7 years gone in a moment

starkerealm

xeNNNNN wrote: »

Yes user side backup would be amazing. The company should create their own back up as well, but at least there are multiple redundancy protections at that point.

It would also be a catastrophic security vulnerability. Because now you have a direct path to the User Database, and the assurance that ZOS absolutely will execute any code you bury in your "save game data." You'd probably be limited to coding in SQL, but a malicious actor could royally wreck all of our save data with enough time to analyze how the data is stored.

xeNNNNN

starkerealm wrote: »

xeNNNNN wrote: »

Yes user side backup would be amazing. The company should create their own back up as well, but at least there are multiple redundancy protections at that point.

It would also be a catastrophic security vulnerability. Because now you have a direct path to the User Database, and the assurance that ZOS absolutely will execute any code you bury in your "save game data." You'd probably be limited to coding in SQL, but a malicious actor could royally wreck all of our save data with enough time to analyze how the data is stored.

Wouldn't it be possible to force a verification of data though? So they have a copy, you have a copy. If yours checks out with theirs then you can upload to get your character back, if its not then you cant and would be actively blocked. If they don't have one, then you would have to send it too support so they can check out the file, if everything checks out then they would upload it for you.

I mean sure with enough time, anything can be cracked, but im not saying do it blindly either. There would have to be measures in place server side to verify as much as possible, so for example someone can't modify their character to have X gear or Y achievements or Z crown store items and so forth. But it would at least greatly reduce the chances of this situation cropping up again where it cannot be fixed. It wouldn't be without risk, but then what isn't these days? The internet is not as safe as people think. I mean right now here right now, we are using just 1 layer of the internet as a public space and below that are 20+ levels to the internet, perhaps more.

Personofsecrets

I wonder if there is an old PTS image of their account?

RunningShadow

Pretty sure I've read through the entire thread so apologies if I missed it but; I remembered seeing a Support Article about this many years ago and it seems it hasn't changed much if at all. (Though it was last updated a few days ago – the 22nd, and this thread was created a few days before that update... coincidence?)

CAN YOU RESTORE MY DELETED ESO CHARACTER?

To hopefully throw in a bit extra information, I know someone who accidentally deleted their character many years back and the next day sent in a ticket to ask for a restore and though they were told it could possibly be restored there was no guarantee. I went hunting through my messages and found the reply they got:

There was a bit about how they can't find it is a recent deletion, etc., but the official line was:

"As stated before, we can't guarantee restorations for any character as our system wasn't optimized for it and that character deletions were intended to be permanent."

I know they've done a lot of system optimizations in the last few years but looks like backups wasn't one of them.

xeNNNNN

RunningShadow wrote: »

Pretty sure I've read through the entire thread so apologies if I missed it but; I remembered seeing a Support Article about this many years ago and it seems it hasn't changed much if at all. (Though it was last updated a few days ago – the 22nd, and this thread was created a few days before that update... coincidence?)

CAN YOU RESTORE MY DELETED ESO CHARACTER?

To hopefully throw in a bit extra information, I know someone who accidentally deleted their character many years back and the next day sent in a ticket to ask for a restore and though they were told it could possibly be restored there was no guarantee. I went hunting through my messages and found the reply they got:

There was a bit about how they can't find it is a recent deletion, etc., but the official line was:

"As stated before, we can't guarantee restorations for any character as our system wasn't optimized for it and that character deletions were intended to be permanent."

I know they've done a lot of system optimizations in the last few years but looks like backups wasn't one of them.

Mm, this makes me reaffirm what they should do. Work with Yormula to re-create the character they lost. An act of good faith. Now Yormula could abuse this but based on the thread itself and how they've responded to others comments I seriously doubt they would abuse such a gesture.

Frankly, at this point - considering it was their own staff who messed up - I would just give Yormula whatever they wanted. Yormula is one person and others can't replicate the situation to take advantage because it was support that messed up so nothing other players could do would work. And this could be the policy if this ever happens again and if they dont like that then well...... dont let it happen again lol

Point is, they can do something for him on their end even if they can't restore the character they most certainly can give them back what he lost through creation of a new template. Hell at this point just give them a PTS style template. Just without the unlimited crowns and 1 crown purchase.

Create a character template for Yormula a character with all of this:
- Maxed out bank
- Maxed out Inventory
- Fully upgraded mount.
- Mounts of Yormulas choosing (so perhaps 1 or 2 that are no longer available)
- All skill lines levelled and unlocked.
- All trials they completed and 100% any trifecta progression lost.
- Along with dungeon DLC stuff achievements wise.
- All progression completed up to where Yormula states they had not completed story region wise.
- Yormulas choice of Legendary material amounts up to a limit (300 of each?).
- Provide all gear Yormula states they lost
- All trait Research completed.
- Up to date and complete collection of the motiffs in the game
- Free race, class & name change
- 1,000 Transmute crystals
- As much gold as they want up to a limit ( 50m - 100m)
- X amount of crowns as a "we're sorry" and it shouldn't be a pitiful amount either

I dont think at this point its a question of they can or can't do this, its a question of whether they are allowed to do this and/or willing to do this. If they did do this for Yormula, it would honestly transform my view of this company because for good or for ill, they would of done the right thing. And before someone says its too much to ask, 7 years isn't small, its a lot of time effort, passion and love for a hobby they enjoyed - I think that should be worth something, don't you? Time spent means something. It should matter.

Just once guys, just this once - Admit you messed up and help this player of your community. JUST. THIS. ONCE.

Jaraal

xeNNNNN wrote: »

Hell at this point just give them a PTS style template. Just without the unlimited crowns and 1 crown purchase.

The original post said that they offered him a geared up and skilled up template character. How much gear and whatnot was not disclosed.

starkerealm

Jaraal wrote: »

xeNNNNN wrote: »

Hell at this point just give them a PTS style template. Just without the unlimited crowns and 1 crown purchase.

The original post said that they offered him a geared up and skilled up template character. How much gear and whatnot was not disclosed.

And, from what I know, you really do not want them messing around with achievements on the back end. If I had to guess, removing an achievement is probably what bricked your character to begin with.

My understanding is, the template they offered came with additional skill points already baked in, at which point, as much as it might sting, my recommendation would be take that offer. Based on what I know of templates, those skill points are (effectively) unsourced, and do not count towards the overall skill point ceiling. Meaning you would have a character with the potential to have more skill points than anyone else on the server. Sacrificing a character you spent so much time working on may be a bitter, but that would be a very unique compensation. Offers like that don't come along every day.

Yormula

starkerealm wrote: »

... Based on what I know of templates, those skill points are (effectively) unsourced ... Offers like that don't come along every day.

That is purely speculative.

If that were the case, which I highly doubt (edit: doubt refers to whether the offer meant a template functioning as a pts one), a character running around with more skill points than should be possible would trigger all sorts of anti-exploit watchdogs, getting into trouble again sooner rather than later.

Moreover, there are already more than enough skillpoints in the game. I had 30 spare just sitting there despite taking everything that could be used or at least swapped in once in a blue moon.

starkerealm

Yormula wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

... Based on what I know of templates, those skill points are (effectively) unsourced ... Offers like that don't come along every day.

That is purely speculative.

If that were the case, which I highly doubt, a character running around with more skill points than should be possible would trigger all sorts of anti-exploit watchdogs, getting into trouble again sooner rather than later.

Moreover, there are already more than enough skillpoints in the game. I had 30 spare just sitting there despite taking everything that could be used or at least swapped in once in a blue moon.

No, it's not purely speculative. I have a lot of experience using ESO's templates. The only easy way to source the skill points is if they were gifting you the skyshard packs. Otherwise, the game awards skill points based on certain activities and achievements. While this can be tracked by the player, the templates aren't designed to go, "well, this skill point comes from a specific dungeon, and that one comes from a specific quest in Grahtwood." It simply adds additional skillpoints to the character.

This is part of why we had the forced skill reset earlier this year, as they were batch processing how many skill points everyone was supposed to have, to correct situations where skillpoints had been permanently lost, never awarded, or erroneously gained.

The thing is, template setups aren't really designed to be played, they're intended to be a quick test environment, so when a template has extra skill points, there's no thought about how that would apply in a long term situation, because the server its on will be wiped in two weeks.

Being granted a template on live (even a limited variant) is an extremely unusual situation, and like I said, while it's a bitter trade, that is something that very few players will ever have the opportunity to obtain.

Tinyfangs

Goodness, so sorry to read this has happened to the original poster. It is a scary prospect for certain, although I personally always consider something could go terribly wrong, however, the difference is that with some games I have played, I always felt cushioned through extremely positive experiences with customer services. I only had one game before where I felt utterly abused as a customer, and I left that game and never returned to spend a penny on it.

Issue with ESO is that it is indeed a fantastic game on many levels. It has its flaws and shortcomings, obviously, but overall it is a successful title for a reason. The let down for me with ESO is that I do not feel safe with the company. I went through a phase where I spent a considerable amount of money, but since then a feeling of deep unease has befallen me, to do with how I feel valued as a customer. A truly great game to me must include an environment, not just made out of pixels, but one where I feel the company cares for and values its players. This is not meant as bashing, but indeed a constructive criticism, because I feel ESO is lacking in providing that environment. Since my return to ESO, I saw long downtimes (and never an apology or the smallest token of good will towards the players), I had some (must say small) problems over which I contacted customer services, only to be left with automated answers, and each episode left me feeling no one cares for me, the paying player.

I must assume that ESO has a huge player base, and maybe the company simply banks on the title itself, the product, to keep the money flowing, and I assume the money is flowing. That more money could be made by giving players a deeper feeling of trust and appreciation, might simply not be of interest to the company. Possibly the numbers were looked at, and what it would cost to create such an environment aside from the pixels, did not warrant changes, but it does sadden me. I want to love this game in every aspect, I want to feel loyalty to the company, I want to feel safe and feel joy to contribute financially to its success.. but that deep feeling of unease has me unwilling to spend beyond the bare minimum of what I need to spend to enjoy the content. That's ESO's failing for me, and where I look at other games I have played, and one I still am playing, and where I will open my wallet because I feel valued and protected and wish to aid the company.

Here I sadly don't.

xeNNNNN

Jaraal wrote: »

xeNNNNN wrote: »

Hell at this point just give them a PTS style template. Just without the unlimited crowns and 1 crown purchase.

The original post said that they offered him a geared up and skilled up template character. How much gear and whatnot was not disclosed.

Yeah but thats my point, simply being offered a tiny fraction of the character as compensation is not enough. My first thought is; Really? Thats it?

Also if they're able to offer some of the character, then clearly they are capable of doing what I suggested - but that brings it back to a question of are they willing and are they allowed. Which as the developers of the game, I cannot believe they are not allowed. That would be bizzare.

Daydreamertmm

xeNNNNN wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

xeNNNNN wrote: »

Hell at this point just give them a PTS style template. Just without the unlimited crowns and 1 crown purchase.

The original post said that they offered him a geared up and skilled up template character. How much gear and whatnot was not disclosed.

Yeah but thats my point, simply being offered a tiny fraction of the character as compensation is not enough. My first thought is; Really? Thats it?

Also if they're able to offer some of the character, then clearly they are capable of doing what I suggested - but that brings it back to a question of are they willing and are they allowed. Which as the developers of the game, I cannot believe they are not allowed. That would be bizzare.

This is a game. It isn't some highly classified government program. The developers can address this problem programatically in any way they choose. It's ridiculous that this has gone on for so long.

So far, it seems that A) they haven't given the issue the proper amount of review (after months of tickets!), or the issue hasn't been elevated to the proper level yet (again, after months of tickets!).

To say that I'm disappointed in Bethesda/Zenimax would be a gross understatement.

xeNNNNN

Daydreamertmm wrote: »

xeNNNNN wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

xeNNNNN wrote: »

Hell at this point just give them a PTS style template. Just without the unlimited crowns and 1 crown purchase.

The original post said that they offered him a geared up and skilled up template character. How much gear and whatnot was not disclosed.

Yeah but thats my point, simply being offered a tiny fraction of the character as compensation is not enough. My first thought is; Really? Thats it?

Also if they're able to offer some of the character, then clearly they are capable of doing what I suggested - but that brings it back to a question of are they willing and are they allowed. Which as the developers of the game, I cannot believe they are not allowed. That would be bizzare.

This is a game. It isn't some highly classified government program. The developers can address this problem programatically in any way they choose. It's ridiculous that this has gone on for so long.

So far, it seems that A) they haven't given the issue the proper amount of review (after months of tickets!), or the issue hasn't been elevated to the proper level yet (again, after months of tickets!).

To say that I'm disappointed in Bethesda/Zenimax would be a gross understatement.

Yes this was my point of them being "allowed" to do it i.e management. I fully believe they can, as I said it would be bizzare if they couldn't if they're that restricted as developers something is wrong.

Its not the matrix either but im sure one of them is Neo. There is always a Neo. There is always a chosen one.

Daydreamertmm

@Yormula Has anyone else bothered responding to your ticket yet?

I used to run businesses for a living, both restaurants and retail. I can't in my wildest imagination imagine treating a customer this poorly.

We're still rooting for you! And we're all watching.

Khenarthi

Daydreamertmm wrote: »

xeNNNNN wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

xeNNNNN wrote: »

Hell at this point just give them a PTS style template. Just without the unlimited crowns and 1 crown purchase.

The original post said that they offered him a geared up and skilled up template character. How much gear and whatnot was not disclosed.

Yeah but thats my point, simply being offered a tiny fraction of the character as compensation is not enough. My first thought is; Really? Thats it?

Also if they're able to offer some of the character, then clearly they are capable of doing what I suggested - but that brings it back to a question of are they willing and are they allowed. Which as the developers of the game, I cannot believe they are not allowed. That would be bizzare.

This is a game. It isn't some highly classified government program. The developers can address this problem programatically in any way they choose. It's ridiculous that this has gone on for so long.

So far, it seems that A) they haven't given the issue the proper amount of review (after months of tickets!), or the issue hasn't been elevated to the proper level yet (again, after months of tickets!).

To say that I'm disappointed in Bethesda/Zenimax would be a gross understatement.

It does feel like the corrupted character cannot be restored (no backup - I guess using whatever got saved on PTS transfers may not apply) so the matter here is more of extremely poor communication and automatically closing tickets, and insufficient compensation - If I lost my Master crafter, with almost all motifs learnt, I would be unhappy with a simple template character with a few skill points and gear...

Thechuckage

Its not only that, but the craftbag items reportedly disappeared as well. And if you've been playing for any amount of time, its pretty likely to have amassed a huge number of mats within.

Not to downplay the loss of the character in question; taken as a whole the situation is pretty terrible for the customer. I would also be pretty unhappy with the offered solution.

Marillea

This whole situation speaks volume about the way customers are treated. Offering 1 character with essentially nothing to cover 7 years of progress lost feels more like a bitter and bad joke.

I do hope the situation gets resolved, it could happen to anyone of us and it's shameful.

It has been 9 months and I do not know how are you still patient.

M_Volsung

If there's no movement on this problem, my wallet will be seriously rethinking any future interactions with ESO...

gariondavey

Any updates @Yormula?
Come on zenimax, time to show your quality.

Daydreamertmm

Khenarthi wrote: »

Daydreamertmm wrote: »

xeNNNNN wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

xeNNNNN wrote: »

Hell at this point just give them a PTS style template. Just without the unlimited crowns and 1 crown purchase.

The original post said that they offered him a geared up and skilled up template character. How much gear and whatnot was not disclosed.

Yeah but thats my point, simply being offered a tiny fraction of the character as compensation is not enough. My first thought is; Really? Thats it?

Also if they're able to offer some of the character, then clearly they are capable of doing what I suggested - but that brings it back to a question of are they willing and are they allowed. Which as the developers of the game, I cannot believe they are not allowed. That would be bizzare.

This is a game. It isn't some highly classified government program. The developers can address this problem programatically in any way they choose. It's ridiculous that this has gone on for so long.

So far, it seems that A) they haven't given the issue the proper amount of review (after months of tickets!), or the issue hasn't been elevated to the proper level yet (again, after months of tickets!).

To say that I'm disappointed in Bethesda/Zenimax would be a gross understatement.

It does feel like the corrupted character cannot be restored (no backup - I guess using whatever got saved on PTS transfers may not apply) so the matter here is more of extremely poor communication and automatically closing tickets, and insufficient compensation - If I lost my Master crafter, with almost all motifs learnt, I would be unhappy with a simple template character with a few skill points and gear...

Agreed. And if this is all Zen can do, then they should certainly do it. Taking care of your customers shouldn't be this difficult!

OutLaw_Nynx

This topic won’t die until something is done. I’m honestly disgusted how this is being handled.

GenjiraX

Can someone please explain why the subject of the PTS keeps cropping up? I haven’t used it much but, when I did, I had to create a new character that had loads of crowns and skills and whatnot. I didn’t think any character or player data from the Live system was copied over. Have I just got that wrong?

Cozzy1991

I feel your pain! I responded in anger to a toxic individual and now I can't even play the game! account made in 2014

I hope they finally do the right thing by both of us.

Idinuse

GenjiraX wrote: »

Can someone please explain why the subject of the PTS keeps cropping up? I haven’t used it much but, when I did, I had to create a new character that had loads of crowns and skills and whatnot. I didn’t think any character or player data from the Live system was copied over. Have I just got that wrong?

PTS usually has 2 different periods. One in which all characters from the NA server are copied over to the PTS server and one where all the EU characters are copied over to the PTS server (at which point all NA characters of course are gone from the PTS server). I would imagine that if you usually play on the NA server you happened to get on the PTS server during the EU characters period. And vice versa of you usually play on the EU server.

Alurria

@Yormula have you received any word from Z on this matter? Have they contacted you regarding your 7 years old character that was lost not by you but because it was corrupted by someone trying to help you at Z?

JoeCapricorn

Another question on my mind is what exactly caused the save file to become corrupted?

I wonder if it is possible to rebuild the save file from the corrupted file (I'd imagine or hope that it includes some good data still) and restore it that way. There has to be some way to access account and character information and modify it bit by bit. If later on a story comes out that one of the lead programmers of ESO helped Yormula it would turn this into a rather feel-good story in the end.

SilverBride

[deleted by poster]

GenjiraX

SilverBride wrote: »

Remember there are two sides to every story and we have only heard one. In post #39 the OP said his character was locked and whispers disabled. That sounds like disciplinary action. Maybe they suspected wrongdoing and locked his character but I don't know how this would corrupt the character. We just don't know what really went on without hearing both sides of the story, and ZoS can't discuss that with us.

Lol. Whispers weren’t “disabled”. You’re twisting Yormula’s words. The account was corrupted and couldn’t receive incoming whispers.

SilverBride

[deleted by poster]

starkerealm

JoeCapricorn wrote: »

Another question on my mind is what exactly caused the save file to become corrupted?

I have a theory, but I can't prove it.

I suspect, it was when the QA rep removed the achievement. We interviewed Finn on The Tenets a couple times. During one of those interviews, I asked if they had any plans to move the trifecta rewards to the vet completion, and Mike's response was something to the effect that you'd risk database corruption if you modified the achievements.

So, that leads me to think that adding or removing achievements can corrupt a character, and that when the QA rep removed the hard mode achievement, they corrupted the record.

At that point, the account started coming apart, and someone else locked out the character to minimize the damage.