Shattered Kingdoms

I'm currently in the UK. This university has a proxy firewall, which pretty much means I can't connect to SK through normal means.

A little while ago I signed up for a program called Cliser at mosha.net.

This is how it functions:



Along with these functions it also places some rudimentary form of encryption on the things being sent so that the proxy can't tell what it is.

So essentially I tell MUSHclient (my MUD program) to connect to the localhost at some port that I choose, and through there it connects via cliser and port 8080 (the only open port here, used for general website access) to some random server out there owned by mosha.net. From there the request goes to the SK server

Now, I performed all the necessary steps to make this program work. In fact, it did work... I was able to reach the SK character log-in page using MUSHclient, something that was totally impossible before.

However as soon as I type in my character's name and press enter, I get a message from MUSHclient saying "The SK server has closed your connection." SK being simply what I named the connection.

What's interesting is that mosha.net has a telnet gateway on the site. I believe it uses similar methods to the cliser + MUSHclient method, and using similar information to what I input into cliser (also created by mosha btw) I am able to connect AND log-in. The only problem is that the telnet gateway is currently a piece of garbage and the game is pretty much awful-looking and unplayable on it.

Why is the SK server disconnecting me as soon as I enter the character name? Is it the server, because of the encryption or something? Is it somehow my proxy?

I don't really expect an answer but I know a lot of you guys are probably better with this stuff than me, so I figured I'd give it a shot. I am also asking the mosha.net guy what he thinks about it.

I did semester in the UK last spring. Here's some advice: don't play SK! Enjoy your travels. If you're bored, go out and meet the locals, hang out, etc etc. How long are you there for?

SK is great, and I started back up when I got back to the States, but don't go through all this trouble to get onto a time-consuming game when there are better things to be had!

But yeah, Internet sucks throughout the entire United Kingdom. There's nothing you can do about that.

Don't listen to jennbo. My name is Ain, and I endorse SK.

*sparkling tooth smile*

It's my University's proxy firewall that is making me resort to this. They do this in the US in plenty of colleges too (just not the one I go to, thank god). Otherwise my speed in visiting websites, downloads, etc., are all totally fine.

As for being a tourist and living it up and etc., don't worry about that. I probably have some liver disease now from the 4 on-campus bars and all the pub-crawls that have been going on. I've been around Scotland quite a bit and next week I'm heading to Amsterdam and Paris.

Right now I just finished a midterm and a big essay and I've got the flu or something (dirty Scots!!!)... so I just wanted to play a game in the comfort of my room. Unfortunately it's proving more complicated than I wanted it to be.

I wouldn't be surprised if that's your problem. Have you tried other MUDs to see if you could log in and get past the password part?

sleeper

PS (I'll look at it when I get home, if I can. Even the guess I gave you doesn't make a ton of sense to me)

This thing is pretty much designed and advertised for use with MUDs and MUD playing programs like MUSHclient. In fact one of the guides that I read was from a MUSHclient user who had been successfully using this program behind what he described was a "very secure network." So while I haven't tried connecting to another MUD I would assume it works... I will try adding another MUD's IP though just to test if this is a situation unique to my get-up.

The thing is, I'm fairly sure that the telnet gateway on the mosha.net site uses the very same encryption. If it didn't then it would be too easily detectable by proxy admins. Not that this is crazy stuff going on here, it's just that most admins don't give a crap in a university this size and the encryption is enough to keep it down.

So the fact that it works perfectly on the telnet gateway seems to tell me it isn't the encryption, but for all I know there are different methods being used and who the hell knows. I am not a pro by any means, heh.

http://www.gammon.com.au/forum/bbshowpo ... 323&page=2

Erviin's post is the most straightforward explanation of the whole thing.

I had the same sort of problem trying to connect to SK from my old mobile phone. I'm pretty sure it's because it was sending a couple of additional carriage returns before I could put in my login name.

But I have no idea if this is your problem, nor how to fix it. Our connection process is the same as most other muds, so you might try another one just for comparison, to see if it works.

What is the timing of the disconnection? Can you leave it dormant at the login prompt at all? The problem may have to do with the telnet emulation settings within MUSHclient, which might be sending something that the MUD is translating into 'enter' without any name at all, which normally causes a disconnection.

I thought it used to say "Goodbye" or something when this happened, but I just tested it and there's no text at all when disconnection is caused by pressing 'enter' key without a name.

Lastly, the client could be trying to auto-login - disable any and all triggers to ensure only your typed text is sent.

You can connect to SK from your phone?!

Even the original bloated Nokia 9000 series phones in the mid- to late 1990s supported telnet. Many geeks have system admin jobs that would have been useful to perform remotely using telnet. The only recent addition would be colour, really.