Windows formatted = character lost?

[Jhonrock]

Hi guys, i'm new on this game and have been playing it with a friend for a few weeks. Today this friend of mine, who have a little bit less experience with MMO's then me, had to format his computer and asked me if this action could also delete his characters. I told him NOT. As far as i know, every MMO keep the players characters saved in their servers, so, they can format their computers as many times they want and the characters will be there.

But, this friend of mine formatted his computer today and, after all things done, reinstalled DDO, downloaded the updates and logged with his account. For his surprise, when logged, all of his characters was gone. He had two on Cannith and two on Argonnessen, all these four characters was gone.

So, is there anything he can do to retake those chars lost? Why did this happen? This game keeps our chars saved on our PC's?

[Sirea]

There is no way that reformatting your computer will cause you to lose your characters. They are all stored on Turbine's servers.

Make sure your friend logged onto the correct account.

[Jhonrock]

There is no way that reformatting your computer will cause you to lose your characters. They are all stored on Turbine's servers.
Make sure your friend logged onto the correct account.

He has only one account. Thats for sure.

Ps.: I tryed to login with his account, on my PC, and there was no char on it.

[MsEricka]

Then he deleted them before he reformatted, he's lying about having more than one account, or you're looking on the wrong server.

Pick one.

[Rumbaar]

No character data is stored on the client side. If in fact his characters are missing, then it's account management contact time. But I guess he is just logging into the wrong free account he is using.

[Jhonrock]

Then he deleted them before he reformatted, he's lying about having more than one account, or you're looking on the wrong server.
Pick one.

Why would he do this? He has no motive to do this. He had a good custom char on his account (halfling, rogue) and was playing very well.

No character data is stored on the client side. If in fact his characters are missing, then it's account management contact time. But I guess he is just logging into the wrong free account he is using.

How can one login with another account without create it? Can be possible to login with an user/password almost indetical to the one created (like one caracter more)?

Well, he already contacted the account support and now he is waiting for an answer.

[AZgreentea]

Occam's razor (or Ockham's razor) is the principle that "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity" (entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem). The popular interpretation of this principle is that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. However, this is often confused, as the 'simple' "is really referring to the theory with the fewest new assumptions."

Have him check all of the servers, and have him check his emails to ensure that at some point he did not fill out the account application form a second time (most likely back when he first started playing). I reuse the same pw for most of my accounts. If he created a second username, the client would remember the last one he used and the pw would be the one he always uses. If he then remembers his username as the first one (or the second one depending on which he played), it would show no characters.

If he really is using the wrong login info, there is nothing account management can do for him since they would have no idea what the correct info is if he dosent.

[Lorz]

To op been here almost 5 years...got a lot of toons(17 on one server alone) never lost a toon. He either deleted it or is on the wrong server/account.

That is all.

[Missing_Minds]

Your friend is checking the wrong server then.

By formating the only thing you lose is your keyboard layout/setup.

Also make certain your friend wasn't playing on Lama instead of the main servers.

[Jhonrock]

Your friend is checking the wrong server then.

I have been playing with him since he started, we played together on the same server (Argonnessen). I have his char on my friends list (on Argonnessen). When i tryed to login with his account, i logged on Argonnessen and the char he had, the one of my friend list, was not there.

He says to me that he dont have another account and is trying to use the same one from before format his PC. He assured me that.

Ps.: His char remains on my friend list. So, can i presume that his char was not deleted?

[Kelavam]

The fact that his character is still on your friends list means the character is still there.

I have formatted several computers that had DDO, and everything is fine on them. I have signed in with my user name and account on several computers, and each time my characters show up. It has nothing to do with the computer being formatted.

It has to have something to with how he is logging on (login/password), the server he is logging into.

At this point, if you are 100 percent certain that he has the correct username/password/server, then all he can do is wait. I would verify with him that he did not sign up several accounts. That would be the only answer i can think of, wrong login info.

Good luck! Hope it works out for him.

Edited: Let us know how it turns out. Might be something someone else might be able to use in the future.

[Victorie]

Turbine stores your characters. The most common causes of "lost characters" can be found in this sticky (and have already been mentioned in this thread).

If you guys still haven't figured this out, please contact the Account Management department for assistance.