Ex-Lover Deletes MMOG Character

Ant writes "Voodoo Extreme reports on the story of a jilted Japanese girlfriend who logged onto her ex-lover's Lineage account with his username and password. Once there, she deleted his game data including all the items, weapons and clothes he had collected. Although the boyfriend did not suffer financially he reported the misuse of his account to the police. Police then reported the woman of Toyama Prefecture, to the Fukushima District Public Prosecutors Office accusing her of violating a law banning illegal access to someone else's online accounts." Considering the big business that Lineage represents, it doesn't surprise me that the police took it seriously.

Understandable...

His actions make perfect sense. After all, what's more important, your MMOG character or your ex-girlfriend? (obviously Slashdot readers will have to treat this as a hypothetical situation, since in order to have an ex-girlfriend you must first have a girlfriend)

Re:Understandable...

I think you're confused. Slashdotters have MMORG characters AS girlfriends.

errr.. hello?

if you don't want your shit deleted, don't give away your login details.

non-story. at least non-tech. talk to Oprah.

Can you ....

Can you Bobbitize your own character in such a game?

High score...

Help! I am in a similar situation right now. Standing not 10 feet from me, my soon-to-be-ex girlfriend has both hands gripped around the electrical cord of my classic vertical Qubix arcade cabinet. If she pulls the cord I lose my cherised spot as the high score holding.

To put this in perspective, it took me 4 years to get that score. I've been dating her for 2 years. Nuff said?

Now here's the dilemma: She demands I turn off this computer right now and spend the day with her. I haven't watched the new 'The Corpse Bride' trailer yet, nor have I caught up on Slashdot, Anandtech, or Ars Technica.

What do I do?

Re:High score...

Soon to be ex-girlfriend? I think you've already made the decision, buddy.

I recommend this: Say 'ok I'll turn off the computer and go out with you.' Then turn off the monitor, and get your coat or whatnot on and head out the door with her. When you get to the door, make sure she's outside, then step back inside quickly, and lock the door. Tell her she can get her shit later. :)

It goes to show...

Remember kids - share body fluids all you want, but never share your password.

-Adam

Malicious Reptilian Mind.

This really is a case that displays in a not so serious way the malicious ways of our inherited basic reptilian mind. Its the same part of our basic mind that makes people find malice amusing. Maybe it should be replaced by something else as we now live in a modern society where murdering ones fellow citizens , or just causing malice to them, does not increase once personal chance of survival as it would back in the ice cold days when the reptilian mind evolved , but in these modern times we should literaly perhaps change our minds or more in general our ways or attitudes towards something that is more suitable to civilized life.

Oh, please.

I'm sure the police have better things to do than worry about your VIRTUAL GOODS, VIRTUAL MONEY and VIRTUAL CLOTHING in a VIRTUAL WORLD.

Gah. Someone please put this person out his misery.

Wives and passwords

Seriously, what's the purpose of sharing your password with your SO? In case someone throws a brick at your head, and you forget everything, you can still log on? I can just imagine the damage my wife could do to my karma on /.--fortunately my pass is my girlfriend's name, she'll never figure it out ;)

you need a collection of unimportant stuff

0. get girlfriend
1. make sure your girlfriend thinks this collection you have means more to you than anything else in the world
2. you do something that makes your girlfriend want to break up with you (like making her feel like this collection you have means more to you than she does)
3. girlfriend breakes up with you, destroys your collection to hurt you
4. act angry/depressed/sad, see her walking out
5. have a laugh
6. get back to your precious MMOG game

Hurrah for original content!

slashdot -> Voodoo Extreme -> rpg.boomtown.net -> Mainichi Shimbun

And they said the Internet was dead. Ha!

Meanwhile, in mom's basement.

"See? See? I told you there's a reason it is bad to have a girlfriend."

hell hath no fury

Geez, why are women so vindictive ?
I bet that whatever he pulled wasn't even close to deserve something mean like this.

I'mean, come on, sleeping with her best friend... she should be angry at that girl, not him.

(Ignore this post.)

Well rid of such a vengeful b!tch

First, why would he give his uid/pw to anyone? Second, why have such a volatile GF? Better rid now than later. Waves or not, she's certainly high mtce.

Reporting to the police is perferctly appropriate. It is unauthorized access, and he has probably invested hundreds of hours worth a fraction million Yen. That he did it for pleasure is not relevant, the damage costs to repair. Like defacing a masterpiece.

Oh You Know What's Next...

It sounds like his ex-gf did the virtual equivalent of smashing his windshield in with a baseball bat. This is just another reminder to the kiddies that passwords should not be shared before marriage, and I'm none too sure about afterwards either! But you all know what this is leading up to...some serious makeup sex! Oh wait, this is /.. Nevermind...

good!

good for her i say. those fucking MMORPGs are like social black holes. i've been sucked into them a few times and every time I quit one i end up getting depressed about wasting my life on a stupid game. it's almost as bad as a drug addiction (maybe not physically but mentally, no doubt).

An analogy.

It'd be about the same as if she were writing a book, and after years of writing he deleted the file.

She's not out money, but all that time she spent is gone.

Rule of Acquisition

Ferengi Rule of Acquisition [dmwright.com] #40: She can touch your lobes, but never your Latinum.

Thank you, Slashdot....

for another way to threaten my husband.

Seriously, if I ever did that to him, he would go in and delete all of my WoW characters. And I would totally deserve it. Smashing a window on a car is one thing, deleting a character is another. At least you can replace the windshield fairly easily.

To quote:

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned for Sega. - Mallrats

what a shock

"she deleted his game data including all the items, weapons and clothes he had collected."

He should be so lucky. My ex deleted all of the above AND my SOUL. IN REAL LIFE.

In light of the Game companies stances

I have to wonder how this could be a crime, Blizzard has defined all content on the WoW servers as their property therefore they can go afvter the scumbags resselling it on Ebay. Sony has always had the same stance and no company has said that you own your characters or their gear. So the only person with a valid legal complaint in light of this is the company producing Lineage. Not to mention that this being Lineage, he will just start the macro going and return in a month to have anything he wants available.

Recycle Bin?

Why can't they just take all the deleted characters and put them in some kind of recycle bin for two months before permanently deleting them. I can't really see the need to ever permanently delete a character. Sure some people may give up a particular game, but I assume they'd leave their characters intact so that if in the future they wanted to play again they wouldn't have to start from scratch. Character deletions are an impulse move that seem good for about 5 minutes, but I'd wager that most people who permanently delete their characters end up regreting it soon after.

Change Your Passwords

No one suggested changing your passwords. You're safer if you change your passwords.

The real issue is: did she hack the password or not? Hacking is the crime described. Being given the password is not the crime described. Okay, so he had an emotional interest in the character, having spent so many hours playing. Guess what? It's a game. Anyone who plays a game knows that sometimes you lose.

The article is so short, you get no new information than the headline. I understand being upset, but I think perhaps he was going to auction off goods/money/character. I also suspect the reason they broke up was Lineage. Sort of a "force you to pay attention" motive.

Really?

The most shocking part of this story is that the Japanese police can actually do something. I worked in Tokyo for almost two years, and the only they they did was take my bike (true story).

The sad thing, ex-girlfriend or not, he most likely had more time and money wrapped up in his game than her. This oppinion comes from my experience with my friends over there and how odd/disfunctional their relationships seemed to my foreign eyes.

I never have this problem.

Then again, neither do I have a girlfriend, for that matter...

Re:My Take

I didn't RTFA but it is just as easy to get into a persons account by way of the cookies, if you are at there computer logged in as them.