Dev blog #3 - A small nightmare, a big warning, and a long overdue update
Hey everyone.
First of all, I’m sorry for being quiet here and on Discord. I didn’t disappear, I didn’t abandon the project, and I definitely wasn’t ignoring anyone. For the last three weeks, I’ve been dealing with one of the most stressful and exhausting situations I’ve had in years.
My email was hacked.
From there, things turned into a complete mess very quickly. The people who got access started changing passwords and locking me out of accounts connected to that email. Patreon, Discord, PlayStation, Epic, Steam, and a few other services were affected in one way or another.
Thankfully, after a lot of tickets, verification steps, stress, and swearing at my screen like a very stable adult, I managed to recover almost everything.
Almost.
The only major thing I still haven’t recovered is Discord.
I’ve been waiting for Discord Support for around 15 days now, and so far… nothing useful. Compared to other services, it has been incredibly frustrating. PlayStation, Epic, Steam, and others were sorted out much faster, but Discord has been a brick wall so far.
The worst part is that I also lost access to my Discord server owner account.
For now, the server is being watched and managed by one of the admins, so it’s not abandoned or completely out of control. In a few days, my old account should hit 30 days of inactivity, and then we will try to request a server ownership transfer to the admin. After that, the plan is to transfer ownership again to my new Discord account.
So the server should be safe, but until Discord actually helps or the ownership transfer works, I’m stuck waiting.
I also only got Patreon access back yesterday, which is why I couldn’t post updates, reply to messages, or explain what was happening earlier. I know that from the outside it probably looked like I just went silent, and I’m genuinely sorry about that.
This whole situation was also a painful lesson, so here’s a small warning from someone who got too comfortable and paid for it.
Don’t be like me.
Set up two-factor authentication everywhere you can. Even if your computer is safe, even if you think your passwords are fine, even if you think nothing will happen. A data leak or one compromised email can snowball into a complete nightmare.
Also, don’t make the mistake I made by having two important emails with the same provider and relying on them too much. Once they locked me out of both emails and changed passwords, I was suddenly cut off from a huge part of my online life and services. It’s a very stupid feeling when you realize how much depends on one or two email accounts.
Thankfully, I had online transaction blocks on my credit cards, so they couldn’t go wild with payments. The only place where they managed to spend some money was PlayStation, but even that was handled and refunded.
So yeah. Fun little vacation in digital hell.
I’m back on Patreon now, and I’ll slowly start catching up with messages, posts, and everything I missed. Discord is still the big problem, but we have a plan, and the server is not being left alone.
Thank you for your patience, and again, I’m sorry for the silence. This whole thing drained the hell out of me, but I’m still here, the project is still alive, and now I’m just trying to clean up the mess one piece at a time.
Comments (16)
Once, just once, I wish to read "everything is going well, I managed to do 1000 renders this month".....
Oh. And of course always glad to hear you are doing well and still around. Particularly after the ending of the last update. YIKES!!!!! sOOOO. When is the next update coming out? The bigger the better!! I am biting my nails in anticipation dude!
Sounds like the nightmare we all dread. Like having both major credit cards hit with charges from out of state at businesses I never shopped much less accessed online for merchandise I have never bought online. Good thing to since both banks know my online purchase habits well. It was easy to "Stop" the transacions and lock the cards up. Only took 3 days to get new cards then 2 days to update my repeating payments assigned to each card. At least I have only had one, less than important, email ever hacked. Didn't do the hacker much good and my ISP immediately blocked them and notified me. Took 2 days to make sure that was fixed. The other thing besides 2-factor authenication to use that helps.. Frequently changing pass words for most if not all accounts to keep things fresh and random. We gotta do what we gotta do to stay safe.
What a friggin nightmare. Sorry you had to go through all that.
Candylight Studio creator has been trying to contact you on Discord fyi
Happy you're back.
crazy
hope yoyur able to get yours back
getting discord to get your account back is the worst, happened to me, ended up just making a new account lol
My heart goes out. I've had very similar issues, too, and learned or created new swear words myself. Seems like Discord is a very common thread with a lot of people when this happens. Personally, I won't go anywhere near it anymore, and yes, their support just sucks. There's got to be another venue, simpler, easier to work with and far less confused about it's purpose!!!! Best of luck.
I'm glad you're still working on the project this is hands down one of my favorite AVNs Great story and beautiful art!
I’m sorry that you had to go through that, I can’t imagine how stressful it must have been, I get notices all the freaking time with people trying to hack shit but the two factor stops them, I hope the stress is over now for ya, take care ❤️
What a nightmare, glad the worst part is over.
GOOD THURSDAY MORNING 🌄🌞, KARABINEK AND EVERYONE!!! All good, man. We know you'll never abandon the game/us 😅. Having said that… "F you, hacker 🤬! Thank god, your got most of your stuff back 😁🙏🏻. Oh… yeah…. Discord support is not that great. One of my Devs said Discord support was horrible for him too when he himself was hacked last month. Luckily for him, he was able to regain his account and stop the hackers in time from doing too much damage. Hope you get your Discord back 🙏🏻. No… you're good, man. I mostly just mind my own business and let Devs do their thing 😅. Always will be here to support you and the game ❤️🫶🏻🫰🏻! As always, thanks for the Dev Blog 👍🏻, Karabinek! Keep on keeping on 😉!!! ALWAYS EXCITED AND EAGERLY WAITING FOR YOUR GAME AND READING YOUR POSTS 🙌🏻🔥!!! Love and appreciate everything! You ❤️, your ladies 😍, your posts 🥰, your renders/previews 😘, and your game ❤️! Always make my days better 🌈! Thank you, everyone, always, for being in my life and being a part of my routine 😉! Stay safe, stay blessed, and stay in PERFECT health, beautiful people! And don't forget to stay hydrated! And you're never alone ❤️🫶🏻!!! OUR AVNS AND OUR DEVS CONNECTS US ALL 🤗!!! Have an amazing and beautiful week! I'll catch you all—ON THE NEXT ONE ✌🏻😁!!!
when my eBay account got hacked. They emptied my bank account sending purses to Russia. Online security 15 years ago was crap.
Glad you got most of it back.