Feedback: CORS restrictive policies and alternative hosting

[Arci]

As we already said, this change cannot be reverted as the security of your accounts (among with all the private/personal data such as messages and email address) is not an optional.

We'd like to gather more feedbacks from you on how this new restrictive policies about the image sharing are affecting your game experience.
You can start by answering these two questions:

• Do you have any recent problem in playing as you were doing before?
• Have you already found any valid alternative hosting site?

Feel free to add any useful content for everyone on this topic.

Thank you!

 

[DeletedUser2458]

What's are these changes about?

 

[Arci]

If the host doesn't respect a specific (secure) protocol, this is the result when trying to post an image with the ingame BB-Code

 

[DeletedUser]

We'd like to gather more feedbacks from you on how this new restrictive policies about the image sharing are affecting your game experience.

If I have a function where images can be displayed here, I also look for the pictures to be displayed and not just a hyperlink nonsense.

These images function is also used by us players, in Order to communicate with our alliance comrades.
A picture says more than 1000 words..

regards
Geisti

 

[galanoulis]

If the host doesn't respect a specific (secure) protocol, this is the result when trying to post an image with the ingame BB-Code

View attachment 301

So let me guess.... not even Inno respects the protocols.....
Because from what I see here.... even images from Inno servers.... images used INSIDE the game... ARE BANNED!!!!!

e.g. this well known image of server going to maintenance....

https://gpzz.innogamescdn.com/images/game/update_notification/background.png

Or.... the other maintenance photo used ....

https://gpzz.innogamescdn.com/images/game/update_notification/maintenance_finished.png

Or for example images of gods which have been used ingame....
https://gpzz.innogamescdn.com/image...images/flipping_images_asian_gods_2debcbe.png

Or even images from Inno Devs blog.....
https://devblog.grepolis.com/wp-con...04.1769166560.1519067908-971909234.1503360576

Despite ALL above are from Inno servers.... been projected to our monitors from Inno servers... our PCs are "exposed" to them..... Inno says that they are safe to appear in forum or in game windows but not in teh ingame forum??? or ingame notes????
And as an example as you see I am using ONLY Inno material.... from Inno SERVERS!!!!!


And I am yet not referring emoticons from Inno approved scripts which can NOT be used in the game but they can bne used in here....

If this is not called stupidity (as I had also written on other post of feedback) then it is definitely hypocrisy from Inno side to "protect us" from us in the game but expose us elsewhere when Inno "publish the exact same material eitehr ingame or in forum but always on Inno servers!!!!!

It makes no sense at all......

Here we are talking about a game... not a corporate PC policy of a bank for example where "firewall" blocks everything.......

And every time I login the game I just pray that the background images, island images, town images, and game images in general have not been replaced by this "corporate" like policy warning.... as it makes you feel that you are still in the office PC and IT is spying on you.... and that you are not at home using your own equipment!!!!!

And as long as issue occurs even for images from Inno on Inno servers... proves the stupidity of this policy....
Alternative easiest way would had been to just get rid of the img bb-code.... as programmers seems to be keen on messing up but too bored to adopt features from scripts ingame so as to eliminate such "potential issues".....

Solutions do exist.... the problem always is the deafness of the upper managment.... (until thousands of clients complaints received and many of then just go elsewhere where they can find a less hostile GUI)

 

[Arci]

So let me guess.... not even Inno respects the protocols.....
Because from what I see here.... even images from Inno servers.... images used INSIDE the game... ARE BANNED!!!!!

Thanks, it wasn't obviously intended. We just found a misconfiguration server side, the breach is now closed

Chrome's weird cache handling may still block the image, but the incognito mode accepts it so it's secure

 

[Draba Aspera]

As we already said, this change cannot be reverted as the security of your accounts (among with all the private/personal data such as messages and email address) is not an optional.

Well, I can find nothing in the changelog, but quite obviously the change has been reverted since all screenshots used in forums, messages and notes are displayed properly again. Do you have any additional info for us?

 

[galanoulis]

Well, I can find nothing in the changelog, but quite obviously the change has been reverted since all screenshots used in forums, messages and notes are displayed properly again. Do you have any additional info for us?

I assume the official answer would be that all hosts globally (i.e. thousands of websrvers/sites) no do respect a specific (secure) protocol.....

But for me the unofficial would be that yes, one engineer of our team really messed up good time with our clients and we send him home and reverted back all those useless changes he did and started costing us clients i.e. real life money!!!!

 

[Draba Aspera]

There would be no problem at all if Inno provided an in-game screenshot functionality for their games and hosted those screenshots on their own servers. As long as they are not prepared to do that they cannot block all external hosters. When playing on Beta servers (and thus without user scripts), you cannot even share your command overview iin the alliance forum without using screenshots (or activating GRC for the time being), and there are lots of other similar cases - including screenshots needed for bug reports, questions, discussions in the Grepolis forums btw.

 

[Arci]

The forum already has its own file uploader

Anyways, about the images reappeared, we're in the process of refining our filtering mechanisms in an attempt to let you share your screenshots easier and keep safety at a high level.

I hope having back the images was a cool surprise ^^

 

[Draba Aspera]

Well, it was, indeed - but it would be an even cooler surprise if such drastic changes (like the CORS policy restrictions in the first place) were announced in time to allow players to find alternative solutions (if there are any). Fortunately we could prevent that same desaster on the live markets - there are alliances managing their complete data base regarding enemy troop status (sometimes the work of weeks or months) via screenshots and/or externally hosted excel sheets imbedded in the alliance forum, or do all their planning via imbedded images and maps, and I don´t dare to imagine the shitstorm that would have followed - could have been quite comparable to the one following the inbox deletion some years ago.

The forum already has its own file uploader

Yes, but the external screenshots were not restricted in the forum, uploader or not, they were restricted in-game where there is no uploader. Usually you want to save the screenshots somewhere before posting them in the forum, especially when you want to compare "before/after"-effects or simply by using the in-game notes as a memory aid for proposals and discussions, before finding the time to elaborate the respective posts. Saving them in-game means that you always have them at hand (and in the correct game world), no matter on which device you are playing at that time.

While there might be external (but less convenient) solutions for those cases, there are none for several in-game standard situations, including the sharing of command overview/troop movements and reports for divine powers, etc. I don´t know why InnoGames never bothered to provide the means for sharing those reports and overviews although they must be shared in-game regularly, but without user scripts and without screenshots we are completely at a loss in those cases.

 

[galanoulis]

The forum already has its own file uploader

Which is good for existing images....
But in case of screenshots it is completely useless as none is willing to do 15clicks to upload an image in forum via integrated uploader (i.e. get image, name it, locate save path, save image, go to forum, select uploader, btowse yopur local hard disk, locate image and finally upload it!!!!)

Lets get realistic and a bit more customer oriented....

Handy tools like lightshot are eliminated for almost all users by those so called safety protocols....

Protocols to which you never answered why are needed for ingame but not forum.....
i,e. same image from same location is harmful for ingame while not harmful for this forum!!!!