Neverwinter MMO and Perfect World International

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

I have to write this, part vent, part warning to let as many people know about how awful PWI are as a company. Since buying Cryptic Studios outright, a company for whom I previously had fond feelings (as a long time player of CoV/CoH), they've made a bit of a mess of Champions Online, Star Trek Online and launched Neverwinter into Open Beta to more of the same just recently.

I bought the middle-priced Founder's Pack for $60 by way of support for a DnD (based) game, to get some useful exclusives and a slightly easier experience in the game. A review of the game is a topic for another time. In summary, the combat is fun, if repetitive. Characters, restricted as they are to a combination of 7 abilities are very much shoehorned into a single playstyle. With respecs costing a staggering $6 real world dollars, you cannot experiment as there's no mechanic to do so. There's no multiclassing and the game has reduced DnD to a standard fantasy MMO of tank/heal/DPS with none of the nuance, party dynamics or sense of adventure in older, offline DnD CRPGs. The F2P model is extremely telling with everything monetised and the (apparently) PWI reputation for multiplying lockboxes which contain random rewards and require real-money to open is readily apparent.

This topic however isn't about the game, but rather my inability to access it. I think my account was taken over by hackers last Fri/Sat. I couldn't log in to Neverwinter, nor the site. Trying to reset password was no good and i couldn't even log in to the support site to log a ticket.

There is NO phone number and NO "live chat" system. The only support solution is an email/online ticketing which results in no response for days (beyond an automated acknowledgement). When they did respond, it was to tell me they had too many tickets and were closing mine, I had to resubmit it if it was still the case.

Eventually a human replied to one of my many logged tickets (4 days after the start) to request a bunch of identifiable information to change my account details. In this time, I disputed my Founder's Pack purchase with PayPal to get their attention. After I replied, they responded that my Email address (from which I was writing) was not the same as that on the account. I explained that anyone could put any Email address, without limitation into the From field of any message, and the From address was ini no way whatsoever proof of Email account ownership.

Regardless, I changed the From address, got a response (a day later), was able to subsequently reset my password only to get a suspended account notice. Further, I'm seriously concerned about whatever havoc was wreaked on my account/items/etc in this time. I'm still now unable to log in to Neverwinter, or my (foolishly bought) lifetime accounts to Champions Online or STO, 6 days later.

I want to warn all Escapists to stay well clear of PWI, Cryptic or anything to do with either. I have played many MMOs over the years, from CCP, Blizzard, NCSoft, Funcom and others. CCP I will never deal with again for allowing hackers unauthorised access to my account, draining it of its considerable resources and allowing them to get away with it instead of helping me, a loyal customer of 5 years.

But worse than them, PWI. They are far and away the worst online games company I've ever had the misfortune of dealing with. As well as a horrid F2P model, they have almost no support of any kind, no way to restore access to a hacked account (even blizzard can do this), the worst communications of any company in the market and no customer service. I urge you, don't play anything from PWI, find your fix elsewhere and be glad you have nothing to do with such a company.

Anyone else have MMO horror stories to share?

 

[Midnight O'Connor]

I also had my account jacked in the same manner you described. Recieved an email notifcation stating my account related email had been changed early Saturday May 17th, I sent in a ticket with my smurf acct and have yet to recieve a response and found the same god awful LACK of customer service equally frustrating.

 

[Akytalusia]

i played PWI way back in the day, and i left because it was obvious they just didn't give a shit. i see nothing's changed. thanks for the update?
and btw, if you want a D&D mmo, there's always DDO. it's good stuff.

 

[LetalisK]

I don't have any MMO horror stories. My WoW account got hacked once, but it was up and running again like normal just hours after I noticed. The closest thing I have to a horror story is dropping money down for MMOs for both myself and the wife and we play all of 4 hours and then move on. Still haven't learned my lesson.

 

[Baralak]

i played PWI way back in the day, and i left because it was obvious they just didn't give a shit. i see nothing's changed. thanks for the update?
and btw, if you want a D&D mmo, there's always DDO. it's good stuff.

NAh, Neverwinter is a fantastic MMO. The last one to sink its claws into me this bad was Guild Wars 2. It's just being run by Perfect World, which brings it down a bit. Still, the game isn't pay to win in the slightest, and it's a fantastically fun game.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

I don't have any MMO horror stories. My WoW account got hacked once, but it was up and running again like normal just hours after I noticed. The closest thing I have to a horror story is dropping money down for MMOs for both myself and the wife and we play all of 4 hours and then move on. Still haven't learned my lesson.

I had that happen to a WoW account too years back. The thing is, despite it's enormity, Blizzard have a refined support system. Granted it's likely that way because the number of problems and hackers is huge, but still, as a customer here was my experience.

Account compromised -> Go to site -> Begin "Account Recovery" process -> Enter considerable information that can't be guessed by hackers -> Reset login credentials -> Sorted

With PWI it went like this:

Account compromised -> Go to site -> Can't log in because details changed.

Seriously, it stops dead. There's nowhere to go from that point. The powerlessness, the inability to do anything was so frustrating. It was being stranded on a deserted island and my only life line is a message in a bottle. All I can do is hope someone reads it and takes action.

They removed Live Chat (apparently) so only support is via site (can't use because can't log in...seriously; you can't send a ticket to say your account is compromised because you can't access your account to send it) or Email. Email takes at best, a day for each part of the conversation. I think the issue is that they've tied everything to a user's Email address and password, both of which can be changed and one needs at least one of those to use the system. A double whammy of being hacked and having no way of recovering from it.

Say what one wishes about Blizzard, Activision, their games and their bank accounts, at least there's solid support available that works. I would be curious to know if other subscription MMOs offer similar levels of service.

PS. Out of curiosity, why do you both move on after a mere few hours? Impatience? Haven't found the right one yet?

 

[DanielBrown]

Got hacked in LOTRO once(pretty sure it was my sister). My inventories, banks, money and legendary weapons were gone. Stuff I had been working hard on getting for the past three years.
My password wasn't changed, so I didn't have to go through any issues reaquiring it, but getting my items back was a whole other story... In the hacking support I read that you should write a list of what was missing, so I did just that. Took a day or two and I got a response saying that they don't do that, "but here's some gold and some worthless skirmish marks".

Fucking fuckers. They don't even have a roll back system for when this happens...

Been hacked in WoW several times. Every time I took a break from the game and came back I'd find my account cleaned out, but every time I've gotten all my items and gold back in just a few hours after reporting it, so at least they know how to handle it well.

 

[Jaythulhu]

A few years ago, my WoW account was hacked (I'd been playing since day 1 and quit a few months after the launch of Lich King), and thanks to Blizzard carefully storing all of my credit cards details in an uncensored easy-to-read font on their website, a year's worth of WoW was bought (along with a number of products from what I can only assume was a porn store in Thailand). Blizzard acknowledged the hack, acknowledged that they'd stored my details insecurely and acknowledged the purchase made at the time of the hack, but refused to refund my money or restore my account.

I ended up filing a complaint with the police, since Blizzard had acknowledged receiving stolen money. Apparently I can still chase it through the international courts, but I really couldn't be bothered. I do still use my story as a warning to not give credit cards details to even (allegedly) reputable companies.

 

[Windcaler]

Sorry to hear you had such a big problem OP but Ive never had an issue with PWE, in fact Ive found them to be one of the better publishers. I first started with Blacklight retribution and PWE has actually been very receptive of that community. When Zombie screwed up their double xp/gp weekend they did 2 of them to make up plus gave us some other bonuses. Then I went to raiderz for awhile and never had a problem with that game. I recently tried out neverwinter as well but the games far to generic for my taste. I plan to try out STO again in awhile (havnt played it since it launched and Im curious about the changes since it went F2P). Theres also torchlight 1 and 2 which Ive never had any issues with

Looking at it from their perspective, they don't know who you are if you contact them on an email that isn't the registered one to your account and I would be very critical of them if they didn't scrutinize such claims. Hopefully stuff gets sorted out for you soon but I thought I would throw in another point of view since my experiences with PWE have been the exact opposite of yours

 

[LetalisK]

PS. Out of curiosity, why do you both move on after a mere few hours? Impatience? Haven't found the right one yet?

We usually have something we enjoy just a little bit more that we want to get to. You never get to #3 or #4 on your list when something else keeps replacing #1 and #2. It happens with Borderlands, too. The exception seems to be zombie games. We tend to play those through to the end.

 

[Smolderin]

i played PWI way back in the day, and i left because it was obvious they just didn't give a shit. i see nothing's changed. thanks for the update?
and btw, if you want a D&D mmo, there's always DDO. it's good stuff.

NAh, Neverwinter is a fantastic MMO. The last one to sink its claws into me this bad was Guild Wars 2. It's just being run by Perfect World, which brings it down a bit. Still, the game isn't pay to win in the slightest, and it's a fantastically fun game.

^ This.

Neverwinter Online is a fantastic MMO, and it isn't pay to win. In the words of ChaosD1 from the MMOGrinder, "I don't think people quite understand what pay to win means". Everything can be earned in game and you can choose to not spend one single cent on anything without much loss. The combat system is damn fun, and I particularly love the story quests you do. My only real complaints about the game is the fact that it is run by PWI, and that the community at the moment is just so awful. Hopefully after a bit more time, all the people who aren't truly dedicated to being an avid player will disappear and the serious fans will inherit the servers. Right now the servers are just full of the "casual kiddies".

 

[Baralak]

Yeah know, I'm pretty casual myself. I'm at the point I'm really just logging on a couple times a day to get my daily Invocation and maybe a quick quest or 2. Really though, I'm just grinding through games until Remember Me comes out. I've always been casual to MMOs.

 

[Angelblaze]

i played PWI way back in the day, and i left because it was obvious they just didn't give a shit. i see nothing's changed. thanks for the update?
and btw, if you want a D&D mmo, there's always DDO. it's good stuff.

NAh, Neverwinter is a fantastic MMO. The last one to sink its claws into me this bad was Guild Wars 2. It's just being run by Perfect World, which brings it down a bit. Still, the game isn't pay to win in the slightest, and it's a fantastically fun game.

^ This.

Neverwinter Online is a fantastic MMO, and it isn't pay to win. In the words of ChaosD1 from the MMOGrinder, "I don't think people quite understand what pay to win means". Everything can be earned in game and you can choose to not spend one single cent on anything without much loss. The combat system is damn fun, and I particularly love the story quests you do. My only real complaints about the game is the fact that it is run by PWI, and that the community at the moment is just so awful. Hopefully after a bit more time, all the people who aren't truly dedicated to being an avid player will disappear and the serious fans will inherit the servers. Right now the servers are just full of the "casual kiddies".

To be honest, at this point in MMO history I will play anything that doesn't show giant bouncing boobies on humanoid characters and so far, this is doing it for me. Thanks PW.

 

[sanquin]

Just treat neverwinter as a fully free game. Don't buy anything with real money in it. That, and don't see it as a D&D mmo. Just see it as a standard fantasy mmo. As a D&D mmo, it definitely is not.

 

[Smolderin]

Yeah know, I'm pretty casual myself. I'm at the point I'm really just logging on a couple times a day to get my daily Invocation and maybe a quick quest or 2. Really though, I'm just grinding through games until Remember Me comes out. I've always been casual to MMOs.

The "casual" thing in my statement was more referring to the immature members constantly trolling and rolling "Need" on pieces of equipment they obviously cannot use. It's fine if your casual...or hardcore...the issue only comes in when you start actively trying ruin other people's enjoyment.

 

[Baralak]

Yeah know, I'm pretty casual myself. I'm at the point I'm really just logging on a couple times a day to get my daily Invocation and maybe a quick quest or 2. Really though, I'm just grinding through games until Remember Me comes out. I've always been casual to MMOs.

The "casual" thing in my statement was more referring to the immature members constantly trolling and rolling "Need" on pieces of equipment they obviously cannot use. It's fine if your casual...or hardcore...the issue only comes in when you start actively trying ruin other people's enjoyment.

Oh god, few things in that game piss me off like someone rolling Need on everything, or rolling Need on the generic stuff, like belts and rings. "MY class can use it!" No dip, Sherlock. EVERY CLASS CAN. ROLL GREED.

 

[Aramis Night]

I had a pretty bad situation happen with The Secret World. I was a closed beta tester for them and initially i loved the game. I was all set up to purchase the game and lifetime subs for both me and my gf(she's a big lovecraft fan). Sadly over the course of the closed beta they continued to make changes that i didn't care for. Shortly before release i was heavily let down seeing the choices they made and stuck with over the course of the closed beta, so instead i decided to cancel the pre orders. I waited for 7 weeks for my money to be refunded to my card after informing them twice that i wanted to cancel my pre orders. Eventually i had to do a charge back. Despite having registered the card permanently in my name, western union refused my charge back and EA/Funcom never cancelled my preorder. I no longer do any business with any of those companies.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

To elaborate on my situation it is, in fact, still ongoing. It's now been 2 weeks to the day since I was last able to log in. I've been hacked, banned, unbanned and banned again. Now as I closed the dispute following the unban, I cannot now reopen it even if I wanted to.

I cannot access Neverwinter, nor STO or CO both of which I have lifetime subs for. Their support still doesn't get in touch and no one picks up the phone in billing, ever, despite the number of times I've called (internationally no less, so it's costing a not insignifcant amount).

I've never had such a nightmare than with Perfect World and hope that once this resolved, I never need help from them again. To that end, I'm giving some thought to possibly eBaying my account and washing my hands clean of them once and for all.

I actually quite like Secret World. Not found anything I've disliked about it...well except for the absolutely crazy load times the likes I've of which I've never seen in 15 years of PC gaming. Even the switch to F2P did little to alter that. I'm sorry the above poster had so many issues with it, but the billing issues with Funcom are inexcusable. Sad as I've never thought badly of them.