WoW Classic's new raid race stumbles off the starting line as Blizzard accidentally releases Mogu'shan Vaults early, then temporarily bans players for its own mistake

Blizzard Entertainment has found itself in hot water after it A) accidentally released a World of Warcraft Classic raid earlier than expected and B) temporarily banned players for - double checks notes - playing said raid.

"Due to an issue earlier today, players were briefly able to encounter World Bosses in Mists of Pandaria Classic ahead of their originally scheduled release," community manager 'Kaivax' wrote in the WoW forums yesterday. The developer quickly returned things to how they should've been, and noted that World Bosses won't drop Tier 14 PvE raid gear until "after the first weekly content reset following the release of the Heart of Fear raid," so don't be disappointed to find PvP loot.

"Due to the same bug earlier today, the Mogu’shan Vaults raid was briefly accessible to players before being closed, and a very small group of players were able to kill bosses inside," the forum update continues. Accidents happen, especially in an MMO as old and as massive as World of Warcraft. What's more peculiar is Blizzard Entertainment's response to the situation, though.

"To address this, we've identified all of the accounts that gained early access to the raid and were found to have killed a boss, and all have been temporarily suspended." The temporary suspensions only lasted a few hours, which was of course long enough to keep the early raiders out during the world's first clears of the Mogu’shan Vaults.

"We take fair play seriously," Kaivax adds. "We believe that this is a case where the open raid was clearly unintended, and those who exploit such situations should gain no advantage from doing so."

The MMO community didn't seem to see things the same way. "Suspending people for playing the game is ridiculous," one player in the forum said. "It's your guys' fault for letting it be open early. All you had to do was remove loot and achieves. Any punishment after that is cruel."

"If the raid opens early, and people intending to compete for an early clear notice that, the logical thing to do is to get there and start clearing," another response reads. "Frankly the communication from Blizzard lately has not been good. So it’s unclear whether the raid [would] stay open. What if someone wanted to clear raid early, noticed it was open early, figured it was a mistake and didn’t go in, and you guys didn’t end up closing it so those that went in early won the race? That’s a perfectly plausible scenario and people can't know the future."

Either way, competitive guild Numen eventually won out and completed the raid in just 36 minutes after it went live legally. Praise the magical pandas.

A naked WoW Classic hardcore player has spent 292 hours punching everything in the MMO to reach level 55 as the One Punch Warrior: "What am I doing with my life"