Blizzard refunds a third of Americas’ players’ Gadgetzan packs after a card drop bug

The tri-class cards were dropping a little too often.

Experiencing issues on any launch day of a major title is nothing unusual, but what occurred last night as Mean Streets of Gadgetzan launched in the Americas was a first for Hearthstone. As players started opening the freshly purchased packs, they opened disproportionately more tri-class cards by a significant margin. While for some that might have meant getting extra [card]Kazakus[/card]es, others did not hod their breath about opening three [card]kabal courier[/card]s in a single pack.

The issue was eventually reverted at 14:30 PST but by then millions of packs were already opened. As compensation, the company has refunded 33% of however many packs each player has opened before the time of the patch roll-out, rounded up. Community manager Zeriyah writes:

After the launch of Mean Streets of Gadgetzan on the Americas server, we discovered a bug with Mean Streets of Gadgetzan card packs that unintentionally made the drop rate of tri-class cards higher than intended. We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.

A hotfix was rolled out to all players on the Americas server at 2:30PM PST, which corrects this issue. Players on the Americas server will now see tri-class cards appear at a drop rate that is consistent with other cards of their rarity.

Any player on the Americas server who opened Mean Streets of Gadgetzan packs before 2:30PM PST will receive additional Mean Streets of Gadgetzan packs as compensation. The affected players will receive 33% of the total amount of Gadgetzan packs opened before 2:30PM PST, rounded up, to a minimum of one, regardless if the player acquired packs through gold, Quests, or real money. Since cards are generated upon pack opening and not pack purchase, packs purchased before the hotfix but opened after the hotfix will not experience this bug and will not be a part of the compensation roll out.

For example, if a player opened their 50 pack pre-purchase bundle before 2:30PM PST, they will receive 17 additional packs. (33% of 50)

If a player opened one pack of Mean Streets of Gadgetzan cards and completed a Quest that awards two packs before 2:30PM PST, they will receive one additional pack. (33% of 3)

If a player opened 47 packs before 2:30PM PST, and 23 packs after 2:30PM PST, they will receive 16 additional packs. (33% of 47 affected packs)

This fix will also be added to the release of Mean Streets of Gadgetzan before packs are available to open in all other regions, so players will not be affected by this bug when Mean Streets of Gadgetzan goes live in their region.”