Blizzard on Fireside Gatherings & Nemsy Necrofizzle – Vetting Future Gatherings, Account Penalties for Abuse

There’s been quite a few issues with the new Warlock skin, Nemsy Necrofizzle. It’s a Fireside Gathering exclusive, which has led some players to creating false Fireside Gatherings and gaining the skin through ulterior methods. Blizzard has addressed some of the controversy below.

Thank you for the recent feedback regarding Fireside Gatherings, the addition of Taverns, and Nemsy Necrofizzle. Fireside Gatherings were envisioned as a way to help motivated community members bring players together to share their passion for Hearthstone. They’ve proven to be an exciting experience, and we’re committed to ensuring the success of these events.

The recent surge of interest in Fireside Gatherings has introduced some issues that are affecting their performance. We’d like to provide an update about these issues and outline the steps that we’ll be taking to resolve them.

Known Issues:

• Appearing Offline in the Blizzard Battle.net Client Affects Fireside Gathering Functionality: With the recent update to the Blizzard Battle.net app, players can now set their status to “Appear Offline.” There is currently a known issue where setting your status to “Appear Offline” can impact Fireside Gathering functionality. As a temporary workaround, players should set their status to “Online” before attempting to participate in a Fireside Gathering or Tavern experience.
• Players on PC Appear at Taverns Randomly: Some players on PC have been appearing at Taverns without being physically present at them.
• Taverns Appear as Having “0” or an Incorrect Number of Patrons: Some Taverns have been found to be displaying an incorrect number of Patrons, or do not correctly display other Tavern Patrons in your immediate vicinity. This is due to infrastructure capabilities being exceeded by player demand, which results in Tavern service outages.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience that these issues may have caused. It’s hugely important to us that players have a great time at Fireside Gatherings. We’re actively working to resolve these issues, and we’ll be implementing infrastructure improvements to alleviate the load issues specifically.

Players Creating Fireside Gatherings with False or Inappropriate Information

With the surge of interest in Fireside Gatherings and Taverns, we’ve seen a rise in events created with inappropriate, false, or misleading information. We want the Fireside Gathering online submissions process to be easy and accessible for our Innkeepers, but unfortunately, that degree of accessibility has also enabled an increase of illegitimate events.

As a result, we’ll be dedicating additional resources towards vetting and reviewing Fireside Gatherings and Taverns. We also encourage you to report any suspicious Fireside Gatherings using the Report it link at the bottom of every event page on the list of Fireside Gatherings.

Innkeepers looking to host successful events should provide as much detailed information as possible in the Event Info and Who’s Invited sections. They should also confirm the availability of their venues in advance to make sure there are no obstacles to holding a great event. You can find some helpful Innkeeper resources here.

Players looking to attend Fireside Gatherings should carefully review the events near them to ensure their legitimacy. Players that are interested in acquiring Nemsy Necrofizzle should also make sure that the event they attend is hosted in a public venue by an established Tavern.

Play Nice, Play Fair

We want Fireside Gatherings to be a place where the Hearthstone community can come together in a warm and welcoming environment. Players who abuse the Fireside Gathering system may face account penalties, ranging from the suspension of their ability to create, participate in, or gain rewards from Fireside Gatherings, to action against their Hearthstone game account. Examples of Fireside Gathering system abuse can include creating events with inappropriate names or holding events at inaccessible locations.

We will also be issuing account actions against users found to be maliciously impacting services at Fireside Gatherings or Taverns with the intent of ruining the experience for other players.

We’re incredibly excited about the new Tavern system and Fireside Brawls, as well as what lies in store for local Hearthstone communities! This program has seen amazing growth over the years thanks to the incredible support from our players and Innkeepers.

Thank you for your patience and continued support, and we’ll see you at the Tavern!

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