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Expanding Account Guard - July 5th

trailturtletrailturtle Posts: 5,496 Perfect World Employee
edited August 2012 in Super News Network
Greetings Champions!

At Cryptic Studios, we take the security of your account very seriously. To further advance our security measures, we are happy to announce that we are rolling out a new security feature to be included in all Cryptic Studios games. Account Guard is a new feature which is intended to help secure your Star Trek Online and/or Champions Online account from those who may try to maliciously access it. You've already seen the first part of this new feature when we rolled it out for the Champions Online and Star Trek Online billing portals.

This feature will be enabled on Live and Holodeck this Thursday, July 5th, and we'll be watching the forums closely for your feedback regarding this feature. Once this feature is rolled out, you will need to authorize your computer to access the Champions Online and Star Trek Online Games using your account information - you will be prompted to do this when you log into the game.


We've provided a FAQ to answer some of the questions we know you'll have regarding this feature - please note that we've recently updated it to answer some of the questions that have come up recently, so we hope you'll take another look if you've read it in the past.


Thanks,

The Cryptic Studios Team
Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • freakstreakfreakstreak Posts: 45 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    I've already encountered this feature on the client from the Test server, will i have to repeat the process when this goes live?
    witchcraft.jpg

  • megaskullmonmegaskullmon Posts: 313 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    I thought this was already out?
  • shoarkshoark Posts: 2 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    it is, but just for the website. Now it will be activated for the client, too.
  • beldinbeldin Posts: 1,708 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    shoark wrote: »
    it is, but just for the website. Now it will be activated for the client, too.

    Wrong .. we already have it in the client. I just needed to give in a new code after i merged
    my accounts, and i did it a while ago already on the PTS.

    I think the announcement is wrong and what they do now is for the billing portal.
    R607qMf.jpg
  • freakstreakfreakstreak Posts: 45 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    I personally entered a code when i accessed the PTS, but we'll see what goes on tomorrow i suppose..
    witchcraft.jpg

  • caycepollardcaycepollard Posts: 102 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    At least we're able to opt-out. I don't keep ANY cookies on my computer, not for ANY reason. Goodbye account guard! :D
  • r9xchaosr9xchaos Posts: 533
    edited July 2012
    Oh dear i will loose my account then....

    i have not registered with an email to perfect world...i used my Facebook to do it.....
  • flyingfinnflyingfinn Posts: 8,408 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    *switches the fan on*
    CHAMPIONS ONLINE:Join Date: Apr 2008
    And playing by myself since Aug 2009
    Godtier: Lifetime Subscriber
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  • malivolentiamalivolentia Posts: 8 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    Sigh

    this means i will not be able to log into CO anymore because i have an unresolved technical issue regarding account guard. Earlier this week i tried to use manage subscriptions in my account and a mail containing a confimation-code would have been sent to my email. I check email and nothing. Two days later i still have no email. After that i sent an error report regarding this through the ingame system. Result: ticket is made and the very next day the ticket has been closed and removed WITHOUT ANY ANSWER.

    So now the ticket is gone, i am still having the same issue (being that i dont get the confirmation-code email) and you decide to expand this nice system so that it is needed to log in the game. I would laugh very loud if i was not almost crying right now
  • mithriltemplarmithriltemplar Posts: 5 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    We'll see how this goes. A few people foresee problems with it thus far. I'm fine but as for many of these others, good luck guys.
  • megaskullmonmegaskullmon Posts: 313 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    Everyone will see problmes with something new
  • flyingfinnflyingfinn Posts: 8,408 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    Yea, since the problem atm seems to be that:

    Subscribed For: 0 Day
    Subscription Status:Inactive

    Even Lifetime one.
    So i guess some might think there is a problem. But maybe we get some info about it. Like in the next 2 weeks.
    ...
    CHAMPIONS ONLINE:Join Date: Apr 2008
    And playing by myself since Aug 2009
    Godtier: Lifetime Subscriber
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  • beldinbeldin Posts: 1,708 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    flyingfinn wrote: »
    Yea, since the problem atm seems to be that:

    Subscribed For: 0 Day
    Subscription Status:Inactive

    Even Lifetime one.
    So i guess some might think there is a problem. But maybe we get some info about it. Like in the next 2 weeks.
    ...

    I think that the Website at the moment simly can't access the Database, and in that case
    they simply show that as default values.
    R607qMf.jpg
  • megaskullmonmegaskullmon Posts: 313 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    Yeah since its happending in sto as well
  • thargirthargir Posts: 17 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    Seems to work again. My subscription status is back again. Probably was the DB.
    _____________________________________________________
    Formerly known as "@BlackMethos".
    But someone at PWE already had that handle, dammit!!!
  • megaskullmonmegaskullmon Posts: 313 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    Now they added more time to it's now 9:30
  • jonsillsjonsills Posts: 6,318 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    Sigh

    this means i will not be able to log into CO anymore because i have an unresolved technical issue regarding account guard. Earlier this week i tried to use manage subscriptions in my account and a mail containing a confimation-code would have been sent to my email. I check email and nothing. Two days later i still have no email. After that i sent an error report regarding this through the ingame system. Result: ticket is made and the very next day the ticket has been closed and removed WITHOUT ANY ANSWER.

    So now the ticket is gone, i am still having the same issue (being that i dont get the confirmation-code email) and you decide to expand this nice system so that it is needed to log in the game. I would laugh very loud if i was not almost crying right now
    Have you checked your User CP page to make sure the email you have on your account is the one you think you have? (I thought for a long time that this account was set to my main email; thank heavens I checked on that before the merge, because I found out I'd actually set it up with my Yahoo! mail account instead.)

    Edit: Er, my mistake - not the User CP page any more, but rather the "My Account" link at the very top of the page.
    "Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"

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  • trailturtletrailturtle Posts: 5,496 Perfect World Employee
    edited July 2012
    Account guard is up now. If anyone's experiencing any issues with it, could you post here or shoot me a PM? Please be as specific as possible if you've got an issue, details are always helpful.
  • thekozurthekozur Posts: 1 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    I've tried a number of times to log in but have received no email yet (been more than 30 minutes).

    I've filed a ticket.. hopefully it's cleared up soon. I want to play!

    (yes.. checked SPAM folder, etc.)
  • redflamesredflames Posts: 3 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    Sigh

    this means i will not be able to log into CO anymore because i have an unresolved technical issue regarding account guard. Earlier this week i tried to use manage subscriptions in my account and a mail containing a confimation-code would have been sent to my email. I check email and nothing. Two days later i still have no email. After that i sent an error report regarding this through the ingame system. Result: ticket is made and the very next day the ticket has been closed and removed WITHOUT ANY ANSWER.

    So now the ticket is gone, i am still having the same issue (being that i dont get the confirmation-code email) and you decide to expand this nice system so that it is needed to log in the game. I would laugh very loud if i was not almost crying right now

    I stand corrected I had it set on the wrong email (forgot i did that a year or two ago) I have no changed it to my proper email X.x So that was my issue like someone mentioned earlyer. And to change your email you have to confirm a verification in the old email. So there ya go. I got my number now and can log in again so yay and all that lol.
  • riggsmaxriggsmax Posts: 36 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    My email had changed since I set up my account.

    Website under My Account does not allow me to change my email. Attempted 3 times and saved changes each time, and after each time it just keeps showing my old email.

    FAQ states I should go to My Account and click 'Create/Manage Subscriptions' - which does not appear under any options on my screen under My Account.

    Cannot log into game, cannot change email, cannot 'fix' on the website because the listed option doesnt appear.

    Sent in a ticket - but it says 3-4 days to get a reply.
  • redflamesredflames Posts: 3 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    riggsmax wrote: »
    My email had changed since I set up my account.

    Website under My Account does not allow me to change my email. Attempted 3 times and saved changes each time, and after each time it just keeps showing my old email.

    FAQ states I should go to My Account and click 'Create/Manage Subscriptions' - which does not appear under any options on my screen under My Account.

    Cannot log into game, cannot change email, cannot 'fix' on the website because the listed option doesnt appear.

    Sent in a ticket - but it says 3-4 days to get a reply.

    Step 1: say you wanna change it
    Step 2: Go to the old email after in putting the new one and click the link on its verification email
    Step 3: your done.
  • redflamesredflames Posts: 3 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    And now it works again...blah idk hope it stays that way X.x
  • riggsmaxriggsmax Posts: 36 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    redflames wrote: »
    Step 1: say you wanna change it
    Step 2: Go to the old email after in putting the new one and click the link on its verification email
    Step 3: your done.

    Yeah...because the reason I posted is I am too stupid to think of logging into my old email.

    My old email was a hotmail that the local ISP converted to after they gave up having their own email, a hotmail that got totally nuked recently when they had all the hacking issues. And sending a support ticket to microsoft did exactly zero. So it is gone, not accessible, lost everything.

    But thanks for the 'solution'.
  • malivolentiamalivolentia Posts: 8 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    jonsills wrote: »
    Have you checked your User CP page to make sure the email you have on your account is the one you think you have? (I thought for a long time that this account was set to my main email; thank heavens I checked on that before the merge, because I found out I'd actually set it up with my Yahoo! mail account instead.)

    Edit: Er, my mistake - not the User CP page any more, but rather the "My Account" link at the very top of the page.

    Yeah i did but no worries, i sent an email to the customer service (still have a mail of them regarding an other inquiry i did a while back) and issue was very quickly solved at least for the log in issue. I still cannot change my email to my current one cuz that mail never arrives nor at new nor at old.

    So good work customer service, you all get a huggle and a cookie :biggrin:
  • roughbearmattachroughbearmattach Posts: 4,784 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    I also had a problem. No code was sent to my email.

    I ended up creating a new email, then changing the email associated with the account.
    Then I logged in, got the code sent to the new email.

    Sheesh!
    ___________________________________________________________

    Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
  • megaskullmonmegaskullmon Posts: 313 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    If anyone is haveing issues i would recamend contacting pwe/Cryptic Support or turtle.
  • trailturtletrailturtle Posts: 5,496 Perfect World Employee
    edited July 2012
    It sounds like, while there were a few hiccups, most of the issues have been solved. If anyone runs into anything game-stopping, please definitely let me know.

    And Mali, I'll pass that cookie on to CS. :D
  • megaskullmonmegaskullmon Posts: 313 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    Hey turtle might be best to read the comments post on the news part of when this was talked about
  • senshibat01senshibat01 Posts: 595 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    Had 3 mails with a code sent at differant times and 2 at same time for champions

    i entered first and it dint take

    so i went back to e-mail annd grabbed next on list it worked first try 15 minutes no problems

    When all else fails we call Sqeek
    ムーン チーズの名においてあなたを罰するでしょう
  • chaelkchaelk Posts: 7,732 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    to access your acct guard. login here

    https://secure.crypticstudios.com/champions/menu.
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  • stmothstmoth Posts: 284 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    I've been lucky so far and haven't had any problems with it, so hopefully the instances of everyone having problems is just some bad luck.


    Hey I can hope, right?
  • riggsmaxriggsmax Posts: 36 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    Forum wont let me send a pm to Trailturtle. Apparently I am only allowed to send messages to friends. Tried adding as a friend, it gives the info that 'send a personal message with your friend request' - except it doesnt allow me to send a message along with a friend request either.

    Since I posted about not being able to play or make changes, and after that post it was posted 'Well everything looks good now' - without commenting on my post - so I guess I wont be playing CO for quite some time.

    **tried once more to see if maybe it might work finally. Now I get a message that my new email has already been registered...and so I am unable to even re-attempt to change my old email to my new one. Still showing my old not-usable email under my account.

    I actually saw the 'Create/Manage Subscription' link this time when I went to My Account, so that is new. Along with how many days left on the 3 month pass I bought almost 3 months ago now(neither of which showed up yesterday when I was looking at My Account). So since it will take until next week for my ticket to be responded to - right before I am not Gold anymore - That seems to really be a hint about whether to keep paying and playing or not.
  • fentonatorfentonator Posts: 48 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    It sounds like, while there were a few hiccups, most of the issues have been solved. If anyone runs into anything game-stopping, please definitely let me know.

    And Mali, I'll pass that cookie on to CS. :D

    Would "Lifetime subscriber completely unable to log in through the launcher and seeing no subscription information on the account page" qualify?

    No emails sent that I can see, and nothing to indicate an unknown site issue when I try to log in, just "invalid account or password".

    Obviously I'll file a support ticket momentarily, but lets just say that coming back at a random time after being busy with other things for a month or two, and hitting this, is not exactly encouraging me to want to give additional money to PWE, either for Champions stuff *or* any of their other games I play.

    Just looked and noticed something: the email may not be going through because something appears to have mangled my email on the website, by removing the "." in the middle of the username portion. That may or may not be related to whatever *else* is going on, but it does seem like it might be... significant. Note that the email in question has been the same for the entire time I have held either a Cryptic account or a PWE account, and up until fairly recently I was receiving the general promotional emails (though the most recent one received appears to be the Gravitar promotion on June 22).

    Edit: actually, it mangled it significantly more than that, which I only realized when I checked my records to make sure I had the registered email correctly. Not *only* did it drop the "." in the middle, it also dropped everything after the "+". Which is fairly important to keep there so that Cryptic email doesn't end up in my spam folder (and no, there was nothing waiting there). Looks like either someone got careless with a regular expression that makes no legitimate sense to be running in the first place, or someone needs to go back and read the rules on "what is a valid email address".
  • ikonn#1068 ikonn Posts: 68 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    chaelk wrote: »
    to access your acct guard. login here

    https://secure.crypticstudios.com/champions/menu.

    TY for posting this... the link is definitely a lifesaver and can now access my Silver Account.
  • r9xchaosr9xchaos Posts: 533
    edited July 2012
    Well, i have not tested it yet and i will not... good that i dont need to ... since i never got the point in this one and it makes things more complicated without getting rewarded...lol

    i would use accountguard but only if i get 40.000 C-Points / 52.000 ZEN as reward ...


    ive never heard that someone was hacked.. so the feature is pretty useless..
  • chaelkchaelk Posts: 7,732 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    Riggsmax, try the link on my previous post to access the OTHER acct menu for cryptic users.
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  • jonsillsjonsills Posts: 6,318 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    r9xchaos wrote: »
    ive never heard that someone was hacked..
    Ah, you must have come onboard sometime after we found out about the possible database theft in December of 2010 (which, thanks to the lax procedures encouraged by Atari, went undiscovered until the sale to PWE). Lots of people had to change their passwords in case the data was ever compromised. (Thankfully, they didn't store entire CC numbers, so nobody's credit was stolen or damaged in the process...)

    Account Guard is completely voluntary, of course - but I've gone ahead and logged this computer for both my primary and secondary accounts (the secondary is one on which I've never spent a dime of real money, just to see what all you can get that way, while the primary is the one I'm going LTS on one day).
    "Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"

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  • riggsmaxriggsmax Posts: 36 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    chaelk wrote: »
    Riggsmax, try the link on my previous post to access the OTHER acct menu for cryptic users.

    Already had. All it does is take my name and password and 'Thanks a verification email has been sent'.

    Which leads right back to the start again of the wrong email.
  • fentonatorfentonator Posts: 48 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    fentonator wrote: »
    Would "Lifetime subscriber completely unable to log in through the launcher and seeing no subscription information on the account page" qualify?

    No emails sent that I can see, and nothing to indicate an unknown site issue when I try to log in, just "invalid account or password".

    I'm not going to even pretend to know what was up to cause it, but at least for my case a combination of "link accounts" (which I thought I had already done, but maybe not?) once I dug the information out of the FAQ and made the obvious substitution that really should have been a link *in* the FAQ, plus a round of "password reset", was sufficient to get me a functional account again, including showing up on the billing page (with what appears to be the right number of days, or certainly close to it).

    I don't know if one, both, or even neither of those things were what caused it to be happier, or whether the order mattered. I *do* know that while the 'change my email' page listed a mangled form of my address (and I did *not* change my email, I was looking to see what it had registered), the password reset did go to the right account. So there is clearly some sort of disconnect between the logic for the email page and the actual storage.
  • riggsmaxriggsmax Posts: 36 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    So its been almost a week and no reply from the ticket, or anyone at Cryptic or PWE despite being told in this thread to report any issues. Ridiculous.
  • riggsmaxriggsmax Posts: 36 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    From ticket submitted 2 weeks ago - finally got a reply;

    "Your recent incident update was from an email address not associated with the incident. In an effort to maintain the security of information, we cannot update the incident using this email address. If you are the incident owner and your email address has changed, or you want to be able to update the incident using this email account, please update your contact information using the following link, then resubmit your update."

    Hahahahahahaha.

    So they wont do anything because my listed email is wrong - so I should just go and update my email and resubmit - boom problem solved.

    Reading comprehension seems to be missing from customer service training at PWE - since being unable to update my email is the reason I had to submit a ticket in the first place.

    And still no updates to this thread despite being told 'post problems here'.

    Awesome.
  • jonsillsjonsills Posts: 6,318 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    And did you use the following link? Or at least confirm that the link presented to you was in fact the same as the link you'd tried to use previously? Because you have kind of a history of complaining about PWE/Cryptic's actions without checking out exactly what's going on...
    "Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"

    - David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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  • florghhhflorghhh Posts: 52 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    riggsmax wrote: »
    From ticket submitted 2 weeks ago - finally got a reply;

    "Your recent incident update was from an email address not associated with the incident. In an effort to maintain the security of information, we cannot update the incident using this email address. If you are the incident owner and your email address has changed, or you want to be able to update the incident using this email account, please update your contact information using the following link, then resubmit your update."

    Hahahahahahaha.

    So they wont do anything because my listed email is wrong - so I should just go and update my email and resubmit - boom problem solved.

    Reading comprehension seems to be missing from customer service training at PWE - since being unable to update my email is the reason I had to submit a ticket in the first place.

    And still no updates to this thread despite being told 'post problems here'.

    Awesome.

    So by context i guess you're contacting them to say you can't even change your email to verify your account in which they're telling you to change your email to get their help?

    Gotta love a paradox. cryptic indeed.
  • riggsmaxriggsmax Posts: 36 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    jonsills wrote: »
    And did you use the following link? Or at least confirm that the link presented to you was in fact the same as the link you'd tried to use previously? Because you have kind of a history of complaining about PWE/Cryptic's actions without checking out exactly what's going on...

    Forgot to mention that the part I cut and paste was the sum total of the email sent to me.

    So there was not even a link to click on.

    To my reply to their reply pointing out the absurdity of telling me to update my email on the website before they will assist me - I got the same exact canned response back to update my email 'on the link below'.

    Word of mouth advertising. That is all.
  • jaspb01jaspb01 Posts: 12 Arc User
    edited July 2012
    Thought I'd leave it a bit to see if it was a bug, but noooo! Tried it on three different emails...no validation, what a surprise tried loads of ways to get through to no avail I sent some tickets but I can't view them for some reason says it's a 'illegal parameter 'sighduck.
    This does suck as I've spent a bit of bob on this game. Account guard, you traitor!

    Founder of la Shrinking power (until it gets patched T.T)

    [/SIGPIC]



    And apparently Ants suck, even though they are weaker than humans, people aren't very intelligent...oh wait....:confused:
  • hytech2099hytech2099 Posts: 2 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    The subject says it all... Life Subscription, always the same email...so that shouldn't be a problem...

    Sent a support ticket- hopefully I will get a validation email (spam off, cookies on etc etc), and ive got an email from pwe to the same email, just not receiving the validation email :(

    Tia,
    H
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