Firegoddess says he won't be back.

[slarden]

I don't think anyone at SSG intentionally deleted his character. It sounds like a hardcore transfer glitch of some kind - some weird scenario they didn't account for. Automation is a beautiful thing when it works as intended.

Not much to say about this really as the thread will likely be locked soon and it obviously sucks to lose your things. I hope for the best for fire and am sure we will see him back in the game at some point. I believe SSG has been good at eventually getting these things worked out but it takes time.

A break would probably be good for fire - there have been many accomplished players in this game, but none who continued to grind hardcore for so many years. I dread the thought of running for more rxp and I have maybe 1/4 of the rxp as fire across my 3 winged characters. The raiding scene is not totally dead on Sarlona thanks to the Easily Distracted Gaming community - but I really miss the days where current raid LFMs would go up several times each hour. Without raiding there is nothing to break up the grind and the game is kind of sucky in it's current state.

I hope it all works out with fire's character.

[SpartanKiller13]

Nobody said it was either of those Devs, or any other Dev for that matter. I suspect devs aren't the only ones with the ability to delete toons.
How it was deleted and how is definitely an important question, and if toons can be undeleted, then why has it been such an issue to for this particular toon.

Who other than devs can delete toons? CS? Same question, why would one of those be able to/interested in?

AFAIK undeleting isn't a thing, that's why it's such a problem lol. They have you put in your toon's name on the confirmation screen that says "this can't be undone" for a reason.

I don't think anyone at SSG intentionally deleted his character. It sounds like a hardcore transfer glitch of some kind - some weird scenario they didn't account for. Automation is a beautiful thing when it works as intended.

Like an identical-named toon on HC overwriting their main toon? That's the first vaguely plausible suggestion I've seen, but I definitely wouldn't expect that to be something that wasn't considered in the transfer process.

[MistaMagic]

Nobody said it was either of those Devs, or any other Dev for that matter. I suspect devs aren't the only ones with the ability to delete toons.
How it was deleted and how is definitely an important question, and if toons can be undeleted, then why has it been such an issue to for this particular toon.

Yes toons can be restored after deletion BUT as the toon was re-created as a lvl1 it would overwrite the previous version so in his case NOT POSSIBLE and with regards to Devs being able to delete toons I do not think they have the power where as a GM (who are not SSG Employees but a subcontracted company) etc would have

[Tyrande]

[...]


Like an identical-named toon on HC overwriting their main toon? That's the first vaguely plausible suggestion I've seen, but I definitely wouldn't expect that to be something that wasn't considered in the transfer process.

Just thinking:

There is nothing stopping any VIP to create a character named "Firegoddess" on HC and then at the end of the season transfer the character back to Sarlona, thus overwriting the main toon?

I know of some hackers used to copy the name of a famous character and then hack into someone's account by pretending to be that person on other servers or other games.

[slarden]

Just thinking:

There is nothing stopping any VIP to create a character named "Firegoddess" on HC and then at the end of the season transfer the character back to Sarlona, thus overwriting the main toon?

I know of some hackers used to copy the name of a famous character and then hack into someone's account by pretending to be that person on other servers or other games.

One of the characters I created was transferred over with a ~3 at the end I didn't have any characters with that name - so the general condition was accounted for in their code. I made a character called on XP on hardcore to store my dice rolls since I had no need for those on HC. It transferred over as XP~3 on Sarlona so not only was their an XP their was an XP~1 and XP~2 presumably.

It's speculation on my part, but if the hardcore server transfer was the reason for the glitch there must have been something unusual involved like a name change on HC. Character limit could also be a factor - who knows.

Only SSG knows and they will likely not reveal because it would scare us all - but hopefully they get the original restored to the proper condition. Knowing roughly how much fire plays I am assuming 10 years x 52 weeks x 30 hours per week (at least) = 15,600 hours into this game and probably alot of cash. Someone at SSG can spend a few days fixing this for fire even if it involves manually adding the items fire mentions.

[Wylf]

Just thinking:

There is nothing stopping any VIP to create a character named "Firegoddess" on HC and then at the end of the season transfer the character back to Sarlona, thus overwriting the main toon?

I know of some hackers used to copy the name of a famous character and then hack into someone's account by pretending to be that person on other servers or other games.

The way it was worded in the other threads made it sound like "Firegoddess" was deleted and then recreated as a level 1 character, two hours later, but on the same account. This probably rules out the above-mentioned scenario, unless someone managed to gain access to the account in question to pull that particular stunt. *Maybe* there's a bug of some kind that got maliciously abused, but I feel it's much more likely that someone deleted the character, then created a new one. Either the player themselves for whatever reasons, or someone with malicious intent who managed to get a hold of the account information.

Either way, I imagine the old character being overwritten by a new one with the exact same name might make restoring the character somewhat more difficult, which might account for the time it took for that to happen.

[J1NG]

Just to throw a small wrench into this...

It IS actually possible to load into your account more than once, WITHOUT kicking the first/previous instance(s) off their clients (and thus alerting them that someone non-SSG sided was logging onto their account).

So there may be more to this story than even Firegoddess (maybe even SSG) realises, especially if the other person who logs on has a vendetta.

J1NG

:: edit ::

PS. This is why you should NEVER share your details out with others, and always work to make sure everything is safe and secure.

[Dragavon]

The way it was worded in the other threads made it sound like "Firegoddess" was deleted and then recreated as a level 1 character, two hours later, but on the same account. This probably rules out the above-mentioned scenario, unless someone managed to gain access to the account in question to pull that particular stunt. *Maybe* there's a bug of some kind that got maliciously abused, but I feel it's much more likely that someone deleted the character, then created a new one. Either the player themselves for whatever reasons, or someone with malicious intent who managed to get a hold of the account information.

Either way, I imagine the old character being overwritten by a new one with the exact same name might make restoring the character somewhat more difficult, which might account for the time it took for that to happen.

Character are not identified by the game by their name, but by a unique numerical code. You see that code when you change the name of a character in your standard log in game.

Even if a character is deleted and a new character created with the same name the characters still have the unique numerical code to identify them as two different characters.

And transferring a character to a server where there already is a character with the same name the character tranfered to the server will get -1 appended to the name (charname-1). It will not in any way do anything with the character that had the name on the server.

[Arkat]

PS. This is why you should NEVER share your details out with others, and always work to make sure everything is safe and secure.

This

[mikarddo]

Just to throw a small wrench into this...

It IS actually possible to load into your account more than once, WITHOUT kicking the first/previous instance(s) off their clients (and thus alerting them that someone non-SSG sided was logging onto their account).

So there may be more to this story than even Firegoddess (maybe even SSG) realises, especially if the other person who logs on has a vendetta.

J1NG

:: edit ::

PS. This is why you should NEVER share your details out with others, and always work to make sure everything is safe and secure.

That is interesting assuming it is correct. For obvious reasons - dont post here how that is possible but please do PM Cordovan or Lynnabel the details so it can be fixed.

[Turtlsdown]

I'm not going to pull my punches.

The support in this game is a disgrace even when considering the current issue with COVID-19.
Taking so long to sort out Firegoddess issue and even then only partially fixing is a disgrace.
What would anybody currently playing the game do if their main toon was deleted, replaced by a lvl 1 nothing?
I would be devastated.
What would any you do if you got back your toon but all your TR cache gear was GONE and not replaced?
I would be as angry as Firegoddess.

It should have been a PRIORITY to fix it and not have it drag out for more than a week.
What is the point of VIP if you can't even get VIP service?

He was a good friend and good for this game as a community and will be sorely missed.
This is a dark day.

SSG. You done goofed and I am extremely disappointed.
As a player of at least 9 years, I say this in full knowledge you may banhammer me. So be it.

Tarrith.

You need to step back, take it down a notch, chill out a bit. In the overall scheme of things this issue, while it sucks, is not as earth-shattering as you are perceiving it to be.

[HungarianRhapsody]

You need to step back, take it down a notch, chill out a bit. In the overall scheme of things this issue, while it sucks, is not as earth-shattering as you are perceiving it to be.

For that player, it certainly is.

*Idle speculation time*: So, if I were SSG and I thought someone were abusing a bug for naughty, exploit-related purposes, I might consider deleting someone's main so they lose all the exploit-related gains instead of banning them for 2 weeks. And if I were SSG, this is pretty much exactly how I'd do it. Delete the character and create a replacement character that's a first life level 1.

NOTE: I AM NOT SAYING THAT HE WAS BEING NAUGHTY. However, if SSG *THOUGHT* he was being naughty (and they've gotten this kind of thing wrong before - remember Mayban?), that's certainly a possibility.

[Turtlsdown]

For that player, it certainly is.

*Idle speculation time*: So, if I were SSG and I thought someone were abusing a bug for naughty, exploit-related purposes, I might consider deleting someone's main so they lose all the exploit-related gains instead of banning them for 2 weeks. And if I were SSG, this is pretty much exactly how I'd do it. Delete the character and create a replacement character that's a first life level 1.

NOTE: I AM NOT SAYING THAT HE WAS BEING NAUGHTY. However, if SSG *THOUGHT* he was being naughty (and they've gotten this kind of thing wrong before - remember Mayban?), that's certainly a possibility.

I suppose it's all in the eye of the beholder. But what is the point of creating multiple threads of outrage about it though? I don't think this will motivate SSG to handle this one way over another. They have responded in some of the threads and are either doing what they can do, or have already done what they can do about it, and most likely communicated this to the player. If it was a glitch, it may be that the character is not fully re-creatable and they have recreated it as much as they are willing to do. If it was shenanigans, then it's most likely they cannot or will not comment further on their actions, which has always been the norm. Either way this could all be in a single thread.

[redoubt]

Seems to me like noone cared for his 200 rap post that much, and he had to take meassures to get more attention xD

But he will be back, if he legit got all those rap and put so much effort legit without use of any cheats, he will be back, its to much of a time sink investment for something that can be fixed by being patient for a couple months.

But seems like a ego driven attention seeker (and from talk with others this has been verified to be the case).

I do not really care for this person, but i find it funny that we need to have 3 or 4 threads about someone who says he has a bug, does not have patience to escalate it, does not provide proper feedback to help this being prevented for future players and then threatens he will quit.

Why are you here and why are you being a jerk?

Firegoddess was a very good and very nice player. He helped everybody. Even though he could play circles around people, he never flaunted it nor did he make people feel bad about the disparity. He would help anyone wise enough to listen. Truly a nice guy.

You should take your cynicism and snark to a different thread.

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

Modern Times. Goddesses can actually be male.

[TedSandyman]

I used to be a sysadmin of over 20 years. If it took me that long to recover data I'd have been fired.
How long do you suggest a person wait for a full restore? A month? Two? Six?
Got a time frame?

Usually backups are for system wide failures. If a hard drive crashes and all data is lost, then yeah a full restore is necessary quickly. It is usually trickier to restore just one persons files.

I can well imagine that if a high level manager lost something, you would be called and your job would be on the line.

But I have trouble thinking that if a customer of your company called the help desk and complained about some data being wrong, the first step would be to call a sys admin and do a restore.

The complaint would rise up through the escalation process and, more than likely in my experience, eventually result in a message of "there is nothing we can do" with the system admins never even being aware that a problem existed.

[nokowi]

Can't say much other than OP has a lack of knowledge of how long it can take to recover lost information. SSG is a small outfit and the task would involve restoring a backup and then doing a comparison between now and the backup. Such a task can easily take 5-10 hours. Now when you combine this with a small company with a large number of customers and their existing workload (working on expansion and new content) it is not unreasonable to expect such a process to take 2-4 weeks or even longer.

It is literally the first time since launch I have ever heard of this error (character TR'ing back to 1 while playing another character) so when you combine this with what I said previously it isn't really a surprise. Be patient.

Oh, and maybe post the farewell bit in the server specific forum? None else probably even knows who this person is apart from the most hardened forum posters.

I had someone ask me why we are all playing this game if they can delete the best player in the games account. It should matter to those here, because of how the character was deleted. Cordovan has been quick to close every thread, so not everyone may be aware your character can be deleted while you are playing on another character.

I've been waiting over 3 years to get my character back (build not supported, character still exists), so I understand the feeling when SSG loses your trust. Those unaffected likely won't get it, but that is because many of us seem to be lacking in the empathy department. I've seen people on the forums that have waited years with character deletion resolution, so your suggestion that it will happen is a possibility but not a fact.

You can't spend $100's or $1000+ a year on a game that loses your trust - it's really that simple.

I hope SSG does better in the future.

[Turtlsdown]

I had someone ask me why we are all playing this game if they can delete the best player in the games account. It should matter to those here, because of how the character was deleted. Cordovan has been quick to close every thread, so not everyone may be aware your character can be deleted while you are playing on another character.

I've been waiting over 3 years to get my character back (build not supported, character still exists), so I understand the feeling when SSG loses your trust. Those unaffected likely won't get it, but that is because many of us seem to be lacking in the empathy department. I've seen people on the forums that have waited years with character deletion resolution, so your suggestion that it will happen is a possibility but not a fact.

You can't spend $100's or $1000+ a year on a game that loses your trust - it's really that simple.

I hope SSG does better in the future.

Ok, but none of us know what really happened. People are just speculating all over the place.

[SerPounce]

PS. This is why you should NEVER share your details out with others, and always work to make sure everything is safe and secure.

Who knows what happened it this case, but back in the day when I played on Cannith there were whole groups that would do this all the time and it always seemed like a drama storm waiting to happen.

Why are you here and why are you being a jerk?

Firegoddess was a very good and very nice player. He helped everybody. Even though he could play circles around people, he never flaunted it nor did he make people feel bad about the disparity. He would help anyone wise enough to listen. Truly a nice guy.

You should take your cynicism and snark to a different thread.

+1

Regardless of what happened here or whether he comes back Firegoddesss was a class act. Never felt inadequate playing with him despite being so far bellow his power level.

[nokowi]

Seems to me like noone cared for his 200 rap post that much, and he had to take meassures to get more attention xD

But he will be back, if he legit got all those rap and put so much effort legit without use of any cheats, he will be back, its to much of a time sink investment for something that can be fixed by being patient for a couple months.

But seems like a ego driven attention seeker (and from talk with others this has been verified to be the case).

I do not really care for this person, but i find it funny that we need to have 3 or 4 threads about someone who says he has a bug, does not have patience to escalate it, does not provide proper feedback to help this being prevented for future players and then threatens he will quit.

Making villains out of victims, as usual.

Fire had almost no ego for someone as good as he was. I doubt you could find a player of this caliber with less of an ego.

Your comments seems to be self-projection onto other people, and are in no way accurate.

It may rub some wrong that he is called the best player in the game, and they may have to assume the worst, because the reality that he was a solid dude, and the best player in the game is tough for some to swallow. Being a nice person and great at the game is incomprehensible to some.

I can only imagine the tantrum that would be thrown if the situation were reversed by those throwing shade. You assume the worst of other players, and you expect us to believe you are going to assume the best out of SSG when your character is deleted?

Doesn't pass the smell test, and your posts are painfully weak.