Updated at 8:30 a.m. with latest information.
A plague has struck Hearthstone, and one of the symptoms is lost gold.
Publisher Blizzard launched the second part of the Curse of Naxxramas add-on today for its free-to-play card battler, and some gamers are coming across an error when they try to buy the episode with in-game gold. Instead of unlocking The Plague Quarter, which introduces several new single-player battles, it’s taking some players’ 700 gold — the new content remains closed. A number of players are reporting this problem, and many have even spent an extra 700 gold to see if the second time is a charm.
Blizzard has acknowledged the issue, and it has suggested a fix.
“For those who are currently missing gold, if you were not granted access to the Plague Quarter, your gold balance should be returned to you 10 minutes later — though it will require that you exit Hearthstone and log in again,” Hearthstone producer Eric Del Priore wrote on the Blizzard forums.
While some have had success with that advice, others are reporting that they still have not seen their gold return or The Plague Quarter unlock after more than 30 minutes and logging out multiple times.
The company has started a thread on its forums to let players know when they will get money back for failed transactions, but it is still working on resolving the issue.
“or succesful payments (gold or currency), where no access is granted, we continue to work on the issue, and will update as soon as we have news,” reads the Blizzard thread.
We’ve reached out to Blizzard for more, and we’ll update this story with any new information.
The developer is releasing content from Curse of Naxxramas on a weekly basis. Last week, Blizzard introduced the first episode and gave it away for free. While that first (the Arachnid quarter) experienced some bugs, The Plague Quarter is the first time players have had an opportunity to pay money to unlock an individual episode. Blizzard has sold card packs and access to an Arena mode prior to this, but that apparently wasn’t enough to avoid issues with Naxxramas.