Category: Video Games

World of Warcraft’s latest expansion, The War Within, has been out for over a month now, and things are going great. Critics and players are largely happy with all the new content additions, the new Delve feature appears to finally be appropriately balanced, and the Race to World First was a real fun nail-biter.

But there’s been one major, glaring issue with The War Within simmering since a pre-launch patch that’s frustrated hundreds of players, with seemingly no fix in sight: the disappearance of thousands of items from guild banks, seemingly never to be returned.

The Great Guild Bank Caper

Issues began on August 13 with Patch 11.0.2, which dropped a number of updates to the game ahead of the release of the latest expansion, The War Within. In the following days, players began flocking to the official community forums, Reddit, and other community spaces to report a strange and upsetting issue: tons of items seemed to be missing from their guild banks.

While initially some players suspected thieving guild members or some sort of visual bug, as more reports came in, the reality became increasingly clear. Without warning, hundreds of guilds had seen massive amounts of items sitting inside their banks wiped out by the 11.0.2 patch with seemingly no rhyme or reason. Not every guild was impacted, nor did every impacted guild lose every item, but many reported half, two-thirds, or even the entire contents of their banks vanishing. Individuals who used guild banks as personal storage reported losing the accumulated riches of several years playing WoW.

For some guilds, the extent of the damage was difficult to track at all. According to player reports, the in-game “logs” of guild bank withdrawals and deposits did not reflect massive amounts of items being taken out, leaving those who were less active stewards of their guild banks struggling to remember what had even been in there in the first place.

Blizzard Responds

As reports flooded in over several weeks, players became increasingly frustrated by Blizzard’s lack of public response to the issue. Informal player surveys found that it was impacting hundreds of players and guilds, with likely far more going unreported, so it seemed unusual for the developer to remain silent for so long on what seemed to be such a massive problem.

Finally, after over a month, Blizzard issued a response explaining what had occurred. Per Blizzard, “a technical update that was made to support cross-realm guilds” encountered an unexpected bug that “caused one of our maintenance processes to make some items disappear.” Blizzard claims this mainly impacted items “related to professions materials from prior expansions” but acknowledged other items had disappeared as well.

In response, Blizzard said that it had been “packing up the missing items that we’re able to identify as lost by this process, and we will soon mail those to the guild leader character for each affected guild.” But there was a catch. “Due to how some of the data was lost, we’ve reached a point where the result will be an incomplete restoration for some guilds, and we do not have a way to restore the remaining missing items for them.” The developer apologized for both the incomplete restoration and the long wait.

While on its face this seemed to be a positive resolution to a frustrating situation, relief quickly turned to anger as players realized exactly how “incomplete” the “incomplete restoration” would be.

Incomplete Restoration

In the weeks since, players have been sharing the results of the “incomplete restoration” of their guild banks, and it doesn’t look good. Some guild leaders are showing off before and after screenshots of their banks, claiming to still be missing hundreds of items worth thousands of in-game gold. Some are reporting restorations that are insulting or even humorous, such as one person claiming they received a single piece of silk in the mail, or another who only got a bunch of Halloween-themed items back. Some are sharing stories of collections they spent years building being completely wiped out with nothing restored. One player claims their friend, a 72-year-old woman, lost an entire guild bank’s worth of pets, toys, mounts, and other items she was giving out as gifts to new players. Others have noted that since Blizzard’s item restoration is sending items to guild leaders via in-game mail, any guild whose leader is inactive won’t receive any of its items back.

Still others are bringing up the fact that since the introduction of the WoW Token, in-game items essentially have an equivalent value in real-world money. “Would you accept your bank to “whoopsie” your savings account, replace it with a fraction of what it had, and have the end all be called an “incomplete restoration”?” they wrote.

There are some players who are coming to Blizzard’s defense. Several commenters have pointed out the sheer scale of what went missing makes it very likely that Blizzard is telling the truth about its own ability to restore missing items, and there’s really no good way to determine who is owed what even with data backups. But even players who acknowledge Blizzard’s in an impossible spot are still frustrated by the loss of sometimes years’ worth of progress, savings, and work, and concerned that further mass item deletions may happen in the future. It’s an unfortunate black mark on what is otherwise a very well-received expansion, and an unfortunate weird side effect of the addition of a long-asked for feature (cross-realm guilds).

“It’s heart crushing, and it’s hard to play the game, even though this was stuff we could play without technically, it was about getting others what they need and would enjoy,” said one player. “It took a lot of the enjoyment out of the expansion for leadership of my guild.”

IGN reached out to Blizzard for further comment as to how this happened or if the company plans to take any further actions to restore lost items, but did not receive a reply in time for publication. We will update if and when we receive a response.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

Editor’s note: This article is based on an interview that took place on August 29, 2024, long before both the recent Commander bans and changes to control of the format were announced. As such, the quotes within are not in direct reference or response to those events.

Magic: The Gathering is currently riding high, consistently breaking its own records as it continues to grow into the most popular version of itself in its entire 31-year history. But ask some longtime players about its “Universes Beyond” crossovers or the increased pace of new products in recent years and you’ll hear a common fear being voiced: developer Wizards of the Coast, pushed by aggressive goals set by parent company Hasbro, is only prioritizing short-term gains at the cost of the long-term sustainability of this game.

It’s not an unreasonable concern, especially since it’s a sentiment WOTC seems acutely aware of. But it’s also a complaint that has now persisted for many years – at least since a 2020 collaboration with The Walking Dead angered many players while WOTC simultaneously declared it one of its most successful products ever. So if these decisions were providing a shortsighted burst of revenue but causing deeper harm to the health of this game, wouldn’t they be able to see some signs of that in the years that followed?

At a roundtable interview a month ago, I got the opportunity to put that question directly to the people who make Magic. I asked if WOTC’s internal data, both in terms of immediate sales and actual player retention/interest, had shown any signs for concern since things like Universes Beyond began, and how the developer actually defines “success” amidst some players’ worries that its recent direction could be eroding Magic’s foundation. Head designer Mark Rosewater told me, in no uncertain terms, it’s a fear “the data does not remotely back up.”

“We are always forward facing. Our goal is not to make the quickest buck we can and call it a day,” Rosewater said. “Magic is 31 years old, we plan to be here as long as we can. And so we are constantly forward thinking in how we do things.”

He explained that Magic is “a game all about change,” and that while he understands why people often have a negative reaction when a thing they love changes, WOTC’s job is to keep iterating and figure out what is best for this game as a whole. And, at least in the case of Universes Beyond, that iteration apparently bore fruit, as he said “there’s no other way to grade” it besides a “runaway success.”

“[Players] bounced off it when it first happened, no question. We made The Walking Dead cards and we had a lot of the audience respond they were not happy. But then Walking Dead went on to be the most successful Secret Lair we ever did, and Lord of the Rings is the most successful single set we ever did.”

Critically, “successful” here does not just mean “profit” or whatever other financial metric you want to use. Rosewater said “there’s a whole lot” they look at to judge success, including internal market research, digital data, and even Google trends. “There’s lots of ways to look at something. We care about all of that.”

Ken Troop, the Global Play Lead on Magic, also pointed out that when they do something that they do see is clearly not working for players, they don’t tend to keep doing it for long, using the infamous Aftermath set from 2023 as an example. “We got a lot of data that said Aftermath did not work, and we killed it,” Troop recalled. “It was a product that was [also] supposed to go out with Outlaws of Thunder Junction, there was a nice chunk of revenue associated with that product. We’re like, ‘nope, this is not gonna go see the light of day, we’re gonna kill this.’”

Troop told a story about the team sitting down to write “the principles of Magic R&D” roughly a decade ago, citing the first principle as the following: “We are stewards of Magic, we believe Magic will last forever, and we want Magic to be bigger tomorrow than it is today.” He went on to say that, whether you believe they are genuine in that goal or not, he personally hopes to be working on Magic for the rest of his life, and that “the degree to which we don’t pursue short term gain at the expense of long term— it’s really remarkable.”

“People just wanna attribute– I don’t know, it’s the nature of the internet of, like, ‘they’re up to no good,’ or, ‘they don’t have our our issues in mind’,” Rosewater said in a similar line of thinking. “We very much care what players think. We do surveys and everything, we do market research. We don’t wanna just make something, we wanna make something we honestly believe that the players to their core will enjoy, and that drives our decisions.”

Of course, WOTC is still a business and the products they create do have to make that business money, but Rosewater pushed back on the idea that something selling well means it must be a cash grab. “[Success] is not just that [a product sold well], but also I don’t wanna dismiss “it sold well,” he said with a laugh. ”There is an audience that loves it. That’s why it sold well.”

Troop expanded on that idea: “For Magic, typically we do see that when things don’t sell well, that is a really good proxy of audience dislike. There’s very few things that I can point to sustainably over time that have sold well, but it wasn’t popular. Or conversely, things that people say are popular but don’t sell well. Magic typically is a really good converter of joy to economic engagement.”

So for now, at least according to all of the metrics WOTC uses to evaluate its game, the fear that the bottom is crumbling out from under Magic as the top grows ever higher is apparently unfounded. Both Rosewater and Troop were sensitive to the frustrations of the enfranchised Magic players who are watching a game they’ve been playing for decades shift in ways they may not always like, but they also see change as a necessary part of that game – not to hit some immediate sales goal, but to ensure Magic is around for a few decades more.

“We really do try to look at what’s going to make Magic have its best chance of lasting for a very long time,” Troop said. “Sometimes we get that wrong, but that is our motivation every time.”

Tom Marks is IGN’s Executive Reviews Editor. He loves card games, puzzles, platformers, puzzle-platformers, and lots more.

The PlayStation 5 Pro has divided fans since it was announced in September, and game developers have differing outlooks on the new premium console as well.

Speaking with the developers behind Sonic the Hedgehog and Monster Hunter Wilds during Tokyo Game Show 2024 last weekend, each expressed interest in the added power the PS5 Pro affords. But when it comes to what it means for their individual games, their opinions start to diverge.

Monster Hunter series producer Ryozo Tsujimoto errs on the positive side, saying that Wilds team knew they definitely wanted to support the PS5 Pro as soon as they learned about it. Developed on the powerful RE Engine, Monster Hunter has lately been known for its graphical prowess, making the PS5 Pro a natural fit.

“We didn’t think there was an option to just leave it on the table. But we are getting great support from Sony in terms of helping us figure out what we’re going to do with that. So it’s an extra thing to think about as part of the development process, but we’re excited for the possibilities,” Tsujimoto says.

As we learned during our hands-on with the PS5 Pro last week, support for the platform can take many different forms. Most developers are introducing an enhanced mode that supports 4K resolution and high frame-rates, but other games, like Horizon, are much more granular. The team’s indecision may mean that PS5 Pro support isn’t available immediately at launch.

“We’d love to make it in time for launch, but we’re very much in the middle of the process of deciding how that’s going to look,” Tsujimoto says.

Sonic Team producer Takashi Iizuka, meanwhile, is keeping his focus on the previous generation. He says that he wants “as many people as possible to play” Sonic games, which means continuing to support the PS4, which still boasts a very large fanbase.

He continues, “As a market, we have the high-end machines, high-end consoles. Coming out with those consoles, we feel that we can make newer Sonic games that can express the speed of Sonic and with much better gaming UI as well. However, we want to support the lower spec constants as well. So even though the PS5 Pro is coming out, or new innovations or technology are coming out, we feel that it is important to support with the lower spec consoles and let many of the users keep playing Sonic.”

That includes continuing to support the Nintendo Switch, which is expected to have a next-generation update soon, but in the meantime continues to chug along in its seventh year. Iizuka says that Sonic will continue to pursue a middle path between high-end platforms like the PS5 and lower-end consoles like the Switch, with the series adding enhancements or making compromises where necessary.

As for the the PS5 Pro’s $700 price point, which has been a hot topic among fans since its announcement, Iizuka acknowledges that it’s “really expensive” on the face of it. Ultimately, though, it might be worth it.

“I feel that with the quality that they are providing it’s not that expensive… And yeah, it would be really good for the high-end game users,” Iizuka says.

Tsujimoto is likewise sanguine about the price. “The price isn’t something we feel it’s appropriate for us to comment on, but in terms of the capabilities, we think that it’s definitely worthy of the Pro name. So we’re excited to see what it can do.”

Around 60 games are expected to support the PS5 Pro when it releases next month, including several first-party PlayStation games such as The Last of Us, Spider-Man, and Horizon: Forbidden West. You can read our PS5 Pro hands-on impressions here, where we talk about the impact of AI upscaling and other improvements.

The PS5 Pro releases on November 7. While you wait, check out the best games released in 2024 so far.

Kat Bailey is IGN’s News Director as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.

Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater (officially Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater) is a remake of the original Metal Gear Solid 3 that adds a full third-person mode to the game, but being able to run and gun made it so easy Konami manually bumped up the difficulty.

In an interview with Famitsu translated by Automaton, creative producer Yuji Korekado discussed the two gameplay modes available in Metal Gear Solid Delta: Legacy Style and New Style. The former is an exact recreation of the 2004 game, essentially a top-down camera with a fixed perspective, while the latter features modern gameplay in a third-person mode.

Another difference between the two modes is that New Style gives players the ability to move while aiming and shooting. This was technically possible in the original game (and thus will be in Legacy Mode) but hitting a target was practically impossible.

The difficulty of Metal Gear Solid 3 was therefore balanced to work with standing still before shooting enemies, essentially giving them a little bit more time to deal damage. When that time was taken away in the modern third-person New Style, Konami found taking them out made the game too easy.

“New Style provides a wider, linear field of view, and you can shoot your gun while moving Snake, which made the difficulty level lower than we had expected,” Korekado said. “However, if we were to adjust things to match the New Style, that would make the Legacy Style too difficult. That’s why we decided to split the two play styles.”

The different modes will therefore feel like the same difficulty, but that’s only because Konami has adjusted them to be different behind the scenes.

Metal Gear Solid Delta is still set for a 2024 launch despite the end of the year drawing closer and closer, with a release due on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, and PC.

Beyond the New Style and its third-person perspective, the game is otherwise shaping up to be an exact recreation of the original. “Metal Gear Solid Delta seems more like a very shiny HD remaster than the elegant remake it could have been,” IGN said in our preview. “It’s an admittedly beautiful nostalgia trip, but almost faithful to a fault.”

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.