In an unprecedented, but all-round good move, Blizzard has announced resurrects for Hardcore characters lost during recent DDoS attacks.
Over the recent weekend, Blizzard servers, mainly World of Warcraft (WoW), were hit with a large amount of Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks. This, in turn, caused several problems. However, the biggest loss came in the WoW Hardcore realms, where thousands of players lost their characters due to the attacks. Streamers and casual players alike took to the forums and social media to berate Blizzard on this.
While many pleaded for their characters to be returned, others took another stance – linking images of the terms of service (TOS). However, Blizzard has heard the cries of its player base and announced a resurrection for those affected by the DDoS attacks.
DDoS attacks cause a Hardcore WoW resurrection
Announced in a “blue post” via the WoW forums, Blizzard confirmed that they would be working on resurrecting player characters that were lost due to the attacks.
"Recently, we have experienced unprecedented distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks that impacted many Blizzard game services, including Hardcore realms, with the singular goal of disrupting players’ experiences. As we continue our work to further strengthen the resilience of WoW realms and our rapid response time, we’re taking steps to resurrect player characters that were lost as a result of these attacks. Unlike the many other ways characters can die in Hardcore, DDoS attacks are an intentionally malicious effort made by third-party bad actors, and we believe the severity and results of DDoS attacks specifically warrant a different response.
In the future, Blizzard may elect – at our sole discretion – to revive Hardcore characters that perish in a mass event that we deem inconsistent with the integrity of the game, such as a DDoS attack.
Our broader stance on character restorations or death appeals has not changed. To be clear, we do not intend to revive characters that have died due to server disconnects, lag spikes, gameplay bugs, or any other reasons. Blizzard Customer Support cannot assist with issues related to characters who have died on Hardcore realms.”
The decision to do this remains a possible one-time thing, as Blizzard strives to avoid DDoS attacks.
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OnlyFangs could be the reason for a revival
While some have taken to the forums and social media to welcome the swift response from the developers, others have, once again, gone the other way. Many people seem to believe that the only reason for this revival from Blizzard is the streamer-only guild, OnlyFangs. It was during their recent raid that the attacks were at their most virulent – thus causing many of its members to lose their characters. This eventually led to the OnlyFangs guild hanging up their gloves and calling it quits.
At the current time of writing, it is unknown whether OnlyFangs will start up again after the revival. However, it is possible, since the players will have their characters back – although with the DDoS attacks possibly focused on the guild in question, there might be a lack of will to continue if it happens again.
Unfortunately, DDoS attacks continue to plague the gaming community and are often difficult to combat while easy to coordinate. These attacks put a stain on gaming in general and can happen to any online game. Recently, we saw something similar occur during a Dota 2 tournament, which caused the grand final to be postponed.
For now, some players can take solace that their precious Hardcore characters will be returned to them. With that said, it is unsure how long it will take Blizzard to comb through the data and find who died due to the attacks and which deaths do not deserve resurrection.
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