I have to say, I've finally been severely disappointed with NCSoft. The issue: my account got hacked, through no fault or lapse of my own. I can only assume that someone broke in with a brute-force dictionary attack. (Yes, I know how to keep a PC and account secure and clean.) With most online games, this hardly seems like something really worth posting about. With Guild Wars it is, for several reasons:

First, security. Or really, the complete lack thereof. The first glaring problem here is using the email address as the login ID. This is a huge problem, because if anyone anywhere online has a way to see your email address and knows that you might play Guild Wars, chances are half of your login is already compromised. If you've ever registered at any Guild Wars related website with the same email address you use for your login, someone already has half your login. What's even worse is that once you attach a Guild Wars account to a PlayNC account, you can no longer change your login email. So not only is half of your login probably compromised, you can't even change it. Worse still, there are no measures in place to help prevent people from getting your password. No graphical keyboard to click on to defeat keyloggers. No limit on login attempts to defeat brute force. (Blizzard even has an authenticator you can buy for about six bucks to lock down your WoW account.) If you still have the option to, I highly recommend creating a new email account (Gmail, Yahoo mail, hotmail, whatever) that you use ONLY for your Guild Wars account and NEVER allow anyone else to know what it is. 

Second part of the issue is customer support. Also virtually non-existent. If you get hacked, all they can do is *maybe* help you get your account back. Better hope you have your game serial numbers for that, or you may as well forget about it. Character deleted? Sorry, it's gone. Items salvaged and sold or transfered? Tough luck. Here's a direct quote from the email they sent me:

"Guild Wars does not have the capability to recover lost or deleted characters or items. No matter the cause for such loss, replacement of such things is simply not something that we are able to offer or support." 

Can't, or won't? Either way, it has become all too apparent what the difference is between a free game and a subscription game.

You must've had a weak password if your account got brute force hack. If you were using words in your pass, I'd recommend you don't. One tip I remember a teacher giving me when I was first learning about computers is to use a sentence. For example, "ice cream is the greatest". Then take the first letter of each word so you have "icitg". Then mix it up with caps, preferably every other so you don't get mixed up, so "IcItG". Then through in a few numbers you'll easy remember, so something like "IcItG911". Already fairly tough to brute force that. Of course would recommend a longer sentence.

Anyways I digress, yea NCSOFT seems more focused on AION atm, so not too surprised with lack of customer support considering its non-subscription and the age of the game itself.

First thought about using the email address problem would be make the email for the game one that is only used for registering games. So that nobody else will be able to see the user name.

I have had good customer service from them. My acount was set up with a college email address and after transfering to a different college I was not able to recover the password I forgot, and they got back to me within a few hours and were able to get my acount put on another email address. They just asked me for more info such as my cd key. Some of the best customer service I have seen.

Guess results may vary though with so many things in life.

Originally posted by doragon86

You must've had a weak password if your account got brute force hack. If you were using words in your pass, I'd recommend you don't. One tip I remember a teacher giving me when I was first learning about computers is to use a sentence. For example, "ice cream is the greatest". Then take the first letter of each word so you have "icitg". Then mix it up with caps, preferably every other so you don't get mixed up, so "IcItG". Then through in a few numbers you'll easy remember, so something like "IcItG911". Already fairly tough to brute force that. Of course would recommend a longer sentence.

Anyways I digress, yea NCSOFT seems more focused on AION atm, so not too surprised with lack of customer support considering its non-subscription and the age of the game itself.

I know how to make good passwords. The problem is it really doesn't matter much how strong your password is if the attacker has unlimited time and attempts to crack it. And no, I'm not going to be constantly changing my password for a game. No one should have to worry about brute-force attacks for something like this. 

Originally posted by BloodDuality

First thought about using the email address problem would be make the email for the game one that is only used for registering games. So that nobody else will be able to see the user name.

I have had good customer service from them. My acount was set up with a college email address and after transfering to a different college I was not able to recover the password I forgot, and they got back to me within a few hours and were able to get my acount put on another email address. They just asked me for more info such as my cd key. Some of the best customer service I have seen.

Guess results may vary though with so many things in life.

Your suggestion about the email would be a good one if it were possible. As for the customer service, sure they're friendly and all. They just heavily limit the scope of what they're willing to do, and don't care at all about the customer if what is needed falls outside that scope. Your story would be quite different if you hadn't had your CD key. Without that, you'll spend lots of time getting nowhere with them. 

Don't feel bad and don't listen to the wave of peeps who are gonna be smart asses about weak passwords.

Right now it's coming to light how weak the NCSoft security really is. A lot of people have been hacked thanks in part to linking their GW accounts to the NCSoft Main accounts (*Edit: Read my comment below. This has apparently been addressed by Anet but, yeah.) and there has been some discussions about how easy it is to exploit the NCSoft site.

One of my guild officers, who is one of the most anal guys I know when it comes to account security got hacked, and when he was able to get his account back was completely stripped of his belongings. Funny that the magical red notice and security changes hit about that time talking about the wave of hacks going on.

For some more insight: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/account-hackings-source-t10419779.html

Edit: They've added some official responses addressing the fear of the NCSoft Master Accounts. Still, it seems more widespread than just the usual weak password stuff to me.

Originally posted by Endo13

 I have to say, I've finally been severely disappointed with NCSoft. The issue: my account got hacked, through no fault or lapse of my own. I can only assume that someone broke in with a brute-force dictionary attack. (Yes, I know how to keep a PC and account secure and clean.) With most online games, this hardly seems like something really worth posting about. With Guild Wars it is, for several reasons:

 

First, security. Or really, the complete lack thereof. The first glaring problem here is using the email address as the login ID. This is a huge problem, because if anyone anywhere online has a way to see your email address and knows that you might play Guild Wars, chances are half of your login is already compromised. If you've ever registered at any Guild Wars related website with the same email address you use for your login, someone already has half your login. What's even worse is that once you attach a Guild Wars account to a PlayNC account, you can no longer change your login email. So not only is half of your login probably compromised, you can't even change it. Worse still, there are no measures in place to help prevent people from getting your password. No graphical keyboard to click on to defeat keyloggers. No limit on login attempts to defeat brute force. (Blizzard even has an authenticator you can buy for about six bucks to lock down your WoW account.) If you still have the option to, I highly recommend creating a new email account (Gmail, Yahoo mail, hotmail, whatever) that you use ONLY for your Guild Wars account and NEVER allow anyone else to know what it is. 

 

Second part of the issue is customer support. Also virtually non-existent. If you get hacked, all they can do is *maybe* help you get your account back. Better hope you have your game serial numbers for that, or you may as well forget about it. Character deleted? Sorry, it's gone. Items salvaged and sold or transfered? Tough luck. Here's a direct quote from the email they sent me:

"Guild Wars does not have the capability to recover lost or deleted characters or items. No matter the cause for such loss, replacement of such things is simply not something that we are able to offer or support." 

Can't, or won't? Either way, it has become all too apparent what the difference is between a free game and a subscription game.

what do you mean by the difference between free game and a subscription game? i find this insulting as i have been playing on guild wars for some time and they never failed to answer my problems. A ticket i made was usually answer in 2/3 days. You think a subscription fee would offer better support? i played wow and they support was anything but good, ignoring the issue i hand, they took 1hr 20 mins to answer phone calls before they hung up on me and when i open tickets to ask them questions, they reply with stuff that do not answer my questions. I made a thread about my existing issue about the bad support i get from wow but the thread was deleted from mods classified as  "trolling" when the trolling part could be modded and yet complaints on other games like this gets free reign. Biased much?

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Originally posted by Endo13
 
Can't, or won't? Either way, it has become all too apparent what the difference is between a free game and a subscription game.

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Can't.
Sorry for your loss.
and its not a free game, i paid alot for the game. im sure you paid for it too. ;)

nope once its gone its gone the customer support is a little slow on the uptake imo the needing the cd key to prove autheticity would be fine if i didnt have to give them every campain cd key to do it  when i had to get my password back for my ncsoft  master acct i spent quite a bit of time on the phone looking for cd cases and giving the support guy my keys ALL of them

every key you have through ncsoft including the cox games and any others in your master acct  but the guy was very patient with me about it since my organization skills are very lacking

and i payed around $250 for all the campains which is why i am hesitant about gw2

gw2 will probably work the same way and the fact i already bought gw and all its campains and none of them are compatible with the new gw is really screwed up

Originally posted by illyana

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Originally posted by Endo13
 
Can't, or won't? Either way, it has become all too apparent what the difference is between a free game and a subscription game.

---

Can't.
Sorry for your loss.
and its not a free game, i paid alot for the game. im sure you paid for it too. ;)

Its 'won't' . They already track transactions to catch possible goldsellers/buyers. Any transaction and change gets logged in MMO's. The question is how long the information will be stored. Which is something you and I dont know for sure.

Even with this information, NCSoft still has a problem. Its difficult for them to determine if a hacker transferred your stuff, or you did and then try to cheat NCSoft into giving it back. Its not like you leave fingerprints when doing these things, even an ipadress is unreliable to use as evidence.

And I agree with others that the way GW account is linked to master account (unchangable login emailadres after that) is bad security.

Originally posted by Endo13

 I have to say, I've finally been severely disappointed with NCSoft. The issue: my account got hacked, through no fault or lapse of my own. I can only assume that someone broke in with a brute-force dictionary attack. (Yes, I know how to keep a PC and account secure and clean.) With most online games, this hardly seems like something really worth posting about. With Guild Wars it is, for several reasons:

 

First, security. Or really, the complete lack thereof. The first glaring problem here is using the email address as the login ID. This is a huge problem, because if anyone anywhere online has a way to see your email address and knows that you might play Guild Wars, chances are half of your login is already compromised. If you've ever registered at any Guild Wars related website with the same email address you use for your login, someone already has half your login. What's even worse is that once you attach a Guild Wars account to a PlayNC account, you can no longer change your login email. So not only is half of your login probably compromised, you can't even change it. Worse still, there are no measures in place to help prevent people from getting your password. No graphical keyboard to click on to defeat keyloggers. No limit on login attempts to defeat brute force. (Blizzard even has an authenticator you can buy for about six bucks to lock down your WoW account.) If you still have the option to, I highly recommend creating a new email account (Gmail, Yahoo mail, hotmail, whatever) that you use ONLY for your Guild Wars account and NEVER allow anyone else to know what it is. 

 

Second part of the issue is customer support. Also virtually non-existent. If you get hacked, all they can do is *maybe* help you get your account back. Better hope you have your game serial numbers for that, or you may as well forget about it. Character deleted? Sorry, it's gone. Items salvaged and sold or transfered? Tough luck. Here's a direct quote from the email they sent me:

"Guild Wars does not have the capability to recover lost or deleted characters or items. No matter the cause for such loss, replacement of such things is simply not something that we are able to offer or support." 

Can't, or won't? Either way, it has become all too apparent what the difference is between a free game and a subscription game.

Its funny you posted this; because, I've been screaming at NCsoft for a week to give me my account back.  I think they are pretending they can't read English.  I've written them some pretty convincing emails loaded with personal information and the keys to my games; but, they don't seem to give a damn.

I already refuse to buy SOE products; but, I think NCsoft is going on that list very soon.