Connecting

Connecting & Profiles

Genie 5 reaches DragonRealms three ways, all chosen from File → Connect…. Most players use the first one (a normal account login); the other two exist for Lich users and for development.

Mode	Use it when
Simutronics SGE login	You want Genie to log you in with your DragonRealms account — the normal case.
Lich proxy	You run Lich 5 and want Genie connected behind it. See Lich 5 Integration.
Dev replay	You're replaying a recorded session through the engine (development/testing).

The Connect dialog

1. File → Connect…
2. Enter your account name and password.
3. Choose the game (DragonRealms — Prime, Platinum, Fallen, or the Test instance, depending on your account).
4. Click Fetch to pull your character list from Simutronics' login service.
5. Select a character and click Connect.

Genie authenticates, receives the game host/port for your character, connects, and starts streaming the game. When the server signals it's ready, Genie sends an initial look so you land with your room shown.

How the login works (and what it never does)

Genie performs the Simutronics SGE handshake itself: it exchanges an encryption key, sends your encrypted password, retrieves your characters, and selects the game server. Your password is sent only to Simutronics' official authentication servers (play.net), encrypted in transit by the SGE scheme.

• No auto-reconnect. If the connection drops, Genie surfaces it and stops — you reconnect by hand. This is deliberate (see Policy Compliance).
• No headless login. Connecting always happens in the visible app.

The wire-level details are documented for developers in SGE_PROTOCOL.md.

Secure (TLS) login — the padlock

Genie logs in over an encrypted TLS connection by default (the same secure login Lich 5 uses). You can tell which transport a session used at a glance:

Indicator	Meaning
🔒 in the title bar + "Connected over TLS (encrypted)"	Your login was encrypted end-to-end — the normal, preferred case.
🔓 + "login was obfuscated, not encrypted"	Genie couldn't reach the secure endpoint and fell back to the legacy plaintext login. It still works, but the password is only lightly obfuscated in transit.

The fallback is automatic — if the secure endpoint is blocked (by a firewall or network filter) Genie won't fail the login, it just drops to the older path and shows the 🔓 so you know. Seeing 🔓 every time usually means something on your network is blocking the secure port; the connection trace below can confirm it.

Profiles

A profile is a saved connection so you don't retype next time. Save one from the Connect dialog; it stores the account, game, character, and (optionally) the password.

• Passwords are encrypted. If you save a password, it's stored with AES-256-GCM using a machine-bound key — never plain text, never the weak obfuscation older clients used. If you'd rather not store it, save the profile without a password and type it at connect time.
• Per-character settings. Each character gets its own profile directory (Profiles/<Character>-<Account>/) holding that character's aliases, triggers, highlights, and so on. Your combat triggers on one character don't follow you onto a shopping alt. See Application Folders for the layout.
• Character-Account naming. Characters are identified as Character-Account (for example Renucci-MONIL) so two accounts with a same-named character never collide.

Lich proxy mode

If you run Lich 5, start Lich first so it authenticates and listens locally, then in Genie's Connect dialog choose Lich Proxy and point it at 127.0.0.1:8000 (Lich's default). Genie sees a clean game stream and your Ruby scripts keep running underneath. Full details: Lich 5 Integration.

Dev replay mode

Replay mode feeds a previously recorded raw-XML session back through the engine — handy for trying things without a live login, and the backbone of parser testing. Recording and replay terminology (App vs. Console, what "replay" means) is covered in Building from Source. Replay only reads a recording; it never sends anything to a live server.

Recording a session

File → Record Session captures the current live session's raw stream to your Logs/ folder; the title bar shows a 🔴 REC indicator while it's on. Recording is off by default and writes only to your machine — it never leaves your computer. It's useful for filing precise bug reports (attach a snippet to an issue).

Connection troubleshooting

Message / symptom	Meaning
"already logged in"	That character is still in game elsewhere — disconnect the other session first.
"billing problem"	The account's subscription/billing needs attention on play.net.
"in game" / "unavailable"	The character or game instance is temporarily not selectable; try again shortly.
Fetch returns no characters	Wrong account name or password, or the account has no DragonRealms characters.
Connect hangs then fails	Network/firewall blocking play.net, or the game is down for maintenance. Genie retries the initial connect a few times, then stops.

Genie translates the server's raw PROBLEM codes into the friendly reasons above. More in Troubleshooting & FAQ.

Capturing a connection trace. If a login hangs or you're stuck on the 🔓 plaintext fallback and want to know why, turn on the step-by-step connect trace:

#config conndebug true

The next connect prints each protocol step (TLS handshake, key exchange, auth, character list, game select) with timings straight into the game window, so a stall can be pinned to an exact step — ideal to paste into a bug report. It's off by default; turn it back off with #config conndebug false.

Related

• Quick Start — the condensed first-login walkthrough.
• The Interface — what you see once you're connected.
• Application Folders — where profiles and encrypted passwords live.