Guild Bank Missing Items Bug -- Aug/Sept 2024

I’m not as familiar with this GM as I really just got to the Bug Report forums recently because of the Guild Bank deletion issues. Maybe mentioned a bug or 2 before that?

I read the post on GM Help and I have to say it’s pretty much what I stated here in this thread about what they seem to be able to do now - they can help with our characters being stuck, and billing issues. But that’s it.

I remember a time when the GM’s had the ability to help us with issues in game, like if a quest was stuck or an item disappeared. The team back then had a better overall approach to customer service than they have now, as they are being led by completely different people, now. It was really different, back then. The communication alone is something that I miss. :heart: The new guys seem kinda trapped by what they can or can’t say - or they do not do anything unless told to by higher-up people in the company, perhaps.

Communication is really huge for folks dealing with a situation where people are affected by an event that has never happened in the game, before. The lack of communication or what seems like a sincere apology from the devs is the thing I think a lot of people here are unhappy about. Sure, we’d like to get our stuff back, and it’s really strange that Blizzard doesn’t want to do anything at all to help those affected. “They have no idea who was affected,” some say - which seems really bonkers because Bliz has always been capable of being able to help their customers. Rep being reset, Achievs being reset, valor being reset, tmogs disappearing, guild banks being deleted (mine was 7 tabs wiped.) It’s a strange situation we’re in now, and the CS seems unwilling or unable to do anything to fix it. It’s disheartening as a customer to know, at any time, it could all just go ‘poof’. It does state it in the ToS and I’ve occasionally considered a few sentences in the ToS where it does state this could happen; it just never has. This situation for all of us affected in different ways - is something never encountered on this level, in my experience. 20 years is a long time with a great track record. It doesn’t have to stop, now. I’ve been playing since Vanilla; I played Diablo and Starcraft, back in the 90s. I watched others play WC2 and 3.

It’s just a long time to go to hit a huge brick wall of no consideration to the players affected by this. If they could just at least say they were sorry for the deletions - and try to do something about them. (Particularly the Reps, Achievs, and Valor, and millions in gold missing from warbanks; they sound terrible @_@.) - I personally would be thrilled to get back just the first 3 or 4 vertical rows on the far right side of my first GB tab. It was mostly sentimental stuff I saved from friends in game like letters and stuff I saved for family that was silly/funny, and little holiday treats. I was the only one in the guild, but I hoped they would pop-in, one day.

The CS telling us that they aren’t allowed to do anything in general to assist - even people with Achievements for a Reputation or a PVP Achiev that is visible - but they’re not able to even fix the reputation for the players - is baffling to me. This is not good customer service. - For those that were affected by the GB thing, we were posting in Bug Report forums when it was actually occurring. Some kind of compensation would be great. It doesn’t have to be complicated! I’ve suggested a “Feat of Strength Achievement” for the Guild Masters affected because it didn’t happen to everybody - just a few of us. It would just show that Bliz does care about the players. Especially those of us that have been around since the 90s and Vanilla. Wouldn’t some kind of better response be good for player retention? Does this version of Blizzard management really care about player retention? For me, a good apology would go a LONG way. The post by the CS here didn’t seem incredibly sincere or concerned for those affected? It’s disheartening.

These days, GM’s send us to forums to get help from other players or they refer us to wowhead for a bugged quest, (I’ve had this response, before.) We can post in Bug Reports, but if Bliz doesn’t have the staff to handle bugs anymore, and the GM’s aren’t allowed to do anything to help advance a quest like they could before, it seems a little strange to me, that’s why I referred to it ‘customer-no-service’. It’s such a bummer.
:heart:

edit: bad typing

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One of the most concerning things about their response to this bug is the “precedent” it sets for future bugs going forward - victims of dev-caused bugs NOT getting restored/made whole is a very very big deal :flushed:

When (not if) more catastrophic bugs pop up in the future, we now have a general idea how they will likely respond (nothing done to restore affected players/victims)… that is the most scary thing

It makes you worry about whether anything else you do in the game is truly safe - the expectation of “permanence” that is supposed to be at the core of an MMO is shattered, one random bug/glitch (which isn’t even the player’s fault) and apparently you’re “back to square one” after losing all your progress or hard work

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Not a GM.

Vrakthris and Orlyia used to be, but are moderators and Twitter posters, what we call on the CS forum, SFA.

Just clarifying.

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Not to be totally rude; it does say that GM/CS can help with hacked accounts. ?

Ah right on, I meant to say CS rep. What is an SFA? edit: Thank you!

It’s been a long time since either of them were GM’s. They started as GM’s, long long long ago (like 15 years ago long). But they long since moved on from that.

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They may be familiar w/the old way Bliz did things, mm. :heart:

This is what I’ve been thinking about, too. It gives me a great deal of pause about buying anything from Bliz again; subs, mounts, pets, clothes, toys, anything. I know the game can’t last forever, and - we’re here now. lol :slight_smile:

edit: I’m not entirely buying they can’t verify it, because I think my ‘restoration’ was about 6 or 7 lines of text about grey stuff I put in the bank before the data loss, and never withdrew. Where did it go???

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Does Bliz care about player retention? Or our concerns?

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Not really.

They (like most companies) are short sighted when it comes to revenue. They are looking for quick cash now to make the bottom line look good for shareholders.

Now the MS has them – things will probably only get worse tbh. How many times has MS made changes to things no one asked for, broke things that were just fine or did things that really make you scratch your head.

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Loaded question, this post exists to gather feedback, as it’s currently not closed I’d have to assume your concern is noted.

Unfortunately it won’t sway the decision, developers reviewed the logs, gave their assessment and community provided the end information.

GM staff are outside of this flow.

I’m hoping for more , but have to be realistic as a fellow player, who’s also on the outside. Continue discussing amongst the others, I’m out.

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I can still remember during Cataclysm how the final Vashj’ir quest, “Defending the Rift”, was so broken that I had to have a GM move my character past the submarine event and flag as having completed the objective.  (Blizzard eventually removed the event altogether from the quest in patch 5.4.8, it was that bad.)

That was probably the last time I had actual in-game assistance from a GM, as Blizzard fired 600 of them soon after and completely overhauled their policies.  Downhill ever since, no thanks to management.

:headstone:

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Please update as to the status of restoring all of my private guild bank tabs that were wiped out on August 13…I’ve been playing wow for 20 years and losing 4-5 full bank tabs of rare boe items that are no longer available as well as letters from friends over the years some of whom don’t play or have passed away. This has been so frustrating and I know that the restoring of the 1000 plus peoples items would be quite a job. Honestly, a proper response to me by ticket other than a canned or generic ticket would be appreciated. Over all no response or concern on the part of Blizzard, whether working behind the scenes or not, is unacceptable. After 20 years of playing and loving Wow, this wasn’t the way I wanted to end it. Please advise

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I always had gold, I have all the professions and I like the AH. If I bought a token it was for something for sale in the store, never to pay for a subscription and even less for expansion. Then my dollars came to the company. Well, now they won’t come anymore. I will trade another player (via AH) 1 month of game for gold. The respect of paying real money for what was received was lost in the time between emptying the gvault and the vague response from the company that started this thread.

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I didn’t know if you had read my post, edit: so i tried to sum it up. :heart: I didn’t mean exactly for it to be a loaded question, because it seems to a lot of us that they don’t care. Thank you though for pointing out that they have the thread open. ; ;

edited a lot; can’t think T.T

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I tried to convey this when an mvp came to the forum. The mvp states that because the forum is open and it’s not closed, that is our response as they are gathering data. :sob: I tried to convey a concern about Bliz’s customer service, but I don’t know if that was understood? - mv said The thread is open, that is the customer service. ; ;

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Restored items, if there were any, were sent to the GMs by the dev team. They are not handled by a GM nor a ticket system.

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I’ve seen a few posts by people claiming stuff has disappeared recently; like within the last 2 weeks. Don’t know how true it is, but they’re here on the forums.

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Here’s an idea I was brainstorming earlier today over coffee…

If the dev’s new policy is going to be

…then perhaps they should increase GM powers to allow them to directly restore/revert affected players themselves on a 1-by-1, case by case basis.

Their database/logs show everything, so the GM - upon receiving a ticket from an affected player - could go in with his (newly unlocked) GM powers and “manually” restore the individual player after cross-referencing the official database/logs/armory/etc for a discrepancy of “before and after”

For example, the achievement for an Exalted reputation doesn’t lie… even if the player got hit by the post-11.0 bug and got randomly reset to Neutral due to said 11.0 bug. After receiving a ticket with the relevant details (character name, server, etc) the GM could check the database/logs for the Exalted achievement - and if it’s there he could use his new GM powers/tools to go in and “manually” set that character’s affected reputation back to Exalted

Problem solved, ticket solved :man_shrugging: Customer happy.

Of course, the devs should be working to fix the underlying bugs in the background (obviously), but this would address their “we don’t have time” excuse - instead offloading the workload of individual restorations to GMs and similar customer service staff

Who cares if ticket times/wait times go up in the short term, if GMs had the power to restore or make players whole on an individual basis then at least you would know you’re getting your stuff (or progress) back… it’s certainly better than this throwing-our-hands-up-and-giving-up nonresponse from the devs where it’s implied that there is no hope because they (devs) are APPARENTLY too lazy and/or unwilling to look into the issue of victim restoration any further :man_facepalming:

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So, has anything been lost since the patch went live?

They were tinkering with transmogs from old quests and class restricted gear. Did it have the same impact as last time or is everything still in place?

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