Diablo 3 Achievements mysteriously vanishing

A rather large thread on the Diablo 3 forums has revealed that Achievements are mysteriously vanishing for players, adding a new problem the growing list of bugs plaguing the Diablo 3 launch.

It appears as if previously earned Achievements, by performing certain tasks within the game, are either disappearing or not showing up at all for some players.  Despite the concern that achievements may have been lost forever, Blizzard has reassured gamers that this is not the case.

"As you can probably imagine, our servers are currently really busy handling all the new players coming into the gam," Vasadan, from Blizzard quality assurance, explained. 

"The achievements server in particular is being hammered, which may be why your achievements are not showing up. It is not that they are deleted, but that there is a (very long) delay in retrieving that data."

He reassured fans that Blizzard is working on the problem.

Playing through the game for the first time today, I haven't noticed any additional Achievement bugs.  Mine are being counted and I haven't lost any yet.  It looks like Blizzard may have fixed the problem causing the error, but the main concern from players seems to be focused on whether or not those who have already unlocked the achievement will get the ones that have vanished back or not.

We'll be sure to update you on the situation throughout the day.