GM saves player from accidental Season 3 purchase
by Robin Torres 
Dec 13th 2007 at 2:00PM
Once upon a time, November 13th to be exact, someone very close to me traveled to the Arena vendor in Area 52 to buy his first Season 3 gear. He had been saving up his Arena points and was excited about getting gauntlets for his resto speced Shammy. Now, he didn't have to go to Area 52. There are new Arena vendors in Blade's Edge, Nagrand and Gadgetzan, but he traveled to Area 52 to be AoE'd with everyone else. (Also, he's got one of those nifty pirate hats, so he's KOS in Gadgetzan.)
After being feared a couple times, he bought his new gauntlets, only to find out that instead of being the coveted resto gloves, he had accidentally purchased enhancement ones.
You know that awful sinking feeling of having made an irrevocable mistake? It's like when you load an old-school game instead of saving and lose a few hours of work. Or when you hit "Reply All" on an email, sending a completely inappropriate comment to the known universe. Well, maybe that last one is worse... Regardless, he was devastated.
Now some of you are probably reading the title of this post and frowning. You may think he should just consider his purchase a stupid tax and move on with his life. I think that if it had happened to someone else, he might be right there with you. But he had to try asking a GM for help, just in case they would. And they did.
The GM (I erased the name from the screenshot to protect the helpful) arranged for the offending gauntlets to be removed on his next zone and the Arena points to be reinstated upon next login. It worked and he got his new gauntlets.
As you can see from the screenshot, the GM also gave Zul'Aman advice:
Don't die... Kill, kill, kill
Sage advice indeed.
Do you think the GM should have fixed this mistake? Or do you think my close friend should have had to live with his error?
Filed under: Items, Analysis / Opinion, Humor, Arena
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Richard Dec 13th 2007 2:08PM
This is actually pretty common, according to the GM's I've talked to... and I was guilty of something similar in the past.
At the start of S3, when all the titles were buggered up, a GM I spoke with said that the majority of tickets that day were people who bought the wrong items.
(The key here is that the refunding of the points is considered an item restoration - SO BE CAREFUL, as always.)
Degenerate Dec 14th 2007 5:36AM
Personally, I have had a few occasions where I have had this done. Assigned T4 Tokens to wrong class twice in two weeks (I know, I should be shot.) They were restored to the correct players.
Also got T4 legs, decided after getting them that they were really quite poor (holy paladin T4 legs is worse than chess event legs with proper gemming), ticketed, and GM mailed me T4 tanking legs.
They keep telling me they won't do it again.... but they do =s
You have no idea how frequently I check which class the tier tokens are for these days lol..
Zebedeo Dec 13th 2007 2:09PM
This isn't some new surprise. They have always fixed this type of mistake. They have been doing it since season one. Its just making news now?
Scylloga Dec 13th 2007 9:24PM
dude one of my former guildies did this only he bought the wrong seasons dagger and the gm said nope sorry. I told him to petition another gm and that gm said nope sorry. He was pissed and camping lowbies when we convinced him to try one more time and this gm said he could do it but it would count as a restore and had the guy confirm it before he logged him out so he could do the exchange.
Not all gms follow the same rule set. As stated in other comments a bit of consistency would be nice.
nearlysober Dec 13th 2007 2:10PM
When items have identicle icon graphics & very similar names, it's easy to misclick. Add in the insanity that happens in Area 52 with people causing trouble and its a recipe for disaster.
I think GMs should only replace this gear if the ticket was filed immediately after the purchase. Players shouldn't be able to try the gear out, respec, then request a change or anything like that. And the GMs should be able to pull data/logs to prove when the purchase occurred so I don't see the problem.
I can understand WHY GMs might not want to do this... it adds a lot of workload... but considering how long it takes some people to earn arena points (literally, since Blizz wont fix 2v2/3v3 queues) and how hard people work for them... I think it is fair.
outforprophets Dec 13th 2007 5:28PM
I'd agree with you, except that sometimes people don't notice until after they've tried it out. Then it's a little hard to see if they are purposefully trying it out or simply unknowingly. But you're right when you say that they shouldn't be allowed to respec and such, that's pretty indicative of buying gear on purpose.
Cailleach Dec 13th 2007 2:12PM
Should have? Maybe not. Was it nice as all get out, and overall awesome publicity for the company in general and GMs in particular? Absolutely. For all the QQ out there about GMs, I find at least 95% are as helpful as humanly possible. Nice little article!
Charlie Taylor Dec 13th 2007 2:14PM
This is why I love the WoW GM's, they are actually there to fix problems like this and do more than just ban offensive players.
My first MMO was Lineage, and there was NO way for the GM's (so they said) to recover lost equipment, xp or deleted characters. That game was so frustrating because it was actually pretty easy to sell an item to a vendor by accident, and once you did there was no way of getting it back other than buying it at full price from the same vendor (if it was a vendor item).
speedytbc7 Dec 13th 2007 5:13PM
hey i played lineage too..so much grinding..and GM's didn't help at all..soo many people hacked the game (haste boost etc) they didn't respond :(
JPN Dec 13th 2007 2:15PM
I think it's nice he did that, but they totally opened a Pandora's Box with this open. When it gets out, they might be flooded with mistakes and "mistakes". How hard is it to buy the right equipment though? Especially when you're making such a huge purchase? You double check before you click.
Richard Dec 13th 2007 3:20PM
This isn't a big secret. GM's have been doing this for a long time.
Ted Dec 13th 2007 2:16PM
I don't really care which... I just wish they were CONSISTENT. Instead GMs seem to hand out arbitrary responses based on their current mood.
Physical Original Dec 13th 2007 2:20PM
I agree that there should be a reasonable time frame cut off, but unless they provide a confirmation window (that shows the full stats of the item being purchased) then they are going to have to do these kinds of reimbursements. It's not giving anyone an advantage to do so.
I've known people who have purchased the wrong item who refuse to enter a ticket to get it fixed. I can't possibly imagine why.
Ironhide Dec 13th 2007 2:24PM
So they can help out with that, but have your account stolen, guild bank cleaned out and the offender taunting your guild mates while he does it (http://gunlovingdwarfchick.com/blog/?p=58) and they wont do a damn thing ?
Zuldritch Dec 14th 2007 1:54AM
Actually, think for a moment, I arbitrarily report someone as being compromised because I don't like them. That person then has their account locked and has to spend days proving their identity to Blizzard to get the account unlocked.
You guys need to understand, Blizzard has rules for a reason, not because they are "lazy". So do what the Game Master says and talk to the people that CAN help. If it took 10 minutes or 10 days to lock the account the damage was done already.
AFAIK, everything is logged anyway, so they help, as long as it hasn't been weeks or months since incident.
thunder Dec 13th 2007 2:27PM
They aren't arbitrary... there is a limit to the number of character restorations you get. If you talk to a GM and they offer to fix your problem with that terminology... consider whether your problem is really worth using one of your 3 wishes.
nativebrown Dec 13th 2007 2:30PM
i made this mistake.
realized it was an idiotic move and went on my merry way.
i didn't piss and moan to a gm because i botched something up.
lrn 2 dealwithyouractions.
Richard Dec 13th 2007 3:23PM
Riiight.
Because when you go to the Gap and buy your girlfriend the wrong size, and go to return it, they tell you: "Sorry. lrn 2 dealwithyouractions."
You're buying something with currency (in this case, virtual). People are going to make honest mistakes.
Oh, wait: you probably don't have a girlfriend, right?
Carry on.
LostOne Dec 13th 2007 2:29PM
It's awesome that the GM did that. I'd honestly expect a stupid tax if I did that and opened a GM ticket.
It gives me an idea though...
*opens GM ticket*
"I want to report a mistaken purchase. I meant to purchase the season 1 crossbow, but somehow I stupidly purchased this level 60 crossbow...*mumbles* at level 60."
Seriously, once an expansion comes out they need enable vendoring of old PVP gear, or some kind of points recycling program. Maybe by turning in old gear we could get back 10% of the honor and tokens we spent on them in the first place. Rather than banking them for eternity or DELETEing them. Or make them disenchantable or something...
vlad Dec 13th 2007 2:41PM
every account get's "X" amount of item restores. its been this way since the beginning. read city trade chat and you will see thse things are done many times a week so im not really sure what the news is here??
next weeks article...
"man flies from sentinal hill to stormwind"
after a long day of killing boars i happened to notice this giant half cat half eagle creature. there was a "person" next to him that asked me if i wanted to actuall fly on this creature. i was absolutly blown away by this idea. ive been playing the game for 3 years and and to think i could actually stop running from place to place was mind boggling. this new surprise feature blizzard snuck into the game is obviously a secret patch to nerf autorun. have you ever flown? tell us your "flying" experiences and remember, get a screen shot or it didnt really happen!