Another Character Hacked/Stripped: There Is A Problem Here

Yep, I'm making another thread, but at this point, I don't care. I am so desperate. I feel every single inch of pain and suffering that Pwnz is going through, because its happening to me. Along with all those others who have been affected by this, the new 'policy' you have set in place is complete garbage. How can you even say you care about your player base with a set-up like that?

I literally changed my EQ password as soon as these incidents started getting more prevalent. From that point, no one had access to my account except myself. Unfortunately, tonight when I log in to raid, I log in to an empty character select screen. My heart dropped, I thought I was on the wrong account, logged out to double check -- yep, screwed. I do not buy plat, kronos, or anything against the EULA. Transferred and stripped/sold, or completely deleted, I don't know, and I can't get Daybreak to help me out, because not only do they not have live support, phone support, or any self-respecting customer support system, they have a POLICY THAT REFUSES TO RESTORE CHARACTERS TO HACKED CUSTOMERS.

Not making threats, not being a raging psycho little eNerd, because I am more disappointed and hurt than anything. I will be cancelling the 2 accounts I currently have had enrolled since 1999, and I will continue to pay/play on this account, but only on Lockjaw (my best way to start fresh), and to keep in contact with friends, will be the only reason I hand you another penny.

Thank you for having the absolute WORST policy for an MMORPG in the entire history of video gaming.

Final rant, since I'm getting everything out at once..

Daybreak, if you guys have ANY plan what-so-ever to be a success and make this game thrive again (something me and everyone here are pulling for you to do) you are gonna have to plan on picking up the content for the "campaigns" you plan on putting out.. and I mean, these campaigns should be no smaller than TDS was.. I know you've heard the complaints about the hails, the boats, the xp nerfs, blah blah blah.. but seriously, mark my words, I promise you.. these upcoming "campaigns" better have good content to keep players busy, and hard raids/good raid tier set-up. I mean.. my guild is finishing all 7 TDS raids in a matter of 4 hours or less.. step it up..

So sorry to hear, Tierwin. I hope you get your main back, same as Pwnz.

This makes two characters out of a group of friends.

Daybreak, while I understand you cannot say what you find after an investigation, please check into this.

If other IP addresses are involved, this sounds like hacking, unless the account had repeated previous access from that address.

Pro Tip:

Don't share your account information

Did you share account(s)?
Is there anything you can think of that you may have done? Use your email for ANYBODY? ANYTHING you can think of?

I want to know.. Because if not, then the servers are not safe.
The past few days, I have had WEIRD things happening in the game when I play. Specially one time when I switched from one toon to another. My pc froze up..Mouse curser changed. My PC NEVER freezes up.

I re installed Windows and EQ, and now I have a thread on the " Player Support " of the forums about C:\END file. Meanwhile, My game Card(S)!! are burning up. Waiting for support.
Funny things in EQ lately.

DID he?

SOE/Daybreak has been hacked so many times it would not shock me if just having an account is not safe. OP says the password was changed right before the hack. If that is true, then it's either a server side issue or a keylogger/virus on your PC. Which means either way you're screwed.

And still no mention from DBG about additional security options (unless I missed a post somewhere, if so someone please provide a link). This is insane. Two guild members had their accounts hacked in the past month or so, and that's just one guild on one server. Who's next? We need additional security options in the worst way.

Daybreak,
If you are too scared to reverse the results of hacks due to fear that people will charge back on the krono purchases after you strip the stolen gear that they bought with kronos... At least suspend transfers to FV until you you can implement some form of extra authorization on the transfers.

Banks don't get to say sorry you had a virus/keylogger on your computer your money is just gone.

I still honestly don't get how someone spending Station/Daybreak cash on an account they don't own is not fraud.

Last where is message of the day warning customers about virus/keyloggers/malware and the sticky/promoted forum posts with suggestions on how to keep their PCs safe... Assuming people know how to maintain the computer they play on is one horribly bad assumption. Every beta i have to talk 5-10 people just in my guild through installing Beta without wrecking their Live install... and that process is painful for me to talk them through.

There are so many other ways besides a key logger or server problem when you are sharing passwords, which the op admitted to doing. If other people had his account name, which they did, they could have used any number of ways to get his password.

Account usernames were leaked during the big hack. Pretty much all of us are using known usernames with no way to change them.

Also when ever a guild does raid testing on beta someone has to collect all the account names and pass them on to the producer/dev that is making sure all the accounts are flagged.

I never admitted to sharing passwords.. hang on, let me quote the original next that I said..

I was simply stating, that I had JUST changed my password, there was no way that anyone could have had access to it. Seriously, I am WILLING to hand over money to Daybreak for a 'Character Restore' button, or please block transfers to FV temporarily or you need a secret code, or SOMETHING. This is ridiculous.

As for my computer: I run SpyBot, MalwareBytes, have a firewall and virus scanner. I don't download illegal files, I don't share ANY information (other games, emails, social media passwords, etc) with others. From what I can tell, it is either server side, or whoever put a keylogger onto my computer somehow re-hacked my computer and had it come within a matter of hours.

I use a seperate e-mail SPECIFICALLY for my EQ account. With a different password. Look, no matter what I say, people are going to pull the "well don't give out your info" card, or the "well don't put plat or kronos online" card, well, I've done neither. I am 100% convinced this is a hack that I could have done literally nothing about.

But the best part of it all is.. I'd LITERALLY be willing to pay big money to have that character back.. time, gear, raiding, augs, clicky camps.. it seriously hurts my hard that you guys won't even help your loyal customers, let along implement an option that makes you MONEY just for restoring information off one of your databases where deleted characters go.

Thank you everyone for the support. Hope we can get some awareness to this, since it's getting more and more prevalent.

I do feel sorry for you but also am wondering if you (and anybody else reading this thread) use easy to guess passwords? or if not that do you use the same password in too many places? There are a lot of places with super lax security (yuku/ezboard or old private message boards for example) so even if you did change your EQ password but used that password in say a 10 year old never updated class board you're setting yourself up for "getting hacked".

Assuming you get your account back someday read (don't skim but actually read) this article twice:
http://www.iolo.com/resources/articles/can-a-hacker-guess-your-passwords/

My eq password is seperate from everything else i use, and so is my e-mail i connect to my eq account, which is also different than the game account password. My passwords were not easily guessed, capitalized and lowercased, numbers thrown in. It was no 'lucky guess'

DBG, how many petitions have you received in the past 6-12 months about a lost character? Do you track them?

Having worked with Customer Service in a corporation years ago, I know that for every customer that complains about a problem there are many more that just cancel services and go somewhere else. I think most EQ subs would petition such a loss, but some won't do that now because that process is not user-friendly and they know the no-help policy in place. The first response is probably an automatic canned one. How many accept that and move on?

Posting to the forums just opens one up to criticism by people who want to believe their account security is within their control and bad things only happen to people who somehow invite it. Many (probably most) players don't read these forums.

I am curious DBG: How many subscribers have requested help in the past six months about the loss of a character and have any had the character restored?

Is this the 2nd person on the same server as Pwnz? Or have there been more public ones on Bristle as well?

Earlier I'd noticed most were on AB, then it started happening here. This is not random, this is targeted.

Daybreak, please wake up and realize people aren't pulling your leg here.

Sad times. I too changed my password after Pwnz got hit, to a long sting of nonsense that would be impossible to guess, and I have NEVER gave anyone my acct info, no one even has access to my pc, and it's only used for Netflix and EQ.

I'd suggest everyone get rid of their Magelo info if possible, definitely don't say you have tons of krono or plat on the forums. In essence, don't make yourself a target. I don't seem to be reading about a lot of new accounts with a low level, un geared toon with 12 plat to their name being hacked.

I have not seen the OP say he shared passwords. I have no idea why you think he did. Also he said he changed his password and didn't tell anyone what it was. Our account names are all public knowledge thanks for the security blunders at sony.

My character was never restored, and I strongly disagree with the statements made by the Devs here that characters will be restored in the event of a hacking. They made a blanket statement, locked down all threads discussing the matter, and shut down my petition so I could no longer respond. They wanted me to go away.

And, to be honest, I have. I never wanted to walk away from the game this way, but Daybreak has made it increasingly apparent that they have no interest in supporting us in these matters.

I decided to come check the forums again after I received an e-mail asking if there could be a link between he and I. I never really talked to him, but it was another Bristle account.

Point blank - Daybreak is getting horrible community PR when we get targeted and they refuse to offer any support. It wouldn't have taken CSR that much time to track the account my items were transferred to, ban it, and restore my character. Instead, they lost a loyal customer. Everquest has been with me since I was a kid - I wasn't going anywhere.

I will be a vocal opponent and discourage anyone from playing Daybreak games in any forum I frequent and its brought up in. Not only do they not help, they actively prevent us from opting out of FV transfers without, say, Security Question Verification at minimum. If anything, they enable this profitable enterprise now that Krono's are a large commodity on the new progression servers. This is going to only increase in frequency, not decrease.

Good luck. Stay safe. Two of us are down, how many more? C'mon Roshen, engage everyone on the topic here. You're the wonderful Community Relations liaison. Let's hear it.