Recent hotfixes: goodbye, BC dungeon chests
by Eliah Hecht 
Jun 5th 2009 at 4:00PM
Although it's no longer the first week after patch 3.1, when Ulduar nerfs and other hotfixes were coming almost as fast as we could post them, Blizzard is still fixing up the details here and there. Over the past week, a few hotfixes have gone in. Fortunately, as they have been doing recently, Blizzard has posted a nice list of what those changes are.
It's nothing too earth-shattering, as far as I can make out. Some creatures associated with the Yogg Saron fight should load faster. A few items have had their stats buffed (Earthshaper, Valorous Siegebreaker Shoulderplates, and Conqueror's Siegebreaker Shoulderplates), while Leviathan's Coil had its armor cut roughly in half. Clever DKs can no longer cut their RP costs with items meant to cut mana costs, and a bug involving Leviathan MK II's Self Repair on Mimiron was fixed.
Most recently, along with warrior buff shouts being made free again (as they should be) during preparation in arenas, Blizzard has seen the need to remove all non-boss chests in BC dungeons. They say this is "to resolve an exploit;" I assume it has something to do with people being able to farm chests too easily.
It is disappointing when fixes like this happen. On the one hand, it's "only" BC content, and chests aren't going to make or break a dungeon. On the other hand, those dungeons are deserted and useless enough as it is, and Blizzard keeps telling us they think there is still entertainment value in the old zones. Hopefully they get the chests fixed up eventually,
Filed under: Odds and ends, News items, The Burning Crusade
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Todd Jun 5th 2009 4:07PM
How very... odd.
TheKarmaPolice Jun 8th 2009 9:57AM
Does it really matter anyways?
When you try to get into any BC instance you'll just get the awesome "Additional instances cannot be loaded. Please try again later"
and by later they mean the next millenium
B. Brown Jun 5th 2009 4:12PM
Having never gotten to loot said chests, I wonder if they were as useless as the chests in Classic.
Lemons Jun 5th 2009 7:18PM
TBC dungeon chests were much better than vanilla dungeon chests...they actually could contain gems and boe blues...some of which you could sell for quite a profit.
I remember a friend of mine telling me he could make 500g in an hour by stealthing through MT, soloing a few mobs, and grabbing the chests (probably an exaggeration, but depending on which gems/blues you got it could happen).
Nowadays, I can't really see farming those chests getting you rich, I hope Blizz is really just fixing a bug instead of removing them completely.
RogueJedi86 Jun 5th 2009 4:14PM
This is just Blizzard trying to keep nailing in the coffin of the Dwarven racial Find Treasure. No Chests or Trackable Quest Items in Northrend, no more chests in BC dungeons? Blizz just really either hates that racial or doesn't know what to do with it.
Scott Jun 5th 2009 4:22PM
It's not all about the Find Treasure racial.
I believe this change mainly dealt with rogues stealthing throughout instances and looting chests for BoE items. Being a rogue and having done this repeatedly at 70 for a few extra gold/shards while bored, I can understand why Blizz has moved on this.
Since WoTLK has been out for some time though, I don't see these chests carrying much value to their loot.
wow Jun 5th 2009 5:39PM
I suggest you take your tinfoil hat off. It had nothing to do with that and everything to do with gold sellers, who routinely exploited mechanics to skip content for these valuable chests.
RogueJedi86 Jun 5th 2009 4:26PM
Well you can't deny that Blizz doesn't know what to do with Find Treasure, and it has no use in LK, and removing them chests from BC dungeons gives one less use for it. I'll give you the remaining chests in various outdoor zones in BC though.
Since there's no other dwarf players on wowinsider, what possible exploit could there be with these chests? Level 80's farming them(and the bosses) has been possible since level 40 players started soloing the Deadmines. So where's the exploit?
Ernestly Jun 5th 2009 5:59PM
Even if this particular blow has nothing to do with dwarves, for heaven's sake give us some decent racials. After you're done nerfing Stoneform and removing treasure from the game, why don't you take a good look at diplomacy? Or heroic presence?
And exactly how many tanking maces drop in Naxx?
Brien Jun 5th 2009 7:29PM
"Since there's no other dwarf players on wowinsider, what possible exploit could there be with these chests? Level 80's farming them(and the bosses) has been possible since level 40 players started soloing the Deadmines. So where's the exploit?"
The exploit isn't so much an exploit as you can just loot them easily and the Outland chests actually had decent cash and items in them. Notice how the ones not in instances all have crap in them? Its because gold farmers just farm the hell out of them. The outdoor chests in Original release used to have decent stuff in them too until Blizzard had to nerf it because it was being over-farmed by gold sellers.
Yes, they should fix the dwarf racial to give you something that works but stop the conspiracy silliness, it just makes you look petty. If blizzard sees an abusable issue in their game it is their duty to fix it quickly, not to leave something to be abused until they can program a new racial to compensate people.
It sucks, you will eventually get something to replace it.
ash Jun 5th 2009 8:36PM
They should just change the dwarven racial find treasure so that you just get a straight buff to how much gold you gain from mobs and quests. Something like 5% wouldn't be game breaking. Either that or make it so you have a slightly better chance of getting BOE's to drop for you.
Bob Dewane Jun 5th 2009 4:23PM
It's funny because as a life long PuGger, these chests caused more drama than I would ever have thought possible. The first time I was in a run and came across one, the group leader is like "Roll for the chest." The winner wins the contents of the chest, I was told. "Cool," I thought. Fast forward to the next PuG I'm in. "Roll for chest." Someone wins it and opens it and there's a blue BOE in it. "Gratz," I type to the winner. "Roll for the blue now," says group leader. "WTF for, I won the roll for the chest," said the winner. "You ALWAYS roll on BOE blues, n00b!" was the reply. "Well then WTF is the point of rolling on the chest?" I ask. "To see who wins all the non-blue stuff in there," I'm told. "Who the hell even wants that stuff?" I ask.
I'm not kidding you. When I tanked PuGs in BC, there was a 100% chance this drama would unfold if the chest dropped a blue. Good Freaking Lord! I miss the chests because I'm a sucker for surprises and anticipation. Will I win the roll? Will there be a BOE in there? I DO NOT, however, miss the drama.
Dart Jun 5th 2009 4:44PM
tldr version:
Childlike Idiots ruin it for everyone.
Frank Jun 5th 2009 4:50PM
wow, that's crazy. a roll is a roll – isn't that the *point* of it in the first place? you take a chance on (zomg) NOT WINNING something good! having a second roll if something "good" shows up is just ridiculous.
gamerforlifenator Jun 5th 2009 6:12PM
Why not just give the same properties that "colored" loot has to chests?
whoever goes and opens the chest activates the same loot roll window that pops for greens/blues/purples.
Depending on how Blizzard wants it, the roll could be for everything inside, or have a 2nd roll window pop up for greens/blues. from my experience in PuGs players wouldn't care either way, just a solidified system that nulls out the greedy who call for "seperate blue rolls"
Lemons Jun 5th 2009 7:28PM
I remember rolling for chests...then I remember realizing that the chest has crap in it unless there is a blue, in which case, everyone is just going to roll again so rolling for the chest in the first place is pointless (and if you're the winner you've just wasted your good dice). I'd just let whoever ran up to the chest first loot it, and if there was a blue we'd roll on said blue.
It's a surefire way to avoid drama, unless you've got a REALLY big baby in your group who gets outraged by someone getting a few healing potions and a scroll.
jbodar Jun 5th 2009 8:32PM
Didn't they change chests back in mid-TBC to activate the Need/Greed roll for greens/blues, making the old "roll for chest" superfluous anyway?
Deb Jun 6th 2009 9:04AM
I think the exploits they may be referring to are the ones gold sellers use.
Spark Jun 5th 2009 6:44PM
3 of 4 guild mates who had their accounts compromised had characters in Shadow Labyrinth. The last one would show up in SL most of the time when /who'd and then jump to Hellfire for a short while before turning to SL (many times that character was the only one in SL at the time). I couldn't say what exactly was going on with these characters but I would strongly suspect some exploit and chests were involved. And that would definitely explain this news item.
Jaynitan Jun 6th 2009 6:47AM
Most def this is the issue, gold farmers exploiting chests in Shadow Labs was so common it is not funny.
Guildie A : I think QQPEWPEW got hacked!!!!
Guildie B: Looks like they are in Shadow Labs . . . .. prob hacked . . . .
When BC first came out my lvl 57 was farming ore to lvl JewelCrafting. I was in Burning Steppes a few hours a day for a few weeks (when i realized how much $$ gems from thorium could bring at that time) I would often see lvl 2 toons running at hyper fast speeds around the zone. They were using a speed hack to zip through a mob of dragonkin, the dragonkin would make chase. At a point hte dragons would all 'evade' and run back to home base. While they were evading the speedies would be out of combat and run back to loot hte chest before the dragons even got close.
I reported and reported, I would send /w to the lvl 2s and try to talk to them (cause normally that made them log.) And I decided I would do Blizz and me both a favor. For a few hours a night I would farm the chests so the chinese farmers couldn't.
I made lots of money of the BOE blues I found in those chests. And yes they were chinese cause one gave e his email address so he could work on his english more. We became odd penpals for a while (he mostly used some translation program that his 'work' used for when they played WOW, so they could respond to people so they didn't look like bots.