Patch 5.2 interview with Dave Kosak
Inside an old alt's vault
The latest patch 5.2 news
All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsRecruit-a-Friend levels fizzle in Patch 3.0.2
by Zach Yonzon 
Oct 19th 2008 at 2:00PM
Even more surprising was a dismissive response by Game Master Issuntril that basically said, "they're gone, sorry for the inconvenience." Naturally, there was an uproar over at the forums over this as the free levels are one of the most appealing benefits of the program (no, it's not the Zebra, really). Subsequent responses from other GMs were more sympathetic and advised a wait-and-see attitude stating that Blizzard was aware of the problem and were looking into solutions on how to fix it. Hopefully this problem gets resolved. While it's understandable that intangibles such as free levels might be harder to restore, these are arguably as important as gear. Considering how swiftly Blizzard hotfixed the issue with pets and mounts (not the selling part yet, unfortunately), there's hope for a resolution yet.
Filed under: Patches, Bugs, Blizzard, News items
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 4)
jenks Oct 20th 2008 6:04AM
Axxel (Sorry to get your name wrong).
Ian Oct 19th 2008 9:29PM
Is there a forum thread about this anywhere?
My girlfriend and I just started with this program and were saving up our RaF levels as well :(
Ian Oct 19th 2008 9:31PM
Sorry, found it. I must have missed the link.
mrluohua Oct 22nd 2008 12:29PM
In case anyone is still following this thread, it turns out that blizzard says they found the issue and fixed it.
The link to the page of the blue post saying RaF gift-a-levels is fixed:
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=6305251695&sid=1&pageNo=11#216
aj Oct 19th 2008 10:00PM
wow, you guys complaining about 5-6 lost levels need to stop. My friend lost about 100 levels from his sisters account that she had leveled 4 59's. He was going to have a lvl 60 or higher of every class on our server.
arrogance Oct 19th 2008 10:04PM
nooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!
i dunno. doesn't seem fair to do this to customers. i mean we should have at least gotten a warning.
not that my faith in blizz is shattered to bits. i'm thinking if they could find a way to give it back they would probably do it.
but it still sucks. all my saved levels.. gone. *sniff*
Murph Oct 19th 2008 10:25PM
Blizz had better come up with a fix for this, or they could be in for some serious legal trouble, regardless of the EULA, ToS, etc. Under UK law, false advertising is not something where liability can be removed by contract terms. Similarly statutory consumer rights cannot be removed by contract terms. Just because a term in the contract doesn't necessarily make it a binding term or completely exempt them from liability, if the term is contrary to the law.
If Blizz don't make good on this, I strongly advise impacted customers in the UK to firstly make a formal complaint to Blizz offering them 7 days to propose an acceptable resolution to the matter. If no resolution is forthcoming, they should file a formal complaint with their local Trading Standards department, and the Advertising Standards Authority. Hopefully other countries in the EU should have similar consumer protection, and the prospect of such action on a large scale will cause Blizz to try a little harder to provide the advertised service.
People should not be put off by the cost of legal action - Trading Standards and/or the ASA will fight the battle for you in the UK and bear all costs of prosecution.
Joe Oct 19th 2008 10:36PM
Regardless if you like the RAF program or not, people signed up based on what Blizzard sold. It's that simple.
They need to deliver or refund people's money.
It also looks like Blizzard has been deleting posts that are made on the forums.
Glen Hays Oct 20th 2008 12:04AM
If Blizzard does not rectify the situation, they open themselves up to a class action lawsuit, as the RAF benefits are an 'Inducement to buy'. Individual settlements would not be much, but collectively it could cost them millions.
Tyler Oct 20th 2008 12:51AM
WHAT. THE. F*CK.
WHaaa?????t?
I swear to god, EVERYONE open a damn ticket. I lost 26 levels. Thats f*cking Bullsh!t.
Ice Princess Oct 20th 2008 2:14AM
Finally... justice is served! No more power levelling alts! (I admit I'm a little jealous coz I have no one to power level with but that's besides the point.)
Thank you blizzard for removing this refer a friend program!
mrluohua Oct 20th 2008 5:00AM
They didn't remove the program, the program is still going on full-swing.
There was a bug in the upgrade process of BC > WotLK that caused the saved up gift-a-level's to be wiped.
I read through the forums and blizzard is "looking into it".
mrluohua Oct 20th 2008 4:59AM
Yep, another story of "i lost 60 levels". Blizzard needs to address this. I feel robbed.
Hydecaine Oct 20th 2008 8:30AM
I talked to a GM about it in-game, after opening a ticket about it, and he told me they´re aware of the problem, and are working to correct it.
proditor Oct 20th 2008 8:15AM
Hey ho 58 levels gonneeeee! Honestly I'm not TOO upset about it (takes like 24h /played to 60..) but to me it seems weird they cannot fix it.
I don't really know anything about wow's software or hardware solutions so I'm going to theorize a lot now but.. WoW must be running some kind of database to store the characters, the accounts and pretty much everything in the game, right?
Also, before a major upgrade such as patch 3.0 the databases must have been backed up incase of a failure during the upgrade process, right? RIGHT?
Grantable levels were flushed during the upgrade, before the servers went live, so no one could've used any of the grantable levels included in the backup, right?
So if this is the case, why doesn't Blizzard, during the next maintenance, go through every account that has the RaF enabled, check for grantable levels in the backup and add them right back in?
Now I'm not an expert database technician or something similar so there might be some major issues with this method that I am not aware of. The only thing I can think of is that due to how large the wow databases should be with over 10 million customers data stored, this might take a long time to do. But hell, I'm sure all of us would prefer an extended maintenance to restore this than losing dozens of levels, right?
Tutunkommon Oct 20th 2008 11:11AM
Dude, have you even done a little bit of math on this? 10 Million accounts. If you take 1,000 people, and say it takes an average of 15 seconds to get the record brought up from the old database, and entered into the new database. They would all have to work non-stop for over 41 hours to get it done.
They would be better served devising a way to automate the copy of RAF levels from one to the other. Spend a few days testing it to make sure the new script works, then several more hours running it.
Your assumption that everyone would put up with hours of down time so that the minority of users can get their levels back is a bit fallacious as well.
Having said that, I started tri-boxing b/c of RAF, so I am out several levels too.
proditor Oct 20th 2008 9:28AM
I meant doing it by using a script/program that goes through the backed up database. Doing it manually would take way too long and would be a waste of manpower. Sorry for not making myself clear.
Jennifer Oct 20th 2008 11:03AM
I'm glad they're working on it, and glad I'm not crazy! Went to grant my last 4 lvls and they werent there! Was wracking my brain trying to decide if it was my screwup or what! Mine happened after the patch too, Up to patch time I was fine. After the patch I leveled an alt to 60 so should have had 4 levels to grant, but alas they weren't there .. Guess I'll use those levels when they return for another alt .. bleh!
For those that don't use RAF, stop responding, let us vent please!
ubergrendle Oct 20th 2008 12:17PM
Confirmed as an open issue that is being worked on by Blizzard. Everyone needs to chillaxe.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=11296624105&sid=1&pageNo=1#3
xeren Oct 20th 2008 1:03PM
phewwwww.