Cases where game masters will not intervene

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Numiko, Mar 5, 2015.

  1. elliot whitby New Member

    I need some confirmation here.
    Close to 3 weeks ago someone somehow managed to get into one of my accounts and in the end 6 toons were deleted by them. I have no idea how they managed to get into the account at this time.

    I petitioned the fact that I no longer had access to the account and about 9 days later someone responded and in 3 days the account was sorted. Ok so now I have access to the account again.

    The original CS refused point blank to help since my account security is my own responsibility. Apparantly if I created a new petition an in game GM would look into it and may or may not help undelete the characters.

    I created the new petition a couple of days ago and the GM, someone called Woebot said that is SOE policy to never help with undeleting aharacters. It is irrelevant as to how the characters were deleted. Accidental deletions will not be sorted and deletions due to accounts being compromised will not be helped since account security is my responsibility and not SOE's.
    Ok so I pointed out what I have read that in cases of hacking characters WILL be undeleted if possible.

    Can someone please explain to me why this short sighted GM is refusing to hjelp me get my characters back when it appears that he is wrong and that the policy is NOT as he is quoting me.

    After playing this game for 15 years and paying for several accounts I am extremely angry to be treated in such a flippant manner by someone who is simply quoting some stock response and not remotely interested in the game's players?

    I also asked him to give me details on how to escalate the petition is he was not willing to help and not surprisingly he totally ignored my request.
  2. Battleaxe Augur

    1. This is a CS matter. Use the petition system and the Player Support forum.

    2. You misread.
    There's a reason why.

    A reason why (I'm not saying this is true in your case) is that you've shared your account information. Daybreak doesn't necessarily divulge what it's investigation uncovered but if they refuse we are told (see above) that they had a reason.

    Prolly not going to get a lot of pitchforks and torches here given recent circumstances.
    Corwyhn Lionheart and Soltara like this.
  3. Kayarra New Member


    The disagreement for most of this thread is a disagreement on what constitutes a hack. Minishot and Ferry believed a character being transferred and deleted by someone other than the account holder is a hack (and your char issues would fall under this definition). Daybreak CS defines hack differently (which is why your char is not being restored).

    Please be careful posting a disagreement with Daybreak on the forums. It is against the forum rules and Ferry's accounts are now suspended for breaking those rules. Try sending Roshen a PM. Roshen graciously stated that if someone sent him a PM, he would sit down with the CS staff and get more info on why the restore was declined.
    Corwyhn Lionheart likes this.
  4. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart


    About 8 years ago I let my 9 year old nephew play a character I made for him in the game. About 20 minutes of unsupervised play and he had deleted my bazaar trader who I luckily got back. In todays EQ I would not let any small kids near my game :)

    Can't ever see a cat somehow deleting a character.. thats up there with my dog ate my homework and then some. Dogs will eat almost anything :).

    Personally I have never deleted a character. I would love a more robust and safe delete system. While I can't ever see me deleting a character I would be happy to have a away to ensure my main characters were never deleted. Just in case peeps are actually getting hacked when taking reasonable precautions as Battleaxe has pointed out several times.
  5. Numiko Augur

    Why would you have to lie? for the last 15 years the policy at SOE was restore characters when customers ask... period. no questions asked!

    When I had mine restored I was no asked to swear on a stack of bibles that the deletion was an accident. I sent them a email asking if I could get my character restored and got one back saying "it will be restored in less then 24 hours" ... end of story!

    The no restore accidental deletions or deletions for any reason other then hacking is *new*
    Garshok, Melanippe and Barton like this.
  6. Battleaxe Augur

    Sharing account information is a violation of the ToS.
    "Any Station Account supplied to you is personal to you, and you may not transfer or make available your Station Account username and/or password to others, including, without limitation, your co-workers or other members of your household (except that Child restricted account information may be accessed by a Parent using parental controls). Any distribution by you of such Station Account username and/or password may result in suspension, termination and/or cancellation of your Station Account."

    I can't know why there was not character restoration since Daybreak observes privacy in these matters. But, according to you sharing account information [BA: a violation of the ToS and a reason to terminate the entire agreement if Daybreak wanted to] and that being how the account was hacked could be "the reason why".

    Simple disagreement with Daybreak in and of itself is not, afaik, a forum violation. 50%+ of all posts in this forum are suggestions that Daybreak does something other than what it is doing.
  7. elliot whitby New Member

    In my case I have never shared any information with anyone, I have never given any of my passwords to anyone. I don't know how my characters were deleted since they were deleted when I had no access to the account. And what I quoted above was from a GM's response to my petition.
    I do not know how SOE define what a hack is but when you have zero access to your own account because someone somehow managed to change both the account password and then the account EMail address that seems to constitute a hack in my eyes, and possibly in the eyes of anyone that has eyes.
  8. Numiko Augur

    It used to be if SOE caught you sharing your user id not only would they not help you with deleted items or characters they would outright ban your whole account and you would loose everything.

    Sharing passwords is opening your door and inviting the vampire in .. do not expect others to be sympathetic if you get bitten.
  9. Dre. Altoholic

    We do have some personal responsibility as members of the EverQuest community to not waste Customer Service time and resources, because it is ultimately their job to help us, and other players.

    However, when CS comes out and says "We CAN do this service, but we won't provide it to you for these (superficial) reasons", that is simply bad customer service, regardless of the fine print.

    As customers, it is our job to make a fuss about this, because in the long run, good CS keeps the game healthy while bad CS spells its doom.
    While there are life lessons to be learned, we're talking about a loss of data here. It takes a click of the mouse to copy and restore a character. This is much different than a bank account being drained, a vehicle stolen, or being legally forced to vacate your home. For some, their EQ character being deleted would actually be worse than those other events.

    In the case of characters being moved to FV and stripped for Kronos, the issue is really the ability for people to cause harm to others for personal profit. There is a very specific combination factors here: The FV market, the RL value of Kronos and the ability to move a live character to FV. Slight changes to any one of these mechanics could make the risk evaporate.
    I inadvertently deleted a character several years ago when I thought I was deleting a test copy. CS restored it for me.
    While I agree with you on these points, that doesn't dismiss the attitude of the company when they refuse to assist customers that they are capable of assisting.
    Garshok, Elricvonclief and Melanippe like this.
  10. Numiko Augur

    To me these changes are like a store that for the last 15 years has had a policy of "money happily refunded if your not satisfied with the product" and changing it to "All sales are Final! No refunds or exchanges!!" .. it is just a very jarring change of policy.
    Garshok likes this.
  11. Melanippe Augur

    In other words, Daybreak, the company that is cutting costs, cutting staff, cutting Customer Service should happily spend hours, days, weeks, months with the accompanying costs investigating allegations of "hacking", but not take the few minutes necessary to assist should a customer click the wrong button? Interesting premise.

    Just another "shut up, be quiet", "suck it up" instruction, eh? May your errors, mistakes and lag spikes never jump up and bite you on your posterior.
    Garshok and Iila like this.
  12. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    Because in practice this still isn't happening.

    Hacked accounts are being returned to their rightful owners with no chars.
    Elricvonclief, Brohg and Iila like this.
  13. Battleaxe Augur

    Sharing account information is a violation of the ToS and a sufficient reason to terminate the entire agreement if Daybreak wants to do so. This is not a change in policy.
    "Any Station Account supplied to you is personal to you, and you may not transfer or make available your Station Account username and/or password to others, including, without limitation, your co-workers or other members of your household (except that Child restricted account information may be accessed by a Parent using parental controls). Any distribution by you of such Station Account username and/or password may result in suspension, termination and/or cancellation of your Station Account."

    https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/...store-test-already-taking-place.218507/page-3
    Account Security (June 10 2001)
    As the population of Norrath increases, so too do issues regarding stolen or compromised accounts, and/or accounts that have been transferred from one player to another in violation of the User Agreement. These issues - and the time it takes to investigate and attempt to resolve them - hugely detract from the time that SOE's customer service staff have to devote to providing quality customer service to issues that impact upon the gameplay experience. Accordingly, SOE must remind all players that:
    (1) Account security -- whether it be password protection, running virus checks, disabling file sharing, or any other element of making sure accounts are not stolen or compromised -- is the sole responsibility of the account owner.
    (2)Any and all stolen and/or compromised accounts that are reported to SOE will be banned, and no items will be reimbursed. Any player found to be involved in an account theft will have any and all of his/her accounts banned.
    - The EverQuest Customer Service Team”
    2001.

    I read Rohen's comments to indicate somewhere down the line there was a change in policy - but I'm not disagreeing with his assertion since there might have been a change during the years and he's saying it's been the same since that change.

    Read the 2001 policy. Read Roshen's post. IF one assumes that there was an intervening policy then the policy change from 2001 and that new policy resulted in an eased policy.

    I take it as saying that if you are hacked [BA: even if its because you opened a phishing email attachment] so long as there is no superceding reason why Daybreak wouldn't, they will restore your toon/s. That's a lot more liberal than "2) Any and all stolen and/or compromised accounts that are reported to SOE will be banned, and no items will be reimbursed."

    Afaik that has been the policy for awhile. It's not new. I've heard of toons not being restored before and accounts being banned when they had been shared and SOE was called in to return them.

    Policy.

    Practice despite policy?
    Well Roshen did say, "Our policy has changed toward how we assist with gameplay errors"

    And maybe despite policy some deleted characters were returned when policy said they shouldn't have been.

    BUT a number of people have posted in this thread that if you share User ID and password with another player
    etc.

    Not superficial and "if they don't [BA: restore a character] there's a reason why. [BA: emphasis mine]
  14. Aghinem Augur


    You all can beat your chests and argue until your mouths drop off; the point of my post is there is no point to this any longer. Minishot shared his account, he got screwed, its not a hack. Tough luck for him. The new policy basically trims the fat and tells players they need to start correcting their own issues that are from GAME PLAY MISTAKES. I don't think CSR was ever intended to be a babysitting department; I'd rather see money going towards the development of this game rather than towards individuals who need help changing their diaper (would have said something more grotesque but prefer to keep my forum account active). I mean seriously, are people that incapable anymore? Yeah, we all pay for subs - that $14.99 covers your unlimited access to a game. I guarantee you that the $14.99 has provided countless hours of entertainment - and many of you have gotten FAR more than your money's worth out of it. This whole campaign against CSR and the tiny list of what they won't do is absolutely pathetic. Even after Roshen confirmed hacked accounts are taken seriously - people still whine and complain. Do all of you pay $14.99 for CSR - or do you pay to play the game?

    Does this post offend people? Well guess what? I'm offended as a paying customer, my fellow players are acting like bratty children who aren't getting their way over issues that are of extreme trivial nature. Yes, customers of any company they receive services from have the right to voice their opinions and complaints and I am all for open thoughtful discussion - but at some point, this entire thread has evolved into flame fest; and then to top it off - Minishot (of whom SHARED his account info) puts up this post about CSR not helping him with the claim his account was hacked, which only FUELED this thread with nuclear fire. Enough is enough already. There does come a time when a complaint is no longer validated and it simply evolves devolves into a means to riot.

    The truth is out - CSR will help a REAL hacked account - not any of this other pansy BS. Lets move on. Lets talk about solutions. Lets talk about better ways to prevent accidental deletions (which is insane), lets talk about solutions for leaderless guilds, solutions for accidental purchase of raid items that can't be resold back to the vendor, things that WILL make a difference.
  15. Dre. Altoholic

    I'd find it very interesting if any company policy is still a PR issue with customers 14 years later.
  16. Battleaxe Augur

    I'm not shocked that a customer in the wrong (if indeed he did share account info and in effect turned himself in) would raise a PR issue or allow one to be raised.

    OOOoo they won't restore your characters if you are hacked!
    [BA: legitimately hacked rather than hacked because you gave out your info]. Unbelievable.

    He knew the rules, the rules were written down. If he'd changed his password to a strong password after he gave out his info or bought that secondary password dongle his lapse would not have bitten him 5 years later.
  17. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    Elliot is the most conscientious player I know, does not give out his info and knows so much about computers my head wants to explode.

    The guild has had a lot of attacks on account recently mainly failed attempts to log in accounts and the only thing they all have in common was an email to Thom for beta access. Information for that email was gained via, facebook, in game and emails, no passwords were included. It looks like a hacker got lucky with some accounts. :(

    How secure is our login names when we email them to SOE/Daybreak ?
    Why every so often does the OLD login screen show up?
    Is that a security breach and someone trying to get our info?
    Why when you petition is the certificate not valid?
    How safe is our accounts when you use Everquest World?
    How many login names did SOE disclose when they were hacked a year or so ago?

    I don't believe our accounts are as secure as they should be, and they should be taking some of the responsibility for these hacks.
  18. Battleaxe Augur

    No offense intended, but we heard that before, recently, and lots of it. I'm not saying he isn't but this is not the place to say it and we are not CS.

    If you collected User ID's and character names on your forum and sent them in bulk perhaps your forum was breeched - wouldn't be the first forum that happened to. And there are other legitimate ways info could be leaked. And all of them would likely be known to have vulnerabilites and a record of data being sent. Thom's company account would have the received emails for example.

    There's nothing at all wrong with helping Daybreak with it's thorough investigation.

    And btw you'd have to get very lucky indeed to guess a strong password if you didn't intercept the encoded version and crack it. The odds would be better to stand outside waiting for a Wells Fargo aircraft to drop a bag of cash in your hands.
  19. Morgoth Elder

    Proposed solution:

    After the player hits the "are you sure you want to delete this character" YES button:

    Reroute to a new page, red background, flashing lights, skull and crossbones etc. etc. (no other EQ page will look remotely like this one)

    "You have confirmed the deletion of this character, this is another last chance. Are you sure you wish to PERMANENTLY delete this character." "Please spell the characters name to confirm deletion."

    If the name matches, delete the character from the players account but park it into a 30 day queue.

    Charge player $100 to restore after proof of ownership.
  20. Numiko Augur

    I should have been more clear battleaxe, I was not refering to account sharing or password sharing, I agree that is users fault and as I said let the vampire in expect to get bitten.

    What I was talking about is the accidental or otherwise deletion of characters for any reason other then account sharing or true hacking..