Attn: URGENT ANNOUNCEMENT - SERVERS ARE STILL DOWN

[Sarah Otter]

Dear Players,

At approximately 2:45 pm PST on Thursday, February 14th, a hacker gained access to our servers.

We need to notify you that it is possible this hacker got the email names that you use to log into Villagers & Heroes. Your game passwords are encrypted, therefore the hacker cannot access your game accounts.

Just to be 100% safe, we recommend that if you use your game password for any other accounts, that you change it.

Furthermore, if you receive any unsolicited email from Villagers & Heroes or from Mad Otter, or from Neonga, asking you for any kind of personal information - or directing you to click on some link - IGNORE IT. We will never ask you for personal information through email.

We can tell you that all of your accounts and characters are completely backed up, and will be restored. We are working to completely secure the servers so this does not happen again. We estimate this process will take 2-4 days. We apologize for this extreme downtime, and will be working tirelessly to restore everything and get the game up and running again.

Additionally, we do not store your name, address, or any payment or credit card info on our servers, so that was not compromised.

We will absolutely be compensating you for missed calendar rewards, and then some. In short, we will make this up to you, we promise.

Thank you again so much for your patience and understanding. You are truly a fantastic community.

Edit: We are trying to keep you informed in daily Twitch broadcasts about any new developments as long as the server is down (plus there's also a lot of interesting stuff we show from our upcoming updates and lots more). If for some reason you can't or don't have the time to watch them, there's a recap of all that's been said here. Thanks
Nadiria, for your hard work!

 

[ChangingSpots]

Thank you for the information and advice! (shame on evil hackers -- boooooo, hisss!)

 

[Momonga]

Dear Players,

At approximately 2:45 pm PST on Thursday, February 14th, a hacker gained access to our servers.

We need to notify you that it is possible this hacker got the email names that you use to log into Villagers & Heroes. Your game passwords are encrypted, therefore the hacker cannot access your game accounts.

Just to be 100% safe, we recommend that if you use your game password for any other accounts, that you change it.

We can tell you that all of your accounts and characters are completely backed up, and will be restored. We are working to completely secure the servers so this does not happen again. We estimate this process will take 2-4 days. We apologize for this extreme downtime, and will be working tirelessly to restore everything and get the game up and running again.

We will absolutely be compensating you for missed calendar rewards, and then some. In short, we will make this up to you, we promise.

Thank you again so much for your patience and understanding. You are truly a fantastic community.

Thanks for the update. Do what need to be done. I believe most players will understand

 

[Marie Daniel]

I seriously hope that you catch this hacker and press charges against him as this is a serious crime.

 

[Synsamia / Miso Wong]

Can’t log in guess all is still down.. hope y’all done have to lose to much sleep over this. Thank you devs and otters for giving such an awesome game. Can’t wait to log bag in . Happy last minutes of valentines night.

 

[amirbadshah]

2-4 days...Ahhhh

 

[Jazz Mann]

Thank you for the updates.

 

[BBlue]

yikes 2-4 days of game being down and hacker trying to get toons is bad glad they are backed up, and I think I used different pass for vh and email but my forum account is same email as I use for the game and yahoo

 

[Lill]

Thank you for the information and it's sad to see the damage hackers can do with putting more work and stress for you guys and taking the fun away for us who playing the game. Take the time you guys need and please don't stress. Sending you guys lots of love <3

 

[Liston]

I wonder if we need to take extra precautions on our emails ? or need to change passwords for those, for sure do NOT open any emails unknown appear from the game for sure. we hardly get those kind anyway, so we leave those alone for now

 

[Marie Daniel]

If you didn't ask for such email or if its not from a loved one or a close friend don't open it. Simply delete.

 

[BBlue]

I wonder if we need to take extra precautions on our emails ? or need to change passwords for those, for sure do NOT open any emails unknown appear from the game for sure. we hardly get those kind anyway, so we leave those alone for now

I would just to be on safe side if u don't remember if the pass was used elsewhere as I just looked at my email on what I used and found things I never was on.

 

[Ekimie]

How does the password thing work or steam? because you dont use it to directly log into the game

 

[Tiberius]

How does the password thing work or steam? because you dont use it to directly log into the game

If you play our game through Steam, your login data is all stored on the Steam servers and all we know from you is your Steam ID and nothing else (like Steam password etc.), so regardless what happens on our servers, those info should be safe.

If you still want to change your Steam password, even though it shouldn't be needed (to my knowledge at least), you can do so here: https://help.steampowered.com/en/wizard/HelpWithLoginInfo?reset=1&issueid=408

 

[Shadowcave]

Thanks for keeping us updated Sarah. I can only imagine how annoyed and frustrated u all are. Good Luck!

 

[Marie Daniel]

I'm wondering if this Hacker was part of the game and got butt hurt over someone or the staff and decided to get even? If so, that's bad gaming..

 

[Time Prophet]

I wonder if the hacker was responsible for the gold bug earlier? Both incidents appear to have happened around the same time.

 

[Tiberius]

I wonder if we need to take extra precautions on our emails ? or need to change passwords for those (...)

As we have said, your passwords are encrypted in our database so they should be safe even if somebody has access to our database. But if you have used your game account password somewhere else - yeah, we all know that you shouldn't re-use passwords, but of course that happens - you might still want to change it whereever you have re-used that pw. Just to be extra, extra sure that nothing further will happen.

I think I used different pass for vh and email but my forum account is same email as I use for the game and yahoo

Forum database should be completely separate from the rest of the game databases, so forum passwords shouldn't be affected. Still, it's always a good idea to NOT reuse passwords

I wonder if the hacker was responsible for the gold bug earlier? Both incidents appear to have happened around the same time.

I'm wondering if this Hacker was part of the game and got butt hurt over someone or the staff and decided to get even? If so, that's bad gaming..

As you probably can imagine, we have different priorities right now: assessing the damage, re-securing our systems, install a backup, figuring a way to compensate for lost progress/time etc. ... but we will of course make some sort of investigation of the whole incident and will probably be able to tell you more details later. Atm I could only speculate and that's something I don't want to.

 

[Aurius]

I'm wondering if this Hacker was part of the game and got butt hurt over someone or the staff and decided to get even? If so, that's bad gaming..

Thats what I've been thinking as well. If it WAS some kind of revenge attack over something, I bet they are feeling pretty good about themselves for causing the game to shut down temporarily. I so hope they get caught.

 

[Dawn Chorus]

Thank you for the update, good luck ? with sorting it all out, take your time we will still be here when you get things back up and running