Blizzard's new restoration system gives items back instantly

Crying over lost gear

I once feigned stabbing myself in the eye with a popsicle stick only to actually stab myself in the eye with a popsicle stick. Yep. I've been known to make some rash decisions that cloaked the next hours of my life with self-pity and regret. This is why MMOs have functions like buy back tabs, confirmation dialogues and the ability to trade loot that was mistakenly ninja'd because "It's a hunter weapon." If these measures of safety fail you, the new item restoration will give your items back in less than a minute.

Item recovery isn't something new to World of Warcraft. Previously, you could submit a ticket with the details of your butter-fingered mistake and, if you were a blessed individual, you could have your gear back within a day or two. The new item recovery system takes away the hassle of waiting and gives you your items via in-game mail almost instantly.

To test it out, I deleted my newly acquired healing boots on my paladin. Destroyed, gone, dead. Being in Orgrimmar barefoot can't be conducive to good health, so I tried to submit a ticket before I accidentally stepped in any wyrven poo-doo. The new item restoration button (found in the Open a Ticket section under Customer Support in game) opens up the Battle.net website where you can choose a character and see everything that you've recently sold or destroyed. I saw various greens and blues that I'd sold to the vendor since April 8th, which is nearly three week ago. I click my boots, confirm that I wanted them restored, and they were waiting for me in the mailbox not 30 seconds later. Frustration averted with an incredibly useful and simple system.

You can choose multiple items for restoration if you made a really bad decision, but the system only allows you to use the function once every 30 days, per account. So if you find yourself in need of a item restore, make sure you've selected everything before submitting your request.

It's features like these that really make playing games a rewarding experience. We all make mistakes and the ability to turn them around almost instantly means less time being frustrated and more time having fun.

Find all of the details on the new system on Battle.net .