Account Hackings - The Source

Probably. However, they might still figure it out, if:
a) the name of your NCsoft master account is the same as one of your forum names AND you posted your IGN using that forum name... or
b) the name of your NCsoft master account is the same as one of your IGNs

i'm kind of surprised that a company as large as ncsoft is willing to allow this to continue. wonder if they even realize the ramifications this has down in the future for them . ..

think someone could get this posted on the front page for more visibility?

still no response from anyone from anet in this thread . ..

even though regina posted on the wiki about this, it sure seems like the hat issue was a bigger deal to them than this . ..

First thing: If they haven't disabled the login for PlayNC yet, they're full of shit.

Second, I love how I go away when things are pretty okay, and I come back and they've gone all to hell. Way to encourage me to come back, NCSoft.

So right now it's not ANet's fault about the website; that's NCSoft. But it is their fault for trying to throw BULLSHIT at us and hope it covers up the problem rather then, y'know, being HONEST.

Cool, guys. Real cool. You have just obliterated my interest in ever doing anything in GW again and seriously decreased my resolve to buy GW2. I refuse to waste any of my time in a game where everything I have done could be erased overnight. 'Cause, y'know, I like my account security. I like having my account well-protected. I like official websites that don't allow people to randomly hack my account. I like being able to contact a mod about an account problem and actually have it solved within a matter of hours, or a couple days at most. I like knowing that were my account ever to be hacked, I would be able to have everything restored.

But ANet and NCSoft, you don't do that, do you? Nope, but other people do. Namely people who begin with a B and end with a D and actually believe in a little thing called CUSTOMER SERVICE.

So yeah. Thanks to all the people who figured this out, and I hope everyone who was hacked is able to recover in some way, and that no one else gets hacked. At least the community believes in working together.

But NCSoft, I ain't coming back until you sprout yourselves a brain and start giving a damn. Just yesterday I had reconciled with the decline of GW and had been willing to forgive all of ANet's perceived failings. That's pretty damn generous, all things considered. But I draw the line at security. I'll come back when you get your gorram act together.

In the meantime, I've got some quests on the Hellfire Peninsula to deal with.

Holy crap, thank god I'm lazy. I said "why bother" as soon as I spent more than 4 minutes trying to figure out how to link my account.

Scary business, this is...

Absolutely

A bit more emphatic than I would have put it, but yes!

If I log in from any time after today, and find my account hacked there is no way in hell I'm buying GW2.

Kanye: "Yo Erys I'm gunna let you finsh...but Zho is the best Interrupt henchmen of ALL time"

On a serious note. This is quite disturbing, i for one wasn't worried about my accounts security AT all but this is slightly scarey. Its pretty annoyed to be honest but just hope they sort out any problems. I think the whole character name thing in the login screen a good step forward however some of us have put our character names up in a few places such as wiki let alone our support tickets

i think a lot of people who have found out about this issue are probably going to stay away from gw2 regardless if they get hacked or not until we get confirmation from ncsoft and/or anet that its been fixed. the only way they're going to pay attention to this is if its going to hurt their earnings.


again, easiest bandaid for this would be to either require the old password to change the password (something that almost all online places do) or just disable the password resetting for now. then after that figure out how to fix the issue.

I was already weary of Guild Wars 2 before this (macro-transactions), this isn't helping.

Where is the COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT? I mean this is a COMMUNITY issue.

Or any NCSoft product.

Should make a Poll.. Will you Buy Guild wars 2 if this isn't fixed swiftly and efficiently... and if something similar to this happens in Guild wars 2 can we trust that they will take care of it or just let it sit for a month or two like this?

Yes this is pretty worrying, even more worrying is the cover-up behind it.

I don't have any NCSoft games, thankfully lol.

EXACTLY.

But, this is Gaile. So maybe we should try to complain that we'd lose our beloved minipets if we get hacked?

She might just jump on it.

I'm surprised you can find a way to defend Anet in all this HOT MESS.

Intriguing.

Guys, I'm scared :( can we get a group hug?

Link please? All I'm seeing about this is from Gaile. All I've seen from Regina is about the hats.

Good point, the reason we have no management is because we never needed it before, what we need is someone to take the lead here gather up all the data.

What we need is exposure also the more of it the better, youtube videos, posting public places where this is going to get noticed by a larger majority, in game people posting links to this forum or other website, in game protests.

And right now is the PERFECT time to do all this, maximum exposure because a lot of people are in game, a lot of people are on there holidays etc, if ever there was a time to fire the bullet it would be now.

<----Runs....runs away she goes to never come back! O.o

New Gaile update (http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Feedb...master_account):
EDIT: further down the page, on a request to at least temporarily close down the PlayNC website's access to accounts:

I logged into my NCSoft master account in mid-December after not having accessed it in more than a month. Imagine my surprise when I found a FIFTH Guild Wars game account listed in my master account when my household actually only has four Guild Wars accounts. Four accounts named: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

As I explained to support, what motivation would I have as a long term player to create a GW TRIAL account called [email protected] (sans the .com)?

So yes, it appears someone has accessed my NCSoft master account. No, my Guild Wars accounts have not been hacked... YET.

I had to provide all my keys to prove I owned the accounts just to get through this issue. Their response, in the end, was "We do not have any information as to why a trial account was created. There are no characters and no logins on the account. We are not able to delete game accounts, so just disregard that account at this time."

The problem is this: NCSoft dictates to their game development companies something like 'We will handle support issues for all games under the parent umbrella to consolidate support efforts, provide support efficiencies, eliminate duplicate resources and allow you to focus on the development of your respective properties instead of devoting resources to support. In order for us to provide that support you will have to a) provide your player database, b) cease making account changes to your player database (all changes will flow from us), and c) provide a way for us to funnel those changes back to you (in a standardized format). Further, we will take your databases and build a front end support website for the convenience of the player to access his individual game accounts. Etc., etc.'

In so doing, they bit off more than they could chew. More than they could handle, both from a support and a best-practices development perspective. Especially given the economic downturn of the last few years.

The carrot! I linked 4 accounts. One of them was not even mine, a friend went on hiatus and left me his account to use and I thought I was doing him a favor by getting him the storage pane.

Not possible. Learned this once I tried to give my friend his account back. He forever logs in now using one of MY email addresses and I'm the one that has to change the password on his account via my master account. Pretty messed up, good thing he wasn't mad about it.

Nevermind what you've lost. Nevermind their capabilities. It's not a matter of WANT. They don't have the manpower investigate and restore hacked accounts. It is far easier and cheaper for them to continue to blame the user and parrot their security advisories, despite a clearly broken system.

This is the only feasible option but only the third one will happen, if we're lucky. Number 1 definitely won't happen and the only way number 2 could happen is if they devise a way to prevent support cases from being displayed on the the NCSoft master account screen but still be preserved as history for the support staff. Right now I'm betting we have a window into their database so they can't allow us to delete.

In the meantime, if you have old/solved support tickets containing your IGN and/or game keys, you should absolutely change the password to the support section of the site so that viewing the case history requires a separate login from you master NCSoft account.

Yes, it was absolutely a trick to get Guild Wars users to consolidate under a master account and also to prevent users from passing accounts around by simply changing the email address.

The Hall of Monuments thing was undoubtedly a way for ANet to attempt to maintain customer loyalty because of their longer-than-anticipated development for Guild Wars 2. However, the HoM does imply some player database linkage between GW1 and GW2, and I for one, will be very concerned how that is handled... if I even bother to play GW2 since I'm currently in the waiting-to-be-hacked mode because of my mysteriously compromised master account security. Changing my master and game account passwords multiple times hasn't made me feel any better.