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Why I am quitting WoW.
DemDemDem
Member Posts: 160
I used to laugh when people talked shit about WoW, because to be fair...It is a brilliant game and it has done MMORPG's a huge favor. It has set a milestone obviously with how many players, it has bought more money to this industry and will help to make MMORPG's of the future much better. But thats not what this post is about quite obviously.
I got to level 70, like most people. I raided and I raided, I got bored and re-rolled...Deleted all my characters which included 70 warrior, 70 mage and 70 priest. I made a Rogue Human on a new server and started afresh. I got level 65 on the 19th of this month and logged out around 4:00 pm. I then logged in at 10:00 am on the 20th to find I had been hacked. I sat and thought to myself, oh well I have been hacked once before on SWG and it only took a few days and they restored all my items and characters etc.
The hacker who apparently has no life deleted all my characters except my level 65, which was pretty much all 30-50 character. Took all my gold, all items etc and sold all my kit to shop. And then took my character leveling, got me 10% and a kit of greens, re-specced me then took me from Shattrath to Hellfire ramparts. I found this quite stange. I opened a GM ticket, told them about it all and they said " we won't be able to restore your gold or items or it could ruin the economy"... " we will have to lock your account for a minimum of two weeks to investigate. It could be longer depending on the number of issues".
I felt myself wondering, why is the customer service in this game so terrible? Why does it take a minimum of 2 weeks to sort of my characters etc, and why will it ruin the economy if they give me my epic mount, all my epic/blue equipment and my 1.6k gold back + about 500 gold worth of enchanting stuff... It's not like it's my fault.
Then they e-mailed me asking me to check my computer for viruses etc and if I was sharing my account with anyone. Me and my brother play WoW on seperate PC's on the same network. My pc is broke so I use his laptop for WoW when he isn't using it...He also uses this laptop for WoW. He is level 70 with all raid gear and about 6k gold. So wouldn't it make sense if they was going to hack us and it was our fault through viruses wouldn't they hack him? Hmmm, thought so. I mean come on who would you rather hack? A level 70 with alot of gold, or a level 65 with not alot?
Obviously this point proves it's not my fault, which they still kept badgering on at me saying it will most likely be key loggers on my PC..Which there isn't.
I don't share my account details with anyone, not even my brother. And vice versa. My msn details are seperate details to my WoW details, my password for both is different containing 3 capitals and 3 numbers atleast in each. So how the hell can it be my fault? It obviously isn't.
Now after this kind of customer service you will never guess what happened next? I logged into my WoW management and clicked cancel account. Any MMORPG that comes out in the next 3 or 4 months with a large player base and alot of content will get my subscription. I hate that Blizzard could treat someone who has payed for 2 account for 29 months like this. It's pathetic and disgraceful.
This is WoW europe by the way.
/End rant.
Comments
I feel for you.
Two of my fellow guild members - a priest who was co-leader of the guild and one of our most experienced warlocks have also had their accounts hacked recently. I hope they have more luck getting their items back than you did.
Personally I blame gold sellers / buyers. If there wasn't a market for gold there wouldn't be nearly as many accounts hacked in this fashion. But that's another topic.
I also wonder what I can do to avoid getting my own account hacked. I have a degree in computing and 10+ years working as a software developer. I wouldn't claim to be a security expert, although I know the basics - e.g. don't pick a password in the dictionary, don't install anything that may be a key-logger etc. Even so, I still don't feel 100% safe. My guildies aren't stupid people. But they were caught out. Can I be sure I'm safe? What must it be like for the average game player?
Most common internet programs have security vulnerabilities. That's one of the main reasons why servers such as apache and browsers such as Mozilla and IE are patched so often. Suppose there was a problem with security for an online game, such as WoW e.g. passwords weren't properly encoded before being transmitted*. Would the company concerned admit there was a problem (and open itself up for legal challenges), or would it just say "you must have installed a keylogger" and try to bury the issue?
* Note - programs with good security don't tend to transmit passwords at all, encoded or not, but use the password you enter in a more complex way to verify your identity. But this is a "what if" that considers how a program may implement security poorly.
D&D Home Page - What Class Are You? - Build A Character - D&D Compendium
Now I'm in paranoia mode, I can't help thinking of other potential problems, that would be very hard to trace.
Suppose there is a web site that is popular amongst wow players, such as thottbot or one of the various guild forum sites. Users are expected to create an identity on this site and enter a password. Now most people are lazy with passwords. They have identities on so many sites that it's impractical to remember a user-name/ password for every site. So there may be a certain proportion - say 30% who use their wow user-name/password on the online gaming site.
Now suppose the web site owners were untrustworthy. They could use these user-names/passwords and rip-off the gold from a certain proportion of their customers. E.g. an online site may think that if it took money from 10% of the accounts it had passwords for (i.e. 3% of it's users) then the theft would be (a) incredibly hard to detect and (b) would probably be blamed on key-loggers etc. As long as the site made more money from gold sales than it did from advertising to normal users then this could be quite profitable. I don't see this as being particularly far fetched. Many online sites already rely on gold seller adverts for support, and some have been shown to have strong financial links to real-money traders.
D&D Home Page - What Class Are You? - Build A Character - D&D Compendium
I really do hope no one else falls victim to this, but it's a real eye opener to what a company will do to you even after you purchase their product and play it for 2 and half years while paying 9 pound a month to do so.
GG Blizzard, you took my money then my entertainment and my faith in your company.
Prepare for the wave of WoW fanbois who'll defend Blizzard regardless of what you say when it comes to their customer service, seriously, check out other threads of this type to see what kind of comments they'll make.
Quoting people doesn't make you clever, in fact, it makes you all the more stupid for not bothering to read the quotes you post in the first place.
Your problem is big companies with big games, as an indie mmorpg developer, I also know how hard it can be to retrieve stolen items, even if you have about 200 players, and according to blizzard they have 7 million... With 100 players, you can keep track of everybody, what they have, what they had, etc. But 7 million players... each with their own file of current equipment etc....
I'm sure they're trying to help you in any way they can, but I assume it's pretty impossible to know if you're telling the truth (I'm not saying you're lying, but a lot of people try to scam customer support)
And, hackers usually find you in some way, they don't just randomly pick an username, and hope it exists, so I assume you attracted some attention of them in some way
*thinks of his first week on lotro, a person telling me to give my cape, and he'll hack me...* *thinks of his first screen made on lotro, with the chat as center piece* *thinks of him reporting him to Codemasters*
Always better to prevent
Edit: however I somehow defended Blizzard, i don't play WoW, and I'm certainly not a fan of Blizzard!
You know it, the best way to realize your dreams is waking up and start moving, never lose hope and always keep up.
I feel your pain.
I had an account hacked. Blizzard decided to perma-ban the account rather than restore it. Apparently while the account was under someone else's control, they ran some 3rd party software util's.
So, Blizz first temp banned me for 'allowing' someone else to use my account.
Then they perma-banned the account for 3rd party software use.
All in all, I was punished and received nothing in return.
...
I've got more accounts. It's just bad that 1) their support apparently couldn't tell that the account had been 'jacked' and 2) that any 3rd party software that was used, was only used while the account was under someone else's control.
I never give out my password or account names.
I'm as careful as I can possibly be with mod's.
...
As the other poster stated, with this many users/players/customers I can understand the burden that Blizzard has in supporting us all. BUT... the service should be (perhaps an unrealistic expectation) accurate, fast, and informative (meaning, both the customer and Blizzard learn from the issue).
As always, reporting the issue as soon as you notice it and providing as much information as possible help. Screenshots don't hurt.
Why would you delete your level 70's? Then start fresh on another server? The game may later come out with something you like or they may make an adjustment to an old toon spec that might make it better. Why not just Cancel and take a break awhile that always helps with any mmo. I have found players who do this find themselves enjoying the games they play again. Sorry you had to quit this way patiance is a virtue.
Though that completely sucks and I feel for you as any MMO'er would ... its in the EULA or one of those millions of agreements that you sign. They're not responsible for lost or stolen items. I've heard rare cases where people do get a few items recovered but it so rarely happens. Just about every 'big' mmo has stuff like this. EQ1 had stuff in their EULA like that because they'd have random server drops and crashes in some areas that could end up in a toon dying and decaying before the user could get back on to find where they were laying at. (Back then when you died your loot stayed on you and you had x amount of time to find your corpse and loot it before everything disappeared forever!).
Its kind of a fail safe to protect themselves from abusers and of course to remain unliable for hacker issues. If they help you its like admitting its their fault that you got hacked. Still totally sucks but...tis the way the world works these days.
BTW they can't Steal your epics aren't Epics Bind on Pick up? (which is another reason they won't recover the items most likely their database wipes all traces of you ever having that item when it gets deleted, so they can't even verify you ever owned it, it could damage the economy if you actually never had those items and while you might be telling the truth there are thousands out there that WOULD lie and cause major economic problems ingame) The hackers went through the trouble of taking all your unbinded items and money and then deleting everything else. A way vicious thing to do...malicious hackers suck.
btw im no blizzard fanboi i cancelled my account ages ago when I figured out their sense of 'depth' of story and lore is all end game and completely shallow.
Please Refer to Doom Cat with all conspiracies & evil corporation complaints. He'll give you the simple explination of..WE"RE ALL DOOMED!
I would be very interested to know how exactly you feel Blizzard should have handled this situation?
Take it right back to the basics and they have been approached by someone claiming to have lost 'x' amount of high level characters, several thousand in gold and equipment plus an epic mount, so do you;
a - Just take them at their word and give them everything they claim to have lost?
or
b - Investigate the matter, confirm all of the losses so they can be returned and maybe track down the hacker at the same time?
I am pretty sure i would aim for 'b'.
I really do feel for you if you have lost all of this to a hacker, but Blizzard can't just throw 1000's of gold and equipment at every tom, dick and harry that decides to claim to have lost it as that would have serious issues for the economy and it is in a poor state as it is.
I also have to take task with your comments on what they asked you to do to check your machine. It is the users responsibility to safeguard their details and whether you want to believe it or not, it is pretty much certain that your details were obtained via a keylog or other virus attack. Just because they hacked your account and not your brothers proves nothing, as it probably just so happened that they only had the logger in place when you logged on or they got the details from your broken machine before it broke.
You also don't mention exactly how long you actually gave them to get anything sorted out? Did you give them any chance at all to resolve this or follow any of their advice?
It must be Thursday, i never could get the hang of Thursdays.
Most likely source of a keylogger for most players is the mods they load.... they are dirty with them....
Second, the pattern of your hacker was quite odd.... deleting some, but not all of your characters, sharding all the gear, and stealing it, but then requipping the character and then playing it.... none of that fit the typical hacker pattern, which is to shard everything and run like heck.
From their viewpoint, it looks like a friend or family member got access to your account and did this damage as a joke or payback, so it makes their job tougher. Maybe its just an elaborate scheme by the hackers to throw Blizzard of the trail....hard to say.
I know several folks who have been hacked in the traditional way who had all of their gear and inventory items returned, but not their gold. (nor their lost crafting skills if the hackers changed them so they could shard)
Now my son on the other hand, lost all his gold, but nothing else, so Blizzard told him they could not help him.... (I think one of his "friends" grabbed it .....they share accounts unfortunately)
I have heard of folks who are doggedly persistent who got Blizzard to change their stance from an initial turn-down, don't know if that would help in this situation. Sometimes you get different results if different people review your case I think.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
* Most pvp gear can't be vendored for cash. So if that got deleted they really were vicious
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A small update - I have learned that out of the 2 people who had their accounts hacked in my guild, one has now got his items back. We're still waiting to hear about the other one. At least this shows that in some circumstances Blizzard can deal with this. Maybe it's connected to how quickly the problem is reported?
D&D Home Page - What Class Are You? - Build A Character - D&D Compendium
The problem with account "hacking" right now is that there has been a scam going on for a bit now where people will take ALL their gear, sell everything on some other computer not on the same network and then complain they got hacked and had things restored (screwing up the already MASSIVELY screwed up economy).
The problem with Blizzard is that they have curbed A LOT of key loggers since it started and think that most people who get "hacked" are trying to pull this scam. Unfortunately I guess Blizzard doesn't know that yes... there our still hackers out there. let me quote a favorite line from Fight Club;
"Over time everybody's life expectancy drops to zero. The longer the time, the more likely it is something will happen to you."
"And after blizzard takes over the world, they are gonna gather a bunch of lemmings, sit on their fat asses near a cliff, and watch the little fuzzy bastards suicide dive into the ground below. . . . . all just for their own entertainment."
Who cares?
$90+ Million Gross Per MONTH
It shouldn't matter if it was his brother that watched him type his password and messed with his account, there should be a $1mil budget for nothing but character logging and tracking and investigations.
"Sometimes, things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most. People are basically good. Honor, courage, virtue mean everything. Power and money, money and power mean nothing. Good always triumphs over evil. Love, True Love Never Dies."
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
We're like Spartans you see, our forum posts of fanboyism are a metaphorical phalanx; an impenetrable defense against countless waves of poorly organized trolls. Truth is our shield, and wit is our spear! *stabs you in the groin*
I wasn't going to reply to this thread because I've had my account hacked before in EQ, like 6 years ago, and I remember clearly how pissed off I was. But, since you've preempted a response, I, on behalf of Fanboys of Blizzard(tm) will say that if I was arguing in response to "This is poor customer service.", I would say:
"Poor customer service?" ... THIS... IS... BLIZZARD!
Then I throw you down the well. And we fanboys will be remembered as free men who stood up against pointless vitriolity.
Still waiting for your Holy Grail MMORPG? Interesting...
The crys of it must be blizzard just don't wash. Virus scanners are not an immunity to key loggers as there are tons of them and they are hard to catch when they change signatures so often. You either shared your account or someone got your password due to the SHARED computer you use (you are already at risk for that alone). I bet $50 you brother has your password for one and 9/10 times if it wasn't a key logger it was someone you shared your information with. No offense, but just because you do not know how you got hacked doesn't mean it was someone elses fault.
I know half a dozen people who got keylogged and had their accounts restored. Some within a few hours some within a few days. I personally removed the keyloggers from their systems that Norton didn't catch.
Also people who get banned for using 3rd party software ALWAYS have some lame excuse about how it wasn't their fault. My brother was playing while I was on the crapper, someone hacked me and used some cheat program, yadda yadda. Just own up already.
Blizzard and most other companies have more experience with this kind of thing and knowledge of computers than any of us. It isn't to hard to tell when someone shares and account, gets hacked or just did it themselves. IP traces alone tell much of an account history and that is the most basic tool.
.
"Sometimes, things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most. People are basically good. Honor, courage, virtue mean everything. Power and money, money and power mean nothing. Good always triumphs over evil. Love, True Love Never Dies."
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
PMSL!!!!
It must be Thursday, i never could get the hang of Thursdays.
It wasn't my brother. It wasn't anything I could prevent or anything I could forsee as no one and I mean no one has my details.
Also for the person who said why delete level 70's to start afresh? It's called hardcore re-rolling. Many people do it. We have a guild that moves server to server and starts afresh. If I get bored of a toon for whatever reason or I hate the server, I delete it. The most fun part about WoW for me is leveling, it's different everytime. So that's why.
Yeah I got my account unlocked today apparently from the e-mail I recieved. Although no items/characters/money has been restored, the level 1 hacker made character is still there and they have reset my subscription so if I want to play about I have to shell out another 9 pound to get on when it only just came off my card 1 week ago. So basically for being hacked, I lost months of work and 18 pounds. GG blizzard.
I finally quit by selling off my account..
Although, now I am so bored.. With no other decent MMO's out.
Machine Supremacy
Don't cancel. I've seen this exact same post several times now and everyone always gets most of their stuff back. You will probably not get your gold back and may not get some things in your bags back, but your character will most likely be restored. It just takes time. You must give them enough time to research it and do what's right. If they just simply gave everyone back their stuff without researching, then everyone would just sell all their stuff, send all their gold to a friend, call Blizz and say they got their account hacked, get all their stuff back and then have their friend return the gold. Blizz ain't that dumb. If you truly did get hacked, Blizz will find out and recover most of your stuff. You don't always get everything because sometimes they can't track everything, but the stuff your character was wearing will probably return. And it usually doesn't take 2 weeks, they just tell you that so that you're not calling them everyday. Give them a couple days and see if you get satisifaction. If not, then cancel.
DemDemDem,
Restoring is usually a two step process. First you get your character back, then you get your gear/gold back depending on what the investigation team finds.
If you didn't share your PW (which most everyone claims) and you get your account restored AND you do not figure out how your account was compromised then you are in for the exact same thing. Seen it happen too many times. They will most likely get you again if you don't fix the security breach you have.
My advice to you is get your own computer up and running and then change your account info. If you can't figure it out don't blame someone else for your troubles though.
(\_/)
(O.o)
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Wow has maybe the worst customer service i ever saw. what i don't understood is what blizzard do with all that money, almost no free updates, bad costumer services. the way to go blizzard, will be there always alot of people to give you money. NOT ME
No free updates?!?!?!?! Bad customer service?!?!?!
Wow... no pun intended, but what planet are you from?