Sad story and my last memories

[MissingAccount]

Hi there,

A lot of you will remember me under a different username as I was very active before a sad set of circumstances which have meant I can no longer play the game.

I am in my early 40's and have spent the last 20 years of my life in a wheelchair due to being permanently injured in a car accident and I also suffered serious brain injuries due to loss of blood that caused me to suffer from memory loss and speech difficulties. I can not work and have spent the last 10 years of my life in supported shared living accomodation.

DDO was one of the few activities in my life that I felt I could master. The repeating nature of the game suited my memory issues and it was one of the few games I could enjoy long term. It was a big part part of my life and really helped me stay sane. An able independant person might not understand this but it was like DDO was an extended family for me and I had very little else in my life. I played up to 100 hours a week and for about 10 years. I would of spent thousands of dollars in this time.

Now you will notice I said I "played". Because I don't anymore. Not by choice though. In late April this year I went on holiday for 2 weeks for intensive physical therapy. When I got back I tried to log in and I got an incorrect password. My password was not incorrect, my DDO password is one of the few passwords in my life that I do remember and I don't even need to write it down - but sadly it was written down.

I still don't know exactly what happened but I am 99% sure one of the other residents stole my account and either sold it or just deleted it out of jealousy. There was one particular guy who often watched me play in my room and he is the one who I think did it. I have accused this person involved many times and I can tell by how he acts that he is guilty but I have no evidence and the local law can't do anything.

In early May (the 4th) I raised a ticket with SSG requesting recovery of my account. I provided all the details including the only key I could find (from menance of the underdark which I bought years and years ago). I also provided the CC number and the original email etc. The ticket number was 169204.

The very next day I received an email from +Karadoc saying my account my request had been escalated to the dedicated support team. This made me really happy as I had gone into a spiral of depression at this stage. At this stage it felt like my life was over and I had been thrown a lifeline.

As the days went by with no response I started to get more and more concerned again. I started looking around in the forums and found a whole bunch of people in a similar position to me.

I raised some more tickets requesting an update but never got a response. Every month I would raise a ticket and watch my inbox for a reply. I messaged multiple SSG people on the forums. People who I had participated in their stream and events many times. I got a few answers all promising it would be looked into and that they would check on what is happening with my request. I even told them I don't care about what has happened to the characters. If they have been TR'ed or moved to another server or even renamed I will deal with it. All I want is the account to be restored to it's original email address and for them to generate a new password.

7 months later. I have been in counseling over this and they have taught me some ways to deal with my grief. Unfortunately I am still not over it and I still have this little bit of hope in me that one day it will come back.

Thank you for listening to my story. Please I beg you. Do not write down your DDO password because you never know what will happen to it. I thought I was in a safe place but it turns out I wasn't.

Goodbye my DDO family.

[Marshal_Lannes]

Devs, can we please get some help for this person? Clearly, DDO is a source of enjoyment and purpose in their life, and 7 months without a resolution to this problem isn't acceptable. I know everyone is busy, but could someone please take 30 minutes out of their day to sort through the tickets and look into an account restoration?

[Memnir]

This whole situation is terrible. I hope you can get some resolution at long last. If you haven't - try sending the Community Moderator Cordovan a PM here on the forums.

Will keep my fingers crossed, and wish you nothing but the best - in gaming and in life.

[MissingAccount]

I tried that already. Cordovan was one of the few people that actually responded to me.



I will ping our customer service team. I know that verify/release work has been impacted by recent shortages in the customer service department.


But sadly that all I heard.

[dredre9987]

So I have to ask, if you don't care what happened to the account ( maybe everything was deleted ) and the game means this much to you, why not just create another account? I do understand 10 years of grinding and progressing would be gone but you could again be in the game you enjoy and just make different goals.

I know if this had happened to me I would probably never touch DDO again.

[MissingAccount]

So I have to ask, if you don't care what happened to the account ( maybe everything was deleted ) and the game means this much to you, why not just create another account? I do understand 10 years of grinding and progressing would be gone but you could again be in the game you enjoy and just make different goals.

I know if this had happened to me I would probably never touch DDO again.

I guess I explained it poorly. I care about all the characters but I am willing to do the work to get them back to where they were i.e. TR etc. I just meant I don't need them to spend a whole lot of time restoring them back to their original condition. If all the characters have been deleted that is a different story.

Sadly for me it is not that simple to switch games. It probably took 3-4 years for me to get the basics of DDO and I need the repetitive aspect of the game. There might be other games with the same style but I am not sure if I can commit the time needed to switch to another game. The only other game I can play is really slow games like simple adventure games (I play kings quest) and simple platform games like Mario etc. DDO is the most advanced game i play.

[voxson5]

7 months!? If true this is some serious BS.

Remember kids, this is the company you might be paying money to

[grudgebear]

Goodbye my DDO family.

It's a good time to create alternative account with the free coupon for all adventure packs, get some favor and buy first three new expansion packs for 99 points each. Shelve this account or a few, future might want you to play this game again.

CS is bad, I had to wait half a year for them to check my bugged character.

[MissingAccount]

7 months!? If true this is some serious BS.

Remember kids, this is the company you might be paying money to

It is true. This is the thread in Account Support we have been posting:

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/523192-Still-can%E2%80%99t-access-my-account-(

There are about 3 other people with the same problem. The worst is a guy with 9 months no access and he is still paying VIP.


It's a good time to create alternative account with the free coupon for all adventure packs, get some favor and buy first three new expansion packs for 99 points each. Shelve this account or a few, future might want you to play this game again.

Maybe but I am not giving up yet. I did just redeem the code on this new account so at least I could do that if I wanted. Remember I play for 10 years with a very high play time so I can't give up so easy, some of those character I really loved. I find it hard to remember a lot but I still have good memories of some of the things i did on these guys, like taking down Velah the dragon, killing the vampire guy in ravenloft and others.

[dredre9987]

I hope SSG gets up and fixes this for you. You have my condolences

[Bluemercury]

Not good enough SSG, just not good enough. you could at least pretend you care about the state of your cs department.

[ChaosBuddha]

u know there r ppl that u can get things from that make things fast....I'm not saying anything I'm just saying....i know what i would do if i lost my char.


or maybe go fishing

[archest]

have you tried to recapture your account with lost password?

they email you new password and you change it using the new password.
so long as the person hasn't changed the email address on your old account it should work.

[MissingAccount]

have you tried to recapture your account with lost password?

they email you new password and you change it using the new password.
so long as the person hasn't changed the email address on your old account it should work.

I have spoken with my guildmates and my main character was removed from the guild while I was on holiday. I also got the change password and change email message while I was on holiday but didn't see it until I got back and by then it was too late as it had already been changed.

I know it is has been stolen and I am pretty sure I know who it was but can't do it anything about it.

[Bjond]

I am 99% sure one of the other residents stole my account and either sold it or just deleted it

You may be able to get police help if you frame your complaint in different terms. DDO is a progressive game, not a session game. Each play builds on previous play. It's patently an investment. So, if you played DDO as your main activity for 10yrs, that puts the value of your account at a minimum of $200k in terms of time investment (10y x 2000H/y x $10/h). Whoever did this to you is guilty of grand larceny.

Advice: hit a free legal clinic. Those lawyers are volunteers. Your case may be too much for them to just take on directly. That's OK. What you want is advice on how to get more help. A volunteer expert is usually very capable of pointing you toward someone who can do more. Might be a multi-step rinse & repeat, but I'm pretty sure this will find a lawyer who will know how to get your case before the correct law enforcement, motivate SSG to restore your account, catch the culprit, and maybe even do it all for free.

I guarantee there's someone who can and will pursue a $200K grand larceny case. You were provable away from access for PT when it was stolen, after all. Getting this into the hands of someone who can help is the hard part. You'd have to take this on yourself as something to pursue, but it's a danm sight better than praying for SSG to wake up motivated.

BTW, if you think this would work for you (and you're worried about memory issues), feel free to clip, print, and or show my post here to anyone you like to help provide context for why you need legal help/advice. Perhaps someday I'll read a news story about "Roommate gets 5yrs for stealing DDO account". That would truly be a wonderful read, indeed. :)

[Steeme]

Mate, as Grudgebear mentioned above, you can take the opportunity to roll up an alt account and get that moving along (100 favor dash on multiple servers, buy the 99 point packs) while you're waiting for your issue to be resolved.

If your account is recovered at some point, you can return to that being your "main" account. But you will still have a use for your alt account that you were working on in the meantime.

I regularly run 3 accounts at the same time, making it great for getting extra hands on chests, but it's also a very efficient way to level in epics if you can build up your alt account to "pull" your main up from 20->30.

[Jaxtan]

If SSG won’t do anything, perhaps the community can. Let’s make an action plan to get the player back in the game. Call it a community reincarnation. As others have mentioned, please create a new account, grab all the free content with latest coupon, recreate your main characters, tell us what server, and we will run repeatedly with you for a few months and you can purchase the expansions with the earned points. A lot has changed with U50 and U51, so it is actually a good time to get back in the game. We are all relearning epics as it is now very different and a lot easier/better for 1st life characters.

Plus, with holiday sales coming up the next couple of months there will be good things to buy at a discount with the earned points. We are with you and willing to help you resurrect your characters and content. This could be a great coming together for the community!

[Hawkwier]

This is really sad to read OP, particularly given how much the game clearly must mean to you.

I really hope Cordovan and other SSG staffers can read this and TAKE PROMPT ACTION to help you out.

To leave anyone in limbo like this for so long is pretty atrocious, but in your case it seems actually quite cruel. I'm assuming you will have relayed your circumstances to SSG, so there really is no excuse for their elongated radio silence in response. Even if it turns out there is nothing they can do, at least they should be coming back to confirm that to you definitively.

As some posters have suggested, I'd strongly recommend you try a plan-b for back-up should the worst materialise. If you set up an separate account and buy the 99 point exp packs, that will at least provide a modicum of mitigation. You need not ever use that account, if things can be resolved, but it's there if they truly can't help you.

I can only wish you the best of luck, and fervently hope SSG will take positive action to resolve this for you.

Very Best Wishes!

[mhmmm]

it is strange the other resident had the wherewithal to access the external account site to change the assoc email address but also login game to leave the guild. you said your fellow resident watched you play ddo. it is not difficult to figure out but do you know if yr fellow other residents also play ddo?
did someone access your computer or do you think they installed ddo on a different cpu to do all this?
what server were you on?
do you know for certain if your chars were deleted? what were some of yr char names and original ddoforum handle?

[Evean]

…I guarantee there's someone who can and will pursue a $200K grand larceny case. You were provable away from access for PT when it was stolen, after all. Getting this into the hands of someone who can help is the hard part. You'd have to take this on yourself as something to pursue, but it's a danm sight better than praying for SSG to wake up motivated…

How can you guarantee this? That’s a pretty bold threat.

[mhmmm]

i read the other thread and understand now that a fellow resident accessed to your computer.
was your computer also pw-protected for login?
does your guild know if your characters were deleted or are being played in-use?
what server and what were some character names?
what was yr original acct forumhandle?

[myliftkk_v2]

Hi there,

A lot of you will remember me under a different username as I was very active before a sad set of circumstances which have meant I can no longer play the game.

I am in my early 40's and have spent the last 20 years of my life in a wheelchair due to being permanently injured in a car accident and I also suffered serious brain injuries due to loss of blood that caused me to suffer from memory loss and speech difficulties. I can not work and have spent the last 10 years of my life in supported shared living accomodation.

DDO was one of the few activities in my life that I felt I could master. The repeating nature of the game suited my memory issues and it was one of the few games I could enjoy long term. It was a big part part of my life and really helped me stay sane. An able independant person might not understand this but it was like DDO was an extended family for me and I had very little else in my life. I played up to 100 hours a week and for about 10 years. I would of spent thousands of dollars in this time.

Now you will notice I said I "played". Because I don't anymore. Not by choice though. In late April this year I went on holiday for 2 weeks for intensive physical therapy. When I got back I tried to log in and I got an incorrect password. My password was not incorrect, my DDO password is one of the few passwords in my life that I do remember and I don't even need to write it down - but sadly it was written down.

I still don't know exactly what happened but I am 99% sure one of the other residents stole my account and either sold it or just deleted it out of jealousy. There was one particular guy who often watched me play in my room and he is the one who I think did it. I have accused this person involved many times and I can tell by how he acts that he is guilty but I have no evidence and the local law can't do anything.

In early May (the 4th) I raised a ticket with SSG requesting recovery of my account. I provided all the details including the only key I could find (from menance of the underdark which I bought years and years ago). I also provided the CC number and the original email etc. The ticket number was 169204.

The very next day I received an email from +Karadoc saying my account my request had been escalated to the dedicated support team. This made me really happy as I had gone into a spiral of depression at this stage. At this stage it felt like my life was over and I had been thrown a lifeline.

As the days went by with no response I started to get more and more concerned again. I started looking around in the forums and found a whole bunch of people in a similar position to me.

I raised some more tickets requesting an update but never got a response. Every month I would raise a ticket and watch my inbox for a reply. I messaged multiple SSG people on the forums. People who I had participated in their stream and events many times. I got a few answers all promising it would be looked into and that they would check on what is happening with my request. I even told them I don't care about what has happened to the characters. If they have been TR'ed or moved to another server or even renamed I will deal with it. All I want is the account to be restored to it's original email address and for them to generate a new password.

7 months later. I have been in counseling over this and they have taught me some ways to deal with my grief. Unfortunately I am still not over it and I still have this little bit of hope in me that one day it will come back.

Thank you for listening to my story. Please I beg you. Do not write down your DDO password because you never know what will happen to it. I thought I was in a safe place but it turns out I wasn't.

Goodbye my DDO family.
Assuming this is all true (I've heard some wild stories before in my business life, but this one seems plausible on the surface):

You're doing this all wrong. SSG taking money from the disabled and kicking them to the curb is just absolute par for the course.

If you want an actionable response, take your story to journalists, gaming and local, about how a game company is greedily monetizing disabled players and then when those players have issues arising from their challenges of their life situations, sending them packing while happily counting the dollars they grabbed from their pockets. Frame it exactly how it should be framed and someone will print it and SSG will be backed into a public corner. SSG isn't even your audience. Let's just say it's not good for the brand to have DnD associated with kicking the disabled when they are down after emptying their pockets. WOTC/Hasbro will lose their ever-loving minds if they start seeing news articles pop up about how a licensee is treating disabled players like trash.

If you do get some press on the issue, I'd be happy to shoot some links over to Hasbro/WOTC people, which would take me one phone call to get access to. I'm sure they'd be very interested to know what their licensee is up to.

[Evean]

Assuming this is all true (I've heard some wild stories before in my business life, but this one seems plausible on the surface):

You're doing this all wrong. SSG taking money from the disabled and kicking them to the curb is just absolute par for the course.

If you want an actionable response, take your story to journalists, gaming and local, about how a game company is greedily monetizing disabled players and then when those players have issues arising from their challenges of their life situations, sending them packing while happily counting the dollars they grabbed from their pockets. Frame it exactly how it should be framed and someone will print it and SSG will be backed into a public corner. SSG isn't even your audience. Let's just say it's not good for the brand to have DnD associated with kicking the disabled when they are down after emptying their pockets. WOTC/Hasbro will lose their ever-loving minds if they start seeing news articles pop up about how a licensee is treating disabled players like trash.

If you do get some press on the issue, I'd be happy to shoot some links over to Hasbro/WOTC people, which would take me one phone call to get access to. I'm sure they'd be very interested to know what their licensee is up to.

Individual health issues have no relevance here. Accusing SSG of “discrimination” is ridiculous, and trying to use someones disability status—proven or otherwise—to manipulate public opinion is shameful.

This says nothing about SSG, and volumes about those who use this tactic.

[ShifterThePirate]

Losing an account is really sad but not the end of the world. I know you are attached to it and you want it retrieved. But there is no better time to start a new account than now! If you really love the game you'll be up to speed and have fun in the game in no time! All adventure packs are free, old expansions and Ravenloft only 99 DDO points. Don't let someone take the fun away of a game you love playing while you can just continue and have fun! Sometimes a fresh start is even more fun!

[MissingAccount]

i read the other thread and understand now that a fellow resident accessed to your computer.
was your computer also pw-protected for login?
does your guild know if your characters were deleted or are being played in-use?
what server and what were some character names?
what was yr original acct forumhandle?

I waited 7 months to make a visible post because I am worried they might start transferring items or damage or delete the characters if they find out I am posting like this. I played on Cannith. I often played with Tilomere and Tronko and the Silver Legion guild. That is all I want to say. My forum handle and account name were the same. My computer was not password protected and there is no lock on my door. I can't lock it because I might need urgent assistance and this is not some flash expensive building. It is like a big house with 20 people living here including a caregiver with nurse on call.

The only other thing I can say is the main character was renamed or changed server. I know this because I was able to create a character with the same name as I used to have.

A lot of people gave the advice to start again and I may at some stage but I can't at the moment. I love my guys too much to replace them. I will spend whatever money I need to get them back to how they were. Buy otto box, rename character, server transfer. Anything, I don't care. But I want them to be original as possible if it makes sense.

[Assassination]

Individual health issues have no relevance here. Accusing SSG of “discrimination” is ridiculous, and trying to use someones disability status—proven or otherwise—to manipulate public opinion is shameful.

This says nothing about SSG, and volumes about those who use this tactic.

Yes please don't accuse SSG of discrimination. There customer service is well known for being complete garbage for anyone that needs it. This is just the latest example. Sometimes this game makes me sick to my stomach. Please take care of the op's issue ASAP!!

[MissingAccount]

Yeah I am not interested in any of that. All I wanted to say is how important DDO is to me. Maybe it is just important to lots of other people is well. I just want my account back with as little trouble as possible. I already said I am not after any ddo points or anything. My allowance covers everything I need and I have enough spare to spend on DDO and that is really the only thing I want to play and do. I can do the work to get my guy back to how he was. I just buy some points or earn them in the game.

[MissingAccount]

If anyone knows another person who might have the ability to reset my account please let me know. I already tried Cordo and Karadoc on these forums but no luck. I think it should only take a few minutes to reset my email and password?

[myliftkk_v2]

Individual health issues have no relevance here. Accusing SSG of “discrimination” is ridiculous, and trying to use someones disability status—proven or otherwise—to manipulate public opinion is shameful.

This says nothing about SSG, and volumes about those who use this tactic.

How do you think any disabled gained the rights they currently have? It wasn't out of the goodness of companies hearts that they comply with the ADA, and your lack of knowledge on this subject makes it clear.

Health issues have perfect relevance here. The OP is in the situation that does not afford them the privacy they might normally be able to have and so where one is tempted to "caveat emptor", and "oh, just start anew", shows how little anyone cares about those in difficult personal circumstances. Your answer to them is basically "tough sh*t".

I'd fire anyone involved in my companies if a customer in the OP's situation was treated like this. There's no earthly excuse it could take seven months to resolve this except for just not caring. Oh... queues are backed up... lmao.

I also didn't accuse anyone of "discrimination", I accused them of "taking advantage" which they clearly are doing. Most of us find it unseemly to take advantage of others in unfortunate circumstances as a matter of policy, but then some don't. :rolleyes:

[Vannessya]

I am very sorry for your lost and even more sorry that no one is taking a few minutes to look up at what happened to your account and come up with a solution.

I hope this thread will go viral to show our support to your cause.
I hope to see you back online soon.

[myliftkk_v2]

Yeah I am not interested in any of that. All I wanted to say is how important DDO is to me. Maybe it is just important to lots of other people is well. I just want my account back with as little trouble as possible. I already said I am not after any ddo points or anything. My allowance covers everything I need and I have enough spare to spend on DDO and that is really the only thing I want to play and do. I can do the work to get my guy back to how he was. I just buy some points or earn them in the game.

No one suggested you do it for points/money/etc (that is the assumptions of others who extrapolate ideas no one claimed). Fundamentally, how you bring attention to people with power exercising gross indifference to those without has nothing to do with money unless someone chooses that as a means of rectification. You can always simply ask to be treated with respect, as most do just that.

You would be amazed at how amenable companies are to resolving issues they'd like to ignore when they are confronted with a public light on their private actions.

But, what do I know, my fam was only in the news business for nearly 50 years. :rolleyes:

[myliftkk_v2]

Yes please don't accuse SSG of discrimination. There customer service is well known for being complete garbage for anyone that needs it. This is just the latest example. Sometimes this game makes me sick to my stomach. Please take care of the op's issue ASAP!!

Garbage CS is always going to fall hardest on those whose lives are more unfortunate circumstance than others, it's just usually they end up suffering in silence.

Quit making excuses for it and demand they change it.

[MissingAccount]

I thought maybe if one of the people who reset the accounts sees this I might get a chance for it to be done.

The other reason I am worried I see some big changes are coming to the game in this new update. I worry about big changes as it will take me a long time to get used to them and i hope they don't change too much. I played the same class for a very long time and I chose a class that doesn't need a lot of different buttons. I can deal with small changes but I worry if I am gone too long and a lot of changes then i will struggle when I come back. It takes me months to get familar with new quests but I enjoy it. When they change how the rules work it is harder for me but I can manage if it is a little at a time.

[Evean]

How do you think any disabled gained the rights they currently have? It wasn't out of the goodness of companies hearts that they comply with the ADA, and your lack of knowledge on this subject makes it clear.

Health issues have perfect relevance here. The OP is in the situation that does not afford them the privacy they might normally be able to have and so where one is tempted to "caveat emptor", and "oh, just start anew", shows how little anyone cares about those in difficult personal circumstances. Your answer to them is basically "tough sh*t".

I'd fire anyone involved in my companies if a customer in the OP's situation was treated like this. There's no earthly excuse it could take seven months to resolve this except for just not caring. Oh... queues are backed up... lmao.

I also didn't accuse anyone of "discrimination", I accused them of "taking advantage" which they clearly are doing. Most of us find it unseemly to take advantage of others in unfortunate circumstances as a matter of policy, but then some don't. :rolleyes:



You encouraged OP to…


…take your story to journalists, gaming and local, about how a game company is greedily monetizing disabled players and then when those players have issues arising from their challenges of their life situations, sending them packing while happily counting the dollars they grabbed from their pockets. Frame it exactly how it should be framed and someone will print it and SSG will be backed into a public corner. SSG isn't even your audience. Let's just say it's not good for the brand to have DnD associated with kicking the disabled when they are down after emptying their pockets. WOTC/Hasbro will lose their ever-loving minds if they start seeing news articles pop up about how a licensee is treating disabled players like trash.

If you do get some press on the issue, I'd be happy to shoot some links over to Hasbro/WOTC people, which would take me one phone call to get access to. I'm sure they'd be very interested to know what their licensee is up to.

You’re clearly leaning into the disability angle in an attempt to slander SSG.

If OP was a racial minority, would that make SSG racist?

If OP identified as a woman, would that make SSG misogynistic transphobes?

The identity of the individual has nothing to do with this hypothetical situation.

You’re merely trying to frame general incompetence as bigotry in an effort to attract attention and drum up sympathy.

It’s disingenuous and transparent.

[Cordovan]

We are not able to discuss the particulars of a case publicly, and we do not allow for public trials on ban appeals. Therefore, this thread is closed. We are sorry you have encountered an issue and encourage you to get in touch with CS to discuss this concern further with them.