Patch 3.3.3: Bugs with old gear, missing gems reported
by Anne Stickney 
Mar 25th 2010 at 11:35PM
As of patch 3.3.3, some people have noticed that some of their level 70 gear is now missing gems and enchants -- they've simply up and disappeared. It only appears to be affecting gear and equipment acquired prior to Wrath, so level 80's shouldn't have too much to worry about -- but for leveling alts, or mains that are taking their time, it's definitely a concern. This has been reported, and there is a blue response on the issue:
BornakkThere is currently an issue that we are aware of where gems and enchantments are missing from items that had them before we released patch 3.3.3 this week. This appears to be affecting some equipment that was acquired before the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. We are planning to resolve this during the next maintenance on Tuesday, March 30th, and recommend that you do not try to gem or re-gem any of this gear until after that time. We will provide further updates if this situation changes.
So for now, if you've noticed your gear has significantly less sparkle than it did prior to Tuesday, sit tight and don't do anything to it -- it should be fixed next Tuesday with the regular weekly maintenance. If there's any changes to this information, we'll let you know.
Filed under: Bugs, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Faulken S Wulf Mar 25th 2010 11:55PM
This patch seems remarkably more bug-ridden then most, but I like that they're addressing everything publicly.
Bill Mar 26th 2010 12:06AM
I'm currently studying 3d modeling so I wouldn't know much about how patches are made and applied beyond the pretty graphics. It's just hard for me to imagine how so many random bugs like this can happen after a patch. I don't even want to picture how bad patch 4.0 will be for a while considering how Blizzard will be basically stripping the old world down to nothing and redoing close to everything.
Ad134 Mar 26th 2010 4:56AM
Technically it will be the best way. A full reset is usually more reliable than constant tweaks.
Verit Mar 26th 2010 11:15AM
Anything I don't understand is easy right? You're talking about a completely custom client server application (with a custom made database back end) that has 100 times more complexity than any business application. Changes in code will break stuff (its the very nature of object oriented programming) - its why they have a QA dept that has probably found thousands of bugs prior to release that are already resolved.
Having worked in software I know its impossible to find all bugs in testing - even with a public beta testers working on it (which 3.3.3 had!)
I honestly think for the most part they do a pretty phenomenal job considering the scope of the app.
Zeke Mar 26th 2010 12:15AM
I noticed when enchanting my fishing pole with +5 fishing from +3 fishing it asked if I wanted to replace "+3 fishing" with "+2 fishing". Wonder if its related. Reported the bug anyway.
Celeane Mar 26th 2010 7:02AM
Yes, they have mentioned that bug. Only the prompt is wrong, once applied it should be 5.
Guttsu Mar 26th 2010 12:19AM
There are definitely a lot of bugs with this patch. I haven't been able to log on since the patch hit, and neither has almost anyone else with an older power pc mac.
Sean Mar 26th 2010 12:31AM
I thought the Power PCs were dropped a while back, possibly even with 3.0?
niko Mar 26th 2010 2:11AM
not true, they are still working in a LK world... but i concur with the OP that it's been difficult to log in on my G5 machine... varying degrees of progress with the logging-in procedure... however i also experienced the same exact behavior on my PC until killing the app a few times in a row.
YMMV, but GL nonetheless!
Todd Mar 26th 2010 3:11AM
Yes, PowerPC Macs are still officially supported (and a high end 4-core G5 will still do quite nicely, thank you). And yes, there's a current known bug that is preventing us from logging in - they're trying to get a patch out soon.
I'm quite a bit surprised that wow.com hasn't published anything about the multitude of bugs being hit with 3.3.3 - about half of my raid was affected in one way or another.
Neural Mar 26th 2010 4:02AM
I'm having the same problem, mostly. Sometimes I can log in but then the game crashes. I've been getting "Error #132" crashes. And just my luck, the main site/forums are down for maintenance. A Google search doesn't really help because most other sites link back to a page on WorldofWarcraft.com. :-/
ChaosBolt Mar 26th 2010 12:20AM
My Warlock's Merciless Gladiator's Spellblade has not had any textures since 3.2 (I think).
It's just all one shade of blue, no shadows, no textures, no designes.
At least it glows?
:)
Hoggersbud Mar 26th 2010 1:37PM
That might be an issue for the file on your system, if you run the Repair program in the WOW folder it might fix it.
Neckbeardos Mar 26th 2010 12:48AM
Parties are still displayed the same way as before the patch, like if a DPS is leader he'll still be displayed at top rather than the tank
matthew Mar 26th 2010 1:15AM
Wonder if they're gonna sort the disconnections out that started when the new patch hit.
Running a single instances disconnecting 3 times? Not fun.
Jtown Mar 26th 2010 1:51AM
this sounds very much like problems relating to cata material they're stealth injecting in there like changes in programming, etc.
zweitblom Mar 26th 2010 2:16AM
It is not just 'old' gear - my heirloom sword has lost its enchantment as well.
paul Mar 26th 2010 5:49AM
" equipment that was acquired before the Wrath of the Lich King" Does this mean all pre-WotlK gear could possible be affected, or gear we looted before WotlK? If I get my level 60 PvP epic weps this week (Thankyou honor changes), then it will probably not be affected?
Thanks for the clarification
Anne Stickney Mar 26th 2010 5:53AM
Right now, it's just items that were acquired before the patch hit that already had gems in them. I don't think you need to worry about gear that you have yet to get.
Rajah Mar 26th 2010 7:39AM
I started up the WoW launcher at 7 AM EDT, Fri. Mar. 26 to find that there was a new patch. It's still 3.3.3 but build level 11723. I presume this is a small bug fix patch. This installed without errors, but I could not login to the game with the error message that it was unable to verify the patch level. Although the realm status dashboard shows all realms up, all of the WoW forums are down, as is the armory. The failure to verify the patch level could signal a problem with the authentication servers themselves or perhaps a larger network problem. Or it could be a bad patch. Here is the article to which the error message directed me, which I fully intend to read just as soon as the forums come back up:
http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?articleId=21031