Okay, so I'm going to be completely honest about this. When we scripted this comic, it was right on the heels of one of our good in-game friends getting banned for what seemed like an excessive 20 days with threat of account deletion. Baam isn't just a friend of ours, but also a raid mate in a group that Pie and I participate in and, as you can imagine, having an important, beloved teammate out for 20 days is incredibly distressing! This happened right before the new 5.2 content was slated to drop while we were busy with TEA progression and getting ready for the patch and it was a disheartening setback to everyone.

It was his first offense (as he told it anyways, and we trust him), but it was steep because it was RMT trading. He had got caught up in a phishing scam by following a misleading link and, through that, the hackers were able to get his account info and use it for illicit activities. It stunned me that it took the SE staff so long to be able to identify that he was not at fault (from IP source and the sheer nonsensical nature of a long time, active account suddenly going rogue), especially considering that Blizzard has usually been very quick to sort out issues of this nature for WoW player that are victim to account compromise. I don't want to make light how difficult it must be for the support staff of such a large game, but when it hits close to home it's hard not to let emotions take over.

During the ordeal, I pondered on the hypothetical of this happening to me personally, and I knew that I would be absolutely distraught. I have played 14 for so long and have such an immense personal attachment to my character and the game that the thought of losing my account would end up feeling similar to the loss of a loved one. That might seem extreme for some people, but perhaps that attachment is more common than we realize. For players like Pie, Baam and myself who put their hearts and souls into the game- who have forged lifelong connections and have very profound personal connections to the experiences we've had through the lens of our avatars- it feels only natural.

Oh, and on a happy note- Baam did get his account restored, before the 20 days and prior to the patch release. So I guess this comic pokes fun more at the injustice we can feel when we feel personally wronged x3