Very Sad

Recently my account was hacked, according to customer service, by gold sellers. I admit, this is likely the fault of lax security in my part. I don't blame Arena Net in any way.

I was under the impression that when they restored my account, I'd have something left in it...but it's pretty much gutted. All the stuff I cared about is gone.

I'm an altoholic. I had 22 characters, 50/50 in my HoM and GWAMM title. I had every elite armor in the game. I also had every single minipet, dedicated, from years 1-4, stored amongst my characters, as well as several I really loved, including a dedicated kunna. Yep, I was enough of a fan to go buy factions collectors edition, just for the kunna (I started playing only three years ago and missed it when it was out in the stores).

I also had years of stuff I'd saved on 4 storage characters, normal drops that Nick the Traveler MIGHT want. That's because I hate farming. I'll play, do missions, explore, do almost anything but farm.

I have to say, I was stunned at my experience with customer service. I feel that there was a distinct lack of sympathy and it's put me off playing the game completely. Again, I don't really know what else could have been done, but the correspondence I had with them was absolutely horrible. When I suggested that it was too heartbreaking to play, customer server responded by saying, you still have all your characters, all their attribute points, all their heroes, and that you could start again just by farming for basic armor and weapons and that would help.

Oh really.

And the bits of armor they've salvaged for mats or sold, or did whatever to that are missing, including the entire set of obsidian armor, a set of vabbian armor, and bits and pieces from at least ten other armors, missing. Five of my characters are completely naked. My kunna is gone. Everything I saved for Nick is gone.

The helpful customer service rep also gave me the addy of PVX wiki to help me get started again. I was completely blown away by this.

Am I over-reacting, cause right now, I just can't bring myself to even load my account and look at it again.

sorry this happened bro it really sucks! maybe just take a bit of time away from the game then come back when/if you miss it.

The worst part is, I had been taking a break and this is what I ended up with upon my return. I'd been gone almost a month when this happened.

I was thinking of starting a new dervish from scratch, so I could play through what it was like now, but honestly, I just can't look at the character screen to even get to that.

I said good bye to my guild today, and they were pretty sympathetic. I just don't understand how customer service can expect a 3 year old veteran to literally start again from scratch with nothing.

I mean would you go and start farming so you could get max armor on characters that already had elite armor? Would anyone?

It sucks that your account was hacked and you lost everything...

...but it's not exactly not known that they can't recover lost items or money, or give you any boosts with that sort of thing.

Did your fellow guild members offer any assistance in getting you back on your feet? If not, that's what really surprises me.

Well, what do you expect support to say?
"Sorry you got hacked, here's a coupon for a free coffee at Starbucks"?

First, they have no way to tell what you actually had and what you are making up, so they aren't going to give you anything. For all they know, you could have been the poorest person in the game and want to take advantage of getting hacked to get free stuff.

Support tickets are handled by NCsoft, not ANET. NCsoft does not deal with anything in GuildWars and they have their own games to deal with. They are only the publisher, not the maker of the game. All they do is handle account support.

I do feel bad for you, but you need to get over the emotional part of it and think clearly about why they can't help you.

Thanks Reddog91.

In my emotion, I sorta forget that NCsoft isn't Anet and that makes the blow a bit less. I hate thinking bad at all about Anet while I don't mind thinking bad about NCsoft.

I understand the logic, but I don't understand the specific response. You'd have to actually see the dialogue to understand why I'm as upset as I am. You know, I"m not a kid either. I'm 49 years old and I don't get how customer service reps are trained, but the wording of responses was terrible. In fact, I'd say that the wording of responses I got from them has added a huge amount to my feeling sad.

When I said I don't have the heart to start over, it's just seems too much, I got a response that basically said, you still have your characters and heroes, and just farming for basic armor and weapons will help you get started. Then they gave me the URL to PVX wiki in case I needed builds.

You know, I can lie about what I had, but checking one of my character names on the Guild Wars 2 Hall of Monuments Calculator would prove conclusively what elite armor I had, at very least, cause it's all dedicated. Same with dedicated minis. Same with weapons.

So my tormented weapon and elite armors could easily have been restored and it would have cost what, exactly?

I'm sorry but farming for max armor, when I've already gotten every elite armor in the game just seems like a waste of time.

I do agree with you though. I don't know what else I expected. And I'm glad I can blame someone other than Anet for the shoddy response, so thianks for that.

Yeah, Account Support is a bit lacking in dealing with the emotional state that their users may be in. NCsoft is a Korean company doesn't seem to keep track of their staff training in their international branches very well.

I logged onto a few sites, defending Guild Wars 2 against people saying stupid stuff about it, like it wasn't going to be a real MMO, etc. Sometimes when I'm angry I don't think. I'm sure on at least one of those sites I used my Guild Wars password to register...so I can't blame anyone but myself.

Honestly I made a new account to post this here because my last account was a character name and frankly, I don't want to do that ever again.

So, no character names, unique passwords, yeah I get it. I just didn't think it through. So my fault.

But I still can't bring myself to play again.

At least the positive way to look at it is that you've still got all your titles and already have 50/50 for your HoM which means that you're quite done with most of GW for GW2.

Take a break again, and come back and perhaps having nothing will be a little bit of a drive to let you experience all of the entire game.

I feel for you man. But life is too short to worry too much over this. If I were you I wouldn't play again. This would be an end of a chapter in my life. I would walk away with memories and hope that gw2 will be a fresh new start. It's not like the hacker's taken away your memories of the fun you've had before away. You still got that. I don't play gw anymore and I've just given away practically all my hoards of stuff I've saved up to my suitemates. Take a break from guildwars and find some happiness. If you want to start over, start over, but forget the past if it can't be changed, it'll just be a burden.

Sounds like a great time to enjoy the PvP side of Guild Wars.

Feel sorry for you. Fortunate although unfortunate.....that you still have your 50/50HoM and GWAMM.
If I were you, I'll just wait for GW2 for a fresh start.

Well, no. It can prove what you had on your account at some point in time since EOTN came out, but nothing more than that. Just because you had it at some point and it was dedicated doesn't mean that you had it at the time of being hacked - lots of people sell/throw out/salvage minis/weapons/armor after dedicating it.

And at any rate, if they did do something like restore someone's items after being hacked...do you realize how many people would try and take advantage of that to scam things? Log in from a different IP, delete things or trade it to a second account, and then go "Oh, I was hacked, replace my stuff please!" It would be so amazingly abused.

It will cost the 10(0),000 other hacked accounts QQing that they didnt get their stuff back then, so why should you?

Yep once I thought about it, I understood why. Maybe they should use a different word when they are getting your account back than RESTORE though. And maybe they should tell you what to expect, so you can be used to it.

I didn't think it through. But don't you think it would be nice for them to have said, look we can restore your account, but not your possessions for this reason.

From someone who hasn't been hacked before, it would have made it a lot easier.

Look on the positive side.

You were planning on making a dervish from scratch... well now is your chance to do just that! Will you ever have what you had previously... probably not.

I was having a discussion the other day with guildies about what I would do if my account were hacked. I came to the conclusion that I would probably just start from scratch with nothing more than some old, naked characters (kept around for nostalgia), and a new main character. I would probably never bother doing all the grindy stuff that I have done so far, but hey, its not like grinding gets you anything functional. My advice is to start a new character and just have fun doing stuff that you enjoy with your guildies. Don't worry about titles, armor collections, and all that jazz!

Actually the hardest thing is logging in and seeing characters I've played for years, stark naked. But it just occurred to me.

I purchased like every single costume set so they don't have to be naked and I don't have to farm anything.

I'm going to go dress everyone up, so at least when/if i log in, I'm not looking at naked characters, cause that was depressing.

I had an account hacked once and all my stuff sold, I rebuilt that account to a walking god so its possible

I know it's possible to start over, it's just heart rending. At any rate, I already have GWAMM. At least they can't take that away. I just have to buy my main a new pair of shoes at some point. They must have gotten cut off when they were salvaging his armor and only got to his shoes. A lot of my other characters weren't so lucky.

Anyway I'm feeling a bit lighter about it. It's still a massive undertaking to start over, but I don't think I'm going to grind if I do.

I'll make a new character, and just play it, like it's a new character. Maybe just help some newbies (if there are any anymore) with missions and whatnot. Shrugs.

Better than giving up completely. If I did that it would feel like "they" won.

i had my account stolen by a hacker once

when i got my account back, i realized that my obby armor was gone

enraged, i swore revenge on this hacker and made it my life's goal to destroy him and all that his life was worth

i dabbled in necromancy and black magic for many years until i finally discovered an ancient curse in an old dusty text that promised to ensure that the target of the curse will get a boner while wearing shorts at the most inappropriate time

unfortunately, i needed to know who my hacker was

i then spent several months undercover in a gang of hackers, learning their ways and customs. i became fluent in L33TSP33K and found myself wearing ironic t-shirts. i was soon indistinguishable from the other hackers

i was ready

after a long night of preparation, i used my leet computer skills to track down my hacker. i busted down his door, and saw the fear in his eyes as i began to cast the curse on him. i felt something tug inside my heart, and stopped

then i realized how stupid i had been and played dragon age 2 instead