Blizzard takes the policies behindWorld Of Warcraft’s Hardcore mode very seriously. The mode itself is apermadeath versionof WoW, where one mistake can mean the deletion of hundreds of hours of progress,so the whole point is the massive investment of risk vs. reward.
So, when a whole community of gamers is constantly losing accounts filled with massive amounts of effort and progress, many will try to complain to Blizzard to get those accounts back.
But historically, Blizzard has remained pretty stationary on their goals.From server issues to villainous grifters, Blizzard has very rarely gone through the trouble of reactivating lost accounts—that is, until now.
After one of the biggest WoW Hardcore guilds named OnlyFangs, a group solely consisting of fairly popular Twitch streamers,lost multiple accountsdue to malicious DDoS attacks during aBlackwing Lair raid,Blizzard has announced an attempt to revive those accounts to keep the integrity of the game.
It would be an understatement to say that the DDoS attack on OnlyFangs utterly eradicated the guild and their progress. After the attacks, the leader of the guild, popular streamer Sodapoppin, announced through Discord that this likely meantthe end of OnlyFangsaltogether.
So, for a short period, hackers had gotten exactly what they wanted.They caused an event so disastrous that it ultimately led to the end of the entire guild. With both the massive number of lost members and the threat of future attacks being so great, the guild didn’t have the means to continue.
In the Discord announcement after the DDoS attack, Sodapoppin stated, “It’s a terrible ending imo, but that’s the ending we got,” showing that, while a terrible event, it was ultimately a decision they felt they had to make.
That was, of course, until Blizzard ultimately announced they’d be rolling back these accounts, allowing the OnlyFangs members lost during the raid to continue playing.Although an unprecedented decision from Blizzard, it shows their attempt to preserve theintegrity of WoW Hardcore.
While this may not signify a full return of OnlyFangs, at the very least, it shows that Blizzard isn’t letting the attackers escape scot-free.
Blizzard’s Updated Policy On Account Revives
While this decision may seem a bit unexpected,Blizzard stated that, “DDoS attacks are an intentionally malicious effort made by third-party bad actors, and we believe the severity and results of DDoS attacks specifically warrant a different response.”
In addition, Josh Greenfield, a senior game producer at Blizzard, statedon Blueskythat“It’s a tough call, but the only alternative is letting the losers behind these DDoS attacks win, and honestly, fuck that.”
It’s uncertain whether the intensity of the attack or the popularity of OnlyFangs is precisely what caught Blizzard’s eye when making this rollback, but nonetheless, it seems like a welcome decision.DDoS attacksclearly represent abnormal behavior within the game;simply put, it’s not an intended way for players to be killed.
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That said, Blizzard has remained assured that they will only revive players lost to mass events like DDoS attacks in the future “at our sole discretion,” showing that the general policy behind hardcore and its rules will remain unmoving.
As they stated in their forum post, there are many reasons why players may die unexpectedly but not regain their accounts.Blizzard comments, “we do not intend to revive characters which have died due to server disconnects, lag spikes, gameplay bugs, or any other reasons.”
That said, for theintegrity of World of Warcraft, this fight against malicious offenders aiming to ruin the game for streamers, e-celebs, and average players is very welcome, signaling a positive shift from Blizzard for their future account revive policies.
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