-= Gametoast.com =-

Like the title says:

I am so sorry , I know this isn't the right place to post this but I'm new here and just like the OP said. I had to use a proxy not just for fielfront but for Gametoast too! It's really hard to rbosw the site using a proxy so I'll try and post this here.

I have tried again and again to contact some of the admins but got no reply. I live in Greece and from what I see you've banned most if not all countries (which is ok) but I want to be part of the community.
I am an admin in 2 big Battlefront communities , r/starwarsbattlefront and DICE Information Group on Facebook.

Please read the following message:

I've been trying to get in this website for over a month and the worst thing is that I became a member recently.
You should contact all your members before deciding to block the whole planet!

Anyway , I had to use a proxy to get here since I got no reply from both Teancum and someone known as Guru(?)
Thank God there was this thread over at SWBFGamers because I would still be clueless of what's wrong: http://www.swbfgamers.com/index.php?topic=9542.0
Although it seems that this website is kinda dead...
I just wanna have access to GameToast , I'm a member of the Imperial Senate on a diplomatic mission!
Can someone please help me out with that? I'm a huge fan of mods and I wanna talk with modders and download other mods , especially now that filefront is gone.
I play SWBFII religiously almost everyday and love the work of Tinkeyrunaway and the_legend.
I also try and support mods by featuring a mod map every week over on Reddit at r/starwarsbattlefront.
So... can I please have access , can someone whitelist my IP?

Thanks for reading.

I'm sorry you and so many others are having this trouble. The site does seem kind of dead and I know its summer, but I think banning IPs for most of the world is the main cause of this and its not really healthy for this site's survival in terms of member contribution and discussions. I wish I had the power to help but its above my title.

No worries , I'm glad to meet you , you're the first to reply to my post and only within a few hours!

It's just that I'm a fan of many modders that are part of this community. I finally managed to contact guru , I think he'll be able to assist me.

After browsing the forums I feel terrible that I didn't find this site in all these years. that I've been playing Battlefront.

I'm working with our firewall team to whitelist several countries that need access. It's hard with literally endless spam and probes from these foreign countries but I'll see what can be done... Asia and Middle East I'm pretty sure will not be allowed , it may feel odd but I doubt those places will affect our forum usage.

I've placed many ips in our whitelist but our ISp has also blocked many ips so I'll see what we can do asap

Thank you , I really appreciate it.
If you need any more info please let me know , I actually live in Europe , Greece ATM so you don't really have to unblock the whole country since there aren't many Battlefront fans here tbh.

Nevertheless , it feels good to finally be here , and be able to broswe the site and talk to you. I wish I've done it earlier...

same here, I email'd the admin with my ip and pm'd him but no answer... this never happened to me on any forum and I think its stupid... without any notification you block everyone but usa? What is this a nazi germany?

Im actually posting this just to let you all know... from a proxy

nobody3 wrote:same here, I email'd the admin with my ip and pm'd him but no answer... this never happened to me on any forum and I think its stupid... without any notification you block everyone but usa? What is this a nazi germany?

Im actually posting this just to let you all know... from a proxy

Yeah , I feel you...
It took me 1 whole month to actually be able to get here.
I used a proxy just like you did since I got no replies in my email.

nobody3 wrote:samwithout any notification you block everyone but usa? What is this a nazi germany?

Uh, obviously it's DPR Korea. Duh.

Kidding of course, haha. Nah, there's legit-ish reasons for it, considering the fact that I believe all our hackers' IPs come from the countries you mentioned.

nobody3 wrote:same here, I email'd the admin with my ip and pm'd him but no answer... this never happened to me on any forum and I think its stupid... without any notification you block everyone but usa? What is this a nazi germany?

Im actually posting this just to let you all know... from a proxy

Maybe you got no replay because of the way your wrote your mail/pm?? Just an idea

btw Germany works fine

1: my email was perfectly fine, no insults, no getting mad, friendly question...
2: my pm I cant view because this site apparently can't allow to save the outbox text the size of 1 KB
3: Yes I understand hackers are a problem, no I dont think this aproach was appropriate... no notification whatsoever - I actually thought for weeks the site was down or I was banned
4: Not from germany
5: This does not happen on any other forum. Im members of like 15 of them for years and never once did this happen. And if they did, they would notify the members or whitelist their ips. This "behavior" is unprofesional and I KNOW the admins of this site do not care if I leave this website. But this is my last post on this forum.

with the recent decreased activity, I hope this site does not survive much longer, considered the admins are like this I think what I said was perfectly deserved - I mean its like I was banned. See u never

I think he never managed a site like this on his own...

And before a big discuss starts out of this a mod should close the thread. <- Please don't junior moderate. -Staff

Not to speak for the staff or anything, but...

nobody3 wrote:3: Yes I understand hackers are a problem, no I dont think this aproach was appropriate... no notification whatsoever - I actually thought for weeks the site was down or I was banned

If it means protecting the integrity of the hundreds of thousands of valuable posts that have been made on this website, I really honestly can't see an approach that's any better. I mean, what would you have done? Protected your property with the best and cheapest temporary solution possible while looking for a better one, or simply left everything open range for blackhat hackers like it's been in the past?

nobody3 wrote:5: This does not happen on any other forum. Im members of like 15 of them for years and never once did this happen. And if they did, they would notify the members or whitelist their ips.

Other forums have some source of revenue, usually from advertisements, while Gametoast does not. More money = better security. Guru pays for everything (as far as we all know, anyway) out of his own wallet, and I don't mean to speak for him or anything, but if I were him I'd probably do the same. Also, sending out e-mail blasts like that takes a lot of processing power and bandwidth, which equals more money spent on hosting (depending on the host) as well as likely slowdown on the forums.

nobody3 wrote:This "behavior" is unprofesional and I KNOW the admins of this site do not care if I leave this website. But this is my last post on this forum.

This "behavior" may be considered "unprofessional," but that's irrelevant and doesn't matter, because the staff don't do this as full-time jobs. It's like modding: we do it for free in our spare time, and if someone happens to enjoy our creative works, great, but if not, then too bad until you start paying us. I've personally had to learn this the hard way with the how I consult playtesters for my work. If not everyone submits a report or two for each new build I push, I have to suck it up and deal with it. Oh, and I disagree with your claim that they wouldn't care if you left. We're a small community, and we don't like to see it shrink.

nobody3 wrote:with the recent decreased activity, I hope this site does not survive much longer, considered the admins are like this I think what I said was perfectly deserved - I mean its like I was banned. See u never

A bit salty there, eh? I kid, but seriously though, there's no need for that kind of thing, bud. You're taking your bad experience WAY too personally. I mean for goodness' sake, it's not like guru's solution for keeping his site safe was a personal attack on you or anyone else who found themselves blocked. All he did was protect his website with a very touchy, but very effective measure.

At the end of the day, I'd probably be just as mad as you are if I found that Vancouver or Seattle was blocked or something, haha. (Darn those Canadian blackhat hackers!) But then I'd come to realize that the decision was made for the greater good and to protect the forum. I'd be frustrated, as you are, but I'd speak and act rationally about it and not jump to silly extremes such as threatening to leave forever or something like that, haha.

(It may look like I'm being way too defensive over a web forum, but I love Gametoast, it's like another home to me. (When were we planning on setting up that website-polygamy marriage license program by the way, guru? ) On top of that, taking a strong, rational defense for things that I think deserve one is simply one of my traits. Nothing I can do about that. )

You guys all assume that Gametoast is the only site running on the server. In fact, there are several running, and any attacks on other sites have a direct affect on what gets blocked for Gametoast. This is not some vendetta that affects only this site. Additionally Guru said in his post that he has to work with the firewall team AND the ISP to see what will be allowed. A lot of it is out of his hands. For those freaking out, get over yourselves. We're lucky this site is online after so many years. Guru pays out of pocket to keep this up, and he doesn't even play the game any more (hasn't for years).

So... does this mean that some us need to keep using proxy? I guess that's ok as long as the proxies work for us and to be honest I'll probably spend more time in the new game rather than BF2 but until that happens I wanna keep an eye on the_legend's work and overall have fun.

P.S. That's a crazy fact about the Guru that I didn't now :O Respect!