Protecting the really valuable assets?
I let my City of Heroes account expire several years ago -- quite a while before I moved from Kenosha to Bristol, actually. Of course I'm still on the email list to get notices of updates and special offers and the like. Sometimes you get notices like the current one where they're having a "Play During the Free Reactivation Weekend" offer ... which means for a few days I can play for free, return to the game, see the changes, etc. Heck, it's free so it's not a bad deal even if I only play for a few hours, right?
Of course there's the little matter of reactivating my account. First of all, what was the name of the account again? I made a guess at it and tried the 'reset password' option, but kept getting an error. Eventually I started an email conversation with tech support where I had to provide everything but a blood sample to verify my identity. There were quite a few items of information that I no longer have access to due to changes in my life or the fact that I don't have archives of five year old email. Honestly, I've had less trouble convincing my bank of my identity and right to access an account! In the end it turns out that one of the key pieces of identity -- my date of birth -- was wrong in their system. Really, I promise you that I've only got the one date of birth and it hasn't changed in the last five years. How many other bits of identity do you need? Luckily I convinced the support dude that I really am the original owner of the account and he issued a password reset so I was able to login and update the information.
Friday I get to see if I can actually access the game itself. I remember the last time I tried it out I couldn't remember half of how the powers worked, so I think I'll just start a new character to play around a bit. I seriously doubt that I'll reactivate my account (can't really afford it right now, for one thing), but this is particularly good timing since bookwurm and I are planning this as a 'recovery' weekend. Yay for mindless comic violence!
Of course there's the little matter of reactivating my account. First of all, what was the name of the account again? I made a guess at it and tried the 'reset password' option, but kept getting an error. Eventually I started an email conversation with tech support where I had to provide everything but a blood sample to verify my identity. There were quite a few items of information that I no longer have access to due to changes in my life or the fact that I don't have archives of five year old email. Honestly, I've had less trouble convincing my bank of my identity and right to access an account! In the end it turns out that one of the key pieces of identity -- my date of birth -- was wrong in their system. Really, I promise you that I've only got the one date of birth and it hasn't changed in the last five years. How many other bits of identity do you need? Luckily I convinced the support dude that I really am the original owner of the account and he issued a password reset so I was able to login and update the information.
Friday I get to see if I can actually access the game itself. I remember the last time I tried it out I couldn't remember half of how the powers worked, so I think I'll just start a new character to play around a bit. I seriously doubt that I'll reactivate my account (can't really afford it right now, for one thing), but this is particularly good timing since bookwurm and I are planning this as a 'recovery' weekend. Yay for mindless comic violence!