I'm one of those people who expresses sympathy to someone whose account gets hacked, and looks for what they did wrong, and warns people. But because I don't share my password (one exception that's not a problem), and am careful about what I run off the internet, years and years were safe. Until a week ago.
I don't know how, but my account got hacked. I noticed in less than 24 hours; had to retrieve and change my password, and found most of my chars stripped (all mail gone, nearly all bank gone, nearly all bags empty, nearly all coin gone, but oddly most of the worn gear still intact). Two chars had been moved to new servers.
So, I bought a new spyware catcher, ran three of them, notified Blizzard.
Why can't a company with over 10 million subscribers, revenue larger than some nations, write reasonable backup and restore software? What they do, after agreeing to restore the chars, is to take several days where I got an e-mail saying they were done after one char was restored to the wrong server, other chars not restored; no response to multiple e-mails when they said they would respond; a second e-mail saying they're done even though one char they were repeatedly told about the gold on has not had it restored; and all the items are sent in these massive e-mails for the player to try to sort out, instead of restoring the chars as requested to their status items where they were - on a certain day. They warn you that they can't even keep track of the modifers some items had (e.g., that 'Eagle' item with INT and STA for your mage could become a useless item.)
Previously, they had a patch where they announced a bug cause some bank items to be destroyed, and said to petition to get the items back. I immediately petitions that every one of my chars had the last 4 bank spots wiped out and asked for a restore. They told me they lost the petition, and then said that they did not have the data to restore any items.
They do, however, send multiple e-mails how it's up to me to keep my account from being hacked. Well, ya, sorta, but that's not a reason for them not to have reasonable restore.
It would seem Blizzard might also be able to write some code where the game checks itself for a password trapper when it starts.
It's an event, having the account hacked, that raises the question about 'do I really want to be spending so much time in this game anyway'.
They won't share any info on the situation regarding the theft, such as info on the payment for your chars being moved, or whether they investigate who did it much.
Anyway, just thought I'd post this since I'm sure many are also WoW players, and the ideas here apply to other MMO's.
I don't know how, but my account got hacked. I noticed in less than 24 hours; had to retrieve and change my password, and found most of my chars stripped (all mail gone, nearly all bank gone, nearly all bags empty, nearly all coin gone, but oddly most of the worn gear still intact). Two chars had been moved to new servers.
So, I bought a new spyware catcher, ran three of them, notified Blizzard.
Why can't a company with over 10 million subscribers, revenue larger than some nations, write reasonable backup and restore software? What they do, after agreeing to restore the chars, is to take several days where I got an e-mail saying they were done after one char was restored to the wrong server, other chars not restored; no response to multiple e-mails when they said they would respond; a second e-mail saying they're done even though one char they were repeatedly told about the gold on has not had it restored; and all the items are sent in these massive e-mails for the player to try to sort out, instead of restoring the chars as requested to their status items where they were - on a certain day. They warn you that they can't even keep track of the modifers some items had (e.g., that 'Eagle' item with INT and STA for your mage could become a useless item.)
Previously, they had a patch where they announced a bug cause some bank items to be destroyed, and said to petition to get the items back. I immediately petitions that every one of my chars had the last 4 bank spots wiped out and asked for a restore. They told me they lost the petition, and then said that they did not have the data to restore any items.
They do, however, send multiple e-mails how it's up to me to keep my account from being hacked. Well, ya, sorta, but that's not a reason for them not to have reasonable restore.
It would seem Blizzard might also be able to write some code where the game checks itself for a password trapper when it starts.
It's an event, having the account hacked, that raises the question about 'do I really want to be spending so much time in this game anyway'.
They won't share any info on the situation regarding the theft, such as info on the payment for your chars being moved, or whether they investigate who did it much.
Anyway, just thought I'd post this since I'm sure many are also WoW players, and the ideas here apply to other MMO's.
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