I had played Champions online from release for about a month or two, got bored and cancelled my account. Then when the game went free to play I gave it another bash and was enjoying it, got a character of 'The Mind' class to level 18, then took a 2 week break from the game. To my surprise, when I logged back in the character was gone and so I sauntered over to their support section on the website and left a ticket: 

'Dear Sir/Madam, 

I logged back into my account after a few weeks of down time and my character has disappeared. 

I had a level 18 'The Mind' class character and I was really enjoying the game. Can you please look into where this character has gone please?

Thanks'

Reply arrived within seconds:

CUSTOMER SERVICE RESPONSES:

Unless your character was named "The Mind" then they couldn't restore it because that is the avatar name they tried to get back. Your copy and paste of issue doesn't state the avatar's name. You didn't give them the correct name of your avatar.

I did, I just deleted it from the ticket I posted above. 

Hmmm... that IS interesting.  I'll have to log in and see if my character is still there.  I played for a bit on F2P, too.

All this drama for a lvl 18 character?

Do you have lots of alts?  It could be on the second page if you do.

In any case 18 isn't high and not hard to reach again.

Originally posted by Quadnads

I did, I just deleted it from the ticket I posted above. 

Their reply still states they tried to recover an avatar named "The Mind".

Drama? I don't see any drama. Can you show me where this drama is that you're talking about? I posted it for the benefit of other people who may have the same problem or other problems with cryptics way of doing business. Plus why should it matter if I have 1 or 10 characters at level 18 or cap? It took me about a week of playing on an off to get to where I was. Now, maybe I'm being overly precious about my time but that's a pain in the arse having to do that all again for no good reason. And what happens if I do get to end game and take a week or two off? Does the character disappear again after a much longer investment of time? MMO characters shouldn't just be deleted for no reason free-to-play or no free-to-play. It damages trust in the game. This, coupled with cryptics general attitude to 'handling the problem' (and yes I reposted the same ticket with the name more obviously plastered across it and I got the same response again within seconds) is poor. Noteworthy, no?

I believe you are getting the customer service you are paying for. Only those who have chosen to be currently paying for their services are provided customer support that requires a person on their end to do something. Those who don't pay anything only have access to their knowledgebase.

Is that level 18 avatar valuable enough to you to induce you to pay for their services?

Hehe sounds like an old mafia routine -

'Oh your shop windows were broken? Hmm that's really terrible. Tell you what, if you pay us a monthly fee we'll protect your property and make sure it won't happen again, *wink wink nudge nudge*'.

In other words, it's 'free' but they can't guarantee your characters won't be deleted - or give them back to you if they are - unless you pay them a monthy fee? 

Nah I'll pass. Just wanted to let people know about it in case it's not an isolated occurance. Thanks for the input.  

Originally posted by grunty

I believe you are getting the customer service you are paying for. Only those who have chosen to be currently paying for their services are provided customer support that requires a person on their end to do something. Those who don't pay anything only have access to their knowledgebase.

Is that level 18 avatar valuable enough to you to induce you to pay for their services?

So, according to your logic, if you play a F2P title and dont pay (since it is Free to Play right) they can just arbitrarily delete your characters for no reason and they are not obliged to investigate why they have been deleted.

Great business model, for sure you will attract alot of customers like that. 

The whole point of the F2P titles is to entice people to try the game, since they are 'free', and then if they like the experience they would pay to gain some extra services.

Deleting your characters is hardly a way to entice people to pay for a game. Rather it would make them quit and warn others about it.

Champions Online sucks, and people should stay away? You're joking! Next you'll tell us that VHS tapes will some day be replaced by some sort of plastic disc! Ludicrous.

I think it's pretty obvious that they have tried to restore the wrong character, try again, this time only stating the character name and that you would like it restored.

See above. I did send another ticket with the name of the lost character and it was responded to immediately with the same response. The more important question is: why was a character removed in the first place after an absence of only two weeks?

Originally posted by Quadnads 

 

So, in conclusion, don't waste your time with these people. Admittedly it's cryptic so I should have known but hey ho, we live and learn.  

Of course you should of known!!!! ITS CRYPTIC OMG! I hope you learn the lesson and dont be tempted by their next crap they try and sell people!

been playing champions online since beta on and off and have been both a paying and F2P customer, i have several characters well above level 18 and at no time during this have i lost a character or had any problems. (just to note i was a paying customer and then switched to the F2P model and converted 2 of my characters without a problem.)

Just checked... my 19th level character was still there.  Showed as being last used 55 days ago.  I recall them saying that they do wipe trial characters that haven't been used in a long time in order to make more names available...

I wonder if the OP's account was hacked, I just checked and my toon that was logged in last 40 days ago is still there.

I'm just wondering if he was hacked,  been seeing this in other games, toon stripped of everything and deleted seems to be the mo of hackers this past month or so, had a good friend in eq2 who been gone for months log in and found all his toons deleted due to  a hacker, took them  a week to fix that mess.

Still you would think they would be able to restore a toon, so I'm not sure what to say other than they don't have the best customer support.

Hmm I did think of the possibility of it being hacked. It's a possible explanation. Didn't have any stuff worth selling though. 

Originally posted by Robsolf

Just checked... my 19th level character was still there.  Showed as being last used 55 days ago.  I recall them saying that they do wipe trial characters that haven't been used in a long time in order to make more names available...

Character names are not unique in CO, only the display name of the account.  You can have more than 1 character between accounts with the same name.

So deleteing characters to free names is pointless when it doesn't work that way.

Edited for unnecessary harsh comment. Sorry you got your char lost, I hope they might restored or you might want to reroll into something new.