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How PerfectWorld killed this game for me
tr1ckery
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 16 Arc User
First off, let me start by saying that I'm a big supporter of Cryptic games, being both a Lifetime subscriber in Star Trek Online and a Hero of the North Founder in Neverwinter. I'm therefore sad to say that I have probably played my last Cryptic game ever, and most certainly will not be doing any business with PerfectWorld in the future.
Why is this? Allow me to explain.
2 weeks ago, on May 2nd, I arrive home from work to discover that something is wrong with my account. Items that I have collected on my rogue as well as the majority of my astral diamonds are missing. I naturally assume that my account has been compromised, so I hurry up and change my password and make a ticket to PerfectWorld's customer service asking for help in restoring the items that were lost. I explicitly specify that I have changed my password and my account is secure.
A couple of hours later I receive a reply to my ticket. While I was initially surprised at the quick response time, I discover that the reply from the Customer Service Representative is simply copy/paste from a FAQ not at all related to my issue. The ticket has been marked as solved.
Well, that certainly didn't solve my problem, so I decide to make a new ticket, once again explaining the issue and asking for help in restoring my items. Once again, I make a note of mentioning that my account is secure and I just need help getting a few items and currency back.
3 days later (May 5th) I haven't received any email from PerfectWorld, so I decide to login to the support portal to see if there are any updates to my ticket there. To my surprise I receive the notice that my account has been banned from PerfectWorld. I have received no explanation or even a word of this ban from PerfectWorld, so naturally I'm quite angered. Initially I assume that whoever compromised my account perhaps performed some illegal action while logged in on my character, or alternatively that PerfectWorld has banned the account because it has been compromised.
However, since I have received no notification from PerfectWorld I create a new ticket under the "Banned Account" category, as I'm not able to access my existing ticket, asking for an explanation on what's going on.
8 days later, on May 13, I have yet to hear any word from PerfectWorld. So, 11 days after first reporting my issue the only communication I have had from their Customer Service is an automated response not related to my question, and an account-wide ban, making it impossible for me to access the support system, any of their games as well as the forums. Now, at this point I'm so disappointed and frustrated that I'm starting to think that even if they do finally respond to my issue, I have lost all desire to even play the game I was actually enjoying a lot prior to my account being compromised. I decide to bump my ticket by responding to the auto-reply email with a final desperate call for help.
Later that day they reply to my original ticket from May 2nd, finally explaining that they have temporarily banned my account as they fear it has been compromised (well, duh), and they ask me to reset my password and update my ticket. This tells me that they clearly haven't read my tickets, because I specifically noted that I had already reset my password. Nevertheless, I follow the instructions and reset the password once more, and update the ticket, notifying them of the change. I once again remind them that I would like help in restoring my items/currency to the state they were in prior to my account being compromised.
On the next day, May 14, I get word back from PerfectWorld. They respond to my "banned account" ticket, saying that this appears to be a duplicate of a ticket I created previously. While this is technically true, since I lost all access to the other ticket when they banned my account and hadn't heard anything from them for weeks, I had no way of knowing what was actually going on. They kindly remind me not to create duplicate tickets, as that increases reply times. I find this to be slightly amusing, considering they only replied to my original ticket after I wrote an angry email bumping my 2nd ticket.
Having heard nothing back on restoring my account access, I decide to just try and login on the website to see if maybe they have restored access but simply have yet to notify me (similar to when they banned my account to only notify me 11 days after). Huzzah! I can login again, I quickly launch Neverwinter to see if they have also restored my stuff. But alas, instead of finding my character there with all my items and diamonds back, I instead find an empty character select screen. My level 42 rogue, that I spent countless hours levelling and collecting items on is gone!
I take a few long breaths, and rationalize. Perhaps the character is not there because they are in the process of restoring it to an earlier state? I assume this is the case, and update my ticket on the support site, explaining that I now have access to my account, but that my character is missing. I ask for a status update on my original request of restoring my items and diamonds. I realise levelling is fast in Neverwinter, but at the same time I'm not really feeling a huge bunch of motivation for starting over as I usually get quite invested into my first main character in any MMO, so I remain hopeful that the ridiculously poor communication and exceptionally long response times will yield a good result in the end.
4 days later, today, PerfectWorld reply to my ticket once more:
That reply is the final nail in the coffin for me. I send the following reply back:
In 16 days all their support has managed to do for me is ban my account and delete my character. I'm starting to wonder if I had been better off not contacting them in the first place, at least I would still have had my character then.
I'm usually not one to post a lot on the forums, but I really felt that this impressive display of idiocy deserved a post. Most of you probably won't care about my story, and to be perfectly honest, I probably wouldn't care much if it had happened to someone other than me. Regardless, I would like to warn everyone to think twice before giving PerfectWorld any of your hard-earned money, and I hope that at the very least my post will raise some concerns regarding their competence and professionalism.
For all of you still enjoying Neverwinter, I hope you never have to experience what I did. For what it's worth I think the game is great, but I just can't justify putting more of my money and effort into it now.
Cryptic, with Neverwinter I think you have created one of the most entertaining combat systems I've ever seen in an MMO, and absolutely love the Foundry, having also experienced that in Star Trek Online. I'm sorry you had to end up with PerfectWorld, you deserve better, and so do your customers.
Trickery, signing off.
Admin Response from Dezstravus: Sorry to hear that you encountered this issue. It's always sad to see when a player has a negative experience in one of our games.
To start out the discussion, I do want to begin with a friendly reminder that posting individual ticket correspondence is against our forum guidelines. I understand that not being able to share one's feedback under certain circumstances can be frustrating, but this rule is in place due to customer privacy guidelines that we must abide to.
However, even though this thread will need to be closed, I still feel that I can share some insight here that may be helpful. The most important thing to understand is that we are doing our absolute best to assist each and every customer to their satisfaction. To be fully transparent, we are currently challenged with meeting this goal due to the high volume of requests we are receiving.
To share a bit more detail, Neverwinter has been growing in popularity, and the number of players we are supporting has been increasing at a rate that is faster than our team has been able to keep up with. Due to this, we have staffed up the team on numerous occasions, and will continue to do so until we are able to respond to all tickets in a timely manner while meeting our intended quality standard. We've had new agents starting almost weekly, but unfortunately there is a bit of a ramp up time while they become familiar with the tools and the issues.
In regards to deleting characters, currently that is something we do not do. I do apologize if that appeared to be the case due to the previous ticket correspondence, but our records show that this is not the case. Also, while we make effort effort possible to restore characters that have been deleted, maliciously or unintentionally, restoration is not always possible. I do understand that having a character deleted can be a very serious loss, so we are always working to improve our tools to increase the scope of situations where restoration is successful.
I sincerely apologize to anyone who has had their account compromised. Responding to these reports and getting players into the game is a high priority for us. To share some insight on our process, temporarily blocking an account is a necessary step during this process, as it locks the malicious third party out of the account and let's us confirm 100% that only the appropriate owner has access.
In closing, I do apologize deeply to anyone that has had an unsatisfactory experience. This is something we acknowledge as an issue and are taking as many steps as possible in order meet our desired customer experience standards. In the event that anyone experiences an issue with their ticket in the future, please note that the most appropriate way to share this feedback is to update the ticket so that we can review your request and respond appropriately.
Thank you for sharing your feedback with us!
-Dezstravus
Why is this? Allow me to explain.
2 weeks ago, on May 2nd, I arrive home from work to discover that something is wrong with my account. Items that I have collected on my rogue as well as the majority of my astral diamonds are missing. I naturally assume that my account has been compromised, so I hurry up and change my password and make a ticket to PerfectWorld's customer service asking for help in restoring the items that were lost. I explicitly specify that I have changed my password and my account is secure.
A couple of hours later I receive a reply to my ticket. While I was initially surprised at the quick response time, I discover that the reply from the Customer Service Representative is simply copy/paste from a FAQ not at all related to my issue. The ticket has been marked as solved.
Well, that certainly didn't solve my problem, so I decide to make a new ticket, once again explaining the issue and asking for help in restoring my items. Once again, I make a note of mentioning that my account is secure and I just need help getting a few items and currency back.
3 days later (May 5th) I haven't received any email from PerfectWorld, so I decide to login to the support portal to see if there are any updates to my ticket there. To my surprise I receive the notice that my account has been banned from PerfectWorld. I have received no explanation or even a word of this ban from PerfectWorld, so naturally I'm quite angered. Initially I assume that whoever compromised my account perhaps performed some illegal action while logged in on my character, or alternatively that PerfectWorld has banned the account because it has been compromised.
However, since I have received no notification from PerfectWorld I create a new ticket under the "Banned Account" category, as I'm not able to access my existing ticket, asking for an explanation on what's going on.
8 days later, on May 13, I have yet to hear any word from PerfectWorld. So, 11 days after first reporting my issue the only communication I have had from their Customer Service is an automated response not related to my question, and an account-wide ban, making it impossible for me to access the support system, any of their games as well as the forums. Now, at this point I'm so disappointed and frustrated that I'm starting to think that even if they do finally respond to my issue, I have lost all desire to even play the game I was actually enjoying a lot prior to my account being compromised. I decide to bump my ticket by responding to the auto-reply email with a final desperate call for help.
Later that day they reply to my original ticket from May 2nd, finally explaining that they have temporarily banned my account as they fear it has been compromised (well, duh), and they ask me to reset my password and update my ticket. This tells me that they clearly haven't read my tickets, because I specifically noted that I had already reset my password. Nevertheless, I follow the instructions and reset the password once more, and update the ticket, notifying them of the change. I once again remind them that I would like help in restoring my items/currency to the state they were in prior to my account being compromised.
On the next day, May 14, I get word back from PerfectWorld. They respond to my "banned account" ticket, saying that this appears to be a duplicate of a ticket I created previously. While this is technically true, since I lost all access to the other ticket when they banned my account and hadn't heard anything from them for weeks, I had no way of knowing what was actually going on. They kindly remind me not to create duplicate tickets, as that increases reply times. I find this to be slightly amusing, considering they only replied to my original ticket after I wrote an angry email bumping my 2nd ticket.
Having heard nothing back on restoring my account access, I decide to just try and login on the website to see if maybe they have restored access but simply have yet to notify me (similar to when they banned my account to only notify me 11 days after). Huzzah! I can login again, I quickly launch Neverwinter to see if they have also restored my stuff. But alas, instead of finding my character there with all my items and diamonds back, I instead find an empty character select screen. My level 42 rogue, that I spent countless hours levelling and collecting items on is gone!
I take a few long breaths, and rationalize. Perhaps the character is not there because they are in the process of restoring it to an earlier state? I assume this is the case, and update my ticket on the support site, explaining that I now have access to my account, but that my character is missing. I ask for a status update on my original request of restoring my items and diamonds. I realise levelling is fast in Neverwinter, but at the same time I'm not really feeling a huge bunch of motivation for starting over as I usually get quite invested into my first main character in any MMO, so I remain hopeful that the ridiculously poor communication and exceptionally long response times will yield a good result in the end.
4 days later, today, PerfectWorld reply to my ticket once more:
PerfectWorld wrote:Hello
Unfortunately, we are unable to restore this character.
We have restored your Founder's Pack items, astral diamonds and Zen, including an extra 2500 zen as a sign of our appreciation for your patience and understanding. We sincerely apologize for our inability to restore your characters.
Thank you again for your patience and we hope to see you in game soon!
That reply is the final nail in the coffin for me. I send the following reply back:
Trickery wrote:Do you care to explain why restoring my character is impossible? When I checked my account prior to your temporary ban, my character was still there, it was simply a case of items missing. Now, I changed my password immediately when I noticed something was amiss, which means whoever compromised my account is not responsible for deleting my character. That leaves you, PerfectWorld, as the only people who could have possibly deleted my character. So why did you delete my character that I spent several days to level up and collect items on in-game in the first place if you are unable to restore it?
This has got to be the worst customer service I have ever experienced in my 20 year history of gaming. I can assure you I will be taking my business elsewhere and will warn all members of my gaming community to stay away from your games in the future. I'd also like to request a refund on the latest Zen purchases I made for Neverwinter as I have no intention of spending that now.
In 16 days all their support has managed to do for me is ban my account and delete my character. I'm starting to wonder if I had been better off not contacting them in the first place, at least I would still have had my character then.
I'm usually not one to post a lot on the forums, but I really felt that this impressive display of idiocy deserved a post. Most of you probably won't care about my story, and to be perfectly honest, I probably wouldn't care much if it had happened to someone other than me. Regardless, I would like to warn everyone to think twice before giving PerfectWorld any of your hard-earned money, and I hope that at the very least my post will raise some concerns regarding their competence and professionalism.
For all of you still enjoying Neverwinter, I hope you never have to experience what I did. For what it's worth I think the game is great, but I just can't justify putting more of my money and effort into it now.
Cryptic, with Neverwinter I think you have created one of the most entertaining combat systems I've ever seen in an MMO, and absolutely love the Foundry, having also experienced that in Star Trek Online. I'm sorry you had to end up with PerfectWorld, you deserve better, and so do your customers.
Trickery, signing off.
Admin Response from Dezstravus: Sorry to hear that you encountered this issue. It's always sad to see when a player has a negative experience in one of our games.
To start out the discussion, I do want to begin with a friendly reminder that posting individual ticket correspondence is against our forum guidelines. I understand that not being able to share one's feedback under certain circumstances can be frustrating, but this rule is in place due to customer privacy guidelines that we must abide to.
However, even though this thread will need to be closed, I still feel that I can share some insight here that may be helpful. The most important thing to understand is that we are doing our absolute best to assist each and every customer to their satisfaction. To be fully transparent, we are currently challenged with meeting this goal due to the high volume of requests we are receiving.
To share a bit more detail, Neverwinter has been growing in popularity, and the number of players we are supporting has been increasing at a rate that is faster than our team has been able to keep up with. Due to this, we have staffed up the team on numerous occasions, and will continue to do so until we are able to respond to all tickets in a timely manner while meeting our intended quality standard. We've had new agents starting almost weekly, but unfortunately there is a bit of a ramp up time while they become familiar with the tools and the issues.
In regards to deleting characters, currently that is something we do not do. I do apologize if that appeared to be the case due to the previous ticket correspondence, but our records show that this is not the case. Also, while we make effort effort possible to restore characters that have been deleted, maliciously or unintentionally, restoration is not always possible. I do understand that having a character deleted can be a very serious loss, so we are always working to improve our tools to increase the scope of situations where restoration is successful.
I sincerely apologize to anyone who has had their account compromised. Responding to these reports and getting players into the game is a high priority for us. To share some insight on our process, temporarily blocking an account is a necessary step during this process, as it locks the malicious third party out of the account and let's us confirm 100% that only the appropriate owner has access.
In closing, I do apologize deeply to anyone that has had an unsatisfactory experience. This is something we acknowledge as an issue and are taking as many steps as possible in order meet our desired customer experience standards. In the event that anyone experiences an issue with their ticket in the future, please note that the most appropriate way to share this feedback is to update the ticket so that we can review your request and respond appropriately.
Thank you for sharing your feedback with us!
-Dezstravus
Post edited by tr1ckery on
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
I could have been satisfied with that if the character had been deleted by someone other than themselves (why did they feel a need to delete my character at all?). Nevertheless, the frustration is just as much because of the lack of communication and sloooooow response times.
Lotta people use Reddit, I myself don't, but if you wanna spread the word, I'd suggest using them.
I'm not gonna lie, I'd be upset at first too. But if all my hard work was gone, I'd simply just leave the game behind me. PWE's support isn't worth the time nor effort. They "claim" to have thousands of tickets to go through, whether that's true or not, who knows. One thing is for sure though, It shouldn't take 16 days to finally get something done with one person.
Shocking, can only imagine the frustration you must be feeling right now.
Can i have that free zen they gave you?
I do want to point out one thing though. I didn't see you mention checking your computer for bugs. If you had/have something on your computer then the people who took your stuff likely knew your new password as soon as you made it. So its possible they deleted your character and not PW.
On the other hand it could have been PW. I don't know their policies.
How would the hacker delete is character if the account was temp banned?
It's worth remembering that cryptic servers were hacked a couple of years ago and it took them almost a year to admit passwords and info was stolen.
Some players still use old passwords without realising that your email and associated passwords are already out there on databases available to account hackers.
This is not a suggestion that it is why you were hacked but people need to be aware.
if you can't restore a character deleted by mistake few hours ago what kind of publishers are you ?
Edit : Too Soon?
I did check my PC for infections, first thing I did. The character was not deleted by myself or whoever hacked the account as it was still there prior to PW banning the account.
I am not by any means absolving Cryptic, it's just that my support case has been handled by PW support and not Cryptic.
A bit too soon. :P
I noticed that Cryptic account guard has been enabled for the Gateway now, but not for the game client yet. That's something that could have realled helped as well.
Easily if it was the hacker that got his account banned.
Hypothetical: Player realizes the account is hacked. Player changed the PW so he thinks his account is safe. Writes some tickets, whatever. Hacker logs back in the next day. Everything is already cleaned out so hacker deletes the character and makes new ones using it as a spam bot until its banned. Player comes home sees account is banned. When the player gets it back the character is gone. Blames PW.
Again, I'm not saying PW didn't do it. Just saying it doesn't look as cut and dry that they did as some people think.
Ah, well that is good then. Makes me curios how they got your account in the first place. Old password?
*Wonder what exactly is PW's policy on such things. And why they needed to delete the char.
Most likely with bruteforce, afaik you can retry your password as many times as you'd like on PW, not the fail 5 times and you have to wait an hour. My account got hacked with a password I have never used for anything else.
Clearly the character was deleted after cryptic (not pwe, they don't operate games at that level) locked the account and even after the op changed his password. Therefore the hacker no longer had control of the account before the character was deleted.
Can't argue with this. I spent 6 hours yesterday unable to log into the forums or website. Every time I tried I was told I had failed to log in to many times and was IP banned for 10 minutes. Here comes the funny part...
I could read the forums. I could even play the game. But if I tried to log into my account to buy zen or something I was still told I was IP banned.
I still don't know what exactly happened. But if someone had tried to get into my account, it seems kind of silly to lock them out of the website but let them access the game. Where they could still have spent all my stuff.
Changing your password doesn't secure your computer and would not have stopped the hacker from having control. My hypothetical was before the OP said he checked for bugs. Doesn't matter now though as the OP did say he checked.
The kind with ****ty database management.
I would also be greatfull with the zen and the ad etc, but i think restoring your character even know is not that hard. I mean they could at least give you a new char and level him up to the level he was. I understand your frustration and I hope nothing like this ever happens to me. I hope an admin will read this post and you can tell them the name of the guy who helped you!!
It was an old password from way back when I was playing STO, yep. I'm also curious about their policy.
Well I last heard from them today, so no, no change. I have pretty much given up though, I'll probably just play something else.