HACKED!!

were you the original account owner or did you give your account info to anybody or was your computer comprised?

Yes I am the original account owner and not a soul had access to my account info, that I know of.. I did have to go through the whole getting my login info changed due to the original e-mail addy had been shut-down.. I can't even begin to think how or why it happened.. I thought hackers loved WOW accounts not UO accounts..

Getting hacked sucks and I'm sorry for that.  To be honest, most of your old adventuring gear would be outdated now and you'd probably wind up changing it if you did.  You would miss out on a ton of points for clean up and gold for rares you might have.  Then there are the veteran rewards, if those got stolen as well.  Nevertheless, for actually hunting, there are usually those who can help get you set up with new suits.  What shard do you play?  If it is Pacific, I'll see what I can do to help.  Finally, your accounts will be upgraded to Stygian Abyss for free when the next publish goes live.

Lake Superior and a very tiny bit on Great Lakes, I had two runes in one of my books, the first one said "Hacker R Every Holy F*ck!" and one too a house that one of my characters apparently co-owns now and guess which character was on the friends list.. lol  the one who was stripped of everything lol

Not sure about gear, but did you check to make sure your gold wasn't just in your new gold balance? Gold is now just a number and not really a physical thing in your bank.  

Yea i checked the bank with the bank actions only shows I have now a total of 752,233

IllustriousDarkLords said:

Yea i checked the bank with the bank actions only shows I have now a total of 752,233

You still have your skills. Make a tamer and come to the Luna stables.  Introduce yourself in chat.

I'm on Pacific myself.  if you ever decide to visit Pac, let me know and I'll do what I can to help.  Hopefully the Lake Superior folks will see this and rally to help.

Pawain said:

IllustriousDarkLords said:

Yea i checked the bank with the bank actions only shows I have now a total of 752,233

You still have your skills. Make a tamer and come to the Luna stables.  Introduce yourself in chat.

Stop pushing your taming addiction on others!!  🙂  LOL

If he don't want to make a tamer and have fun, then you can have him for the evil things you do in Fel.

First off my condolence on the loss of your things...

A few years back there was a flurry of "Fishing" for information  done to get into accounts.. they used bits and pieces to drag more from the CS people.  They had no idea that it was being done. Each phone call got them more bits, as they played the poor lost customer who cant remember their password.. The CS gave them hints..  This was found out and reported to the Dev who had a cow with CS to the point that the CS no longer handles account issues. 

You my friend must have been one of those poor devils that got hit.

All they needed was a idea of an account name.. the password fishing did the rest..

You can rebuild..

I can hook you up with some basic stuff if you need it on LS.  Just ask for the Higgs in gen chat.  I have loads of stuff in boxes I don't use as far as suits and weps and books.

I firmly believe I remember EA wiping characters on inactive accounts. It was a long time ago and I also came back to having everything in my bank wiped. I doubt you were hacked and this was done years ago intentionally I assume to save some server space.

How long was your break?  I have accounts that have not been active since 2003 which I have reactivated and found all items still in the bank and on the characters.

I had chars full of stuff on a shard. then I would find out everything gone except gifts. many seem no to believe a person when this is talked about. devs say they don't deleted anything. *coughs*

someone got into your account or stuff got wiped

No Accounts were ever wiped.. by being inactive.  The only wipes I have ever herd of was to major perma banned holders for extreme infractions. 

I should have clarified in my post that I had heard of returning players with characters wiped of items.  It just never happened to my inactive accounts and we were never sure why it happened to others.  Every Return to Britannia, I made sure to hop on all my old accounts and characters to check their status.

When I reactivated my account I guess everything I bothered to save was still on it, I know I had tons of stuff in my house and pretty sure some things like house deeds and mini models were saved in my bank and now I only have like 2 models out of a full set.

I did find a bag full of ophidian stuff in one chars bank...lol

Captain_Lucky said:

I firmly believe I remember EA wiping characters on inactive accounts. It was a long time ago and I also came back to having everything in my bank wiped. I doubt you were hacked and this was done years ago intentionally I assume to save some server space.

   A couple of years back I activated 2 old accounts that had not a a lot on them basic armor, a few K gold and stuff from the Haven paladin quest when I let them go dormant.   Upon reactivating the accounts the characters had NOTHING on them or in their banks and were standing naked where I logged them out.   So yeah I am with you in the belief that some accounts were wiped, while others were not.

Lady_Storm said:

No Accounts were ever wiped.. by being inactive.  The only wipes I have ever herd of was to major perma banned holders for extreme infractions. 

I know it happened. I just can't prove it. It was around or before the very first clean up campaign ever. I've been digging around the web on some really old sites (broken toys/Lum the Mad) and nothing yet, but if I can prove it I will 🙂 We usually get the things we need and I need this lol. The characters remained but the stuff was wiped. I was thinking it was just bank boxes but it could have been wearables also.

Ok from October 31, 2001 "In Testing" (I'm getting closer)....

Now in testing for next update:

Character data takes up a great deal of space on the servers. Many players have multiple characters that they do not play (characters made for one-time events, made during their regular shard downtime, etc.). Purging characters that are not being used will result in shorter backups, decreasing shard down time and increasing overall performance.

Design
Characters are deleted after not having been used for 6 months unless:

� The character has over 750 total skill points.
� Characters at or below 750 total skill points will need to be "refreshed".
� Refreshing is defined as logging a character in and then logging out. Logging in a character will reset the six month timer. Characters will be deleted after not having been refreshed (logged in) for a year, regardless of skill points.

Maybe it depends by the Shards on which the Chars were/are? I just reopened 2 accounts, with Chars mainly on Europa, that were closed from around 2007/2008, and all the stuff I remember having, both in BB and on the Chars, was still there.
Before that, I suspended playing from around 2000 to 2006, and the one account that I already had in 2000 was untouched when I came back in 2006.
The only things that got lost in both cases have been, obviously, the houses... 🙂
I.

Captain_Lucky said:

Ok from October 31, 2001 "In Testing" (I'm getting closer)....

Now in testing for next update:

Character data takes up a great deal of space on the servers. Many players have multiple characters that they do not play (characters made for one-time events, made during their regular shard downtime, etc.). Purging characters that are not being used will result in shorter backups, decreasing shard down time and increasing overall performance.

Design
Characters are deleted after not having been used for 6 months unless:

� The character has over 750 total skill points.
� Characters at or below 750 total skill points will need to be "refreshed".
� Refreshing is defined as logging a character in and then logging out. Logging in a character will reset the six month timer. Characters will be deleted after not having been refreshed (logged in) for a year, regardless of skill points.

That didnt make it into the game.  I was gone longer than that amount of time during that time and all my toons are still there and the junk they had in the bank.  I have old ones that have 25 str that were made when the stats started really low.

People are returning often on LS and their stuff is intact.

Captain_Lucky said:

Ok from October 31, 2001 "In Testing" (I'm getting closer)....

Now in testing for next update:

Character data takes up a great deal of space on the servers. Many players have multiple characters that they do not play (characters made for one-time events, made during their regular shard downtime, etc.). Purging characters that are not being used will result in shorter backups, decreasing shard down time and increasing overall performance.

Design
Characters are deleted after not having been used for 6 months unless:

� The character has over 750 total skill points.
� Characters at or below 750 total skill points will need to be "refreshed".
� Refreshing is defined as logging a character in and then logging out. Logging in a character will reset the six month timer. Characters will be deleted after not having been refreshed (logged in) for a year, regardless of skill points.

How could a char have 750 skill when max is 720

I also remember I think it was Wilki that said no chars were intentionally wiped. OOPS I do remember them saying something about chars with like 240 skill that wasn't used could be wiped to save space.

I typed out a few messages before responding here... At first I was going to claim victim to a wipe too, but then I remembered that I'm prone to deleting characters and trying to quit UO, so... That's more likely.

I never asserted that characters were wiped. This post was from a site I'm not allowed to link to, lol. But I imagine one could use the information as a search. I know my very old accounts came back empty also and weren't hacked. I do think some weirdness happened around 2001ish. The 750 thing had me confused also. I'm just quoting and I' not interested in chasing that rabbit right now. Perhaps the idea was pulled at the last second but I do remember an email warning people it would happen if we didn't resubscribe or whatever. Still searching in my spare time .

TY @Captain_Lucky

March 2000 UOR
March 2001 UO 3rd Dawn with new client and Ilshenar land mass
Bad LAGGGGGGGG Still running on old UO Servers 
They could have wiped data and some chars got caught up in it.

I left after T2A and returned when SE came out.  All my toons were in Fel all my runes were fel and all my equipment had stats instead of names and AR2.  Still had all toons and junk in bank.  I doubt my main toon had 700 skill points.  I hated skilling then also.

As I said before and you can ask Mesanna too if you don't take my word for it.  UO never came to the point that they wiped any in good standing accounts out even for inactivity,  I do know of a handful of accounts that belonged to players over the years including just recently, players who did multi digressions against UO and the rules.

What id ask first is:

 Does/did any other know or play on your account?  Is it possible a friend or guild mate might have known your account name, it only took a small bit of real info back in the day to fish out the rest of an account.

Is it possible that you have forgotten an action the last time you logged in that might be the reason for the loss... many back in my Counselor days we traced to short returns that player got mad and gave away all they had or threw it away striped chars and logged thinking never to return.

If you were not the original account holder/creator  is it possible the original reclaimed the account and after a while did as above and then quit .

See there are a lot of reasons things can go missing... now if it was on a bug id say a revert might have happened and you were off the bug..   or if the account was not opened for a Long time could it be you died and didn't get your body and no item insurance?

Lady_Storm said:

As I said before and you can ask Mesanna too if you don't take my word for it.  UO never came to the point that they wiped any in good standing accounts out even for inactivity,  I do know of a handful of accounts that belonged to players over the years including just recently, players who did multi digressions against UO and the rules.

What id ask first is:

 Does/did any other know or play on your account?  Is it possible a friend or guild mate might have known your account name, it only took a small bit of real info back in the day to fish out the rest of an account.

Is it possible that you have forgotten an action the last time you logged in that might be the reason for the loss... many back in my Counselor days we traced to short returns that player got mad and gave away all they had or threw it away striped chars and logged thinking never to return.

If you were not the original account holder/creator  is it possible the original reclaimed the account and after a while did as above and then quit .

See there are a lot of reasons things can go missing... now if it was on a bug id say a revert might have happened and you were off the bug..   or if the account was not opened for a Long time could it be you died and didn't get your body and no item insurance?

Mesanna wasn't exactly high up on the list way back in the day. We hear what your saying, we heard it the other times you said it, but it doesn't make it true. Say it 5 more times if it makes you feel better or scream it louder if you wish. *smile* I'm sure your mistaken on some level. I suppose it's possible some information may have gotten corrupted or something in the past. I've known many accounts that were came back to that were empty. They weren't hacked. They weren't banned. They weren't accounts purchased from others. Nothing other than the account was closed in good standing. Your conspiracy theories aren't helping. At any rate my point was I highly doubt the OP's account was hacked and this is pretty common occurrence with items being long gone especially on the very old accounts from the early days. Maybe it happened by accident, maybe it was an intentional *wink wink* thing, who knows. But it happened. There's a simple explanation that a lot of old information got discarded in some way and it's not any more complicated than that. If anything got hacked it was probably GMs digging through closed accounts back in the wild wild west days.

Was Mesanna here during 3rd Dawn?  She started in QA and if it happened then i don't think she would have been privy to that info.

I may be wrong, but logic tells me that if accounts had been wiped by EA/Broadsword/OSI etc then it wouldn't just be items that were missing, they'd have deleted the entire account, characters, user name and all. Missing items my best guess is either:

1. you asked someone to clear it and gave them access and then forgot (I've been asked to do that a few times, I know some others have too)
2. You cleared off everything useable to an account you planned to keep playing, and then forgot you'd done that. 
3. Someone who had access to the account and knew you'd quit helped themselves to your items on the assumption you no longer needed them or cared. I know of several foolish people who have shared their log in details, sometimes with entire guilds.

Either your account name or your password or both were known to someone. If I find a piece of paper on the ground, with your name/pword, and I log in and burn your house to the ground and empty all of your soulstones, write nasty letters about your mom, etc...you still weren't "Hacked", you were careless.

Garth_Grey said:

Either your account name or your password or both were known to someone. If I find a piece of paper on the ground, with your name/pword, and I log in and burn your house to the ground and empty all of your soulstones, write nasty letters about your mom, etc...you still weren't "Hacked", you were careless.

Strangely, for once I agree with you! 😂

Moreover, IMO all this thread, from its ALL CAPITAL "scandal-monger" title to the section in which it was posted (even IF true, it should have been, in case, posted in Customer Support) to the general GM slandering, smells of gratuitous provocation, click bait and borderline trolling.

@Mariah , what do you think?

Petra is quite right as is Garth grey. 

My son did that to over 15 of the accounts I was planning to shut off perma.  He had them all up and a collector character on a shipping account with packies at one inn and stripped al characters down to nothing in bank, stable, and on them.  They stayed that way for years till 201, where he started to collect gifts again.  We tend to forget the small stuff we do or had done.   

oops 2016. was the year .

Okay I am going to inject my 2 cents.  I remember back after I started (2001-2002) there was a HUGE scandal about rogue GMs.  These GMs were dropping houses and stripping accounts.  The story I heard was that a certain well known RMTer/ pain-in-the-Ascii-Code  to EA was paying them. His initials COUGH <M.D.> COUGH.   That was the story I heard I was barely outta noobiehood. I also heard these rogue GMs were fired for -ahem- fencing their stolen loot on Ebay.  UO Urban Legend or truth I don't know.

BTW, you are wrong about accounts never being deleted. I know of one that was Rainz.  From Lord British's own lips " I banned him and deleted his account personally."  For those that don't know Rainz is the genius that PKed Lord British.  Cracked.com named it #1 Biggest D**k Move In the history of gaming. http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-7-biggest-dick-moves-in-history-online-gaming/
 Apparently Eve Online has more A-hats than any MMO so it now dropped to #3.

When it concerns the very old accounts that *something* happened to... it always seems to be the bank is empty. The character, his skills, the things he's wearing and even the pack are typically still there. So I find that a very odd hacking event. People just *love* blaming the victim when these events occur. Because EA was infallible? When we look at events with today's eyes we find many reports near impossible to believe. But those who were there back in the early days we all know what a bug filled wild wild west cluster scandal ridden mess UO was. The most insane things happened we wouldn't even think possible today. Even the computer equipment back then wasn't as reliable as that we have today. Now my computer tells me I have a failing hard drive I better get working on. Back then one day your hard drive was just trashed and it was a dice roll when it would happen. We'll probably never prove anything one way or the other. But I've followed patterns and the patterns tell me information was wiped or lost. But every time a very old account is opened and the items are gone I just think yup. heard it a 1000 times. I guess every single one of them were careless morons? I tend to not believe that.

I reopened my account after 6 years (approximately) of not playing.  I am 100% certain I have lost items in that time.  Before I let my account go inactive I piled all my valuables into banks and onto characters.  I reactivated last week and have empty packs and chests in my banks, no soulstones (I had 5 stones loaded with skills plus a bunch of empty frags), no weapons on my fighters...  I don't know what happened, but I DO know I wasn't hacked, and I do know I won't get any of it back. So, believe it or not, crap happens to your accounts when you are inactive for a long time. 

I can 100% guarantee inactive characters were purged at one time early on in the life cycle of the game. I bought the game when it came out in 1997 and created characters on a couple different shards, played off and on for a month or two, then dropped my sub due to a very crappy connection. I returned to the game around 2000-2001, and had no characters on any shard.

I didnt really care at the time, as i'd never made any real progress, but theres a good chance my banks were full of random trash noobs collect like piles of furs or legacy colored armor that dont spawn anymore. would have been interesting to see what was there.

Really just curious do other other online game really hold on to player info forever?
I've never quit an online game and then restarted so don't know. I just assumed after I stoped paying the only data they would store would be billing and contact info if that.

Honestly, I was a bit shocked that they held ANYTHING on my accounts for 6 years (hence my lack of complaints for losing some very valuable stuff!)

Tim said:

Really just curious do other other online game really hold on to player info forever?
I've never quit an online game and then restarted so don't know. I just assumed after I stoped paying the only data they would store would be billing and contact info if that.

Diablo 3 does.  Probably all the Blizzard games do.  That is the only other game I have on my PC so I only know about that one.

IllustriousDarkLords said:

I really don't care anymore, it's a game whatever happen is all good..would a admin or mod delete this junk please.. I've really heard enough..

I won't delete it, because there are people who will help you get back into the game, but I will lock it. 🙂