Guild Wars 2

My question: Is it ok to help my 64-year-old father manage his account (password changes, submitting tickets, etc.) from another part of the country?

tl;dr version:
On Thursday I helped my dad change his password over the phone. It took 28 minutes. It was exhausting.

Dad has played several times since the password change. Today he received the message that his account was terminated due to modifying/tampering. I know this is not true so I walked him through submitting a ticket. This was another 30 minutes of my mom and dad yelling at each other “I can’t find the email with the serial number”, “how do you spell ‘hacked’”, etc. It is their 36th wedding anniversary today so he could use a day off from the game to spend with mom.

I believe my dad’s account was hacked so I anticipate having to submit for a roll-back and change his password again. Unfortunately I live 1,000 miles away. The reason I bought him GW2 is so that we can spend time together. So I can’t just go to his house and help him with all that. It will be so much easier if I just do it for him. Will it cause more problems if I take care of things from my end?

Does GW2 have some sort of proxy access for people helping their children/parents with their accounts? If not I would like to suggest that. I have other friends also playing with a senior parent facing similar challenges.

For all I know, mom is approving emails for access in Asia. It is so hard to explain these things to them. When I told my dad to check if his gold and armor is missing once he gets back in the game because he may have been hacked, he told my mom to check the bank account. Thankfully I have them using different passwords for every account. Hopefully the damage is minimal.

Thanks!

I would say just go ahead. Of course I would not consider that the normal way, but if you know, you can do it better, why not give it a try. People at support are human beings and they will try to be understanding as well.
I have great confidence in it!

Sounds like a plan!

And if anyone sees a lost/confused Norn named Cortez Peters, be nice to him! I have already been overwhelmed by the kind players in game – mesmers helping my dad get to places he can’t jump, fractal parties carrying him through, and guildies sending him materials (as a former metal worker, he loves crafting above all else).

Eosin, you are being a good child. As someone who also lives a great distance from their parents, in my case they are in the US while I am in Australia, I do know the frustrations you can have when attempting to discuss something even remotely computer-related to someone not quite as familar with working with computers or the internet. I do hope you are able to work with ArenaNet Support on this, and resolve the issue for your father.

I submitted my ticket.

Ashlar, I can imagine it is even more frustrating.

For anyone else out there, I highly encourage getting your parents involved with games. If GW2 is too much for them, try a tablet and some online games. I think it helps keep their mind alert and gives them confidence.

And (completely off topic), please pass on my thanks to the developers for making the individual crafting node system. My dad got frustrated at the last MMORPG we played because other players would steal his resource node while he was fighting off a mob. With GW2, I’ve never had to PM a player and say “you should be ashamed of yourself, stealing copper ore from a senior.”

Eosin, I’ve been through similar situations a fair few times – well, not regarding gaming, but helping a person with minimal knowledge of computers over phone. The solution I quickly started using was a remote control program (Ammyy Admin as an example) to take control over the other person’s computer and just ask them to relax and watch. Of course I made sure they understood to never accept incoming requests unless I was specifically telling them to do so over the phone.

Of course not everything can be done via remote control, but it has certainly made things a lot easier for me in similar situations, and it might be something that could help you (and your father) as well.

Nefera – Yes I think that would be helpful. Thanks!

Happy gaming – for you and your parents!

Is he on a EU server? If so, I’d be more that happy to guest and help with PvE stuff, I mostly WvW but would love to play with someone like your Dad. One thing I’ve learned in life is you can learn a lot from your elders!

Unfortunately, not a quick update.

After I sent in my ticket, I received:
Response Via Email (Julio S.) 02/20/2013 05:42 AM
Hello <Eosin>,

Thank you for contacting the Guild Wars 2 Support Team.

Reviewing the ticket number 130220-000003 we found that the issue was escalated to the right department to further assistance, we are going to send a response as soon as possible to your father’s e-mail address.

For security purposes we can only discuss the status of the issue with the account owner.

If you have any other doubt or concern please let us know.

Regards,
Guild Wars 2 Support Team.

Today my parents received this email:

Response Via Email(Peter) – 02/21/2013 07:14 PM
Hello,

Your Guild Wars 2 account has been closed for modifying or tampering with the game, which is a breach of the User Agreement and Rules of Conduct

I want you to know that we take great care when analyzing accounts prior to termination. NCsoft support staff is both diligent and conservative in determining which accounts are using these programs, and we only terminate an account only after we are able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that such use has occurred.

For additional information, please visit the following links for the Rules of Conduct, the User Agreement, and the Conduct Breaches & Outcomes:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/legal/guild-wars-2-rules-of-conduct/
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/legal/guild-wars-2-user-agreement/
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/legal/guild-wars-2-conduct-breaches-outcomes/

Regards,

Guild Wars Support Team
http://support.guildwars2.com

So I will reply to the email from Julio. In the meantime I need some direction. If my parent’s computer was infected with some type of virus/malware/etc. would this be the reason ANet thinks he’s modifying/tampering the game? If so I would need to hire someone to work on their computer (although plane tickets home might be cheaper).

I receive the error that his account has been closed when I try to log into the GW2 website, so I can’t see if there were log-ins from hackers. I would think this is the most reasonable explanation.

Mom says Dad was moping around all day, and my guildies say they’ve seen him try to log in several times. This is really hard to see your parent hurting. I’ve never been in this reversed-role, where I’m feeling overprotective of my parent.

Thanks in advance for any guidance to remedy this.

Cogadh.1845:

Is he on a EU server? If so, I’d be more that happy to guest and help with PvE stuff, I mostly WvW but would love to play with someone like your Dad. One thing I’ve learned in life is you can learn a lot from your elders!

Cogadh – you’re very sweet. We’re on a NA server though.

But you are right about learning from your elders. One of my guildmates lacks a father-figure and he has spent a lot of time with my dad. Plus we all get great entertainment out of his RP-ing. He is an army veteran so he yells “MEDIC” when he needs a revive. That happens a lot.

Eosin.2078:

Plus we all get great entertainment out of his RP-ing. He is an army veteran so he yells “MEDIC” when he needs a revive. That happens a lot.

This is amazing and adorable.
Someone get this man back in the game ASAP!

You and your father sound wonderful, Eosin. Hope I’ll run into you two sometime in-game! I sympathise with your situation, as I’m living in the EU and my parents are in the States, and they’re around the same age as yours. My mother appears to live on the internet and has been a PC gamer since PC gaming existed, but my father needs help with everything from antivirus to email. I receive emails at all hours of the day from him, asking if a random .exe file is ok to approve… I didn’t consider getting Mum into GW2, but it sounds like it might be a nice idea. She’ll never get any work done if she starts playing, that’s for sure

Either way, I hope you’re able to sort out your father’s account issues as quickly as possible. Poor guy, it sounds like he somehow set off a false alarm for botting, or had his account hacked. I guess the only course of action would be to help him write an email explaining what he was doing on the day he got banned, and contesting the charge – that worked for me when I got swept into the bot net by accident. It’s a tough situation, but I’m sure Anet will be able to see that it’s not his fault. Good luck!

Thanks everyone for the kind words. And thanks Gaile for staying on top of this. I just called home and dad was cleaning his aquarium – you have to be super bored to do that chore! So does that mean he doesn’t have a problem with his computer or got hacked?

And Desova, I thought about botting false alarms too. I know that dad has a daily routine of collecting mats after he eats his breakfast and then he likes to craft after lunch. He was so excited that he just sold something on the TP for 4 gold that he crafted.

And just an FYI: despite linking this thread to our tickets, the GMs didn’t acknowledge that I’ll be signing into his account from another location. They just send the usual canned message, which I was already prepared for. So I really hope the log-ins don’t cause a second problem.

Response Via Email (GM Roland) 02/22/2013 03:51 PM
Hello,

Thank you for updating us on this issue. I understand your concern about your father’s account. I am still not able to discuss details about it with you, but I will request that the issue is reviewed again for accuracy.

Regards,
GM Roland
NCsoft Account Admin Team

Thanks again Gaile. I’ll make sure their computer is clean too. And I switched his account to one of my emails so I can monitor it more closely for unauthorized log-ins.

Dad says thanks too! Here’s a picture of us in Lion’s Arch: