Everyone knows that they should be using an authenticator and I was, it was the authenticator that you run on your iPhone. Well long story short, my iPhone broke and I had to remove the authenticator from my login so I could play the game. I had figured that once I received my new phone, I’d install the authenticator software and all would be good. Well between the time I changed my login and the time I received my new phone, all went downhill.

I was in Vegas for a weekend and hadn’t been playing when I checked my email and received an email from blizzard saying they had suspended my account for some reason. I’ve seen some of the phishing emails and since I was checking this on my (borrowed) phone, I couldn’t tell if it was real or not so I ignored it. A couple hours later I received another email saying my account was probably hacked and please contact support. Being in Vegas, I left this till I returned home.

Apon returning home the first thing I checked was the WoW Armory, I knew if for some reason I had a virus, using the armory I wouldn’t have to log in. The Armory showed me what I was expecting, my toon standing there in his underware. Time to contact Blizzard.

I’m not sure what or how I was hacked, I ran a virus scan and even tried a different virus scanner, I haven’t had or check any emails that could have been phishing. So I’m not sure what happened. I sent all this info to blizzard in an email, the hard part about letting blizzard know that you’ve been hacked is that you don’t receive an email saying ok, we’ll check it out.. you just wait.

I had actually sent them 2 emails, 1 saying I think I was hacked and 2. letting them know yes for sure I had and all the steps I had taken to make sure my computer wasn’t compromised. While I waited, I ordered an official authenticator from blizzard. I then waited, luckily I had other things to do, but the wait was around a week and a half. I then received an email from blizzard stating that they’ve investigated my account and they’ve replaced all my items and if any were taken from my guild, they were emailed to the guild leader.

Again to make sure of things, I had received my authenticator, so from work I updated my account to take the authenticator. now from home I can fee pretty safe about logging in. All my items were in my mailbox when I joined WoW and within 30 minutes I was off and questing like nothing had happened.

   From time to time I’ll let everyone know just how much of a noob I am, in hopes it makes others feel better.

   Example #1 always check maps and other resources online before heading to somewhere you’ve never been before. Last night I needed to go to MoonGlade to turn in a quest that I had, had help with, yes it was way beyond my level but I figured now since it’s just a “goto” to finish it, I might as well do it. A quick look at the map, well MoonGlade is next to Darkshore, so I fly to Darkshore. Looking at the map once more, it looks like I can get to Moonglade by going north in DarkShore. Wrong.. But I’ve come all this way, maybe I can go off roading and swim to MoonGlade, it’s right next door.. After 2 hours of swimming, checking every break in the mountains and refusing to turn back, because I’ve come to far already, I find out there is only one way into MoonGlade and it’s protected buy many over my level. So My body lays in the tunnel connecting to MoonGlade but with maybe 1 or 2 more respawns I should make it Check out the map for the longest route to MoonGlade. (What a noob!)

EDIT: A friend just sent this to me.. those mobs inside the cave are faction based.. you can do the quests in lower felwood (lvl 47-50) to gain rep with the furbolgs and they wont attack you in the cave.. Thanks! lol

   I know at some time I’ll add a couple ads on this blog, it always helps. If I use a service like google adwords, it will scan my blog, see I’m talking about World of Warcraft and will auto place ads about WoW. Problem is most of those ads are about buying ingame gold. Since this is one of the first post I wanted to let everyone know my feelings about buying gold for the game. I’m against it, I’ve know people that have bought gold in the past and just like anything, if you feel there is an unlimited amount, you don’t care what happens to it.. So while I buy, sell and grind to make my gold, when it comes time to buy something I really think about if I want to spend the gold, are the stats on the item that much higher that what I have? But when you buy gold, most people spend most of it within a week on things their toon didn’t really need, then suddenly they need to buy more. I haven’t been in the game long enough to see what it does to the in game economy but you can only imagine.

   Today on WoWInsider they talked about how do you spot a gold farmer? While there are some good points listed, I tend to only report the spammers standing in town yelling about their gold for sell. I wonder how many reports it takes to get them banned or if others even report them anymore and just go along with their game.

   Do you report spammers, gold farmers or anyone?