After a long discussion through several phone calls to customer support, several GM reviews. I am sorely disapointed with Blizzards failure in account/character restoration. Now I've heard from many people that if you get hacked don't panic... Blizzard is very good with a full resto of all your characters gear and items sold/mailed/lost. That however from my personal experience is complete crap.
A few facts about my recent activity and my history with WOW.
1: I play this game with my son (he's 23, I'm 44, I'm not some whiney teen)
2: I haven't played WOW since Febuary 2011.
3: I have 3 characters level 85 on one server. Warrior, Mage, Priest (preist being the less used character)
4: My Mage is my most used character, I love him. My Warrior I use mostly DPS but my tank gearset was better and I used to Tank but not extensively in the last year.
5: Just want to say I love WOW... I've been a hardcore online gamer since Ultima Online came out (yeah most of you kids have no clue what that is/was)
After explaining my situation on the phone and in emails, I recieved several replies and the results were as follows.
A: My priest character Traehtor recieved what appears to be a full gear restoration. No bag items or gold was returned.
B: My Warrior has his 358gold? or something like that removed and replaced with 346gold... no bag resto, and his dps set was left intact by hack but tank set that was in bags (item level 351) is gone... not restored.
C: Mage, my gear was swapped out (according to armory) on August 28th 2011, yet my account wasn't even active at this time, odd. I used to have 353 gear item level on my mage... bags fully cleared, gold all gone, no restoration done at all. Yet after my last ticket filed I recieved an email from GM saying I was eligible for restoration yet the email states no items, gear, gold restored... email copy and pasted here: (As you'll see, nothing was restored even tho they say I was eligible, no kidding, I was item level 353 in Febuary, I'm item level 233 now from what appears to be what the hacker threw on me... even if Blizzard gave me "level appropriate gear" 233 is pathetic... I couldn't even run Naxx in that.)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Greetings Saberac,
Thank you for your patience and understanding while we investigated the situation that you reported. We have concluded our investigation of the account and apologize for any inconvenience it may have caused you. The details of the characters and/or items restored are contained below. The items will be attached to an in-game mail which expire after 90 days.
After a thorough investigation, we have found this account to be eligible for restoration. The details of the characters and/or items restored are contained below.
Account Name: ********
Realm: Arthas
Character Name: Saberac
Please note that items with random modifiers (of the Bear, of the Eagle, etc.) are randomly generated; therefore we are unable to guarantee that you will receive the same modifier you had on your original item. We are also unable to guarantee the restoration of trade skills, as well as enchantments or add-ons (such as gems, scopes, etc.) that your character's items may have possessed. While we will make every effort to provide assistance in cases of loss, please keep in mind that the decision to go forward with a restoration is entirely at Blizzard's discretion. You can review our Restoration Policy at http://us.blizzard.com/support/article/20457 .
ANY ITEMS TAKEN FROM GUILD BANKS have been directly mailed to the Guild Master of your guild. They have received a separate email containing the information of the guild restore.
NOTE: If the characters/items restored were lost due to an account compromise:
- Please be aware that your computer may contain a malicious software program, such as a keylogger, or the account information and password may have been shared with others. In either case, you are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your Password, and you will be responsible for all uses of your Password, whether or not authorized by you. Also, note that the security of the Account is your responsibility. Please take a moment to review the World of Warcraft Terms of Use at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/termsofuse.html.
- Prior to using World of Warcraft, we highly recommend following the Security Checklist on our Account Security site at http://us.battle.net/security/.
If you have any questions regarding your compromise, investigation, or restoration, please feel free to comment on the support ticket related to this issue or open a new ticket here https://us.battle.net/support/en/ticket/submit. If you wish to provide feedback on any step of the process, you may do so by emailing [email protected].
Thank you for contacting us. We hope you continue to enjoy your experience in World of Warcraft!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(this is just one of a couple emails, most of which look exactly like this one with NO ITEMS restored)
So, as you can see, the restoration process by Blizzard, is a farse. Either they totaly fail at reading logs of gear/item changes in a computer file or their GM's are the hackers themselves and dont give a rats !@#$ about properly restoring gear.
Now I can understand such a large game not saving logs of gear and items 6 months back... but honestly, I'd be surprised if Blizzard wasn't saving character logs that far back.
In my opinion, search the logs, track the gold exchange, track the item exchanges... find the hackers and ban them. Return my items I possessed when I last played (Febuary 2011).
Yes I can start over with what I have... if I really want to, it will be some work and sucking it up... but frankly... DO NOT LISTEN when people tell you that Blizzard has a great restoration program if you get hacked. From my personal experience... they totaly fail. Their GM's are too lazy to actually work at restoring someones losses. DO NOT EXPECT ANYTHING AT ALL BACK if you get hacked, PERIOD.
Sincerely
Sabe
Tim Sabean Sr.
I can't reply any more succinctly than this. This is what all restorations boil down to, regardless of whether or not the request was due to a compromise. The situation would be no different if, prior to you leaving the game for a while, you deleted all your gear yourself (and trust me, some people do this - I personally don't understand why, it seems unnecessary). We aren't out to provide you a poor experience - we are out to provide whatever assistance we can. In some situations, the amount of assistance we can provide is extremely limited, particularly if a lengthy period of time passing is one of the situation's variables. In other situations, we might be able to restore the lint that was in your character's pocket if everything was deleted yesterday. It's unfortunate when we are unable to provide a full restoration, but it's a very real possibility. That's why we can't guarantee it'll happen. Anything we can provide, we will (we've no reason not to). We want your experience to be the best it can possibly be, even [Epic]. Just understand that there are situations where the assistance we can provide is limited by the confines of data and the length of time that data is stored. |