Blizzard nerfed a WoW key — players found an even faster teleport

World of Warcraft players have long lived by the phrase "exploit early, exploit often," whether that meant buying items for less than they sold for or farming hundreds of frogs for a shortcut. Normally these discoveries get fixed, players complain about Blizzard "detecting fun," and things move on.

The recent launch of a new expansion brought a trickier case. What began as a pseudo-hearthstone to Silvermoon City became, after a mistaken buff, a near-universal teleport device. Players would queue for a follower dungeon with NPC allies, enter, use the Arcantina key to teleport to the Arcantina, then walk out and be deposited at the dungeon’s outside entrance in whatever zone it belonged to.

Any area with a follower dungeon could be reached in seconds, cutting travel time considerably. Blizzard issued a final hotfix that settled on a compromise. The key still teleports directly to the Arcantina, but leaving now returns you to the Silvermoon City inn and the cooldown was raised from 1.5 minutes to 15 minutes.

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