An update on the Cursed Dragon Lamp release

An update on the Cursed Dragon Lamp release

Yesterday's Cursed Dragon Lamp release went badly wrong. We know how much excitement there was around this LTD, and we're deeply sorry that so many of you couldn't even access the Hotel, let alone have a chance to purchase one.

Below we explain what happened, what we're doing about it, and how we're making things right with the community.

What happened

The sheer number of Habbos trying to access the Shop at the same time overwhelmed one of our background services responsible for checking currency balances. Because other parts of the Hotel depend on that service, the issue also affected logins and purchases across several hotels. Our systems should have been able to cope with the demand, and we're sorry that they didn't.

In our analysis, this wasn't an attack by a malicious actor. A part of our system couldn’t handle the number of Habbos loading the Shop at once. That part of the system is now fixed, and we're working on further changes so this kind of problem can't stop you logging in again.

Why some Habbos got more than one lamp

We looked into this in detail. The Habbos who purchased more than one lamp managed to get through while the Hotel was struggling, and their purchases went through. Our investigation found no evidence that these purchases involved foul play. However, we recognise how unfair the outcome was for Habbos who couldn't even get into the Hotel to participate.

Why we're not doing a rollback

We've seen the numerous requests for a hotel rollback, and we understand why you asked. Since the release, lamps have been traded (some many times) and lots of other purchases and payments have happened across the Hotel, completely unrelated to the LTD sale. Undoing all of that would affect far more Habbos than the release itself.

For those reasons, we've decided not to roll back the release. We know this won't be the answer everyone was hoping for, but we believe a rollback at this stage would cause even more disruption and negatively affect Habbos who weren't involved.

A cursed dragon of your own

Frank has convinced Evil Frank to open his secret dungeons and release some actual cursed dragons, and every Habbo can now adopt one for free.

Choose between the Blue Cursed Dragon and the Purple Cursed Dragon. Each one comes with its own badge. Your dragon can't be traded – it's yours to keep.

To adopt yours, log into the Hotel on desktop and look for the new button in the top right hand corner of your screen. You can adopt one dragon per avatar.

We know that giving everyone a free pet can't undo what happened yesterday, and it doesn't replace the opportunity to purchase the LTD. However, we wanted to offer something to the community as an apology for the disruption and disappointment.

Playing on mobile?

Being able to adopt this new dragon pet on mobile needs an app update, which has to go through app store review first – so it'll take a little longer.

Don't worry: mobile players won't miss out. We'll publish an article as soon as you can adopt your pet dragon on mobile, and we'll keep the adoption window open for plenty of time after that. That article will also give the claim deadline for everyone, on desktop and mobile.

What happens next

We also know this isn't the first time an LTD release has gone wrong. We understand that repeated problems like this damage your confidence in us.

We're reviewing how LTD releases are handled, including the technical systems behind them and how we can make participation fairer when demand is exceptionally high.

- Habbo Staff