I’ve added BBS Tournament Wordle to the main Shadowscope Theme Door Games menu. Will try to get it added to the other themes when I get home from work this afternoon. Also, recently I have added a bunch of native Synchronet doors as well. These can be found in the doors in the “Ports” menu.
I still need to go through and retest all of the doors to make sure they are working correctly, but do it with a guest account or something. Another user found and I fixed a bug on the InterBBS version of BRE where everyone that played was thrown in under my name.
I am also thinking about expanding and adding more maps to the Operation Overkill game, potentially just have a section strictly for that and use all the maps. I’ve found that some are extremely popular, where I was getting multiple calls daily and when I reset the game last year it’s now been pretty dead.
Going to reset the default Mystic theme to be able to accept non-ansi callers. I know there are a couple that have issues displaying it and forcing ansi isn’t the way to build up any sort of regular callers.
One last thing, if you’ve found that it won’t connect, either from your telnet client or from the website here, please shoot me a message so I can fix it. Normally that’s because the IP address has gotten into my denylist for whatever reason.
BBS
DNS Issues for the BBS
If you’ve tried to connect recently using bbs.shadowscope.com, apparently that has not been working at least for a couple of days. A mistake by my web hosting provider I would guess. As I have had my site here hosted with LivingDot for at least the last 15 years or so I just manage the DNS from the rather than Google Domains, which is where I recently moved my domain registration (F register.com by the way).
The BBS (and home automation stuff which is behind a VPN) is hosted at my house and I use dynamic DNS to get it. Rather than having to connect with noip and other services I have used in the post (darktech, etc) and making folks change that around, I use a CNAME record to resolve bbs.shadowscope.com to whatever DDNS service I use.
Unfortunately that CNAME disappeared from my zone records at livingdot at some point recently. Had to put in a ticket with them this morning as it wouldn’t let me add it back. Either way, if you really give a shit about the technical stuff anyway, it’s fixed now.
Upgrades
Had a few minutes of downtime earlier. Just finished adding another network drive as I was running out of space for my Plex server. I now have 11 terabytes of network space (4 of that is free). Should be good for another couple of years.
Going to take the BBS down again later this evening for an update to the Mystic software as well.
* Pinned Post *
Going to pin this post (if it lets me) so that folks can more easily find the links. You can access the BBS by using your telnet client and visiting telnet://bbs.shadowscope.com or telnet://shadowscope.noip.us
If you want an EASY way to get to it from your web browser you can access it from this blog (best accessed using a desktop browser, may not display properly on mobile browsers) or by going to http://shadowscope.noip.us/
Plenty of games (200+) both locally hosted and networked. Local and networked Message areas, news groups, awesome old-school Ansi featuring Luciano Ayres artwork and MORE. With a bent toward the supernatural and horror.
BBS Guest Access
For the time being I have disabled the Guest account on the BBS. In order to access it from here (or via Telnet) you’ll need to spend the extra 30 seconds and set up an account. Bear in mind that accounts without a valid email address will be deleted. I don’t spam folks with crap but I need a way to get in touch for password resets, etc.
BBS Back Online
For some reason the port forwarding stopped working on my router recently. I’ve temporarily fixed the problem so you should be able to get back in. Sorry about that.
Also, I haven’t been on myself in several weeks so if you have attempted to contact me and I haven’t answered that is why. I’ll log in tonight and respond to everyone. As always, the easiest way to contact me is through email or Hangouts.
New L.O.R.D. IGMs added
I’ve added a couple of LORD IGMs to the game. I don’t like a lot of them but
as I was a beta tester and support site for Joseph Masters’ stuff back in the
day I have always liked Sandtiger’s bar and used Lord NPC as well. I’ve added
those and Barak’s House as well.
If you have any particular IGMs that you would like to see added, please feel
free to let me know. Nothing weird that takes away from the game or gives too
much advantage though.
BBS Moved to a New Machine
I have moved the BBS to a Windows 7 32 bit machine. This may lead to issues with some of the software, so if something is not working please send me an email. In the long run it means that I can run most of the older 16-bit DOS games that I wasn’t able to before. It’s also a dedicated server so not having to share resources with the stuff running on my personal PC
Also, I seem to be having some sort of issues with comments here on my site. Anyone reading this, please leave a comment for me. If it doesn’t work shoot me an email, a tweet, or leave me a facebook message.
New Stuff on the Bulletin Board
I’ve updated a few things here and on the BBS this week.
First off I created a separate Twitter account just for the BBS and my home automation system. Also figured out how to interface the BBS with Twitter and have it send automatic tweets as well. Also did a short tutorial on how to tweet from Mystic BBS that explains how it works if you are interested.
Added a couple more message networks and you can also check my seti@home status from the BBS now as well. Full on geek mode this month goddammit.
There’s a couple more things but I can’t remember what they are off the top of my head. At soccer practice with my daughter at the moment so my attention is elsewhere
Last Night’s Downtime
If you tried to log in to the BBS last night or send mail I apologize for the downtime. While Windows 10 has been rock solid for me as an OS it has the nasty habit of rebooting whenever it wants, regardless of what you tell it to do.
I fell asleep before it had finished unfortunately.