Hello
I have experienced this strange behavior on and off since i first rolled a char on classic. As i have leveled from 1 to now 52 i think i have a pretty good basis to say that this is indeed a bug, and not “working as intended”.
Behavior:
When i enter a “Zone” (mobs spawn) all mobs i loot either get the normal empty corpse, or the bug. What happens is that the corpse seem lootable, but when i click it i get one “empty slot” item (? as icon) . This happens with all mobs in the area, either no loot, or missing loot.
Now i can kill mobs for a while like this with no or missing loot, and it suddenly changes. All new mobs that either spawn, or i “zone to” like if i ride to other side of map, will now loot properly. While “proper loot mode” is present i NEVER get the missing loot problem with the ?.
Now i have read people saying this is not a bug, but obviously they have not experienced it, or paid attention to it.
Its pretty obvious when questing:
I do a quest that wowhead says has around 50% droprate on items. I kill 20 mobs and does not get a single item. With a 50% droprate, the likelyhood of NOT getting at least one drop after 10 kills is 1/1000. Not getting one after 20 kills is 1/1000000.
When the “Empty Item” stops, i complete the quest with normal droprates quickly. This has happend several times.
Also, the other proof that this is a bug is the regularity. Its either periods of “empty item” or periods of normal loot. I have never gotten consistent “empty item” and actual loot at the same time over time.
The only time that happends is when the bug starts on a new spawned mob, but there are still “old” mobs close to me. Those old mobs will drop items, but the new oens will give “empty items”. After i kill all old mobs, all new spawns give “empty item”.