5punk

I tried to log onto GW2 tonight after reading a scare story about accounts being hacked by matching up email addresses and passwords hacked from elsewhere. Since every fucking place seems to have been hacked I thought that was worth modifying my password for. Except it didn't recognise my email address. Bad news, but it could be the logon servers. So I tried to log into the GW2 site, same problem. Less likely to be logon servers. I got into my main NCSoft account and found my Guild Wars account set to xptcpwap2253@hotmail.com. Well that's very bad news, because that's no email address I recognise. Fortunately my main NCSoft account was okay so I've changed it all back, and I've logged onto the game okay so I think I got away with it. Beware though, they're hitting this game hard. If you do get hacked and the game doesn't recognise your account name, and if you have your GW account linked, log into your main NCSoft account and change it all back there. And hope you haven't been banned for gold farming. If you don't have a linked account I think the support account should still be the same, so you should still be able to raise a support ticket and get your account back. It will probably take longer though.

I woke up to 32 attempted login authorisations, all from China today. This is rife, and I can't help but wonder why they don't see the pattern and just block any logins from a country other than the one it was created in - how many people actually move country regularly enough for it to be burdensome?

I'd finally got the email authorisation to work yesterday, and have of course changed my password. Foolishly I think it was the same I'd used for some free Korean MMOs, and IIRC only there - so I wouldn't be surprised if they have compromised one of those to obtain a list of credentials.

I can understand why gold farmers operate, but the scale and coordination of it has surprised me - there were login attempts from over 15 provinces all over China. I was kind of ambivalent before, given I'd assumed they were using their own accounts and real money-trading does exist in the game a bit like Eve - you can buy gems used for buying premium items for real money, but which can also be traded with gold - gems cost around 1p each and can be traded for around 20-50 copper, depending if you are selling or buying.

Far from discouraging gold farming, this system seems to have had the opposite effect - the gold farmers must believe they can undercut that rate, even without the auction house running yet. The fact that they are routinely using stolen accounts to do this suggests to me the focus needs to shift quickly to eradicating the practise, rather than banning people with rude names.

The authorities in China must either have enough problems, or don't care about this identity theft, because it's so widespread it's difficult to believe it is unnoticed.

I've just had two attempts from California. They're really going for it on this one.

The Chinese authorities really don't care about this sort of thing, so I've heard. It's a different ethos over there, exploiting the west is seen as a way of life rather than a problem.

A couple of times now I've been asked to authenticate my login, saying that it's a new IP address. However, when I got to the authorisation page the IP address is always the same, but the location is always different e.g. Stafford first time and Blaenavon just now. Now I know that the login attempt is me, but any idea why it keeps saying the IP address has changed or why it's showing random locations?

Maybe you do have a new IP address, presumably depends on the lease they give you at your ISP. Most are pretty much as long as you regularly use your connection, as I understand it, but maybe not all do. The location changing slightly is maybe a product of that, different IP ranges for different areas. That's a guess, but I wouldn't be hugely concerned if it were happening to me.

Pants - IP rage is something firewalls get from time to time and block all tawtting connections! Often seen on D-Link kit

I really don't see the point in gold farming in a game that makes it easy to buy legitimate gold - granted the exchange rate isn't brilliant at this time but...

I suppose that's the point. Legalise it and you can control it. Heres hoping those fucking gold spammers in Divinity's Reach work that out and give up soon.