Guild Bank Missing Items Bug -- Aug/Sept 2024

Same with my mains bank, 7 tabs that had been nearly full, 100% emptied, not a single item sent back to me, not even an insulting pittance some others have gotten.

I have no doubt that NO data is safe anymore, and they’ve shown they utilize their ToS and such to avoid any accountability, and barely even communicate about the issue.

I let my sub lapse beginning of last month, with no plans of ever coming back, I don’t feel like having this happen to me again when they nuke other stuff I’ve invested tons of time into, like personal banks , mounts, reps (ahem), achievements, titles (cough), i don’t even have faith that personal inventories are safe.

It’s straight up theft, and they can get away with it by being scummy.

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Oh that’s not good :frowning: Have you raised a ticket and posted a bug report?

From what I recall others said - those few who did receive in-game mails from Blizzard with a few items “returned”, they didn’t have the standard 30 days expiry limit on them, but a much longer one, so if they had sent anything back, I think it should still have remained in your mail.

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Unsurprisingly, I agree with all of these points. And I have a new video up that discusses things like trust and data integrity, too!

If a company is okay with compromised game data integrity, then what is even the point of playing that game? We would absolutely be saying “yes, it’s fine, please don’t fret if you delete millions of our items collected over thousands of different people over two decades!”

I’m not saying everyone should quit – that’s a personal decision. I will say, though, that letting them get away with stuff like this is only going to set a terrible precedent and will continue to embolden them.

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I can’t justify paying for a sub now, both because of the current buggy mess of the new xpac and because of the guild bank loss, but I’m not saying I’ll never come back. But right now I think it’s in everyone’s best interests to make sure blizzard is aware that “oops sorry best we can do is five cloth” is not an appropriate response, and the best way to do that is complain, complain, complain, but also not giving them money at all. I’m happy to play something else for a while, I have a massive backlog and there’s some really great games out there made by people who aren’t putting profit above quality. Come back later once they make the effort to do the right thing. FOMO isn’t real and you shouldn’t let a company scare you into buying their stuff.

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This guy gets it.

You can’t be outraged and still pay them, because at that point, they don’t care, you’re still paying, so they’re all good in their eyes, you’re not that upset, and will get over it. That sentiment makes me sad just thinking about it.

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Not sure I totally agree with this statement.

Let me expand.

You can be outraged, you can still be mad but also continue to play.

There are various reasons behind people might be upset:

  • Actual loss of items.
  • Actual unempathetic and fake apology.
  • Lack of trust
  • Lack of integrity
  • Lack of communications
  • Continuation of things disappearing (GB items, gold, pets, mounts, rep, etc - which leads us to believe it can and will still happen).
  • [insert other things here]

There are multiple reasons people may still continue to play:

  • Maybe you’ve paid for a 1 yr sub?
  • Maybe you are founding member of your guild and other people rely on you and that might outweigh your own personal feelings.
  • Maybe you’ll continue to play but not get anything above the sub/xpac.
  • Maybe you’ll continue to play but just approach things differently meaning collecting/grinding is not as necessary now that things can just go away.
  • There could be other reasons (the Netflix movie comes to mind) and really outweigh “just quitting”.

It is up to the individual how they want to approach this.
Quitting is an option but not the only option and don’t feel compelled to do so if you don’t want to… that is your own personal choice.

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Agreed.

I was already part way through a 12 month sub, when I was gifted another 12 month sub - so I’m paid up to continue playing, or not, for around another 13-14 months now. And Blizzard won’t care whether I play or not during those 13-14 months - my play time has already been paid for, one way or another.

What I HAVE changed is no longer buying stuff from the in-game store or the real world store. In the run up to Christmas I might well have bought a few gifts from the real world store. Around Christmas (and more recently, my birthday) I would have probably bought something from the in-game store - a couple of battle pets or a mount, for example.

I see no point in buying overpriced gear from them, just to line their pockets while they make obvious money grabs - when that money is obviously not getting invested in staff to fix bugs and work on the game.

I see no point in buying digital items because, as the trolls like to say “it’s just pixels” that Blizzard can delete at any moment, with no consequence, recompense or reasonable apology.

And the trolls are right on this one … everything we pay monthly is just pixels that Blizzard can withdraw or delete or change at any point in time. It is their right, it is their game. It’s on us, the players, for believing and trusting that Blizzard would “Play Nice”.

I have had my eyes opened. I will still play, I will still enjoy playing, and no doubt I’ll still be saddened and a bit surprised when Blizzard slides a little further down that slippery slope, but I’ll no longer Believe that they’re anything other than a business out to make money over and above anything else. I was probably naive to think anything else of them.

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I think, the other problem is, regardless of the number of people airing their quite legitimate grievances here on the forums and other WoW sites, and the strange lack of the supposedly top streamers talking about these issues, we are a minority. Seriously, it’s all well and good to announce you’re unsubbing, not paying for anything in the Blizzard store, etc., as a minority, making our voices loud and clear isn’t going to make Blizzard listen or do anything more than they already have. Because, let’s be real here, the vast majority of players aren’t talking, don’t visit the forums, and just ignore the issue.

We are the minority that Blizzard has heard loud and clear, but our voices are now falling on deaf ears.

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I can’t remember where I saw it now, but Cymre Jones mentions the guild vault issue VERY briefly in one of her recent videos (around a minute in): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMMUKdrQuSQ

I think that is why the game masters direct us here after they politly tells us that they are not willing to restore any other items. I also find it odd that now the guild log is wiped out.

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They wish to silence us, unsubbing does just that.

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This is where I’m at. I lead a very small, casual but home-like guild. I’ve been a member since 2007, and guild lead since sometime during Cata (the ORIGINAL Cata). We’ve gotten members over the various expansions, with the Old School people having joined during the Burning Crusade and Wrath. Many take breaks from the game (from real-life issues, financial difficulties or not liking how the game is at that time) but also, quite a few come back. If we’ve gotten to know the people, and they are on good terms with us, I won’t remove them from the roster because when they come back, I want them to know that they still have a home with us. I’ve mentioned before, but when someone hits max level in that xpac, I will send them cakes. Mostly, people just do what they want , though we have a loose group of people who enjoy running M+ together. Every once in awhile, we do events, but mostly, it’s just a place to call home. We’ve had a few kids grow up in the guild after they were brought in by their respective fathers. I remember how MOST of the people in the guild joined.

Will I stay? I’m still not 100% sure. I have sub till June. Was discussing it with Vael, and she suggested that if/when I find a good successor, I make sure they are able to make the cakes. :smile: Thing is, I’m not going to say I’m the greatest GL ever or that they’ll fall apart without me. But for this guild, and the amount of care I try to give them, along with not pressuring them to do any kind of content (though I do encourage joining in when we have guild events), or emphasizing any specific content or skill level, I think I do pretty OK for this particular guild. And most of all, I just like being there. The guild feels like home to ME.

Except for when I’ve had computer issues, internet issues (though I have logged on from a public library on a dinky laptop to check in-game mail and to say HI to my guild), am out of town (I prefer to play on a desktop, though back when we had the Companion App, I’d talk to my guild using that), been in a hospital, or have some holiday stuff to take care of, I’m on almost every day. Usually, I just do mundane things nowadays - weeklies, dailies, TWs, that sort of thing.

I was going to NOT collect stuff (old mats) but an incredibly kind person sent me what they still had left after The Great Blizzard Bank Heist, since they were quitting and I’ve been adding more to it. It’s just that, I don’t quite trust that it will always be there. Nor anything. As a casual player, I LIKE collecting things. I still will, but with the thought in the back of my head that it could all be lost again. If I lost things, sure, I’ll be upset but not surprised.

I think either way, I’ll lose. Either I’ll be giving money to a greedy company that doesn’t give a crap about its customers as long as it doesn’t make bad enough press and in whom I’ve lost faith and trust, or I give up seeing friends of many years, of visiting areas that I love, even if the game isn’t as compelling as it used to be. While we have Discord and social media, we don’t LIVE there. Much of the conversation takes place in guild chat.

EDIT: BUT for people who have no connection in game or if the game isn’t giving you enough joy to be worth the kind of pain that Blizzard is causing, I do think quitting (and making sure they know WHY) is for the best. It is a personal decision. I think quitting is a very sound idea, but may not be for every player.

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The pixels are a lie. :*(

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I’m not sure if I’ll stay either. I have a couple months.

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Thank you! I didn’t know that. I guess I should at least give Blizzard credit for extending the standard expiry limit. 30 days isn’t a lot of time for people who are not actively playing.

But yeah… my stuff is officially gone. Not that getting a stack or two back would make any difference.

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As long as you’re still giving money to blizzard, it says they can get away with this. If you’ve already paid that’s one thing, but continuing to give them money says you’re okay with this. At the end of the day it’s a game, no one has to stay. This isn’t like protesting grocery prices but you still have to buy food from somewhere, this is a game. They’re counting on FOMO to keep you subbed even when they have glaring issues like this. Yes, it sucks, but that’s really the only thing they’ll take notice of. The trolls are right in this much, at least. Take your friends to other games.

People who keep paying are why blizzard hasn’t, and likely won’t, do anything about this.

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There are 80 million active accounts (according to WoW Meta), what would really happen if 5 thousand quit ?

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Discouraging thought. :frowning_face: Right now, we are at the point where it’s TOO MANY PEOPLE to have to do manual (or whatever) restoration but too few to care about.

And IF they for some reason CANNOT do restoration of any kind, say so, explain why, and most importantly, explain what steps they are taking to make sure this NEVER happens again, to not only guild banks but other data as well.

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Active account is a very loose term. I doubt Blizzard has anything near 80 million paying WoW accounts. The peak was around 12 million subs back in Wrath, if memory serves, and it’s only been down from there.

But also, I really don’t think it matters much. No hard proof or anything, of course, but I firmly believe that the potential loss of subs and other income has already been factored into the decision to not attempt a more complete restoration.

In other words, it was less expensive for them in terms of money and PR to have some upset players walk than do things like bring the servers down during x-pac launch (that they charged for early access to) or tie up resources trying to recover and reconcile mangled bank data. Given how long it’s been, this isn’t likely to change IMHO.

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Right now they have about 8.2 Million active players…they avg about 2.2 million players logging in daily now…

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