Patch 5.3 interview with Ghostcrawler
Mystery of the Unborn Val'kyr
The latest patch 5.3 news
All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsIssues with the realm first achievements
by Mike Schramm 
Nov 19th 2008 at 4:00PM
But on a few realms, Blizzard ended up giving some of the awards to multiple players, resulting in the ingame mail you see above. We're not sure if it's because they all hit within a certain time period, or whether Blizzard's servers weren't working correctly, but as you can see, they say the issue is fixed for now. If you did rush to be the first on a server, you can be satisfied that you're the only one.
Thanks, Penny!
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Bugs, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Quests, Leveling, Achievements
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 3)
Rivana Nov 19th 2008 4:28PM
An issue on our server was that my realm (server time: CST) went live at 12am EST. I live in the CST, and there were Death Knights running around an hour before my local retailer would sell the game to me! Not to mention that many people didn't even know about the "achievement" anyway - though it doesn't interest me personally, I feel bad for those who might have tried if Blizzard had bothered to advertise the "achievement".
People in the USA on USA servers started the world-first "race" six or seven hours after the Euros.
The whole "realm first" idea probably sounded good on the drawing board, but potential participants were not informed, and the start times were not the same for everyone!
I have to grade the actual implementation as "epic fail".
Jay in Oregon Nov 19th 2008 4:39PM
If they wanted to do "World first"s, they should have had the switch to turn on WotLK content go off across all servers at the same time. Otherwise, it's like giving a prize in a marathon to the first person to cross the finish line after letting 10% of the runners start a hour before everybody else. (I'm not saying that Eurpoeans are 10% of WoW's subscribers; it's just a number for illustrative purposes.)
Regardless, getting "World first" achievements is always going to favor some span of timezones. Europe got to play first, so they were more likely to get them. If they'd flipped the switch for everyone during North American primetime, we probably would have been favored to get them.
wyn Nov 19th 2008 8:08PM
You think it's bad with US coasts competing against each other for realm firsts? Australians couldn't pick up their copies, if I remember correctly, until 8 hours after Wrath had been released on the US/Oceanic servers.
Americans had at least an 8-hour headstart over Oceanic players (even more for players in Western Australia, whose laws prevent midnight trading and therefore had to wait even longer to get their copies). I personally don't have an issue with it, as I'm not interested in competing for the realm first achievements, but the QQ I've seen over the 1-3 hour difference between US coasts is a bit silly.
(Not saying that you're QQing, because I see it doesn't really bother you either, but I wanted to raise the point.)
Dave Nov 19th 2008 4:35PM
What happens if you have a realm first achievement, then transfer/move your character to another realm?
Khirzask Nov 19th 2008 4:43PM
Then the server explodes.
LiaG Nov 19th 2008 4:48PM
No idea, Dave.
But something not cool at all happened in some servers.
Ppl that lvled to 79 or skilled up a profession, than transfered to another server and "stole" some 'Realm First' achievements from the 'native'. That happened in my server and lots of ppl aren't happy about it (including me).
I wish Blizzard created a webpage where we could see the 'Realm First' of each server.
Jon Do Nov 19th 2008 4:34PM
Hmm...
That makes me wonder...
If Blizzard can retroactively delete an achievement, can a subscriber retroactively cancel their subscription to WoW?
:P
Keresh Nov 20th 2008 11:40AM
when they took my realm first skinning away i was a sad panda
Will Nov 19th 2008 4:43PM
that's a slap in the face, Imagine what the people feel like that were in a close competition for a profession grand master, they get it then find out they didn't really get it... talk about getting your hopes up =\
your character should be able to take the GM's to WoW court and get awarded pain and suffered gold!
http://www.wowconfidential.com
Jagoex Nov 19th 2008 5:31PM
When I first read the title to this post, I incorrectly assumed it was going to take a look at the psyche of the Warcraft addict. I'm kind of disappointed it didn't! =(
It is unfortunate none-the-less.
noodles Nov 20th 2008 12:02AM
yeah this happened to me. I was really proud of it, and excessively disappointed that it was taken from me. I figure it's not my fault so I shouldn't lose the achievement.
Tanktard Nov 19th 2008 5:11PM
"they do get credit for getting their first."
*There.
Cow Nov 19th 2008 5:31PM
I was going to say something.
I bit my tongue.
mattyt17 Nov 19th 2008 5:35PM
Blizz took my Realm First to Cap Skinning away...i had already bragged to all of my friends and the way they go about taking it away by sending a quick in-game sorry for the confusion mail is poor biz practice.
Damn you blizzard.
Veloraell Nov 20th 2008 9:42AM
I lost my Realm first Mining because of this.... bullocks... eh 4100g in 3 days(from ores) was compensation enough for me I guess.
Joshua Smellie Nov 19th 2008 5:40PM
This is going to sound like a QQ (and it probably is) but meh, whatever.
I personally never liked the idea of server firsts. To me, it's incredibly unfair to the casual players and to those who either couldn't afford the game (like me) or had to wait longer than others.
They're not fair achievements because not everyone has an equal chance to get them. For them to be fair, everyone would have to have the game(s) at the same time, play at the same time, for the exact same amount of time (doesn't matter what they do though). And that's just not feasible.
I also believe that it leads people to play WoW a lot more just to get virtual achievements that give you nothing but perhaps a little bit of pleasure. It's not uncommon for people to play for hours (and even days on end) after a new expansion or feature they like has come out for a game they play and server firsts can promote addiction, in my opinion.
For an example of this, just look at the the incident where the 15 year old kid plays WoW for over 15 hours straight with food or sleep. Yes, he collapsed mostly due to lack of food or sleep but you have to look at why he wasn't eating or sleeping (and I can actually talk out of experience because I sometimes do forget to eat when on my laptop).
Gareth Nov 20th 2008 5:41AM
I don't like them either, not because of the fact that someone else got in there first before me (I admit it sounds cool to be first), but what it implies - everyone else is just one of the crowd.
To me that kills off a lot of the roleplaying feel, I'm not on a RPG realm, but I still want to feel I'm in Northrend or Azeroth and not just clicking buttons in a game, the world firsts probably should be personal since they detract from others uniqueness of characters. And your point that they encourage some bad play with people online for 24 hours at a time is valid too, first to 80 means very little really since its just a endurance feat that no doubt includes either doing something stupid (staring at a screen for 24 hours at a time) and/or something dull like grinding the same patch of people for 36 brain numbing hours.
However when I play EQ2 and the server wide message "The whole of Norrath goes silent while X picks up the fabled artifact X" from a high level raid it makes me feel good even though I'm a long long way from being able to achieve the same thing. So its not envy here.
Aurdon Nov 19th 2008 5:41PM
I can recall a blue post stating that if more then one person "ding" a server first in close enough time window, then they both would get the achievement.
I think they used "a minute" as the unit of measure here.
Cowy Nov 19th 2008 5:42PM
I'm still undecided on what I even think about people being awarded server firsts. I was a Draenei 70 first and a 60 first back in the day on my tauren & didn't get any retroactive credit. Oh well. All i got was constant whispers from people saying "NO LIFE" for all my effort. Lovely, thank you for that whisper (Did they really think they were the first to ever whisper me saying that, and make me realize this most important bit of info? )
Anywhoo trying not to be bitter. (lol)
When I think about it though...I can't help but wonder why Blizzard would award people for skipping something that took time to create. I guess its like a pie eating contest... the objective isn't to enjoy the pie, its to wolf it down faster than anyone else. *shrug* who knows.
Gareth Nov 20th 2008 5:46AM
Well I think the first to level 80 should have been done on the shortest play time to level 80. In that way the feat would be constantly changing hands as people got better ways of achieving it, and the people who did it originally would then get their achievement still noted but changed name to reflect a new top dog.
It would also kill off the whole silliness with 36 hour sessions etc, I know its the stupidity of the play that causes it, but its given Blizzard some bad press.
However, just to clarify it again, when I play EQ2 and the server wide message "The whole of Norrath goes silent while X picks up the fabled artifact X" from a high level raid it makes me feel good even though I'm a long long way from being able to achieve the same thing.
So its not envy here.