Diablo 3

[JP0le]

So... maybe the Qers will be better at helping me than the general interwebs.

I played Diablo 3 last night just fine, logged in about an hour ago and all my characters are deleted.

Checked the region - correct (also, can't log into Europe right now b/c of error 37)
FOUND one character - handy green arrow in lower right lets you recover you most recently deleted character if you made a booboo.  Unfortunately, that was a lvl 1 alt and my lvl 30 monk is what I really wanted back (not to mention lvl 10 Barb and lvl 20 DH).

So... was my account compromised?  I've changed my password (thankfully not the same one I use for any sensitive information), and now set up fun "security" stuff like SMS alerts and a mobile authenticator app.

Also sent a message to Blizzard support to see what they can do/know about the problem.

Just not sure what to make of this... I looked through their list of "how your account gets hacked" and none of them really apply to me (haven't received phishing emails/sites, haven't contacted gold farmers, don't have any game add-ons, haven't shared account info).  I'm running system scans now to see if I have any bugs/malware, but it seems unlikely since my current OS is only 2 weeks old (not like that matters I guess)...

Oh well... kind of frustrated/scared.

[Neptune49]

Sorry to hear about that dude.  Unfortunately it's something that I've been hearing a lot from folks playing without authenticators added to their accounts.  The short answer is that Yes, your account was probably compromised.  I guess the first question I would ask if whether or not the level 1 alt that you tried to recover as an alt that you deleted.  If you didn't delete it, someone else definitely did and that was the last one they did after they made off with all of your gold.  If you deleted it and the rest of your characters are still missing, it's probably a bug since no characters were deleted after you deleted that level 1 alt. 

I had my account compromised and all of my WoW stuff was sold off, gold gone, along with the characters.  It ruined the game for me for a long time.  I'm glad you started with adding an authenticator and hopefully it doesn't totally ruin your experience.  You really have two options.

The first (and most simple) is to start over.  Not that level 30 wasn't a lot of work, but it's certainly not 60.  I can jump on my wizard the power level you for a couple of hours and I feel like we'd get a huge chunk done especially with the bonus XP for quests that you're going to get.  Pair that with some loot and all the gold...  It might even be fun.

Second (and more timely) is to submit a customer service ticket.  They'll attempt to restore your characters.  There's no guarantee that they'll have their gear or gold on them though.  And no guarantee that they succeed.  Right now with the flood of people being compromised I'd say that you're looking at over a week before you get a response to your ticket.  So you would be in limbo until then.

I can say that when my WoW account was compromised they did restore all of my characters, and all of their gear.  They couldn't restore the gold but I ended up having a bunch of extra things in my bank that I managed to sell to make up the difference and ended up being OK. 

I would say that you may or may not have had a keylogger...  Did you visit a lot of Diablo 3 information sites?  Some sites that talk about builds have built in Malware.  I got my problem from a WoW information site back when I was raiding and reading up on strategies.  I never went to a phishing e-mail and clicked anything although I have received plenty of those e-mails.

In any case, I hope it all works out for you and doesn't ruin your experience.  I'm available to help as long as I have a little notice to clear things with the wife so I don't get any grief. 

[JP0le]

Thanks for the support!

I'm currently running the usual suspects (malwarebytes, spybot S&D, adaware) in safe mode in the hopes of catching anything that's on my computer.  I did submit a ticket, so hopefully I'll receive some indication from Blizzard that they're at least looking into it.

I get why the authenticators help, but maybe it's just me being away from online PC gaming for so long that I saw the option for one and thought "yeah, that seems like a hassle for paranoid people."  The only persons that I know of with similar technology are higher ups at financial institutions and tech firms...  If account compromise is SUCH an issue with this and other Blizzard titles I'm really surprised that they didn't push the point harder.  I guess I was uneducated and naive about it, but what must this be like for the truly technology illiterate?

Just makes me a little sad that we're now at a point in the passtime of gaming that mobile authenticators are necessary for me to enjoy a game with my friends.

On a side note... do you authenticate every time you log in or do you do it once a week?

Also, thanks very much for the offer of power leveling... I'll let you know if I'm in need.


Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk 2

[Neptune49]

Authenticators with Blizzard games are a necessary evil (sadly).  This is something that impacts TONS of games.  This has been happening in MMO Games for as long as I can remember playing them.  The difference between Diablo, WoW, and other games is that these are the biggest selling PC game titles and therefore the biggest targets.  At one point 12 million people were playing WoW.  I think that an MMO is considered to be a large one at 3 million players.

Diablo 3 just sold more copies than any other PC game in history during it's first week out.  Again making this a huge target for "hackers".  I also have an authenticator for my SWTOR account and wish that they were available for other MMO's I play like Tera.  I'm not sure but I think that Rift also has an authenticator available.

The Battle.net Authenticator is great.  I have the Android version (very much the same as the iOS version).  First, it's free.  Second is that you only have to use it every once in awhile.  Basically the first couple of times that you log onto your PC you'll have to use it.  Then it will remember that you log on from that PC often and won't ask for the code anymore.  If you don't log in for awhile it will ask you for the code again the next time that you log in.  Also, I just got a new laptop so the first 2 or 3 times I logged onto that it made me enter the code... now it doesn't ask anymore.  I can log onto my Laptop or PC and both don't ask me for the codes. 

It's seamless, It's easy, and I'll say it again, It's FREE.  I totally agree that it shouldn't be necessary, but for me it's too big of a risk to not do it.  Very simple to set up, easy, free... Why not do it? 

I think people exploiting the accounts and stealing from people are ridiculous.  I can't believe the time and energy put into it and for what?  Some virtual gold? ...  Stupid.

[Udder Juice]

At work now so Ill save my big response for later. Suffice it to say for now that sucks and this problem is MUCH larger than it used to be.

Sent from my Android phone using Taptalk 2.

[Bud Man 01]

Sorry to hear that JPole.

I know with Diablo II, people were actually selling toons/bots/equip/gold ect..on EBAY for REAL CASH! 

I hate hackers. 

[Bizan]

Yep, use the authenticators, especially with a Blizzard game.

I haven't played WoW in over 2 years but about 4 months ago I got an email from Blizzard saying my account was banned for selling gold or whatever.  I went to the Blizzard site and the sad part is they even have a hot button for hacked accounts.  Anyway, I clicked that and they confirmed that my account was indeed compromised.  They restored my characters and they said they mailed me back all my gear.  The only problem with that is I didn't have a active subscription to get my crappy gear back and I sure as hell wasn't going to pay for it.  They told me I would have to verify my account in order to resume game play.  I asked them if I could just let it stay where it is and they said yes.  My account is forever in limbo until I doubtfully resume my WoW experience.  But if I ever do, I'll know my characters will be naked and broke.  Hooray!

This alone was a reason for me not buying Diablo or anything Blizzard again.  I'll give them their props tho, they fixed my account pretty quickly...I guess they had a lot of practice.

[VanishedNine]

That sucks, hope you end up getting everything sorted out. I use an authenticator...it asks me for it every time I log in...good feature but i have heard of people getting compromised even usung that.

For D3...i have read that people joining public gmaes were getting compromised first...not sure about now...it sucks that our accounts aren't secure...and it is a pain when you have to go through Blizzard to get all your stuff back. i am furstrated that the SP of Diablo 3 has so much lag...caused by having to have an always on connection...I have died in boss battles a few times.

Anyway, this will likely be a problem for a while...hopefullly Blizzard comes up with a solution.

[Udder Juice]

So yeah, I hadn't touched my WoW account for years and I knew I wanted to buy Diablo 3 so I went to  make sure all my Blizzard stuff was in order just for the hell of it.  Come to find out someone had been playing on my lvl 60 Warlock for quite some time.  I got all my characters back but doubt I'll ever go back to WoW.

After that, while I was playing Rift everyone was going on and on about how accounts were getting hacked, even if you had done nothing stupid like given your info to a phishing scam or visited suspect websites.  I was like, "meh whatever" until my friend told me his account was hacked and all his stuff was sold.  He quit the game and I started using a Rift authenticator and immediately set up my battlenet authenticator just to be sure.  They are kind of a hassle but well worth it since this seems to be such an epidemic these days.

[Neptune49]

Come to find out someone had been playing on my lvl 60 Warlock for quite some time.  I got all my characters back but doubt I'll ever go back to WoW.

Were you still paying the subscription to keep the account active?  I hadn't heard of a person getting hacked so that they could actually play your characters before.  Normally they just strip you down, steal your gold and delete your toons and move on to the next guy.  Then they sell the gold they make on the websites that you see them spamming in General Chat.

Speaking of... They added General Chat in D3 and now there are gold spammers all over it.

[UberFeld]

It's seamless, It's easy, and I'll say it again, It's FREE.  I totally agree that it shouldn't be necessary, but for me it's too big of a risk to not do it.  Very simple to set up, easy, free... Why not do it? 

I think people exploiting the accounts and stealing from people are ridiculous.  I can't believe the time and energy put into it and for what?  Some virtual gold? ...  Stupid.

Thanks for the info, and feedback on the Authenticator. I just set mine up using my son's ipod, because I don't have a smartphone. It was easy as pie. It should also be easy to manage considering that I only ever sign in from my gaming PC.

[Udder Juice]

Come to find out someone had been playing on my lvl 60 Warlock for quite some time.  I got all my characters back but doubt I'll ever go back to WoW.

Were you still paying the subscription to keep the account active?  I hadn't heard of a person getting hacked so that they could actually play your characters before.  Normally they just strip you down, steal your gold and delete your toons and move on to the next guy.  Then they sell the gold they make on the websites that you see them spamming in General Chat.

Speaking of... They added General Chat in D3 and now there are gold spammers all over it.

I'm not sure but I think my account was hacked and then sold to someone who wanted a level 60 warlock ready to go lol.

Anyway, we ran out of work at my office so I was sent home for the rest of the week.  After sending out a bunch of resumes, applying for a few promising jobs I'm going to spend the rest of the day getting drunk, making some electronic music and playing games.  But this means I can stay up a little later tonight playing Diablo if anyone is up for it.

[UberFeld]

I'm getting Error 33, so I can't sign in to play, yet.

Is this Diablo 3, or 33? 

[JP0le]

Got my reply email from Blizzard this morning... I have two options:

1) Account Rollback - go back to a previous account state from before I got hacked, but lose anything that I've done since that rollback date.  Each account is allowed 2 Rollbacks over the account lifetime, so this would be my first one.  Incidentally, the Real Money AH will require an authenticator if you've had one rollback.  If you have your second rollback you will be prohibited from participating in the Real Money AH.

2) Do Nothing.

I'm actually really torn because last night I got my new main up to the same level as my last one and to exactly the same point in the main quest.  My alt toons are not as well developed as on my previous account, but I have spent a good chunk of gold on upgrading my stash since then.  I don't really care about the AH stuff since I don't plan to spend real money for in-game loot.

Honestly, I think I may just keep what I've got and not bother with the rollback.  I really like my new lvl 31 Barbarian, even if he does die a little more frequently than my lvl 30 monk did.

[Udder Juice]

Sounds like doing the rollback is not worth it although both of those choices are kind of lame.

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