I logged and realized that I was just in time for the academy event. I checked my inventory, and realized I had one left over from the last time I'd run the event...two or three days ago. I figured, bonus!

(and I realize that these things are supposed to expire...but what's the usual timeframe on that? and does it only counts down to expiration while you're logged in? I literally had this single one for days)

Well, after collecting nearly 80 new particles, my screen went crazy with a message "You used particle fragment", and ALL of the new particles I had collected disappeared.

So as a warning to everyone else out there who may not know this, you should clear your inventory of any particle fragments you have before collecting more.

I wish I'd known this before wasting an hour collecting new particles during the academy events.

Bug submitted in game.

Hmm... you should always sell extra fragments when the event ends. USUALLY they'll expire before that happens, but they can cause a new set to go bad.

I was surprised to see it still in my inventory since it'd been several days since I'd run the event, I'd have thought it would have expired within a few hours.

I really didn't even think to get rid of it, since it was just a single particle, and the event was just about to start.

Anyhow, just think the word on this issue needs to be spread and I think that if this is something that is going to continue to be allowed to happen or if it's working as intended - this particle corruption - the language in the particle fragment info, or the event information itself should probably be changed to let folks know that that's what it's going to happen if they don't discard their leftover particles after they have spent what they earned.

Otherwise, how is anyone supposed to know?