News

  • March 23, 2022
  • phantomsnake

This morning an attacker gained access to the hosting account and files/data for Deer Tier (and my other websites). I don't know what data, if any, they actually collected, but they had the means to access the DT database.

The attacker would've been able to retrieve usernames, salted and hashed passwords, and IP addresses for DT users. DT user accounts are not associated with email addresses, which is helpful for security in this situation.

I recommend logging in to DT and changing your password by clicking the link with your username at the top right.

I'm working with the support team at my host to investigate how the attacker gained access so I can patch any security holes. At the moment I've reset all passwords on the hosting side (not user accounts) and verified the DT database is intact. I sincerely apologize for this breach.

  • May 3, 2019
  • phantomsnake

Deer Tier has been migrated to a new host and the database has been restored from a backup taken on April 9, 2019. This is the most recent backup that I had, unfortunately. Records submitted between April 9 - 23 will need to be resubmitted. Any accounts created during this time will also need to be recreated.

If you missed the outage, Deer Tier was down from April 23 to May 3 due to a "service interruption" on our old host (you can read about it here if you're interested). The web server was restored after a few days but as of right now the database still hasn't been restored. I didn't want to keep Deer Tier offline any longer so I've given up and moved to a new host.

I'm very sorry about the lengthy outage and the lost data. I'll be setting up a better backup process.

Aside from the lost data I believe everything should be working. Please let me know if you notice any issues.

  • September 1, 2018
  • phantomsnake

Site changes:

  • Most of the homepage content is now loaded from an external wiki page to make it easier to update.
  • August 4, 2018
  • phantomsnake

Site changes:

  • Updated the rules on the homepage.
  • February 3, 2018
  • phantomsnake

Site changes:

  • Changed date format to YYYY-MM-DD
  • January 21, 2018
  • phantomsnake

Site changes:

  • Added a date column to the leaderboard tables
  • Made the whole site wider to accomodate the new column
  • Implemented standard competition ranking (i.e. "1224" ranking) to handle ties
  • Implemented sorting on certain table columns
  • Updated some of the table styles for a more modern look
  • January 13, 2018
  • phantomsnake

Site changes:

  • Added a checkbox on the leaderboard page to filter out records without videos
  • January 10, 2018
  • phantomsnake

Site changes:

  • Deployed API changes to the live site, but they are currently disabled
  • Updated wiki links to point to the new Super Metroid Speedrunning Wiki
  • Updated moderators list
  • Set up https for deertier.com for those who want to use a secure connection. The http site is still available but will probably redirect to https at some point in the future.
  • November 25, 2017
  • phantomsnake

Site changes:

  • Added API methods to submit and delete times to help with the speedrun.com integration
  • September 17, 2017
  • phantomsnake

Site changes:

  • Removed the two category polls that we ran for a while. You can check the final results on the news page.
  • Based on the polls:
    • There are no changes to the 14% categories (i.e. Low% NMG)
    • Added a Low% Chargeless category
  • Renamed the 2% category to 0% under Low% MG
  • September 17, 2017
  • phantomsnake

Sorry for leaving those polls up for so long! Here are the final results:



  • January 15, 2017
  • phantomsnake

I've set up a GitHub repository for the Deer Tier codebase here. The code could still use some improvements but it's in decent enough shape for sharing now. Anyone who wants to work on the website can go ahead and submit pull requests but please make sure your changes have been approved by the community first. It's probably a good idea to discuss the changes on Discord.

  • December 23, 2016
  • phantomsnake

Site changes:

  • Added links to the wiki page for each category
  • December 22, 2016
  • phantomsnake

Site changes:

  • Improved error logging
  • Updated favicon and added icons for various platforms
  • December 21, 2016
  • phantomsnake

Site changes:

  • Added a max length on some textboxes to prevent errors
  • More code and schema refactoring behind the scenes (working towards open source)
  • December 17, 2016
  • phantomsnake

Site changes:

  • Rehashed all password for added security (they were hashed with MD5 before, now they are salted and hashed with SHA-1)
  • More code and schema refactoring behind the scenes (working towards open source)
  • December 16, 2016
  • phantomsnake

Site changes:

  • Improved authentication security
  • Fixed encoding issue when there's an error
  • Added some logging
  • December 15, 2016
  • phantomsnake

Site changes:

  • Allow moderators to manage records for non-registered users to help keep things in sync with SRC
  • December 10, 2016
  • phantomsnake

Site changes:

  • Added polls on homepage
  • Fixed authentication bug
  • December 9, 2016
  • phantomsnake

Site changes:

  • Added Low% Chargeless category
  • Fixed authentication so users will not get signed out constantly
  • More code and schema refactoring behind the scenes (working towards open source)
  • December 4, 2016
  • phantomsnake

Site changes:

  • Moved past news to a separate page and added a link on the homepage
  • Replaced IRC info with a link to the Discord server
  • Display RBO as Reverse Boss Order in page heading
  • Added section heading on leaderboard pages (so you can distinguish between Any% major glitches and Any% no major glitches, for example)
  • Cleaned up a bunch of the code (working towards open source)
  • Quick fix for mobile layout
  • Added support for hidden mods
  • Added ability for mods to submit times for other users (this will help with the transition to SRC)
  • Added a simple API method to get all records as JSON
  • November 25, 2016
  • phantomsnake

The category structure has been updated again, the Zebes Escape category has been removed (it had no submissions anyway), and the homepage has been updated slightly.

  • November 19, 2016
  • phantomsnake

Hello, I'm MrLandmaster's brother! He doesn't have as much time to work on Deer Tier these days so I'll be taking over most of the development work. We started by implementing a new two-level category structure, along with some improvements to the data schema behind the scenes. If you find any bugs please send them to support (at) deertier (dot) com. More improvements coming down the line!