My 2009 Feat of Strength for placing in the top 1000 of the Arena tournament was removed. The reward for that was the “Vanquisher” title which was given at the time only to your characters that were 71-80. I have put in multiple tickets and have been told that the title cannot be given back unless I have the achievement. The problem is you guys deleted the actual 2009 FoS.
–BACKSTORY & INFORMATION –
Back in 2009, during the Wrath expansion, Blizzard held open qualifiers for teams around the world to compete on a limited-time special tournament realm. NA and EU both had one. Beyond Blizzcon and cash prizes, this was the first year that players could earn in-game rewards on this tournament realm for their characters back on “live realms”. The first reward was a consolation prize given to every individual that played in at least 200 games. It was the Murkimus the Gladiator battle pet & feat of strength. This reward would actually later be recycled and given to players who participated in this arena tournament on subsequent years.
The second, more special reward, and the subject of this discussion, is the “Vanquisher” Feat of Strength and awarded title. It was given to all players who finished the tournament realm ranked in the top 1000 3v3 teams. Many, many of the teams ended up being second/third/fourth alts of players already qualified. So as you can imagine, not many of us received this title & feat. This would also never be recycled, maintaining the title’s extreme rarity and noteworthiness. Furthermore, added to the title’s rarity was that you could ONLY earn it on level 71-80 characters you had on live servers at the time. This means that any alts you had would not receive it. And it means that any characters you later created or leveled to max would not receive it. For me, I only had my 1 character that ever received the title. I leveled this character each expansion and kept him active 100% because of that title.
I was Vanquisher Rhetro, a ret paladin on Rivendare and, later, Blackrock. I was never a super amazing, serious PvPer, but I played my butt off on the tournament realm to earn Vanquisher. This was also during a time of complete melee dominance by DKs in 2s and DKs/Warriors/Rogues in 3s. I felt like an underdog the entire time, but I made it.
I also never earned “the Immortal”, “the Undying”, or “Hand of A’dal” despite playing during those time periods. For me, “Vanquisher” is my most prized WoW… thing? I value it more than any mount, achievement, item, or other title I have. I could go into that time period of my life and all that… but you guys don’t want to hear that. I’ll just leave it as Vanquisher means a lot to me.
8.1
In 8.1 my Vanquisher title was removed. There have been a few complaints here and there about it, but the fact is that there was never that many of us to begin with. There are even fewer left playing today. I had hopes that this was just a bug, but it appears to be something far, far worse. Not only was the title intentionally removed, it was given as a reward to an entire different group of players! On top of it, this was done without any communication whatsoever.
The 2009 Feat of Strength was completely removed from the game. The title “Vanquisher” is now listed as the reward for a 2013 Achievement/FoS called “Tournament Glory 2013”. This was a Feat of Strength awarded in 2013 that never had a unique title tied to it. In fact, none of the arena tournaments after the initial 2009 tournament ever had unique titles awarded to the participants.
I of course don’t have that achievement, so I’m not eligible to receive the title again apparently. The Blizzard GM that responded to my inquiry said that all characters who did not have this achievement would lose the title upon logging in with 8.1. I was told – and I quote – “We cannot give the title back at this time”
Despite all the crap we’ve endured as a community this expansion, I never, ever thought that Blizzard would do something like this to me. I’m someone that has supported their game since Closed Beta with thousands of dollars spent via subs and shop services. I have been completely screwed over with this. Part of me still hopes this just happened after a long series of mistakes… but at this point I’m so beat-down as a consumer that I think it’s actually more likely that one of the developers made this change to get his own character the title.
Taking away the old, unique rewards earned years ago to give to someone else is not something that should be acceptable, period. And quite frankly, if you value your old titles this should scare the hell out of you. the Immortal, the Undying, Hand of A’dal, Grand Crusader, Scarab Lord, etc… if this decision by Blizzard holds then it’s only a matter of time before it happens to you.
…and apparently can’t create links on here. Well, there are lots of third party media sites that reported the 2009 Arena tournament and the Vanquisher titles. Google it.
![:confused:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/confused.png?v=6" ":confused:")
those of us who’ve been playing this long and worked hard for that title should never have had it taken away![:frowning:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/frowning.png?v=6" ":frowning:")