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Thread :-Old account reactivate: Characters gone?!?

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I guess I'm not 100% suprised after so long but I reactivated a very old account and the characters are gone. I know it was never hacked or any such thing so it's obvious to me it's something on OSI's end.

Was this an official policy for really old accounts? Or maybe they had problems once that caused it? Basically I'm just curious if any of the really old vets might have a clue as to what happened and why. I already went through EA support but I'm sure they'll just give me some "sorry here's one moth free" blah blah deal and no real info.

Would be nice to get some sort of compensation though as it was a release day account which I know should have many things that are super rare by now.

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Jeremy_EAMythic UO Community Coordinator


This might have affected that account - there seem to have been a few of those over approximately a six month period, beginning September 1999. To the best of my knowledge (or, more accurately, the uo.com search feature's knowledge) we haven't done one since, but if that timing doesn't look right to you, let me know.

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from the knowledge base

Currently we do not delete characters in UO based on age or inactivity. However, character data does take up a great deal of space on the servers, and many players have multiple characters that they do not play (characters made for one-time events, made during their regular shard downtime, etc.). In the event of low disk space, we may delete unused characters, which are defined as any character that has not been logged in for 6 months, and has 350 or fewer total skill points. This system may be activated at any time if it becomes necessary (i.e. when the available disk space on a shard becomes low). Since it will only be activated in the event of low disk space, it may not be activated on all shards at once. Remember - although inactive characters are not deleted at this time, it's always smart to make sure your favorite characters are refreshed at least every few months! Once this system is turned on, it will be a permanent addition to the game.
and
Unfortunately characters that are deleted accidentally, or deleted by a malicious user, can not be restored. Once a character is deleted it is removed from the database. It is not possible to retrieve deleted characters.


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Ouchie, that's kinda harsh. Does it really take that much server space to store people's old characters? I mean, wouldn't saving them make people more likely to come back at some point if they knew their old mage/paladin/whatever was still there waiting for them?


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Something very strange there. Inactive accounts don't age. For your account to be 80 months old, someone has been paying for it for 80 months?

I strongly suggest checking for characters on all other shards.

During the free trial return for vets, after eventually figuring out my old login name and password I was able to access my old account which hasn't been played or payed for since around 02. All of my chars on my main shard were still there but all alt shards had been deleted. So its not all old chars this happens to I can attest. All alt chars on other shards were only there for Xtransfers so no real skills on them. So I would have to agree it doesnt happen to everyone.

I would agree with the whole deleting alts on other shards if that particular account is inactive, but if your account is active, don't delete their characters. There are plenty of inactive accounts that you could do this to first, before touching active ones. Don't hurt your current paying customers if you can avoid it.