#259 - July 8, 2011, 5:31 p.m.
To keep communication on this as clear as possible, we would like to clarify what has happened with the transition between Seasons 9 and 10, as well as give you our take.
First off, to be clear, we made a mistake which led to the frustration of players:
We didn't notify players that we made a slight change to the way PvP gear is introduced each season. The change simply wasn't communicated among all of the other patch 4.2 changes, which was a big oversight on our part. When Season 10 hit, Season 9 (ilvl 365) items were replaced with an HP tier of Season 10 (ilvl 371) items. Since players didn't know this would happen, many of you farmed HP and spent it on the Season 9 items prior to this week’s maintenance.
Obviously most of you already know what happened and are very frustrated by it, but we just want to clarify the nature of the unrest, as well as the intended way this season transition was to happen.
This is the way it should have worked, and how it should work going forward:
1) During any season, a low tier of current-season items will be available for purchase with Honor Points.
2) During any season, a high tier of current-season items will be available for purchase with Conquest Points.
3) At the end of any season, any remaining Conquest Points will be converted into Honor Points above the 4,000 cap.
4) In between seasons, the previous high tier of items become available for purchase with Honor Points, allowing anyone who could not previously afford them with CP one last chance to buy them using the excess Honor Points.
5) The new season begins. Honor Points are capped at 4,000 again. The previous season's sets are removed and replaced with current-season HP and CP items.
We've seen a lot of players ask what the purpose is of having Season 9 items available for purchase with Honor Points for a week, before replacing them with better items. The purpose was for people to spend their excess Honor Points on any leftover items, as once the next season starts players can't keep more than 4,000 HP to spend.
That is about all of the information we have to share on this subject at the moment, but we want to assure you that the issues with this season transition are well on our radar. This is the way we're looking at it and will let you know if and when we have more information to share.