The fresh Anniversary servers in WoW Classic recently received their first battlegrounds with Warsong Gulch and Alterac Valley. When players signed up for it, a bug allowed them to gain an unfair advantage.
What was that bug? When players on the Anniversary servers signed up for the battleground “Alterac Valley,” they were mistakenly matched with players from the SoD servers. As a result, they found themselves in a completely different version of WoW Classic.
In the battleground, players from the Anniversary servers could purchase the useful item “Chrono-Boost Transmuter” (via wowhead.com) for just 20 silver, while the item costs 10 gold in their actual version. Some players promptly exploited this and bought massive amounts of it (via Reddit).
With this item, players can store extremely powerful world buffs and deploy them at a later, suitable time. This approach is particularly favored by raiders, as the buffs also work in raids, making things much easier.
An unfair advantage
Why is this a problem? The bug brought two problems: on one hand, Anniversary players could acquire unfair world buffs from the SoD servers. Because on the season servers, there are items that distribute certain world buffs to all players in the raid.
This way, players from the Anniversary servers could store the world buffs in their Chrono-Boost Transmuters if they had someone from a SoD server in their group who utilized one of these items. This allowed raiders on the fresh servers to gain advantages in raids that should not have been available yet (via Reddit).
On the other hand, the enhancers are not soulbound. This means that whoever sells them for 20 silver can resell them in the auction house with a large profit margin. Because the item actually costs 10 gold on the Anniversary servers.
Players fear that the items purchased in bulk due to the bug would lead to disruptions in the economy on the Anniversary servers (via Reddit). Some players could easily turn 20 silver into 5 gold.
In the meantime, Blizzard has intervened and removed the bug (via WoW forums). In the meantime, the battlegrounds on the Anniversary servers were temporarily disabled. The items purchased through the bug have also been deactivated so that players can no longer use them.
The fresh Anniversary servers are very popular. The World First on the hardcore servers also plays a significant role. However, one Twitch streamer had a particularly bitter outcome in his attempt, albeit with a nice twist: Twitch streamer loses World First in WoW Hardcore Classic Fresh due to disconnect, despite having maxed out the marriage proposal
