I’m pretty sure it was World of Warcraft where I learned the phrase “exploit early, exploit often” whenever players discovered something Blizzard probably didn’t want them to. Buying items for cheaper than they sell for was a common one, but there have been worse things, like slaying hundreds of frogs for a shortcut to godhood.
Usually these things get fixed, players cry about Blizzard “detecting fun” and removing it, and everyone moves on. But things don’t always go as smoothly, like what just happened with this new item that was introduced with the recent expansion launch.
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Meanwhile, clever players figured out the fix was actually a mistaken buff. The key went from being a pseudo-heathstone to Silvermoon City to a teleportation device that could take you almost anywhere in the game. The trick was to queue up for a dungeon (with NPC allies), enter it, use the key to teleport to the Arcantina, and then walk out and get teleported to the outside entrance of the dungeon in whatever zone it was located in. Any area where a follower dungeon existed could be teleported to in a few seconds, saving you loads of travel time and opening up a ton of possibilities.
A couple of days later, Blizzard came back with one final hotfix. This time, there seems to have been a compromise for all the players who were upset over their magical key being taken away. The key still teleports you directly to the Arcantina, but now when you leave you’re taken back to the Silvermoon City inn. Blizzard also increased the cooldown from 1.5 minutes to 15 minutes, effectively giving everyone a free teleport to the city that’s roughly equivalent to a regular hearthstone (with a buff from your guild). Anyone with the key can freely set their hearthstone to teleport them somewhere else now that they have a reliable way to get back to Silvermoon.
The Arcantina key saga is finally over and the note it ended on was more positive than I anticipated. I didn’t expect Blizzard to turn it into a second hearthstone, especially given how quickly it got rid of that functionality with the first fix. The final solution gave players what they wanted in the first place without making it too powerful of an option.
Now I just need Blizzard to reconsider how it’s handling housing items and the premium shop—a place where a compromise, like being able to buy duplicate decor with gold instead of real money, would alleviate a lot of the frustration players have at the moment.
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