Goodbye Blizzard/Activision/Microsoft/Etc. Etc. Etc

Warning Long read incoming…

I’ve played World of Warcraft since 2005. Was in a guild named for the sound a murloc makes founded by two brothers, Stew and Brud. These two men had the patience of Job. They spent countless hours fielding questions, educating and literally parenting the mostly kids in our guild. They took a Motley Crue of internet strangers, myself included, and attempted to mold us into a group capable of raiding, winning bg’s and succeeding in WoW. I have fond memories of them and the years spent grinding out my toons. I found and lost love in WoW. Got lost in the lore. When it started to feel like a job, I’d quit but they’d release a new expansion and I’d be right back. I started playing Hearthstone in 2014. Mostly as a F2P player. I’d become accustomed to the Blizzard grind. I swore to myself I wouldn’t let HS become the timesuck WoW had become so in the last few years I began to spend $ to purchase cards to remain competitive. A few days ago, out of the blue, out of the corner of my eye, my screen flashed on my tablet which said something about dust. It wasn’t until the next day that I realized I had 11,200 (5,600 × 2) more dust in game. My thought process went first to…a gift from the Microsoft Overlords? This was at least 4 times more dust than I’d ever been able to grind out in game. I thought it must be a bug. A gift this game changing would have been preceded by an announcement, some fanfare. Cautiously I decided not to spend it assuming the company I’d had a working relationship with and, for the most part, trusted for some 17 years would, given some time, find some way to sort out. Checked the forums to find it was a reimbursement. Then that the amount of dust they reimbursed was wrong. A warning that spending the dust might place you in a negative balance. That they’d be taking back the dust. That people were missing dust they had before this debacle. That the people who crafted cards with the unearned dust could keep their cards.

Um…

?

I opened a ticket

Me
I understand there was a bug in Hearthstone, I magically received 5,600 dust twice. I did not spend any of it assuming it was a bug and if it wasn’t, wanted to wait til end of month to spend it. Please tell me the people who spent it will have the cards they purchased with it, rescinded. If not, I’m afraid I’ll be quitting this game once receiving your reply. What a load of horse manure…

Them
Greetings,

Thank you for contacting us regarding recent Hearthstone dust grants and missing cards.

An update has been made recently to the forum post from our Community Manager regarding the full extent and resolution of these issues today, please see them at the post below:

We apologize for the inconvenience and confusion this may have caused.

Your ticket was identified to be about the issue addressed above. If the provided information resolves your issue, please mark it as Resolved. If this is not the case, please respond so a Game Master can manually review it.

Me
There is no mention in the link you directed me to, below…

1/20 Update:

The heal-up correction has been completed in the Americas region. That correction included running a script that subtracted the same amount of Dust that was previously added to each account, and also added back in the cards that were previously mistakenly deleted. Then, the refunds were processed as initially intended. The refunds only properly apply to a very small number of players, so the end result is that most players ended up with 0 extra Dust. We’ve seen your concerns, and we’ll continue to investigate your reports, but we’ve looked into it extensively and have not seen any player end up with less Dust than they started with (except for any Dust they spent in between the two adjustments).

The original refund script has been fixed, and is now being rolled out in each of the other regions. Because it was adjusted, most players won’t see any affects from it.

We apologize for the inconvenience and confusion this has caused.

On how you’ve handled those players who crafted cards using un-earned dust. Will the cards be rescinded? Will their dust have a negative balance? Or will you be gifting the cards to those players who took the $ and ran? Thanks

Them
Hey there!

Game Master Laenowatar here, at your service! I received your ticket and want to help provide some information on this.

I understand you’re looking into the recent dust bugs that occurred in Hearthstone. Currently, there has been several patches that fixed the dust issue for players. At this point, the dust value for accounts should be correct now. The account should have the dust value from before the compensation was sent out, with any gains and usage of the dust applied.

If you are encountering additional issues regarding the Hearthstone dust bug, please submit a bug report on the Hearthstone bug forums at this page:

Let us know if you have any other questions. Take care, and have a great rest of your day! (^_^)/"

I’m sick to my stomach. Either willfully or out of ignorance, they won’t answer my direct question regarding cards made with ill gotten dust. So you made a mistake. Gave out dust you shouldn’t have. Took it back. I’m actually ok with that. Accidents happen. But how can a group of men sit in a board or conference room and mutually agree to allow those that crafted cards with unearned dust…to keep them? In my case that’s 7 legendaries. A total paradigm shift in my game. A chance to make it out of Gold and Platinum into the rarefied air of Legend. This isn’t about hating those that took the dust and ran. They’re victims too. We are all victims of a company that has lost the plot. How can anyone continue playing this game or associating with what’s left of Blizzard? I’m afraid I can’t and it saddens me. Especially since I’ve spent the last 4 1/2 years mostly bedridden recovering from something called Guillain Barre and Hearthstone on my tablet has been my go to out of the hell I currently find myself in. Sad day…

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Dont worry, I bet we’ll get a free mercenaries pack in a few days.

I understand how you feel though. It isn’t a good feeling, but we should know how they operate by now. It’s 1600 dust to craft an old wild legendary. 50 dollars (40 packs) to be guaranteed one legendary …that you may not like.

They’re a company and seem to only think of the profit. Rewarding the dust for them is making them think you won’t spend money in the future.

Sadly it’s all really showing their greed.

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I honestly can’t imagine how anyone can continue playing, even the people who got 10’s of thousands of free dust and crafted cards. You’d have to have tunnel vision to think you’re time won’t come to get shafted…

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Blizzard have large player numbers so i think people at ticket support are just random simple people that are there to help with simple problems , mb they have a keyword search to find the right copy/paste to reply, and usually when they dont know what to do they send people back to bug forums.
Mb they can escalate problems to the real staff , but never escalate the users with problems .
So dont expect real answers from tickets …

We are not sure this happened .
And no one clearly stated that they decided to not remove negative dust.

the negative dust option came from a valid source hsdecktech ,

The team is able to send people to negative Gold for various reasons (like refunds). I think they can do the same with Dust if you spend it before they revoke the second grant. We haven’t discussed what’ll happen yet, so this is no comment on what will happen, just what can

I was directly asked this question by several people and gave an answer that made it explicitly clear that it was not certain and nothing was decided. For everyone asking for more communication, that felt like the best way to respond.

Yeah, part of the downside of being as open as possible on here is that you’re going to get info before it’s finalized. I tried to make it clear that was just what I thought a possible option was, not what was for sure happening. Sorry, bud.

We want fast replys but after we dont accept if they change.
It’s clear now we dont get replys becouse before the conference room staff vote no one will take the risk .

They dont know the answers so they try to avoid the questions .
It’s not a 1 man decision

So i just wait , i want to see hs staff to WRITE in a official post they have decided to not remove dust from people who crafted cards with unearned dust .

Then, you’ve stopped playing? If you don’t play anymore, then why are you commenting here? This forum is for people who play Hearthstone; not people who tell others not to play Hearthstone.

This is just a bunch of hysterical nonsense.

This forum is public not private, you an admin? No i’m not playing anymore but interested in what others think about this. Betting you were a hall monitor in high school. You don’t have anything constructive to add, please move on…

Are you really quitting because other people got something good, rather than you getting something bad?

Did you write this long thread just because you want people to be punished, otherwise you can’t keep playing the game?

I think there is a problem well beyond the dust issue here…

for me and many other people, the game is still the same as before: we have the same cards and the same dust as before (and from what I understood, it’s your case too).

If it will, I will stop playing too.
I would like to see if all the players who quitted because of:

  • jaina portrait change
  • blitzchung
  • battlepass
  • ticketus
  • blizzard allegation

are still playing this game (probably yes).

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skilled players quitted during yogg saron was available in tourneament.
in fact, it was banned before the finals.

I dont think gamemasters are allowed to answer any questions that arent related to you specifically.

The point of my post had nothing to do with players who crafted cards with unearned dust being punished. It was finally realizing that the company I’ve been giving $ to since 2005 is morally bankrupt and finally having the guts to say sayonara. Don’t want to be party to it. But you enjoy your game. People playing with cards they didn’t earn, you enjoy them too…