Rappelz Under Hacker Attack (MemberZone)
As a player of Rappelz, and it being a rather large online gaming community, I feel I need to get this information out to all news sources that will accept it, and follow up with their own investigation. For the last year Rappelz has been under attack from Ruppee sellers and Hackers. It has escalated to the point where 1/3 of the entire community at minimum, across servers has been hacked. We have a currant wait time of over 3 months to get any restoration, with a policy of 2nd hacking's NOT being restored, and the community has had NO word other than a minimal acknowledgment that there is a security breach in the Gala security.
The forums have been littered with "Ive been Hacked" threads for months now, and has come to the point where they have heard ALL the hack post's to one thread to try and minimize the exposure to the rest of the community. The forum admin. have, I assume, been instructed to do damage control but have no information on the process that is being taken to fix the issues the game has at the moment.
Through efforts of the community we have started to identify fences for hacked items in game, but the account locks still come too slow. At which point they DO lock the fence account down there is another wave, less than 24hrs later of new hacks to replace the lost gear and player property.
The community has started a petition (http://www.change.org/petitions/stay-open-until-every-issue-is-fixed-247) that sends daily emails to the company as well as the CEO Jikan Jung and co-founder Sean Yoon, as well as players sending personal emails to the public Facebook pages of each. The only response we have received is that our efforts may be doing more harm than good, and this was said by what seems to be the ONLY GM left at Gala-Lab.
So far the Game Co. has done nothing to slow or prevent the hacking that is crippling this game BUT is never short on a new and exiting item for sale in the cash shop. It clearly seems that the company is more concerned with the short term income from cash shop sales than long term success of the game in this market. We don't know what else to do as a community other than make it know to all the major publications, in hope that any investigation on your parts will bring light as well as spark a much needed fire to correct the problems in such an interesting and fun to play game. Also, as one of the primer gaming publications, i thought it´s your place to be informed so you may in turn inform your readers of the pitfalls of this game.
by Rusty
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MemberZone is a forum where our readers can submit articles talking about thier opinions on the latest news in multiplayer gaming. The opinions of the author do not necessarily represent the opinions of MMOBomb.com or its staff.
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You will not easily find a hacker who uses keyloggers, or even encourages the use of them.
I do agree with most of you guys though, spending years playing a game, it sucks like hell to lose your items.
I remember playing Hero Online. I spent about 2 years playing it, then I finally had enough money to buy an awesome weapon. I traded all the money and pets I had for it. The next day I lent it to a guild member and he then sold it on another channel. That was enough for me to quit the game.
I know it has nothing to do with this game in particular, but it's still a loss, so I feel your pain.
Apparently there are private servers, though.
Private servers usually have more active GMs, higher rates and free cash shop items. If you're still very interested in the game, perhaps you should try one out?
Well, imagine if you will, a Rappelz player who spends $5000.00 in a year or maybe two years, and they get hacked twice. If they refuse to restore that person's items the second time, I'm pretty sure that player, who put that much money into the game, is not going to continue putting money into the cash shop or even play anymore.
There has to be respect for the players in this game, both those who support it financially, and any other player as well. I understand that it's probably easier to discard non-cash shop users, which technically is rude, of course, but are they going to treat cash shop users the same way? If so, that's a very unwise decision, and going to hurt their business extremely.
"We both stopped using CS after that, shortly after i got hacked aswell, and also a few of our friends, most of which are waiting to get restored, most of them have stopped using CS, a hand full still buy the most basic stuff like the Hidden Village pass."
The treatment you and your friend received was very wrong. This is no way to treat customers at all. I can't imagine any other company treating their customers this way.
My conclusion is, after this interview with GALA and all, if the company continues to let things fall, it will be the end. They better get their you-know-what's in gear and start actually doing something asap because there has been a lot of lost time in this process. All of these people leaving the game due to hacking is not only unfortunate, but I can't understand how a company can let this continue for so long while people stop spending in the CS.
Oh, and as for the comment above by the "hacker," seriously, are you thirteen years old? I think thirteen year olds have better sense than to post stuff like that.
As to the customer support, sadly, i gotta agree with everyone here, it is virtually non existant. GM's arent present in game, maybe they pop up every once (/once a month and i think im beeing generious) in a while and stay for 10-15 min, Sending emails to the support staff is just pointless because it takes forever for them to anwser simple questions and u will most likely get a template response that has nothing to do with the actual matter that you have emailed the support staff with.
Hacked cases i hear take 6 months or so to get solved, and i have heard of many cases that Gala didnt even restore hacked accounts due to "account sharing", my friend beeing one of them (and i know for a fact that he didnt because i visited his house and watched him play) - he showed me the emails he got from the support staff about his case. 5 of them were template emails, 6th one said he isnt gettin restored, he complained and stated he didnt share accounts - that he uses 3-4 accounts regularly - and guess what? They didnt even respond to the email. We both stopped using CS after that, shortly after i got hacked aswell, and also a few of our friends, most of which are waiting to get restored, most of them have stopped using CS, a hand full still buy the most basic stuff like the Hidden Village pass.
Fact of the matter is even though this is a Free2play MMO i know many people in it that have spent loads of money buying various stuff from the CS on a regular basis. And we're talkin about large amounts of cash that could easly buy a car in RL in some cases.
I have tested out a few games since the hacking started 1 year ago. And have basically left all Gala's games since. I login mostly to chat with old friends, help with a quest or 2 and log off to play other games.
So to all of you that think its the end of the world if this game dies: A company with a crap attitude to its customers like Gala deserves to get bankrupt.
To all the HardC fanboys: I hope they fix the game so you can grind your way to the max :)
After the bottom line : I'll be sad to see the game i've played 4-5 years die, i know i wont spend any money on any of Gala games again. And theres a ton of f2p MMO's that have way better support, nicer staff and GM's that acutally login to the game and help people with quests anwser questions etc. - yes in a free 2 play mmo -
Peace and Love
Okay, if we consider your POV then the problem could be that Chinese based hackers are preying on the game because the US dollar makes more money for them, thus as long as the rupee buyers keep buying, the hackers won't go away; but if the hacks continue relentlessly like this and more and more people stop playing or don't spend in the cash shop, then this will affect the game overall and may have to shut down. I am hoping the lame brain people at GALA wake up and do something about this before it gets to this point.
What I don't understand is, and here's a main point of mine: why is the hacking so intensified right now? From all the years the game has been around, that's the one mystery I am not able to understand at this time. It's the worst I've ever seen since I started playing the game years ago.
"Key factor is that I have been told by a few different sources that a hand full of the GM’s had been let go or quit 2 to 3 months ago. Also many rumors of it being a inside job and with the taught lipped people over at gala. I am to come to wounder if maybe those GMS are not involved in this trying to get a extra pay day over the last 8 months they got caught fired and than took it to the next leave to screw over Gala north American and sold the back door way into a hacking group."
That is very much a possibility.
I heard from a guy about a year ago, that one of the GMs who recently left was somehow involved in hacking and selling accounts. I can't prove that this is true, but his name was mentioned more than a year ago in a YouTube video comment section from someone claiming this.
"This is just a idea but why else would it be so silent coming from the company. Any other company would come out anJust make sense why would not the hacking been fixed last year if not the people hired to fix the issues of the server are not behind it.d say hey we have a problem it is being fixed we have located the hole and patching it.
I don't know. This is very odd and the reason why sometimes I wonder if they are going to close the game. I guess all we can really do is wait and see, but continue to voice our opinions to GALA and their employees.
Just make sense why would not the hacking been fixed last year if not the people hired to fix the issues of the server are not behind it.
There should be no logical reason why, after a year of hacking, the problem is getting so out of hand. If you want to speculate, I would say to question why, after a year of this problem, is the problem suddenly so fast and disastrous? There are no more players today than a year ago, in fact, there are probably many less players playing this game, so why so many players hacked? Who are the many new players who do not exist who are buying the rupees? Do you see how this does not make sense?
I am totally convinced that the game is going to be shut down, and this is being allowed to happen. Someone on the Rappelz forum said the game company and its representatives are like politicians and are just lying to everyone. Might as well quit and go to Rappelz SEA or somewhere else because I'm convinced with the outrageous amount of hacking going on, the game will be gone within a few more months.
The writing is on the wall. What more could it possibly be about? Why would hacking intensify all of a sudden when the game is several years old? Use logic, common sense, put one and one together.
the staff doesn't take the game seriously and don't care what happens in the game so i doubt they ever took the hacking thing seriously no matter if it was on their side, they get paid from cash shop players regardless so you have 2 choices... quit and play a new game or don't complain and keep getting pwned by hackers and gaming staff.
Also to the people that say it is f2p yes it may be f2p but yet in games items like Stamina that every one uses or even animal cracks that most use as well as pieces are not items you can just by in game and when you do. You have a very good chance that a cash shop user bought those with real world money out of the cash shop so please do not say it is f2p because it is more f2 log in but to complete some quest or have good items or even level with a stamina saver a real world person bought those items for you to buy in AH and flee.
No Game in the world can be protected from Hackers, period, End Of Line.
As long as there are Intelligent bored people out there, and the game interests them enough to hack it, It will be hacked.
Anything game that is made can be attacked, if it isn't, then obviously the right (or wrong) people don't give a diddly squat about it.
Truth is truth, they realize they can do nothing about it so they move on, Such is the risk of having Huge games. The fact that the people who play this have not grasped this simple fact yet Astounds me.
1. use the maximum amount of characters you can for the password. if the limit is 24 characters use all 24 mixing in numbers, letters, case, and don't make complete words.
2. change your password every week. set a day like maintenance day and change your password so that its never the same one twice.
3. never type your password in the log in window. use a program like microsoft word, wordpad, or notepad to type your password then save it. when you want to play your game open the saved file, copy, then open the game and use Control key + V to paste your password into the password window.
4. clear your browser cache and cookies out every day. this prevents it from being sent or read by hackers since google chrome, firefox, and IE all have security issues with cookies that love to send out your info.
do these things and you should never have to worry about hackers again... thank you. buh bye.
This thread is for those that play rappelz or are thinking of playing. Since you seem to be neither why don't YOU get a life and shut the hell up. Seems like you have nothing worthwhile to say pertaining to the game or the hacking situation the OP wrote about.
P.S. You already lost, because you obviously have no life if your trolling forums of games you do not play.
If i was trolling, i would have won... last time i checked the fact that u respond and try to belittle me and bring me down means i won as a troll, but i wasn't trolling so u are ok. ur dignity is safe with me. <3 remember... <3 love is the answer <3
tell me off? well see it made me write a name and email so i wrote something it should default to ;) or are u again thinking everyone "thinks" before writing down a name... are u an english teacher? thinking there is an underlined meaning in my name. sad....
and i am not trolling. of cause with ur limited intelligence its hard to see.. which is ok.... i'll explain, i made a point of u stop complaining about "just a game" getting hacked and go do something else... and i didn't say go outside :) u just think i did cause u try to see underlined meaning... go do something else, play another game... JUST STOP QQING... so stop being butt hurt boy or girl or whatever u happen to be.
ah u just don't see simple concepts. sad... but then again u'll just regard me as a troll in choose to be in denial... so that's ok too. i have learned to not care my dear lil friend <3 love is the answer <3 just stop being so butt hut cause it's exactly what u are <3
u take everything i say as me trying to insult u cause u are so used to being insulted... i am sorry for that. the world just doesn't have the love for everyone <3
I quit today, after the "Christmas Egg Event" Where all the empties I got failed, the lack of customer support (it seems even asking for a character to be placed back on your account can take over a month now) and the over all "patching up issues but not actually fixing them" attitude has driven me away.
So they added a security password, big woop, thats hardly a big feat as it was already there. In fact, part of the reason I stopped playing was doing anything required at LEAST 15 minutes to set up and drag pet skills to bar, get correct equipment from WH, equip it to pets and do everything I shouldn't have to. Jesus Christ this game has gone to the dogs, after 4 years of loving the crap out of it I am finally sick, tired and finished. It has some terrible security holes and it wont get fixed. Deal with it.
If the company doesn't do something to fix these problems soon the game will die. Period. After 5 yrs im still in love with this game and would hate to see that happen. My advice to any new rappelz players is not to invest too much money in the game until the hackings are under control.
Otherwise This is one awsome game.
A careless company not being able to handle a security issue for longer than a year. People keep getting their stuff stolen and nothing helps. Customers are left down and only extremely privileged people (basically close friends of the game staff) are able to get their cases worked within hours.
The rest, mere mortals, which are probable 99% of the player base are bound to wait 3-6months (in some cases even more) for account restoration.
If you are looking for a stable, not-agonizing game to invest time or money for the matter, stay away from Crappelz. You won't ever see any worse, promised.
Let me just say that the HACKING is not outta hand now, It has become the normal daily business.Players now log in only to see if they have won the all important 6 to 8 months for restore after being hacked. So to Jackson YOU my firend seriously need to actually play the dam game and realize people are figgin tired of it and become part of the solution and not continue to be part of the problem. Just one mans opinion.
As far as you"enhanced security" it is not only laughable but a complete joke. Many players have literally been hacked while ONLINE playing this game.Just because it is a free to play game does not give Gala the right to take cash shop sales money and not protect those items purchased...
Fact is, Rappelz is indeed facing a hack attack, but there have been enhanced security measures implemented and new methods of security are being tested at this very moment. 5 GMs are on the case as I write this but they take less of a 'hands on' approach simply because there is nothing to be said to the community that hasn't already been said.
Lastly, it is unfair to forget that it is a FREE-TO-PLAY game, but the publisher has still increased the Customer Service workforce for this game to exceed HIGHER EARNERS such as Allods.
The writer of this article is, as they say on the net, 'butt hurt'.