Eilethalua

I will pipe in to say that back when WRATH was in the pipeline, Blizzard had listed WinXP as the earliest supported Operating System. I know. I was running Windows 2000 until less than 2 years ago on my home system. I literally emailed Tech Support before it launched to ask if that meant it didn't work - or just that they wouldn't help with issues. (With Wrath it was the latter.) That it still worked until now has been excellent, but eventually there does come a time when software cannot be kept retroactively compatible.

We had to do it where I work as well. Between drivers which are not written for anything before XP and functionalities with 64-bit which don't work on earlier systems but that customers want to see in the software, we have had to move on. Yes, sometimes that means we keep a few creakers around for far longer than they should survive. We have one DOS computer that only gets turned on when certain old irreplaceable programs are needed, a couple of Win95, and only recently did the WinNT and Novell servers get replaced.

01/06/2012 12:11 PMPosted by Maintanker

what i find most frustrating is that it took this blue longer to type out that cookie cutter post than it would have for the appropriate person to take said item from one toon and give it to another. its obvious both toons want this to happen

One thing I've come to see over time is that it's not made "easy" to take an item from a character on one realm and move it to a character on another realm.

The game code has special logic for how and when items are generated - from quests, from looting, from crafting, purchased from a vendor. Until those actions are performed, that particular item does not exist on the realm. When it is created, it is internally unique, in a way that means if I buy Handwraps of the Cleansing Flame on both this gal and my other 85 priest, they aren't the same item. Outwardly, yes, but internally no.

GMs are not given the power to create or generate items. They are given the power to "un-delete" them (aka restore). They can find the database information for a recently deleted item and bring that unique item back. This goes beyond policy; it is developer tool limitations to prevent abuses and other issues.

Now, the next step from there has to do with cross-realm movement of items. It literally doesn't happen except in very specifically defined scenarios:

1) Within an instance server. While in the raid or dungeon, characters are not on their realm server - they are on an instance server. Instance servers are designed to create loot (when mobs die) that can be carried back to a realm. Once the toon returns to the realm, though, the item is now generated and exists on the realm with its unique identifier.

2) In a paid character transfer. There is a lot of code underlying this one and not code that a GM touches. Every item in the character's inventory is copied and replicated on the destination realm - giving it the new realm's unique identifier for that item.

There is zero GM functionality to move things between realms. The item does not exist on the destination realm (not a uniquely identified version belonging to that character anyway). It cannot be created there. It can only be created through the methods the game coding specifies.

NOTE: This is actually why, should an item for any reason fails to make it across during a transfer, a GM cannot restore it. If it's not there, it failed to create a copy on that realm and none exists to be restored. Doesn't matter if they can look at the deleted one on the original realm. They don't have the tools to generate it on the destination realm.


The only way this might ever change is if the Developer's decide there is more value to making it possible than there is danger of it being abused. That won't change what GMs cannot do right now.

Unfortunately, unless the shaman submits a ticket, the loot item is gone. The shaman could submit a ticket to see if it could be recovered and ask if it could be given to you instead, but I'm not 100% sure if that's within GM powers.

All that said, there may be no harm in asking if the in-game chat logs might show the intention of the shaman was to let you have it. But do that expecting the answer to be that they can't do anything.

12/09/2011 11:54 AMPosted by Awesomenick

A problem that could easily be "fixed" by allowing people to send mails to characters of same account cross faction.

It is probably not an option in order to keep the Horde and Alliance economies mostly separated. Heirlooms do not affect the economy at all.

That said, if you'd like to suggest Blizzard consider changing this, you'll want to post over in the General Discussion forum.