Bankheistsmake for great games when you are the one cleaning up the coffers, butwhat happens when you are on the receiving end?
World of Warcraftguilds have had to find that out the hard way after a mysterious chain of events triggered byThe War Withinexpansionsent years of loot stored in guild banks to the shadow realm.
After much anger, heartbreak, and confusion,Blizzardfinallyfixed the causeof the problem, butthe solution was far from perfect.
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World of Warcraftis a classic, but like any live software element, it requires regular patches and maintenance to stay relevant.
On August 13, Blizzard rolled out patch 11.0.2 to lay the groundwork forThe War Withinexpansion. What was supposed to be an innocuous update startedthe dark ages ofWarcraftguild banking.
Reports began cropping up ofmultiple items going inexplicably missing from guild banks, but these were met with liberal use of Occam’s Razor.
Disgruntled or dishonest guild members with access to the bank could easily have taken the goods, after all. Maybe it was nothing but a visual bug, with the items safe and sound and pending until the server underwent some percussive maintenance.
As more and more guilds became affected, attentiveWorld of Warcraftbankers began auditing their logs, to no avail.There was no trace of mass withdrawals, raids, or any record that the items ever existed.
The Hole Within
Following a lot of complaining and sleuthing, the picture became clear:some but not all guilds had lost varying amounts stored in their banks, going from a handful of items to the full contents.
To lose your guild’s entire estate to a mysterious error in a two-decade-old game hurts harder than a stray arrow. To add poison to the tip,Blizzard remained initially mute for a whole month.
Acknowledgment eventually came throughcommunity manager Linxy, who shed some light on what had happened.
we found the culprit—a technical update that was made to support cross-realm guilds
A routine clean-up process meant to allow players to invite anyone from their region to their guild went rogue,mercilessly deleting professions materials and guild bank contents.
Developers at Blizzardhave compiled a partial list of affected items, butthis list is incomplete. The bundle of what could be recovered was sent to guild leaders, unleashing the next chapter in this saga.
After virtual couriers dropped off the packages, theWorld of Warcraftlearned ofan abyss between Blizzard’s definition of incomplete and theirs.
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Screenshots and text posts floodedWorld of WarcraftReddit communities displaying the pittance the studio sent players.
Some guilds received a single item, while others were inexplicably bestowed with holiday gear and nothing else.
To make matters worse, as the recovery packages were sent directly to guild leaders,other members could only access the surviving pittance if the leader was active and willingto put the goods back in the guild bank.
There is little comfort on offer to affected guilds.The missing items are lost forever, and Blizzard is unlikely to reopen that can of worms to rectify the issue.
The only thing left to do is what guilds are best known for: collectivelybring death and destruction to weaker enemies, and rebuild in the process.
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