Assuming I know the answer, but is there anyway to restore mail that has expired? Life stuff took me away from the game for awhile and I lost some expensive items. Any help appreciated. Pretty silly items get deleted after such a short period of time.
Iâm currently in the same boat across several alts. Hopefully itâs limited to one character (the stuff youâre wanting to restore), otherwise, youâll have a 14-day wait before you can try it again. But try the restore tool here:
https://us.battle.net/support/en/help/product/wow/197/1674/solution
Mail items are purged pretty quickly. If theyâre not in the Mail restoration page, then theyâre likely purged.
The mail system is not designed as a means to store items unfortunately and I donât personally feel that 30 days is a âshort period of timeâ, but thatâs me.
1 Like
There is actually a separate tool for mail restoration apparently. I found this out the hard way when I first came back after my extended absence. There is the item restoration and mail restoration.
3 Likes
Iâve edited my post!Good thing how you feel doesnât really matter. Itâs a video game. Storing a small amount of data costs them nothing, but greatly improves the quality of life of the game. Why is it âBlizzardâ mail lasts a full year? Why not mail from the AH? Why delete it? Makes no sense.
O.o
Uh, yeah it does. Storage space costs money and maintaining that data does too. If you feel that regular mail should last longer, youâre welcome to make such a suggestion using the in-game suggestion feature or by posting constructively in the General Discussion forums.
8 Likes
If youâd like to see a change to how things are done, this isnât the place for it. Suggestions and feedback should be submitted through the in-game suggestion tool, or a post tossed up in GD. There are no Devs here as this is a forum for players to help other players. [Edit] Perl beat me to it.
Hopefully your items are still there and youâre able to reclaim them. I do wish you well.
Of course! <3 Like I said, lesson learned since Iâm in this same boat myself. Four more days. Hopefully my stuff will hold on for just a bit longer so I can get it back.
5 Likes
Itâs not even a kb worth of data. There is no reason is shouldnât last longer. Whether its 30 days or 365 day or longer. If people need to step away from the game for life reasons, you donât punish those players by deleting their mail.
If people want to interject their opinion here, Iâm going to respond to it. Why not direct your sentiment at them if this is not the place for it?
That times millions of characters on millions of accounts though. Yes, your one single character isnât generating a ginormous amount of data, but millions of characters are.
Itâs not a punishment. Itâs how the system works.
Again, if you feel that it should work differently, then provide your suggestion either in the GD forums or via the in-game suggestion feature.
8 Likes
You could fit every single account with every single item on a server on a single hard driveâŚ
Itâs punishment.
That sounds amazing. Unfortunately, itâs a guestimate at best. And while youâre welcome to make such assumptions, it wonât change how the system works.
Itâs not. That implies that itâs an intentional action to cause some sort of hardship. When really, itâs just the limits of a video game.
Itâs unfortunate that you had something in the mail when real-life intervened. I imagine that the real life issue greatly outweighed the need to play a video game and as such, you made the right choice. Whatever was in the mail can be reobtained within the game given time.
8 Likes
Seriously it isnât.
Funny enough, we are given warning about not using the mail system as storage on loading screen tips.
While you think itâs relatively small amount of storage - multiple it by the number of players, and keep multiplying it over and over to count for ongoing time. Yes, that small amount of storage soon adds up.
The other thing that increased storage does, is bogs the whole game down. This is a major reason why data is purged regularly.
Yes, it sucks to lose things due to expired mail - but honestly, this isnât something new.
8 Likes
It is also the Devs know people for years have been using the mail system as extra item storage. Like others have said one toons mail is not a lot of space but when you add all the people in game and their mail it adds up.
3 Likes
For one thing, it isnât constructive. This forum also is NOT the place to put suggestions as the Blizzard employees who monitor this forum are not the ones who make game change decisions, nor are they liaison to those that are.
Really? Then why do they bother with the expense of servers to store data?
Mail, because it is constantly changing, has a finite life-span. Like a temp folder on your computer. At some point the data is removed/replaced.
I understand that. Iâve taken time away from the game unexpectedly and lost mail because of it. Some of them high-cost, long to make, rare.
4 Likes
Question has been asked and answered. There was really no need to get combative about it.
Because if we are sending the mail then itâs likely something we really need you to see. That mail could be information about an account penalty, it could be items weâve restored to you that were lost through unauthorized access. More commonly itâs the the latter because when an account is compromised, they go through EVERY character and the player may not realize that we restored items to a character that they themselves havenât played in 6 months. I was a Game Master before that change to Blizzard mail was made, and we commonly took tickets from folks who forgot to check their alts and ultimately lost lots of previously restored gear.
The game team feels that 1 month for Auction House mail is sufficient, and that 2 months for player to player mail is sufficient (mail auto returns after 30 days and goes back to the sender for an addtional 30 days). Players need to make decisions as part of playing World of Warcraft, and that includes deciding what items to keep and what items to discard so that they can avoid storing items in the mail.
If youâd like for the mail system to be changed, you can make a suggestion using the methods provided by Rufflebottom:
Since this is a general game system, Iâd suggest using the General Discussion forum category if you would like open your suggestion up for discussion publicly. Otherwise, using the in-game suggestion and feedback form would be the best way.
8 Likes