Stupidity within the MMO-scene

Whereas MMO's are 99% fun and games, there always is that little rotten percentage that can't hold themselves into making real life/in-game profit of the back of someone else.

Despite the effort of pretty much every developer-team, there is always people getting hacked, scammed or mis-treated in some form or the other. It always comes down to the same thing: Players loses item and/or his acount, and the devs have to fix everything for them. Whereas you could put this under the "loyalty towards the community" section, you could also look at from another perspective.



When the majority of the community looks at this, they see:

Good to see Anet is activly trying to stop the recent explosion of scamming going on. There has been more and more victims of E-crime lately, and it's really empowering to see Anet work on this, or atleast help us understand.

However, I can only see this:

"Stop being stupid, don't give your acount info away".


And heck, Anet is fully in their right. How come people still fall for this stuff? I question this to myself every time I read a "Oh no, I got hacked" thread. Face it, there is NO such "password" hack. At worst, there is people trying to hack your forum acount (Wether it is from Guru, or any other application) through Brute Forcing, but even that is highly questionable.
No, about the full 100% of the time, people did stupid stuff. Wether it is "signing up for a beta", or trying to find a "hack" themselves, they fall prey for easy noticable scams. Offcorse, noone will admit they did something wrong, as this is NOT real life, and there is no way of prooving someone wrong. (So you might aswell lie, to come of "clean") Even now, I expect replies such as "I really got hacked, without doing anything wrong", but I'm smarter than that.

-Logical Break------------------

If someone has the "hacking" skill to get himself into your computer, keylog your password and then... No wait, that doesn't even matter.
If someone has the "hacking" skill to force himself into your computer...
Believe me, when you're at such an advanced level of computer-hacking, you're not going to stick around hacking people's acounts in video games.

-End Logical Break--------------

So do some people simply "deserve" (Big word, but look at it as a way of justification) to get scammed this way.
This also goes for plain stupidity. People signing up for the "GW2-beta", "Get the new hero (Golem) now for free" or whetever U can image. Especially on un-official websites, such as Youtube, or personal webpages.
Do people NOT think at all when they browse the internet?
Do they turn of the Logical-switch when they turn on the computer switch? I don't know, and frankly I don't care. I feel bad for Anet, having to post this message (Look picture above) to prevent people from doing utterly stupid stuff.

Since when did the average MMO-community become so brain-dead, that the developers themselves have to literely link to the malicious website, saying: "DO NOT GO HERE" to prevent people from doing so? (Look at GW, WoW, Runescape)
Or is it simply a really small percentage that falls for these obvious scams? If so, should such naive people really be playing online games? Wouldn't it be better if they DID GET SCAMMED, and thus learning a lesson the hard way?

Wether is from trying to find a way to hack GW, or to sign yourself up on a "secret" GW2 beta list, does some behaviour need punishment?

Did your dad never gave U a tick on the "behind" when U did something utterly dumb, such as crawl under a parked car to grab a jumping-ball?
Did your mom never punish you for trying to steal money, or breaking a rule?

(This goes aside from the very small percentage that got hacked in a "honest" way, through brute-force forums, professional keylogging through webpages, or other advanced techniques)

My view on this one is simple: Is someone, in all honesty and knowledge, can say: "I did NOT visit any malicious site, NOR did I do something stupid that might have given my acount info away, AND I took preventive care (Virus scan straight after U noticed a weird website that look malicious), then yes, give this guy his acount back, help him out.
In EVERY OTHER CASE, where it is clear the person himself lacks social skills (naive) or simple brainpower (stupidity), then do NOT give him his acount back. By giving his acount back, you're only feeding to his believes that he can do whatever he pleases, without any hard consequences...

Yes, people are dumb. No, that doesn't make scamming them ok. Understandable, and maybe even a little funny, but not ok.

Amen to that.

Saying that people deserve to get scammed is unreasonable, at least to me. However, some people just have it coming to them.

Well yes, but how can or anyone tell who falls into the innocent victim camp and who is a proud member of the Stupids? They can't. Hence why it's all treated the same.

I happen to agree with most of your post though. While I'm glad Anet's being nice and loud about what's causing some of the problem, it isn't all of it. For these keyloggers etc I keep seeing my mom saying "Well, THAT'LL learn ya!"

People are just stupid, doesn't matter if they are online or offline. Not sure if they have those in the States too, but here you have 'standard' scams in popular holiday destinations. You get a free chance to try out a game, you (of course) win, have to 'sign some papers because of legal stuff' and suddenly have a lot less money on your creditcard. You would be surprised how many people sign contracts like that without bothering to read it. Online it is probably even easier.

Its just a matter of Filtering and ignoring them. They will always be there unfortunatly.

And if you can ''convice'' them to leave the game, even better.

Rule #1: If it is too good to be true and too easy to gain too much out of it, chances are it's not good, not real, but certainly easy enough for someone (meaning not you) to get much out of it.

If people try to hack into GW by going into one of these things, then they deserve to be hacked. But that doesn't make account theft right either. In this case they are BOTH wrong and should burn in the depths the Door of Komalie.

But really....Why give account information to ANYONE unless giving your friend your second account that you never play and is in no way connected to your first account or something....honestly.

^ Yes, ofcorse, I'm not saying the hacker shouldn't be banned. (IP banned, or even arrested in real life for e-crime, which is actually possible now o.0)

BUT, the my statement merely is that I feel bad for Anet, having to go through hours of troubles, helping out those in need of "real life" help. When you're that naive, stupid (I'm sorry I keep using this word), they really are better of without an acount, than with one, despite of the money wasted. (Which is the lesson they will learn: I got to stop being so dumb, and start thinking BEFORE I act)

Oh no, I really agree with you. It's nothing we can do though unless they start teaching common sense in pre-school. That's just how the majority of people are.

lawl i remember seeing that video on youtube some lamer made (it wasnt recent though, strange anet made that warning out of the blue)

claimed it could hack other folks accounts, when infact all it did was steal from whomever was stupid enough to think they could get away with such actions.

oh and if anyone did fall for it, u deserved it

I think it's more desperation than anything. With the lack of actual GW2 info people are getting a little too desperate for new information and are not thinking clearly about the source. Yes it's stupid, but I understand why people would be - I'd go so far as to say - WILLING to be duped.

And here I thought we were going to talk about memes and generic insults...oh well.

I'm glad Anet decided to add that warning, though...it's especially helpful for the game's younger audience.

Also, the warning is full of Engrish. Fun times!

Arena Net has said many times this year that there will be no GW2 beta this year. Anyone who falls for that A) either needs to read more or B) get laughed at for stupidity.

I made a post on guru ages ago about videos i came across. I was told to take the links out just in case people (even though the entire thread was about the videos being a scam) fell for them lol.

Some cheesy red background and text popping up about how you can hack someones account, all you need to do is send your email addres and password to [email protected] weird address anet would never use.com they called it a bot secret password recovery or something xDDD

I just looked at it and thought, who the hell would fall for that!!!

I guess because gw has made a big thing about it people do fall for it =\

Some pepole just dont read i guess and jump the gun, which gets them hacked. It is just frustrating that people dont twig "Hang on it asks for my email and password why would they need that"

Before long i can see it now, the login screen to guild wars will have size 60 font saying "we do not want your password, do not give it to anyone no matter what even if it is us!"

I dont think people who maybe a bit "slow" deserves to be hacked, but i wont give them sympathy for getting hacked that way.

"....and look legitimate information about the Guild Wars 2 on www.guildwars.com" does not work grammatically.

OT: At least Anet is trying to take an approach this; everyone reads the little announcement thing, and if you don't, you have no one to blame but yourself.

There's posts in here where people think that the updater trying to update GW even though there's no update is someone hacking them.

There's people who are convinced that GW using 100% of system resources means that Anet needs more servers.

There's people who are convinced that there is nothing wrong with the internet and it must be ANET's fault that they just disconnected even though there are people like myself getting "You have been logged in for 21 hours. Please take a break." messages just fine...

Take a wild guess at why those videos work.

Ignorance. Greed. And yes, maybe even stupidity.

Does this mean no weekend event? >.>

I bet these are the same people who are going to fall for those telemarketer scams and have their house taken...

Your account of 10 different professions, all with tormented weapons and Obsidian Armor is totally worth using years of hacking experience to get.

Exactly, but, Anet is trying to sell to people of all intelligence levels. (Which is why there will still be people complaining about their accounts being "hacked" probably even during the time when they have this announcement up and people smacking themselves in the forehead when they realize that "beta" that they gave all their account information to was fake.)

There are always stupid people; look anywhere on earth where there are people and chances are most of them are not particularly intelligent.

Usually people who are older adults and don't understand the Internet very well, and people who are younger children and don't know yet that not everyone is honest.

(By the way, an account with 10 million gold is worth $1,000 dollars or so on the gold-selling market, probably more, so I can see why hackers might want it, if they identify those players with dozens of millions of gold. Also just people who are hackers that play Guild Wars and might want stuff for their characters.)

Good post, and yeah...it's good to see Anet stepping in a bit.


The way I see it, if a person is gonna be willing to follow instructions (a video) on how to "hack GW accounts"...then yes, he is a lowlife douche, and certainly does deserve to have his own account hacked, and receive no help getting it back. It means he would be willing to steal accounts if it were possible...why should he get his account back? Let him learn the hard way.

On the other hand, if they somehow were completely innocent, and were brute-forced or something, sure...help get their account back.

As for the truly stupid ones...the ones that give their login info to a total stranger (signing up for a fake beta) not realizing the consequences...well, I don't even really know what to say about them. :/

- Internet isn't one person. Not everyone reads the top 10 scams guides. You may think that when something has been said ten times already, people ought to know it, but there's still those new players who registered to forums today and haven't read 25 pages of topics.

Maybe, but who is going to buy that? Why waste time with Guild Wars accounts when you could be stealing something like social security numbers or credit card information? I think real hackers wouldn't bother with silly stuff like that when they could get something much more valuable

I think it's common sense, if it doesn't look right, don't do it. Pretty basic survival skill.

1 - If people weren't going to buy it, we wouldn't have asian gold farmers in MMOs. Although, has Anet stopped the whole gold buying thing in Guild Wars? I don't know if they've managed it.

2 - Hacking GW accounts is safe. Hacking social security numbers, credit card information, etc, could get you caught. Bad things could happen to you, though I'm too lazy to look up the repercussions right now. Guild Wars accounts, however - you might get banned, that's all.

1 - Didn't consider that. What some people will spend on something ridiculous as video game gold.
2 - I think our definitions of "hacking" are differing. Most people that get their accounts "hacked" are actually being tricked and willingly giving their account information away. Keylogging is probably an example of real hacking "To gain access to information/files/etc. stored on a computer in an illegal manner"
I agree with what you said, Guild Wars being much less profitable, but the thing is, it's much harder to track someone who has stolen information from your computer. (Such as banking information, credit card numbers, etc.)

Good point there, I suppose I was thinking more along the lines of a different form of hacking

kudos to them for alerting all players ~ banks etc are always warning their online customers about account theft, often with specific examples ..

remember, the majority of GW players do not frequent Guru or any other forum, so may be totally unaware of such scams

Its not HACKING.

Its called SOCIAL ENGINEERING.

Social Engineering would be, basically trying to fool someone into thinking that a website is legitimate as to get personal information from them.
Hacking would be use of a program to illegally obtain information/files/data from a computer.

LOLS
Anywho...............Ya.
People need to stop ruining the game!

Thnx for the post.

Sure - put a sticker on the game:
Must be this smart to buy:

Smart

^
__________


Stupid



If the player must show a certain amount of "real life skill" then the player should be warned of that BEFORE the purchase.
Save A.Net the trouble of having to take care of the less fortunate ones by making sure that they don't take the money from them in the first place.

I am pretty sure any company will gladly earn less.

it is because people thinks like this: "I'll sync RA because it's easy glad points and it's there for me to abuse with near no penalty."

in this case it is: I'll hack players' account if it's hackable with near no penalty. until the day comes when people will stop exploiting, this hacking of account will always be there.

from this post

Quick send all your cash to my IGN lolz might as well say that, its redicculas its so obvious this is a fake...

Yeah, arrest the "hacker' but ignore the raving lunatic that will probably end up killing someone by assuming the stop sign just doesn't apply to them. If you are stupid enough to give your information out to someone then you deserve exactly what you get.

Also there are easier ways of hacking into a guildwars account than brute forcing something.

Without giving out specifics because I do not want to get this post deleted there are only a few things you need.
1. a persons email //can get this from any forum easy enough
2. access to a public terminal //this can be done in some ways by using public wifi, or better by simply logging into someones unprotected wifi
3. ability to switch ip addresses //too easy

with those three things and just a little bit of social engineering you can get a GW account. You can even bypass the social engineering if you know how to use google archives properly.
Yes, I deleted most of the code so that will not work. Still it is the basis for akeylogger. The ability to get that on someones computer really doesn't count as hacking.

It really is. If you want to steal stuff online, hacking MMO games and selling content to goldsellers is safest online crime, because:

* Most games (legally have to) maintain that any IG currency is not convertible to real currency and is worthless. You can steal thousands $ worth of gold/yinc/plat and you legally stole nothing.
* You are hard to trace. Yes, your IP can be easily found out and banned, but your identity behind it is way harder to figure out and you have to have your ISP cooperate. Or make gold sellers give them info on where they sent your money. Compare to CC frauds where its is easy to see where stuff went and where you havew to deal with legitimate business that will be helpfull when hunting you down.
* Your damage is legally about dozen $ - you only "stole" part paid time of account. It is not enough to be sued in most countries
* Player who you stole from which attempts to bring you to court will find out that people generally are not sympathetic to upset mmo nerds. In jury's eyes, it is as dismissible as children argument in playground, especially if you did something stupid to loose your acc. If you sue thief over emotional distress or something, hilarity ensues.
* MMO companies are business, they don't want to waste resources on you, if they want to take action, they will ip ban you and that's it. If they sue you they will look like they are incompetent at acc security and solve problems by suing everybody - not good public image.
* State attorney will LOL and never give it second look.
* Rabid journalist will stay away from this story - nerd lost some pixels, big whoopie. Stolen CC/SS numbers - now that is storymaker because everyone has em, is scared of abuse and will want to find out more.

What about nerd journalists? As someone who is part of both camps, I'd be glad to cover such a story.

I didn't want people to take my previous post as me condoning stealing accounts. That isn't it at all. What I would rather have Anet do is to figure out a way to get people to stop being so stupid about their accounts.

Maybe an easy way would be to monitor if an ip connects to more than say two accounts in certain period of time. If it does then they temporarily block the ip and send an automated email.

Honestly I do not think there are any solutions to the questions. I just don't think that going after the people that trick others is the solution. There will always be more people willing to trick someone.

I think its too easy to state that it's all players responsibillity. For everything is a first time. When I played D2 for the first time in 2000, I never had heard of scams, did not read any forum, just logged on and played... And yes, I was tricked by the 'server reset - don't loose your account, message name/passw.' scam... Very basic.
For new players, for the first time in an online game, not aware of these things, it would be wrong to scare them away forever by telling them its their own fault. That's not how it works. Therefore any company hosting a MMO should and will do everything to help the customers. For if they turn their backs on them, telling anarchy rules on the internet, and it's every man for himself... That would cost them much more!

(did not loose that account btw; Ingame a friend warned me and I spent the rest of the evening finding a way to reset my password -which was not an ingame feature by than- and finally managed to do in the old diablo 1 game. Not that I had any goodies worth stealing at that time...)