tbc-classic GM Mistakenly Takes BiS Item From Player for Ninjalooting, Drama and Eventual Happy Ending Ensue

[Starym 3,800]

 

This is another very weird one, coming from Burning Crusade Classic this time, as a GM seemingly took the word of one player over another and removed an equipped and enchanted BiS weapon while the character was offline due to "ninjalooting". The story showcases the worst and best of Blizzard support.

Pxara has had a rough few days, as a PUG Karazhan run ended with the best news possible, was followed by the worst news possible and then, finally, good news again at the very end. The tale involves a falsely reserved BiS weapon, a won roll for it, some arena fun, a GM taking it away as the player was offline, a "we took the weapon because you ninjalooted it and the case is closed" message, and then finally a senior GM returning it with a 30 day game time apology! This story has everything!

Source.

So, short story: PUG Karazhan run, BiS Light's Justice drops, Pxara wants it but another player says it's reserved. Turns out it isn't, raid leader says just roll for it, Pxara wins the roll and gets the mace. Other player then insults Pxara, as well as the following day but all seems fine, the mace is great, Pxara borrows 500G to get an expensive enchant put on it and heals well in the arena. The day after that Pxara logs in and is suddenly healing a LOT less in the arena, only to realize the mace is gone. GM took the mace due to a report of "ninjalooting" and "considered the matter closed" and even closed the ticket. Pxara turned to reddit and the official forums for help, and soon thereafter a higher level GM/Blizzard employee fixed the matter, apologized and gave Pxara 30 days of free playtime.

And the original GM that made the mistake also apologized!

In a long list of bizarre details here, the fact that a GM would get involved in a (false, in this case) ninjalooting incident is perhaps the most puzzling, as this hasn't been policy for a long time now - perhaps the GM was confused and thought it was actual BC and not Classic?

In any case this is both an example of huge GM overreach but also some solid accountability, as the issue was resolved very quickly and there was even a bonus to be had! The lesson here would probably be to share when something like this happens in public, as despite the fact that we're can't be sure if the official forum and reddit posts were the reason it got fixed, it seems very likely.

Here's the full post with all the bizarre details:

[Sabejnos 10]

Typical. They moved the support to people who are actually just copypasting stupid answers from OneNote and not thinking about it at all. What a joke.

[Sarabandethemage 6]

I'm glad it turned out well and that Blizzard even compensated him.  It seems now that GMs (customer support reps) must be rushed or made to fill quotas since I've seen more "form letters" (some that won't even APPLY to the actual problem presented)  than ever before.  It seems like you have to somehow complain more than once (this time, in PUBLIC) to get things done.   Or it just takes one complaint and it's in favor of the person complaining without an adequate investigation.

Very glad that the second GM was able to resolve the issue without further problems.

[Manbearpig 28]

I've had my fair share of GM interactions as well. The one which takes the cake though is one from back in Legion. Dunno if you guys remember but there was a quest in Stormheim where when you died, you would just be instantly ressurected by a Valkyr.

So there we were, 2 ppl trying to summon our 20 ppl raid to Trials of Valor, but we couldn't. Why? There was a mage standing at the summoning stone spamming Arcane Explosion, which interrupts your summon. So we were just like "okay then, lets just kill him". After killing him 10 times and him being instaressed by the Valkyr, we started to tell ppl they should just run as we couldn't sum.

After this, I made a report about the mage for bugusing because the quest buff was clearly not intended to be working at the summoning stone, just so you could grief ppl trying to summon. Answer from the GM : "If you don't want to partake in PVP content, you should not play on a PVP server". Well ... thanks ... I guess.