Is there a Blizzard post/announcement somewhere that states it’s disabled for everyone? I haven’t seen one (nor an official acknowledgement of the issue) posted so what is fact and what is hearsay is muddled and I’d genuinely like to clarify this. There are multiple reports on other platforms of GM’s doing one time restorations for people who have been impacted by this bug which suggests that it is possible to manually restore (if it was only a couple here and there I’d dismiss them as misinformation or trolling). There are also multiple reports of GM’s not offering this option and telling them to wait without even acknowledging that the players ticket is related to the bug which suggests these requests are being lumped into the same customer service bucket as those who have deleted characters but then changed their minds.
But given the balance of probabilities is that there is a manual process to restore characters then it sounds like a workaround process should be possible. I can’t speak on Blizzard’s behalf as to why they don’t have it, or what is involved if they were to implement one but given the nature of the incident surely it should be considered (or at least communicated). At the very least, a minimal impact work around process to further stop this from happening could be considered. ie. Disable the players ability to delete characters themselves and implement a manual process where they can request a GM do it for them. This prevents the bug impacting more players but also addresses the “what aboutism” argument mentioned earlier about being unable to create an Earthen character because they’re at the character limit.
Deleted characters in the modern version of World of Warcraft can not be restored from July 23, 2024 to a future date that is not yet determined. See this blog for more information. The service will be restored as soon as possible and we appreciate your patience. Blizzard Customer Service cannot bypass this restriction.
Not recently. There were a few early on. It’s been a total “no” since then.
Move the character(s) you want to delete to the top of your Warband. Move the characters you want to keep out of it.
And needlessly balloon ticket times. Do you want to spend two weeks in a queue waiting for a GM to delete your character?
You seem to be doing that about character restoration. “What about” those players who had their characters restored. The restorations were done if a character met specific criteria. Not everyone was restored. If you weren’t restored you didn’t meed those criteria.
Sorry I should’ve been clearer in that I meant articles clarifying that Blizzard GM’s cannot restore characters lost via the bug, but you answered in the context of what I wrote so thanks.
This support article is the most relevant as it talks about restorations and mentions in two places:
Blizzard Customer Service cannot bypass this restriction.
Blizzard Customer Support doesn’t restore characters.
Point 2 I think is fair to read as a process decision since they have an automated process usually. What point 1 doesn’t clarify is if this is a process decision or actual limitation.
This was a Blizzard reply about some characters being restored while others aren’t (in regards to characters mistakenly deleted via the Warband list issue):
It doesn’t help those that have lost characters but great there is a workaround to limit the damage. But with no acknowledgement from Blizzard of the bug most people won’t find out about this until it’s too late.
And just for clarity’s sake, I understand that the automated character restoration process was taken offline with Warbands and there are legitimate reasons for doing so. But when a critical incident is found that this service would rectify I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask for a workaround process or at least an understanding of why and what’s next. Communication with customers goes a long way.
I’d like for the people who have lost their characters to be able play them and to prevent further instances of it occurring and then having to wait an unknown amount of time to be able to play them.
I don’t think it would balloon ticket times as I imagine a small number of the playerbase are at the cap but if you want to entertain your theory why is it not okay for these people to have to wait an unknown amount of time to have a character slot freed up but it is for those who have lost their characters?
EDIT: Removed last part on account of Kyzera’s reply.
Awesome, thanks, this is the sort of thing I’m looking for, appreciate it.
So from that post and to get back to the original point, it IS possible for restorations to still occur under the right conditions. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect that a critical issue that results in the wrong character being deleted should be a condition that warrants restoration.
So post your feedback in General Discussion or use the in-game option on the Support menu. Blizzard does not take feedback or suggestions from the Customer Support forum.
I don’t think so either…but it’s not that they don’t think it warrants it, as they are simply unable to do it due to the necessary systems being disabled.
When I wanted to delete my disposable timerunner characters, I moved them up to favorites before I did so just to make sure there weren’t any problems. That may be a placebo, but I’m not taking any risks until the character restoration service is available again.
I wish I knew about the issue before I started deleting level 1s or that moving characters into favorites would help. If there was a disclaimer when I went to delete that said something like “Some players have had issues deleting characters they hadn’t selected, the restoration process is also disabled and characters could be unavailable for a couple of weeks - delete at your own peril” I definitely wouldn’t have done it.
We haven’t been able to confirm there was an issue. Nothing was ever confirmed. A couple people reported it happening, but if it were widespread there would’ve been a LOT of people with mains deleted, and there weren’t.
I believe I may have an idea as to the cause. Not being on the server where the character is, and deleting it, may cause it to “jump” to a different character. I haven’t been able to prove this. But manually going to the right server where a character is before deleting them should avoid the issue if I’m right.
I’m not saying anyone made a mistake, because the ones I’ve seen clearly didn’t at least by their description, you’d just think there would be a lot more reports if it was truly a widespread problem.
Maybe there WAS a bug and it was quickly fixed? That might explain it. But from what Vrak and Orlyia have said, it’s not that GM’s just have been told to not restore characters, it’s literally that they can’t because the tools are not currently available.
How I personally feel on the subject…if someone did delete a character intentionally, and a different character was deleted due or a bug or glitch, an exception should be made to restore it. But how I feel isn’t really relevant if the systems are not available and it’s not possible.