My guild mate lost 4 whole guild bank of stuff now…every guild bank was emptied cause of this glitch or bug or whatever it was…and sad thing he hasn’t gotten back one item at all …nothing…I have know this player since 2008 …we even exchange real life Christmas gifts and that…so I know he is not making it up…just seems damn strange for all this loss of old world stuff right before a major event like this now.
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Someone mentioned in Gull’s “When Something is Wrong Make it Right” thread that it was too bad Holly or Johanna had not been the ones to give that quote. I thought some of Holly’s statements in this Daily Star interview were notable in light of that.
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(search the below title for Daily Star to access the article | emphasis below added by me)
World of Warcraft dev on 20 years of the first mainstream MMO and building a community
Lloyd Coombes, Games Writer for the Daily Star, sits down with Holly Longdale, Executive Producer on World of Warcraft, to talk about how the series’ biggest title keeps growing its community after two decades.
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Holly on 20 years of WoW: “It’s really unique, not just in World of Warcraft but in multiplayer gaming, where you develop those communities that live and breathe themselves. We essentially deliver the landscape for them to come together and join in, and I often say that whatever we make, which is often created with a wealth of feedback and input from the community, as soon as we release it, it becomes theirs.”
“We’ve become a ‘home game’ for a lot of people where they may not play for a while and then they’ll come back in. And there’s something about the familiarity that when you log in, even if there are new features and, and so on, there’s a sense of comfort in a world that you’ve come to know, or you’ve built a historical relationship with,” Longdale says, pointing to the nostalgic success of World of Warcraft Classic.
“It’s reliable and generally speaking, there’s a community there where in a city, you decide to hang out and see other people around. There’s a lot of comfort in that too. You don’t necessarily have to interact with everyone, but it feels alive.”
Holly on ‘Leave no player behind’: “Our vision now, and for the past couple of years is generally to leave no player behind, and that started with The War Within’”, Longdale explains, pointing to Delves, a new activity that she runs with her husband as an example of a place in the game for more casual players, as well as NPCs to help learn Dungeon mechanics.
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I had noticed prior to the pre-patch event, but it never really dawned on me why my logs where off. Reason I was checking my logs, even though I am the only one in my guild is an OCD issue. Even to this day my logs don’t show me pulling out or putting in things correctly which makes me thing the log bug is still ongoing. This could be why this thread got moved from General to Bug even though it originated in General Tab.
I know once Warband Banks came along that really sent things to the crapper. I had things popping in and out of my Warband Bank or it was telling me I was using the feature yet not one of my other 35 characters at the time even touched it. This issue pretty much started once Cross-Realm Guilds started or Warband Banks introduced.
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I think they are going with the notion that this is now a feature, not a bug. 
Same. I would even enjoy the content droughts – within reason, not the year or more that was ICC and SoO – because it gave me time to go back and do things I had wanted to but couldn’t because of raiding. TWW has been such a glitch-ridden expansion that even were it not for the Great Bank Heist and subsequent banishment to The Maw… how could I not be worried about the breakneck pace affecting quality even more than it already has, never mind the layoffs that largely hit support roles.
Perfect is the enemy of good, as the saying goes, but remember when Blizzard Entertainment meant quality? Now it means “eh, so long as it functions enough that we can’t be sued it’s fine”.
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Yeah I’m the same. I run a fairly busy guild pretty much solo - I do all the admin, organising and running raids, maintaining the guild vault (admittedly less of that going on now!!), maintaining the roster, guild websites and discord, so I used to look forward to the “down time” at the end of an expansion prior to a new one, when I could catch up on getting achievements done, playing alts, etc.
I’d MUCH prefer Blizzard to take the time to get it right, but I guess time is money, friends.
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Still missing all but one stack of thread in my guild bank.
Not been contacted about it at all. An update on a fix would be nice.
(And, yeah, it’s kind of annoying that I saved up a lot of the stuff the quest this week is asking for, and the game just chucked all of it in the bin for me two months ago.)
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Welcome to Microsoft.
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100% agree.
I warned folks a couple of years ago when the purchase of Blizzard was on the table w/MS – Careful what you wish for… you might get it!
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I wasn’t aware of this bug before tonight. Imagine my surprise when I decide to do some rearranging in my guild bank and discover about 95% of my stuff gone. I read that we should get items sent back to us in the mail and all I got back was about 350 netherweave cloth… Haven’t seen much movement on this from Blizzard recently, should I assume that 350 cloth is all that is left of my thousands of items?
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Yeah, thought the same thing.
Well, everything on my end is officially cancelled. I have about a week left of game time, but I think my time has come.
I’ll still check in on this thread in the slim hopes that anyone at all gets any kind of justice… and I’ll still have a couple videos about this, at least.
I paid no attention to the wow presentation thing, because I knew I wouldn’t be around to involve myself in those activities, and because I didn’t want any FOMO to prevent me from standing my ground. This is the straw that broke the camel’s back – not so much the nuking of my guild bank, but the absolutely unforgivable way that I’ve been treated by Blizzard. That we’ve been treated by Blizzard.
In skimming the thread here, I saw someone ask if Holly, Ion and Chris Metzen know about this. I tried tweeting Holly and Ion – no response at all. I wrote to the public relations team for Blizzard, nothing. I don’t know who knows what but I feel like they’re just going to keep trying to keep this quiet and bury us in news about what’s forthcoming.
So I’m gonna be done in about a week or so. It’s not the first time I’ve quit, and, if I’m honest, it may not be the last time I quit. But it’s the first time I’ve quit playing because I felt like I was treated this badly. This company can do better, and the fact that they’re apparently talking about how no player is left behind is insult to injury.
Logged in for the first time in a week or so tonight, just to check the guild bank, nothing more has been restored.
So I quit. And here’s exactly what I wrote in the incredibly pathetic 500 character limit:
I’ve been playing WoW for 19 years, off and on (mostly on) and I am cancelling because of your technical ineptitude that led to the loss of hundreds of items in my guild bank. Even worse, your utter lack of response to this barring 2 posts in the forums has been something of which you should be ashamed. I’ve given you a chance to fix this, but no news on this means I’m done with Blizzard AND Microsoft. I’ll go Mac in the future and I’m done with WoW. Big mistake to lose such a long-term player.
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1 - I don’t blame ya. Their treatment of long-time players is atrocious. If not for my guild/friends, I’d probably have been gone by now. I had to weigh the good and the bad. (And I’m still vacillating, to be honest).
2 - I do hope you’ll pop in now and then with a few words. You don’t have to but it’s my way of saying your presence will be missed. I’m sure friends in game will miss you as well.
3 - I very much appreciate the videos you made on this topic. It really explains well what we have all gone through.
4 - Looks like you are playing other games. I hope you find great joy in them!! 
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I actually had saved some Pocket Lint (gray items) in my GB. I didn’t get any of those back, either. All my fun, happy, collection stuff. I’m still bummed.
This is where I am. As a 20+ year consumer of Blizzard’s games, it’d be nice if they addressed it in a better way. It doesn’t seem to me like they are sorry at all.
They don’t seem to have time to keep the game in a condition where your stuff won’t get deleted, or some of the other serious bugs happening. This seems pretty basic and important, and they don’t want to focus on a simple, real apology.
I’ve considered that by them making a more ‘human’ apology, their legal team may believe this would hold them responsible for something bad - and the legal department is more at the forefront of the decision not to talk to us about it.
I think this is why they’re not touching it. It’s a shame.
I feel like old Blizzard would have at least humored us and given us an Achievement or a Feat of Strength - even if the database had caught on fire and it was truly irretrievable. I think they would have apologized and said they were sorry in a more-human, less-legalese way.
edits
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The really big issue for me now is trust. Not can I trust them to give me my stuff back or trust them not to make a mistake again, but trusting their ability to keep my info safe (like my CC data). Keeping logs/backups is the most basic think in IT. At my job, we keep daily logs for important systems for 90 days. Now I know my company doesn’t have the revenue of Blizzard, and saving data can get expensive, but a company like Blizzard can easily afford it and there are only two reason I can think of them for not having the logs; A) their incompetent or B) they’re making more profit by not doing it.
If it’s A, then how are they at securing things like my credit card data?
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I just found out a bunch of my gray-silly, fun stuff is worth a lot of gold on the AH. Maybe that’s why I didn’t get any back? Lordy.
I wouldn’t have sold it anyway, it’s my memories, dang it! Give me back my stupid gray stuff, please! !
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If they are not able to do the basic things such as backup/restore, Q/A, test, have backout procedures, then I suspect they are not keeping our CC data safe either. If you are going to be sus on your basic IT skills, then you are sus across the board in all areas of IT.
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From a fellow Canuck, I’m so sorry. Were I in your place, I would quit as well. I wasn’t affected by the guild bank fiasco, I am guild leader of 5 guilds. I wish things were different for you and everyone that was robbed. Good luck, and I’ll keep my fingers crossed Blizzard either does the right thing or issues an actually heart-felt apology, though maybe by now that would still sound false. Either way, this thread will go on, and we all value your input, so stay in touch, and I hope you come back to us soon. We all need advocates like you to help make this company more transparent and responsible for their products and player base.
XOXO
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I hope you all had a great weekend.
Sadly, its Monday again and still no new information or my guild bank contents back.
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Here’s a bit of irony (and, depending on your sense of humor, a laugh?) for the denizens of The Maw. Within the WoW 20th Anniversary Event, there’s a Event Coordinator/Customer Service NPC that offers a new, different quest every few days that typically has something to do with helping NPC event-goers with an issue or concern.
One recent quest is called ‘Lost and… Found?’. Here’s the starting quest text offered by the ‘Customer Service’ NPC:
Spoiler
“I am so overwhelmed. A group of folks were here a little while ago, all complai… I mean, submitting lost-item notices with great passion, but all at the same time. I tried to take down all the details, but in the stress of the moment, I fear they’re all jumbled. I have this collection of items that have been found over the day, and I’m fairly sure these are the items those folks were talking about. Do you think you could use my notes and figure out which item belongs to each person?”
You then go on to use a series of clues to deduce which item belongs to what NPC.
When you hand in the quest, the ‘Customer Service’ NPC has the following completion text:
Spoiler
“Have you finished with those items? Oh, bless your heart! I’m actually quite surprised at how few people have lost things during these festivities. Still, I’m simply bursting with gratitude at your willingness to help those unfortunate few who have.”
Not sure exactly when the quest was designed and written, but. It’s hard not to wonder if quest designers weren’t drawing inspiration from recent, real-world events. Almost a little too on-the-nose. 
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