Firegoddess says he won't be back.

[Arkat]

They should lock deletion behind password
instead of typing toon's first name

That's a good idea!

[Mindos]

Why doesn't anyone ask the important questions?

So what was the class, race, stats of the new level one that replaced the older one?
And did this new toon happen to have anything in its inventory?
Where was this new toon in the world? Khorthos?

Wouldn't it be funny if the Hardcore Server transfers got fixed incorrectly? And instead of appending a -1 on a toons name if it was already taken, that instead it just overwrote it?

Just speculating! But there was a few reports of people stating that the transfer said it went through, but they didn't see their toon. Maybe because it didn't transfer to your account, but found the same name and overwrote it on another persons.

I don't know what happened in this case. No one in this thread seems to know either. So I thought I'd throw out my own wild conspiracy theory.

[myliftkk_v2]

#4 is just a variant of #2 - because of the state it left the character in. Its not like he took a wrong feat or something.

We can refute #3 as it happened when he was on an alt and if a player logs into the same account from two different PCs the first is booted.

The login/kick mechanic would suggest that would need to be bypassable, and so perhaps might be if an SSG employee were to examine a character.

Occam's Razor says bad actor on the SSG side whacked the toon, anything else requires more astronomical odds.

Not that SSG would admit that, since doing anything other than say firing someone would leave everyone remaining, how do we say, concerned about the security of their characters at SSG? That FG had recently posted about their achievements, aka sticking their head up, there might have been a double incentive to whack that particular toon.

Now, most companies who actually care about their customer relationships would have to assure their base of customers that the root cause of the issue has been corrected and this could never happen to their toons, but SSG isn't most companies. Until then, post your accomplishments at your own risk.

It does fit with SSG's unofficial motto, Caveat Emptor.

[Wylf]

Occam's Razor says bad actor on the SSG side whacked the toon, anything else requires more astronomical odds.

If you're going for Occam's Razor I'd postulate that user error is the more likely cause. It's a pretty hefty assumption that someone on SSGs end would just go and delete characters.

[myliftkk_v2]

If you're going for Occam's Razor I'd postulate that user error is the more likely cause. It's a pretty hefty assumption that someone on SSGs end would just go and delete characters.

I've worked behind the scenes in the digital world long enough to tell you that's not remotely the case. This is why modern companies lockout employees before they fire them.

If user says they were logged in, I believe them.

[Airmaiden]

I am Firegoddess.

A few weeks ago, while I was playing an alt (on the same account as Firegoddess), my main Toon (Firegoddess) was deleted and then 2 hours later, recreated (in name only) as a 1st lifer.

I was playing my alt all day (approx. 7 hours straight).

I have sent in 17 tickets within the 1st few days with NO response from SSG's CS. I then contacted a law firm in LA county USA to send in a "Letter of Intent" to start Arbitration with SSG. Hours after this, my character was returned to me (complete), except for my TR cashe. After a couple more e-mails, my TR cashe was "in-game "mailed to me. This was great except for now I do not have any room on this character to pick up anything in quests (something I can live with if they can not help me with this issue). I will need to TR Firegoddess again (TR number 408 on her!)


So, after all this, I would like to let everyone know, that if you can be patient (which I am not, unfortunately), all issues can be resolved.



As for what happened or why it happened, no one knows. ( I will state that I do not dupe or Cheat and would never do anything that might get my account banned as I have spent far too long playing and investing time and money into this game to risk this). I also did not delete my main toon by accident as some have asked in this thread ( I have TR'd Fire over 400 times and I have 2 other completionists, so not an error I would make).



I do miss my online friends and hope to have this solved in the next couple weeks. Looking forward to getting back into the game.

[AstorPotamus]

So, what I'm getting out of all that is that it took hiring a lawyer to get the ball rolling. Not a good look for SSG's "CS."

[myliftkk_v2]

As for what happened or why it happened, no one knows.

I'd be very cautious about claiming "no one" here. It's extremely difficult for someone not to leave digital fingerprints. You may not know, but I'd bet a benjamin SSG does know.

Glad you were able to resolve this. Sad it took a LoI to do that, although I would have been very interested in the "discovery".

At least know we now what works (and the approximate costs of doing so).

[palladin9479]

Yep, to all the guys stuck in the Customer Support nightmare, with then closing tickets without resolving the issue or just flat ignoring the player entirely, gotta get a lawyer involved to get problems solved.

[Inanout]

Class action.

[tarrith_dourden]

I am Firegoddess.

As for what happened or why it happened, no one knows. ( I will state that I do not dupe or Cheat and would never do anything that might get my account banned as I have spent far too long playing and investing time and money into this game to risk this). I also did not delete my main toon by accident as some have asked in this thread ( I have TR'd Fire over 400 times and I have 2 other completionists, so not an error I would make).

I do miss my online friends and hope to have this solved in the next couple weeks. Looking forward to getting back into the game.

That's great to hear Fire
I left a previous game permanently because of a similar issue that happened to a player I knew. Unfortunately, the issue was never resolved for him, glad it was resolved for you.

I hope SSG does find out what happened because if it doesn't it may happen again.

Tarrith

[tarrith_dourden]

In hindsight, I think SSG needs to look into saving a person's TR cache when a toon gets deleted and not just what is in inventory and the bank.
I know the old, "The TR cache is not meant to be used for storage" excuse, which is frankly bollocks, it's how it DOES get used so get over it. At LEAST let it get sorted by LVL.

[Graskitch]

I am Firegoddess.
...

I have sent in 17 tickets within the 1st few days with NO response from SSG's CS. I then contacted a law firm in LA county USA to send in a "Letter of Intent" to start Arbitration with SSG. Hours after this, my character was returned to me (complete), except for my TR cashe. After a couple more e-mails, my TR cashe was "in-game "mailed to me. This was great except for now I do not have any room on this character to pick up anything in quests (something I can live with if they can not help me with this issue). I will need to TR Firegoddess again (TR number 408 on her!)

wow firegoddess, that is remarkable, and I am really glad to hear that you were able to retrieve your character and your TR cache.

I am surprised that a law firm even agreed to handling a case like this even just to send a 'letter of intent' - according to SSG's terms and the contract that we sign when playing DDO, are not all digital goods within the game the 'property' of SSG/DDO and subject to final arbitration by SSG alone? Would there be any case/standing if a lawsuit followed?

I would appreciate it if you could explain how your TR cache was mailed back to you - a few updates ago, SSG implemented a backup system that would auto-recover lost items from reincarnation so that they would be mailed back to you. Is that how it worked out? Was everything exactly mailed back to you, each line of the TR cache as a separate mail attachment? or was it mailed as some kind of container which when you detached it, spilled everything out into your backpack?

.. or did a customer support agent have to manually mail everything back to you?

well, I am glad your persistence paid off - to be honest, in all the stories I have heard about a TR cache being wiped completely from a reincarnation fail, I have never actually heard of a complete recovery. So that is somewhat of a relief to hear. and I am glad that you will continue to play DDO despite what the OP said.

I am also glad you took the time to clear the air to shoot down some theories that were circulating in the community about what happened. I wish we could find out more about how this happened.

[Paladin_of_Power]

I am Firegoddess.

I then contacted a law firm in LA county USA to send in a "Letter of Intent" to start Arbitration with SSG. Hours after this, my character was returned to me (complete)....

Good Lord, that has to be some of the worst customer service I have ever heard of. Ignoring 17 Customer Service tickets then finally getting action after a Lawyer sent a letter.

Ridiculous.

Come on SSG, you can do better than that. Try harder. Get your act together already.

[Graskitch]

..in all the stories I have heard about a TR cache being wiped completely from a reincarnation fail, I have never actually heard of a complete recovery. So that is somewhat of a relief to hear. and I am glad that you will continue to play DDO despite what the OP said.

sorry, I just realized I should not be confusing a TR cache wipe from a reincarnation fail with firegoddess' situation which was due to a character deletion.

but I am curious to find out more about how the TR cache was returned, if it was auto-recovered from a 'backup' of the TR cache? or if it was somehow orchestrated manually by a customer support agent having to look up a backup to manually mail them back to firegoddess.

[myliftkk_v2]

I am surprised that a law firm even agreed to handling a case like this even just to send a 'letter of intent' - according to SSG's terms and the contract that we sign when playing DDO, are not all digital goods within the game the 'property' of SSG/DDO and subject to final arbitration by SSG alone? Would there be any case/standing if a lawsuit followed?

A good lawyer can rip most company T&C to shreds since they're typically boilerplate prevention strategies based off deflecting most consumers from ever getting legal help.

Finding a good lawyer in L.A. isn't really that hard and once you've proved you're willing drop $$$ on an LoI (assuming the lawyer isn't a friend), SSG has to decide how expensive they are willing to go to fight.

ETA: Plus, if the company loses then there is further fallout. I've got a friend in quiet litigation with a global corp right now and if the company doesn't back down the plan is to go public all the way to trial to break overly egregious IP claims. The outcome if he wins, and short of drawing a judge in the corp's pocket he's got a good case, is going to have a lot of impact for how IP claims are made and sustained (a personal pet peeve of mine).

[Airmaiden]

sorry, I just realized I should not be confusing a TR cache wipe from a reincarnation fail with firegoddess' situation which was due to a character deletion.

but I am curious to find out more about how the TR cache was returned, if it was auto-recovered from a 'backup' of the TR cache? or if it was somehow orchestrated manually by a customer support agent having to look up a backup to manually mail them back to firegoddess.

Someone at SSG's CS must have looked into this case and recovered all my items and then in-game mailed them back to me 1 items per e-mail.

Not sure how this works, but just to send an e-mail and attached an item takes me 10 seconds ish…..so, I looked to verify just now.....They sent me 208 items!. So, someone at SSG's CS spent a lot of time (as far as I can see) to correct this issue.

As I was saying in my last post, "If I was more patient", maybe it would have been done without me going to an LLP. But, having said that, this would have been a LOT less stressful if CS would have replied to any of my tickets and let me know that someone was actually working on it. Communication goes a long way when it comes to CS.

[Bjond]

are not all digital goods within the game the 'property' of SSG/DDO and subject to final arbitration by SSG alone? Would there be any case/standing if a lawsuit followed?

It's pretty common for a company to claim all manner of things that run contrary to law and then append a disclaimer along the lines of "not applicable when contrary to law"; eg. the sign on parking garages that states they're not responsible for fire/theft/etc is (at least in my area) completely untrue -- they are responsible. Same thing goes for many common "TOS" terms and it doesn't apply at all to criminal acts.

An MMO is actively committing wire fraud every time someone buys something on their store that doesn't work EXACTLY as promised or is substantially altered or reduced in value shortly after the buy. It's one thing to cry "bug" when you're only charging a subscription fee -- it's something else entirely when you make a specific claim to entice a microtransaction and then neither deliver nor refund nor try to fix the issue.

The above is one reason why if I was running an MMO, I'd never ever do ANY microtransactions other than pure cosmetic fluff.

---

BTW, I don't know Firegoddess, but I'm very glad he got his character restored. I'm not surprised it took the effort it did, though. The CS side of SSG is revoltingly inept to the point of being deliberate malingerers that are outright stealing their pay from SSG. Don't knuckle under to their efforts to destroy the game.

[math92]

I feel like back in pre-school while reading this thread. Devs deleting his character? Serious? Imagine that lol. Jerry: Oh I'm gonna log in today and delete firegoddess cause he so pro and such a figure. Can't really share space with someone so alfa...

Despite, I do feel for the guy. I have no idea what happend, maybe a very rare bug of some kind?? I don't know... My guess would be weak password/ sharing pc/ loging in outside home etc...

[AstorPotamus]

I feel like back in pre-school while reading this thread. Devs deleting his character? Serious? Imagine that lol. Jerry: Oh I'm gonna log in today and delete firegoddess cause he so pro and such a figure. Can't really share space with someone so alfa...

Despite, I do feel for the guy. I have no idea what happend, maybe a very rare bug of some kind?? I don't know... My guess would be weak password/ sharing pc/ loging in outside home etc...

While the issue of what happened in the first place is of great concern, the real issue here is how SSG’s farmed out customer service consistently and completely failed to solve this issue to the point a lawyer was needed. If SSG does nothing to fix their abysmal customer support, then they truly deserve that F rating they have with the Better Business Bureau.