Guild Wars 2

So I received an email on the 25th that my account had been accessed back East(I live on the West Coast), but I didn’t see it until today. Fast forward to me sending a ticket in(still hasn’t been replied to) and finally resetting my password(using a link mind you that was hidden).

From the “My Account” section I can see that someone in China was playing on my account for the past few days…so already I was getting worried.

Login to the game and..yep characters with stripped/broken armor, vendored weapons/gear(seriously they vendored my exotic weapons for a couple silver…things that cost me 5g+ on the TP), all my gold is gone, all my mats, everything in my bank is missing(including the lowbie masks and stuff I was going to transmute at a later date)…

Mind you ANet still hasn’t replied to my ticket, but from what I hear they won’t revert changes made to your account(or at least they don’t have that option yet).

But I decided to see what they had been doing on my account: a grand total of 1500+ transactions on the TP in a few days, TONS of venom sacs sold, TONS of dyes, lots of my mats, etc etc etc(all totaled probably 30g in sales)…my main was in Mount Maelstrom standing in a patch of spiders, where I had logged out the Chinese hacker.

So yea, back to the losing faith part. I expressed my outrage at this incident in chat(Orr) and some kind soul sent me 1g just out of the blue. I was honestly just about ready to /uninstall this game forever(who wants to grind/play the TP back to ~25g + buy back all their exotics?)…but that person totally restored my faith in the community/game.

ANet however…seriously? Why do you NOT have a system to restore lost items? MMOs from 10+ years ago had this. How do you not?

edit: before anyone jokes about “lol bad password?” no, my password was perfectly fine, unique to this game and quite long.

Gaile, thank you for the prompt reply. Will this service be available to current players who are experiencing issues, or only for future incidents?

I would also be interested in the response as i have recently lost all my ‘saleables’ and additionally like a couple thousand Gems even after i had already reported my account as hacked.

Here is my sad tale…
Running a couple of quests here with my new lv 65 Engineer after having finished a suited up lv 80 Mesmer. In a normal Sunday evening i suddenly get kicked out back into the character selection screen with some random error code on the screen but i figured at 2 am it is probably good to call it a night. So take a nap, go to work the next day, come home and start questing again on my Engineer. Minding my own business but i noticed i am not where i left off, a rollback perhaps. Eventually after a couple of hours of playing i decide to make a trip to town, drop off some loot, forge some things, and do the next part of my story quest… and as soon as i opened up my Bank, BAM everything with the exception of a couple XP boosters and other non-saleable or breakable items. Instantly i open my inventory only to notice that i am down to a couple of silver from all the Golds i had with that character, just about all the silver i had made this session. Naturally i switch over to my Mesmer to see just about everything gone and sitting in front of the Auction House… 78 copper to his name and some dyes and blueprints in the starter back pack, all other (expensive) bags missing.

At this point i am feeling very much violated but to my relieve, i still had my Gems intact. So naturally I start filling out the hacked form with all the information i can provide and at of curiosity i tab back into Guild Wars 2 to check the Auction House history. Unfortunately the Auction House was returning an authentication error that has previously been resolved by re-logging. As far as i could tell, there was 39 silver waiting for pickup.

So i close down my client and re-launch Guild Wars 2 only to find out that my email address is not associated with any accounts. I switch over to the form, write a couple of sentences about my email having changed, and submit it.

I proceed to attempt to recover my account but without a valid email address there is nothing for me to do. In my email, there is a notification that my email address was changed (great thanks for the info). I sit down… quietly… waiting for a response.

The response finally came in a day an half later and my account was restored, i was able to switch my password and for testing purposes i changed my email (and therefore login id) only to find out that the only requirement is to fill out a captcha form. No confirmation code, email verification, nothing.

Sadden enough but at least able to log back in, i do just that. At this point, i am extremely displeased with what I see. The notification on my account restoration had already stated that my loss would not be restored. What I was not expecting was that now all my Gems, remaining equipment, even the 39 silver that was sitting waiting to collect in the Auction House, all GONE.

My anti-virus software reports zero threats, my browser history has nothing but safe Guild Wars 2 forums and databases.

I have heard rumors that a way to restore an account was coming soon, i searched the forums and found a 20 day old thread. Neither of my characters have professions but i’ve always picked up any item i could, saving all the salvageable material, loot bags, and anything that i did not need then to save space and i did this since the beginning of pre-launch. Dyes and one-time quest rewards completely gone. All that was left to my account was 12 copper.

Unlike you i lost faith in being able to make all of that back, particularly the things i paid for with hard earned cash. I have already requested for a restoration of my loss, particularly the additional damages after the report was filed (which i reasonably did not expect) and i have not heard back since.

Chances are, one day that ability to restore accounts may be available but i am shipping out in middle October and will likely miss out on that. Even as i sit here i have considered calling up my bank to revert any charges but i will wait in good faith instead.

I logged on tonight for the first time this week to find the same thing. Everything gone, my character in the 80 zone with all broken gear, and everything gone from TP too…what I was selling and buying.

I spent a lot of time building up my stuff, and it’s just gone.
I’m just in shock.

I hate to say it, but why haven’t you taken the security measures ArenaNet continue to bang on about?

I authenticated my account and only last week had someone attempt to gain access to it having received an email confirming someone in China was behind it. I simply denied the link and changed my GW2 Account Password: account safe.

This is going to sound incredibly callous, but if you haven’t protected yourself with an original, unique password for both Guild Wars 2 and your email account, as well as authenticated your account, this inevitably isn’t the fault of ArenaNet but your own.

The authentication system in Guild Wars 2 works wonderfully and protected me straight away, why people aren’t using it or are still repeating poor password habits is beyond me.

I’d also recommend you run anti-spyware regularly.

In response to the above, my account had similar issue mentioned. I had authenticated my account and the password is of dialect only native to few folks. Totally unique. I also try to change passwords whenever I feel like I have spent several days using it. Yet it still happened.

My account was resetted and was able to log in after a day without having access. Found out all items missing. I immediately logged off and placed a Support reply and changed my email and password. Problem now is that I am not getting verification response regardless of emails I use. Does this mean that whoever hacked my account is sitting there receiving all my request for verification.?

I’m afraid that all my effort to re-establish my mats and gear will be seriously compromised again. I am also afraid that they will be able to access Guild Vaults and ransack that as well.

This is a huge problem. I understand that this is a FTP game. However, in order to meet success, these issues must be served and addressed immediately. Account security should have been paramount (not sure if it was, but if indeed it was then forgive my statement).

Again my fear of someone accessing my account again is most often there and is affecting the way I play the game. I just don’t want to put too much effort in to it until we are assured all means of security measures have been taken to prevent unauthorized access.

my account was hacked lastnight gems gold money stuff my security sanity i am so violated i an feel for sheldon on the big bang theropy when his account was jacked any way to get the stuff back i changed all passwords soup to nuts

If youve changed your info without finding the point of compromise, theyll just get into your account again. and again and again.

Renegadeimp.8439:

If youve changed your info without finding the point of compromise, theyll just get into your account again. and again and again.

And that is the reason why many folks will be hesitant on progressing ahead with their account if it will be compromised once more, and all efforts in attaining the same items will be all for nothing. It’s simply giving them to gold sellers for them to make real cash.

I have sent out a support ticket explaining to them that the verification email is not working and how this could possibly be an issue further along. We’ll just see. But at the moment my interest is not 100% in to the game, in fear of another compromise to my account.

Well my system was and is clean, but the password was one I may have used in the past on other games (but not currently). I should have changed it to be unique before, but since I keep my system clean I didn’t worry much about it.

So, does Anet do anything to help fix these? Or am I just done with this game?

I am NOT starting over from scratch. I spent a lot of time building up some wealth and gear and now I can’t even afford to repair the gear they broke.

Lewis Burnell.2493:

I hate to say it, but why haven’t you taken the security measures ArenaNet continue to bang on about?

I authenticated my account and only last week had someone attempt to gain access to it having received an email confirming someone in China was behind it. I simply denied the link and changed my GW2 Account Password: account safe.

This is going to sound incredibly callous, but if you haven’t protected yourself with an original, unique password for both Guild Wars 2 and your email account, as well as authenticated your account, this inevitably isn’t the fault of ArenaNet but your own.

The authentication system in Guild Wars 2 works wonderfully and protected me straight away, why people aren’t using it or are still repeating poor password habits is beyond me.

I’d also recommend you run anti-spyware regularly.

As i mentioned already, it does not appear that the email notifications are working, i was able to change my email by simply filling out a captcha form, no verification was required from my current (verified) email. I have received a notification when i first attempted to login with my IP address but this security was implemented one day after my account was hacked.

And i also already mentioned that my anti-virus is reporting 0 threats and no phishing websites in my browser history. I do not know how the breach occurred and i have requested for logs information from AraneNet to help me determine this. I changed my email address and passwords for safe measure but i am not really comfortable playing the game anymore.

Yeah I got hacked and havent been able to get into my account yet but your post has me scared to death that they have sold my exotic armor. I didnt have many mats but I did have magic find gear and wvw gear wich cost me a whole lot! I swear if the guy who hacked my account did the same thing to me I will find him and kill the son of a kitten! 120929-000850(hacked account)

Metra.7190:

Lewis Burnell.2493:

I hate to say it, but why haven’t you taken the security measures ArenaNet continue to bang on about?

I authenticated my account and only last week had someone attempt to gain access to it having received an email confirming someone in China was behind it. I simply denied the link and changed my GW2 Account Password: account safe.

This is going to sound incredibly callous, but if you haven’t protected yourself with an original, unique password for both Guild Wars 2 and your email account, as well as authenticated your account, this inevitably isn’t the fault of ArenaNet but your own.

The authentication system in Guild Wars 2 works wonderfully and protected me straight away, why people aren’t using it or are still repeating poor password habits is beyond me.

I’d also recommend you run anti-spyware regularly.

As i mentioned already, it does not appear that the email notifications are working, i was able to change my email by simply filling out a captcha form, no verification was required from my current (verified) email. I have received a notification when i first attempted to login with my IP address but this security was implemented one day after my account was hacked.

And i also already mentioned that my anti-virus is reporting 0 threats and no phishing websites in my browser history. I do not know how the breach occurred and i have requested for logs information from AraneNet to help me determine this. I changed my email address and passwords for safe measure but i am not really comfortable playing the game anymore.

AVG isnt really that good and unless it specifically scans for the latest MALWARE ( not virii), then it will never find anything.

Plus if you scan your machine, you should do deep root scans with multiple virus and malware programs. Not just one. Especially if the ones you have now are the free versions.

You also might not have any malware at all on your machine. It could be that your email itself is compromised.

Lewis Burnell.2493:

I hate to say it, but why haven’t you taken the security measures ArenaNet continue to bang on about?

I authenticated my account and only last week had someone attempt to gain access to it having received an email confirming someone in China was behind it. I simply denied the link and changed my GW2 Account Password: account safe.

This is going to sound incredibly callous, but if you haven’t protected yourself with an original, unique password for both Guild Wars 2 and your email account, as well as authenticated your account, this inevitably isn’t the fault of ArenaNet but your own.

The authentication system in Guild Wars 2 works wonderfully and protected me straight away, why people aren’t using it or are still repeating poor password habits is beyond me.

I’d also recommend you run anti-spyware regularly.

Sigh..did you not read what I posted? I used a UNIQUE email, username, and password to have my game info forwarded to my main email. The pass was a phrase with random letters/numbers(30+ chars).

I had the authentication system setup correctly, I did infact see an email from someone trying to login to my account from Scranton, PA(later China); but I was away on vacay, so didn’t see it until I got home. Is that my fault?

So somehow, in the..ohh I don’t know ~20 years I’ve been on the internet(and never hacked once, other than the SONY PSN fiasco), it’s my fault?

I had the same thing happen to be yesterday, so much money and items lost…

I’d like to thank Gaile Gray for the honest reply, it’s really nice to see that you’re trying to fix the issue – I’ve had very vague replies from staff over e-mail – So to get something coherent and honest is refreshing, I thank you for that and look forward to my stuff being restored…

I feel quite bad for the negative reply I just wrote via email O_o

Don’t feel bad Ben, no modern mmo should launch without sufficient security options for players, and without back-end systems in place to deal with hacks when they occur (i.e. the ability to restore lost items/gold).

Personally I’m nervous about this ‘roll back’ feature. It’s a very ‘blanket’ response, what will happen with people that bought the wrong item with marks, or accidentally deleted their favorite mini pet… this is 2012, and you have countless mmo’s before you to learn how to run your company and what services need to be provided. See, now ya’ll got me started

This is total bullcrap, I log on only to find ALL my stuff gone, and all my characters in odd places, with all the symptoms of a hack which everyone else has been unfortunate to experience here also – but even my Guild Bank was raided…. I can only apologize to my guild for losing all their stuff too, but wait a second….. Why the hell should I??

This is down to A-net and their kitteny excuses for lack of account backup and security.

Needless to say, I have stopped playing the game, and if they think spending Karma will suffice, over full exotic gear? they are totally deranged!
I won’t be advancing my characters for some moron to just come along and swipe all my stuff once more after following ALL safety account precautions which are “supposed” to keep accounts impenetrable… We all can see this isn’t the case.

Oh well, back to monthly paid games I guess… Sigh! I was going to buy my family members this game for Christmas this year also, but screw that!

Yesterday night I coulnt log in anymore. The moment I get my password back from Arenanet today and I log on I find my whole back empty as well.
In my case my 70g and 125 ectoes I had been working on last weeks. (Was going for a legendary, If only I had bought the commander one -_-…)

I had a longggg and unique password. Still some wizkid managed to screw me and my 400 hours over. As I won’t be able to get my gold and ectoes back, I won’t be playing this game again…

Goodbye 7-8 years of Guild Wars

Guys it passed 2 months and arenanet staff have not find a solution to this problem yet. We paid this game and I cannot accept that all my stuff gone for a stupid hacker, and now I can’t get back any refund not even 1 gold. I had a full exotic set, hundred stack of mats in bank, I spend hours and hours and now I have only a full green set, 5 silver, and an empy bank. Thank you arenanet, you’re doing your work very well.