EA looking at Lord of Ultima security

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 6 September, 2010

Following hacked player accounts.

EA is working to improve the security behind free-to-play online fantasy game Lord of Ultima after players reported hacked accounts.

The publisher is working to prevent future account hacks, and promised gamers will see "some improvements" in the area.

The news comes after Eurogamer was contacted by Ultima players who claimed to have suffered account hacks.

An exasperated player called iamcaveman reported his troubles on the game's official forum.

"The only thing I can imagine is someone hacked my account, got my password, and abandoned all my cities," iamcaveman wrote.

"My password wasn't something stupid like 'password123' so they must have put some actual effort into this.

"Now, to me the most disturbing part of this is that EA doesn't seem to mind this. I tried to contact them through their support link but half the topics just tell you to go to the wiki/forum for support.

"By now, members of my alliance are taking my cities. Some other alliances are taking them over too I'm sure."

In response to the complaint, EA's community representative for games BattleForge, Lord of Ultima, Battlefield Heroes and Command & Conquer, Chris Murphy, promised to look into the issue.

"I cannot go into any details at this moment in time, but there should be some improvements in this area in the near future," Murphy wrote in the game's forum.

"We are looking into improving Lord of Ultima's security."

He added: "Announcing new features, changes, and/or additions to the game before they are actually implemented is a tricky business simply because the situation can change extremely quickly.

"There are also some complications when it comes to announcing free features/content in advance as well. I'd love to be able to tell you what is coming up, as quite often it could steer some of the more downbeat threads in a positive direction, but I'm afraid that just isn't something we can do.

"What I can tell you, is that security in Lord of Ultima is being looked at."

Lord of Ultima went live in April. Eurogamer Germany awarded it a promising 8/10.

Discover what's what in the video below.

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (8) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Paperghost #1 2 years ago

    my first question would be if they use the same password elsewhere. while it might be a good one, if used in conjunction with something such as a LIVE account and an easy to guess password reset question, it isn't much use at all.

  • Trikk #2 2 years ago

    Smart sales trick: first tell people you stole from a "stupid player" then offer to sell something for real life money.

  • Silvanoshi #3 2 years ago

    Darn, if only it was as easy to get this kind of coverage when we bring out cool new features for our games :/ .

    And yes, I would strongly suggest that players avoid retrend's offer, they may very well find themselves have paid £20 for nothing.
    Edited by Silvanoshi at 06/09/10 @ 16:06

  • Silvanoshi #4 2 years ago

    Thanks for pointing out that error, much appreciated. I've corrected it now :).

    I fail to see how a spelling mistake can somehow determine how trustworthy a person may be. However, the world is a wonderful place and many people view both it, and life in general, in very different ways. I'm happy to leave it at that.

  • smelly #5 2 years ago

    retrend - you seem to have problems reading words. He doesnt work on this game. He wishes the games he DOES work on got free publicity like this.

    And you sir are a thief. I wonder if the 80 dollars worth of ingame stuff was your own money or the guy you stole the account from? And now you're trying to hide evidence by "generously" giving it to someone else?

  • Emmit_Assassin #6 2 years ago

    @smelly - silvanoshi does work on the game, or at least he's got the same username as the person that puts all the forum stuff on from EA. That's why retrend was, er, having a go at him.

    I think the game is fundamentally broken, as it just takes far too long to do anything. I was a leader of the number 7 alliance in world 4 and jusy got bored with all the hassle it brought. It was so stressful and annoying for absolutely no return. The endgame will be won by the person that sinks the most money into it, not the players that put the most time/effort in. As for account security, there are options that let someone else take control of your account easily with your permission, (for holidays) so therefore there are problems inherrent in the setup for this.

  • Emmit_Assassin #7 2 years ago

    @retrend - Might wanna try a spell checker-

    "really expecting anyone too, and wont be "

    You wanted a 'to', and not a 'too'.

  • Xensor #8 2 years ago

    Played for a few weeks, got bored, stopped.

    Next.