Diablo 3 has had its problems, it’s common knowledge among players but this screw-up is a classic.
For quite a few weeks now players were supposed to be able to find extremely rare cosmetic items, they were meant to be hard to find. Players were becoming frustrated as nobody could actually find them in-game. Blizzard encouraged players to keep looking saying that they would not be “giving any hints on where or how to acquire this cosmetic item” until they were found. Their locations were supposed to be “mystery”.
Blizzard’s Wyatt Cheng finally joined the discussion to drop this bombshell.
In Patch 2.4.1, we introduced a number of new cosmetic items to the game including a few extremely rare items such as the Cosmic Wings and Rainbow Portrait. Among the items intended to be extremely rare are Steffon’s Heavy Lance, Mace of the Crows, and the Harvest Pennant (also known as the Fallen Pennant). As 2.4.1 unfolded, we were surprised to learn that nobody appeared to have found these items. Weeks passed, we checked and double-checked the data, and ran some internal tests—these items were intended to be rare and hidden, but had we perhaps hidden them too well?
Unfortunately, it turns out we made a mistake. Instead of making the items extremely rare, they did not appear at all. The development team is sorry for this huge misstep on our part—we know that our mistake caused many players to spend hours trying to locate items which we now see in hindsight was a wild goose chase.
It’s obvious that whatever testing procedures were in place before proved inadequate when it came to items and loot, it is possible that it was a simple oversight. Hopefully it doesn’t happen again. To recompense players they held the double buff weekend this past weekend but you have to feel sorry for keen item hunter who were trying to find these.
