking for a while about restructuring the site, kind of giving it a fresh start and then merging all of our existing information back in with it. I've been doing this from a perspective of "I want a better site" so the work hasn't really gone anywhere. The better approach is to just heavily simplify it to the minimum that people expect from GTX0, build something out, and try to improve it over time.

So yeah, this is a "Gametalk will return soon" moment. I do work fast on new projects, fortunately, so there should be something in a few days, though it's hard to tell what it'll look or act like. Here's what I do know though:

• All the old accounts / threads / posts will be preserved. Yes, this includes the merger from Conworlds. Weird random elements of them might not be, like attached videos or team phoenix effects. Can't promise mycards yet.
• It'll have a Gametalk-style dark theme. Probably the existing one if I can separate the HTML/CSS easily. Forum header features will probably be nuked.
• You'll still be able to post without registering. Won't be changing that for the time being.
• You'll be able to make threads and post, register, login, etc. All the normal stuff you'd expect from a forum.
• Draft-saving features for sure.
• You'll be able to post videos, colors, bold/italicize/etc stuff in your posts as usual. I would like to revamp that script but at least it's not a security issue.
• There will be basic mod tools -- post tagging, banning, sticky/locking. Nothing extraneous for now.
• Various mandatory community things like the disclaimer system.
• A lot of security throughout

To summarize, no GTX0 isn't going away anytime soon, but the old site is pretty effectively dead at this point. RIP GTX0 1.0 2009-2020. You had a good run. The new site will be a lot better in a lot of different ways, but starting out it'll kinda suck like how GTX0 was when I first made it. I should work on it more often moving forward though -- working with newer projects is a lot funner, which is why I've been ignoring GTX0 in favor of other projects. Hopefully in time it'll be a good site again, at least until its inevitable destruction in 2031. I will update the "current progress" thing up at the top as I work on different things. Click it to see what I'm working on and the last thing I did, and when I gave the update. The number next to the link will increment as well.

In the meantime though, check out the official GTX0 Discord:

https://discord.gg/r3q7XXPrSN

If you're banned there, message me and I'll fix it. At least until you're uncivil again. Would like to keep the community together for now.

P.S. Special thanks to uiif for making all of this possible. <3