Yeah, here’s another novella . . . 
So, I didn’t lose things that were irreplaceable. But I do want to say what I DID lose mattered to me - certainly not as much as the people who lost personal letter and stuff no longer in the game - I’d never want to minimize that, but it did matter. Now, MOST of what I lost were mats and recipes and I know that they are “refarmable.” We’re talking about 18 years of it - a lot of it I squirreled away stuff I got from doing things, but I got fair bit of it from actual FARMING.
A lot of the stuff are hard to get and pretty random. Most of the cloth, not too bad. I can probably get Some of the enchanting mats quite easily. Now the AMOUNT of it is pretty tough - some, I had over a stack, maybe several stacks. (And of course the ones that I actually have TOO MUCH of, were among the few things that I still have some of remaining - that would be the common cloth from Shadowlands). Some of the ones that made me sad to lose were things like Felcloth and the some of the crafted CD cloth from the Burning Crusade and Wrath. Once transmogs became learnable, I RECREATED my Spellfire set. Keep in mind, going into TBC content, I was pretty much godly at that point. Even then, farming for the mats took quite a bit of time. Luckily, back then, I had some of the mats, and I got extra in case someone else needed the same or similar mats later on.
What DOES take quite a bit of time farming, even when being very powerful, are the elemental items and other misc. items. Things like Breaths of wind, essence of water (OMG - had been farming that as late as earlier this year and the droprates are ridiculously low), and in fact, other Elemental X (where X is some kind of element), Essence of X (earth, undeath, etc), fiery core, various Motes/Primals, various Crystalized /Eternal X, and all of the other Elemental items from all of the expansions. But a lot of them are a pain to farm. Doable? Sure but it took YEARS to accumulate. Also Spider Silk - yeah, the basic one - oddly hard to get. Motes of Harmony, I mostly got from growing them in MoP - took a long time. Also odds and ends like righteous orbs, various pearls, wildvine / heart of the wild (used for some tailoring recipes). Then, there are the special mats, like Primal Nether, chaos orbs, primordial saronite, spirit of war, savage blood, felblight and that’s a partial list.
They may be just STUFF, but here’s me as a player. Pretty casual, have done some dungeons and raids, mostly solo or small content stuff. I’m not a great player. I don’t have great reflexes. But what I am (was) is prepared. Whenever someone wanted (especially, past expansion) crafting mats, I almost always had it. If someone was leveling old professions, I could offer them a myriad of recipes I had on hand. Wanted a tailored item for mog? Most likely had the mats and I could probably make it for ya. Illusion enchantments? Yep, just swap toons, get on my banke toon, get my stuff and do it. Last expansion, you could get a particular toy ONLY if you had a particular cloak from Vanilla. Well, I had the mats - I made the base cloak on my tailor, sent it to my LW, and luckily, I had some Scales of Onyxia to finish it off. I could ask my friends and guild if they had gotten the toy and if not, I’d just make them a cloak and send it to them. When we have celebrations like special guild anniversaries, I like sending fun stuff - usually just fireworks and cake, but also, sometimes, toys and pets that I could craft. And I could do so with no issue since I HAD THE MATS on hand.
I’m like the guy with a garage full of stuff or that lady who carries a huge purse that’s got a screwdriver, sewing kit and a coin-purse full of toothpicks that people could come to for the odds and ends that they might not usually keep but would need for something specific. When someone would say “OMG, I need X, but expensive on the AH,” or “don’t wanna farm it,” there was a fair chance that I had it. And they’d be happy.
I don’t HAVE to do those things to be a part of my community but I liked doing it. I liked being that person. I have friends from waaay back, who would advise people to come to me for stuff like that because “Sarabande has everything.” OK, not EVERYTHING, but to some people, it sure seemed like it. Maybe it’s a crazy way to play. But it was one of the things I did and enjoyed. They won’t stop being my friends or be mad that I can’t provide those things, but it makes me sad that I can’t anymore.
Early on, when I started playing WoW, one of the things that really got me into it was professions and knowing that I could make things for myself and other people I knew. (NOT so much into professions now - it’s just too much). It was one of the things that actually got me to fall in love with the game. It wasn’t dungeons, wasn’t raids, wasn’t PvP - I gathered stuff and I made stuff, and of course, did quests.
Some of my banks survived fine (thank goodness, the PET bank was untouched - was able to give some holiday pets to a guildie who is trying to reach an achievement milestone). But the main bank - the one that held mats for professions practiced by my main, the tailor/enchanter, got hit the hardest. It shook me in a way that losing “just pixels” shouldn’t. Because it hit one of the things I delighted in doing for my community, one of the things that drew me into the game.
Saying all this won’t change anything. And for some people it’s going to sound stupid and petty and I know that it’s a first-world problem. But all of these losses hit each person hard for various reasons. Saying “it’s just pixels” doesn’t help. Everyone knows they’re “just pixels” but they were meaningful pixels for whatever reason. Could be sentimental. Could be due to gold value and time value. Could be because they are impossible or very difficult to replace. Could be because it actually TOOK them a lot of time and effort to get. But for each person, it is meaningful.
While this doesn’t compare to losing a loved one, a pet or REAL stuff (like a house or real-like material stuff), it’s still a loss and people here are grieving the loss. And the worst part is, it most likely was done as a part of greed - to cut staff, to rush product, to not test enough. They got their money. They were able to please their shareholders and we were hurt as a result. I don’t think anger on our part is unreasonable.
Let people be angry. Let us be sad. Let people even try to bargain, no matter how futile. Many will leave. Some will hang on, only to realize that the joy is gone, and some will keep going because they are a part of a community or other reasons. But for now, allow people to deal with this, to process this in the way they need to. How hard is that to understand? Why hang out here to argue with people who are just trying to get through this, mostly with the help of others who went through the same thing, the only people who can probably empathize with what they are going through? If you are OK with what happened, go and play the game. You are certainly ALLOWED here but I if you can’t help, not sure why you are even here anyway.
pit is where the need for human beings is the strongest. I think that if your presence in the game helps others positively, then I think that should mitigate (at least to a large part if not all) having to throw money into that pit in order to be there for people who both want and need you.