World Explorers to get some help with achievement
by Daniel Whitcomb 
Jul 28th 2008 at 8:00PM
Demiron of the US-Elune server bought forth a concern about the new achievement system on the official forums recently: How does a World Explorer get all the world explored, especially the enemy faction capitals and cities?
I'd like to assure Demiron and people like him that it really is possible. Alex even wrote a nice handy mini-guide to sneaking into the cities to get Crown of the Fire Festival which should work for exploring too. If you're not a stealth class, it can be harder, but knowing the location of a few back doors and having an epic mount speedy enough to outrun guards can help a lot in those cases.
One other concern for a World Explorer, though, is figuring out exactly where they have and haven't been, and for that, Bornakk did drop a nice little hint in the thread: There will be a way to see which places you haven't explored so that you know where to go to get that shiny new achievement ding.
More help for achievements is certainly a good thing, and should help those of us scatterbrained enough that we can't quite remember if we covered every square inch of Stranglethorn or not. Hopefully, this type of help can extend to other achievements as well, so you don't have to figure out whether you have 500 daily quests to go for that achievement, or only 50.
Filed under: News items, Wrath of the Lich King, Achievements
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ewiges Jul 28th 2008 8:11PM
Being an original player since the dawn of WoW the only places I haven't explored are the new starting zones for Blood Elves and Dreani. There are also a few really small places I still discover when running through some of the old areas that wern't my primary leveling zones.
Jamesisgreat Jul 28th 2008 8:33PM
I thought I read that it if an area was 'uncovered' on your world map then it counted as explored. So you wouldn't need to get all those yellow 'discovered' texts appear or anything, just make sure your map was all filled out.
Juneau Jul 29th 2008 5:53AM
That's what I was thinking. Getting every "discovered..." text would take AGES.
nonbreakingspace Jul 28th 2008 8:34PM
I've got everything in Kalimdor, Eastern Kingdoms and Outland already explored, way way way before they announced these achievement things.
klink-o Jul 28th 2008 9:07PM
Or so you think hehe.
I've discovered a number of places while out wandering about that filled in a tiny portion of my map that I previously thought was complete. The first thing I thought when I initially saw this achievment is how the hell am I going to find all those litle places? I'm greatful we'll be getting some assistance.
SaintStryfe Jul 28th 2008 9:29PM
don't forget there'll be new areas added to EPL (for DK's) so they'll be new things to explore.
Iwanttobeasleep Jul 28th 2008 10:30PM
It's incredibly easy to get the enemy faction cities! If you can take a few hits by the guards, and go when enemy players are unlikely to be around, you can mount up, run far enough in to get the discovery, and high-tail it out. As a t4 holy paladin, I actually managed it all the way to all of the festival fires, killed the four or five guards I'd picked up. Admittedly, they're hitting on my plate armor, but they're surprisingly weak and you won't need to run all the way in.
isobelle Jul 28th 2008 9:27PM
...should help those of us scatterbrained enough that we can't quite remember if we covered every square inch of Stranglethorn or not...
open the world map?
Marbles Jul 28th 2008 9:50PM
Given that there is an explored entry for every (or seemingly every) zone, it should be easy to track down which places haven't been completely visited.
Personally, I should already be done, as I frequently go tracking down Rare mobs, and have covered the vast majority of the map looking for them.
Might be a few odd places I missed though. Discovered the Veiled Sea the other day by swimming around the north of Kalimdor...
Biggles Jul 28th 2008 10:59PM
It's easy to find out what you haven't explored - in the achievements pane, you can click on an exploration achievement, and it will drop down and list all of the sub-zones you need to get that achievement - so, for example, if you click on "Elwynn Forest", it shows Goldshire, Northshire, Eastvale Logging Camp, and all of the other sub-zones there, each with a check next to it (or not) to show you've found that area. I've been doing the exploration achievements with my Death Knight as I've been leveling my herbalism...
jurandr Jul 28th 2008 11:09PM
I didn't know there were guides to sneaking into the cities. Just just ran in on my mount, frost nova'd the guards, picked up the flame and ran somewhere I could get invisible and port out :)
Bloodelfer Jul 29th 2008 1:26AM
u can explore as dead!
Biggles Jul 29th 2008 12:15PM
I also noticed you can get the falling achievement (forget the name right now) as a ghost. Seems like a bug - but it's a lot easier to fall 65 yards and not die if you're already dead...
Siha Jul 29th 2008 1:39AM
About 10 days back I posted a guide to the Achievements system and its interface, which includes an image of the way it shows the discoveries you have yet to make:
http://www.bananashoulders.com/2008/07/19/the-achievements-system-is-awesome/
Zakk Jul 29th 2008 1:39AM
It's really easy to get into the enemy faction cities. I dinged 70 on my Hunter by getting the EXP from exploring Org. Just mount up, run, and eventually you get out of combat. I rode into the part that leads to the Cleft of Shadows (or where ever RFC is), and I just sat there for a while. Nobody bothered me. Guards gave up, none of the players attacked me. Just sat in peace until I got bored and decided to go plink on some Arena geared 70 Hordes with my blue gun from Nagrand =P