Earlier than calculated, some players have snagged the maximum Artifact Knowledge. Was there some cheating in World of Warcraft?
One of the core mechanics of World of Warcraft: Legion is the accumulation of Artifact power. This is needed to continually improve your weapon and unlock additional traits. The endeavor is accelerated by Artifact Knowledge, which builds up only slowly – those who started at the beginning of Legion receive about one level of Artifact Knowledge every 5 days.
The current maximum of Artifact Knowledge is level 25, at which point there is also an achievement for exploring the “complete backstory of the artifact weapon”. Back then, players calculated that the maximum of Artifact Knowledge could be reached at the earliest on January 2, 2017 – which is today. However, some players actually achieved this success as early as December.
According to several posts on Reddit, this is attributed to server issues. There were several DDoS attacks (which we remember painfully). These led to crashes. Occasionally, items were consumed without their effects taking place – such as the scrolls for Artifact Knowledge. Players wrote tickets asking for the scroll with Artifact Knowledge to be returned – which was often granted.
The bottom line is that some players have already had the maximum Artifact power a few days ahead of the rest of the world.
Cortyn says: As always, when someone gets something that another does not have, there will be complaints on Reddit and in the forums as if the world is coming to an end. The affected players are accused of exploiting the system and “lying” to the GMs. While this may have been the case in individual instances, it is likely hard to prove for each player separately.
In the end, the benefit is not that powerful – a one or two-day head start at a level of Artifact Knowledge is unlikely to irreparably throw the game balance out of whack.
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