Breakfast Topic: How's that whole child thing going?
by Adam Holisky 
May 4th 2009 at 8:10AM
Mine is safely wrapped up next to me sitting at the inn off the bank in Dalaran.
How's the whole Children's Week thing going for you? I've gotten all the achievements done with the exception of School of Hard Knocks. It seems that no matter what battleground I go in there is always someone willing to not play by the rules the rest of the team agreed to and jump in front of folks to get the achievements, or the battleground resemble what Jon Stewart might call a "cluster of fun to the flag."
I'm hopeful that this is just the behavior of less mature folks unable to follow rule #1, and that these things get better during the day time hours of WoW. Usually I find that the people who are on at eleven in the morning are more mature than the average player, and that means a better experience for myself and everyone.
The other interesting thing I've encountered is Home Alone stacking. Each time they'd use their Hearthstone, they'd get the achievement and the points again. When they logged off however the misbegotten points were gone. There was some talk briefly of having some fun with this and raising their achievement score to something ungodly like 10,000 points – but we figured they'd just be banned for exploitation (unlike some folks).
So how about it WoW Insiders? What's your little pipsqueak up to?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 6)
Axolotl May 4th 2009 8:16AM
Mine are back at the orphanage, got two new pets and that was all I needed
Yeng May 4th 2009 10:59AM
I'm done with everything except for a UP run, which will be easy enough to take care of once I feel like doing one. I don't think there was a problem with School of Hard Knocks, it was easy enough to do. As for it screwing up the BGs, it's only a week so its not that much of an inconvenience. The BGs are normally full of asshats that do whatever they want to satisfy their own personal goals anyways, so its not that much different from the usual.
garfunkel May 4th 2009 11:00AM
2 pets and all achievements done.....I agree here that it was a little disruptive and the achievements could be more "team based" then they were,
but on the other hand, this achievement lead me to PVP again, i've avoided BGs a little since LK came out, but Hard Knocks over the weekend brought me back, sure a bit of a pain but still a lot of fun......almost forgot how much fun it to capture a flag/base/etc
perhaps a WIN in each BG with your orphan out would have been better for everyone, no more every-man-for-himself
artifex May 5th 2009 4:54AM
Monday was the UP heroic daily, at least on my server. First time since the holiday started that people wanted to do it. Glad I got on when I did.
Fizzle May 4th 2009 8:22AM
Actually, I had a lot of fun with Death Grip in the battlegrounds ... I am not a big fan of PVP and prefer tanking raids, tho. Got all the achievements.
On a sidenote: when you have MALE char and got the achievement, fly to Stormpeaks to the area where you get transformed into a female Vrykul. You will lose your "Patron" title and get the "Matron" title for that time. :)
Monsoon May 4th 2009 10:53AM
I noticed the reverse while flying around in Shadowmoon Valley. My female Belf retpally has the Matron title, and when she'd get over to the area where you're disguised as a male orc, she'd drop Matron and gain Patron, then it'd flip back once I left the area. I was concerned that I had somehow lost the title when that first happened.
As for the rest of it, I did get my title, but only because my wife was willing to do the School of Hard Knocks achievement for me. She normally plays a Mage, but was able to learn my Paladin quickly enough to get SoHK done in one day (I just owe her several stacks of Cobalt Ore/Bars for her DK). She plays WoW, she'll do my PvP achievements for me, and she doesn't mind when I use the Internet for its intended purpose. I may very well have the best wife ever.
skajake May 4th 2009 9:37PM
Male holy priests will also notice that Spirit Form is considered Female, as you will gain the Matron title and lose Patron for the duration.
Sakhi May 4th 2009 8:21AM
Yea, I turned mine in for some pets too. Less back talk.
outlier May 4th 2009 8:22AM
Your achievement is in the WAY of my PVPing. You don't like that people are in a BG to fight people TOUGH. Get a premade going or something that will do it for you. I SPENT ALL WEEKEND dealing with people like the article writer who assumes that there are special "rules" that you are supposed to bend backwards and help people get their achievements done. Well guess what, Im going for achievements to, they are the various BG win achievements, the Honorable Kills achievements etc. Just because you took it upon yourself to try and get a violet protodrake, you should not expect people to bend over backwards to help you. Do you know how annoying it was this weekend whenever I was about to get a flag cap in WSG and i get spammed whipsers from people who say that i should let THEM cap when I spent the whole time CCing oncoming enemies, poping cooldowns to stay alive (PVP ret pally) just so I can help my team win the game and some item lvl 170 (all greens) jerk with a orphan strapped to his waste begs me for the flag and then yells at me for not giving it to him. Its been a nightmare. BTW dont even get me started with AV and AB, holiday achievement hunters have made those even more painful.
Wowie May 4th 2009 8:33AM
And your PVPing is in the way of my achievement!! ;)
No really, I agree that this one pretty much sucked. After a few attempts to finish these objectives in the BG's, I gave up. It was horribly unfun for me and the regular BG-goers were clearly unhappy with so many people with individual interests mucking up their team play. So, I just decided to turn in my whistle and accept the fact that I was not getting the title (or the protodrake for the meta). I'm not happy about it, but I guess that's the way it goes.
Joshua Ochs May 4th 2009 8:34AM
Don't blame those of us who want this achievement. Blame Blizzard for putting in such a shitty achievement in the first place. The achievement as it stands rewards "perverting" the Battlegrounds (someone else said it, and it fits) or acting selfishly. Had the achievement been "have your orphan out and WIN the battleground", now that would have encouraged people to learn the ins and outs, and maybe actually enjoy it.
Instead, we have PvE'ers who are pissed at trying to get this nasty achievement, and PvP'ers who are pissed that we're screwing up their Battlegrounds. Blizzard's only response is "it's not that bad" and "it's only one week", which completely sidesteps the issue that it's a poorly designed achievement, at odds with whatever PvE/PvP cross-fertilization they were hoping for.
Arlen May 4th 2009 8:35AM
Yeah its been nothing but fail.
peagle May 4th 2009 9:02AM
Agree with the general consensus. Whilst it wasn't *that* hard to complete the SoHK achievement, it abhorred teamwork and generally flipped a bird towards PvPers.
satria May 4th 2009 10:25AM
for me the hardest part was finding a group that knew what they were doing in UP . For the pvp i got pretty lucky as i got all the hard knocks achievements on my first go (except for av but only cause ive never done it being alliance and got a little disorientated running to the towers :P) . for UP though i got saved to 2 failed instances b3ecause it was full of people that were only there to grab the achievement and didnt have the gear nor the knowledge of the instance to complete it . the fact that these achievements are on for such a short period of time once a year kinda forces people to do things they arent quite ready for
edit. i didnt realise at the time i could do UP on normal an still get the achievement...silly silly me
Lyraat May 4th 2009 9:47AM
BGs weren't boned this weekend. I got lucky: ran each BG once, got the achievement in each, didn't even have to get stupid to do so.
WSG: We scored a 3-0 victory because the Horde was busy piling up honor kills midfield and not defending or attacking en masse. One attacker v. three defenders = flag ain't going nowhere. This was the one BG that was played noticeably different from our standard play. Since we won, perhaps we'll actually play like this from now :D
AV: We zerged Drek. I ran up and grabbed West Frostwolf Tower while others capped East and RH. Waited until RH was capped, rush Drek, win.
AB: We lost but seemed like standard play here. Maybe a bit lacking on defense, but then again, that happens a lot.
EotS: Standard play. There are always noobs gunning for the flag.
If the BGs are such hell to play right now, perhaps take a break and do something else for the rest of the week?
Deadly. Off. Topic. May 4th 2009 10:07AM
I think this achievement was in poor taste and in poor design. It doesn’t encourage cooperation and only induces frustration for pvers forced to pvp in an area that most do not normally (nor wish to) excel in. Any blue poster on the wow forum that says otherwise is in denial as they didn’t bother to test out the achievement on a live realm. (There are pvp rewards for top pvpers, and then there’s this pve reward for those who actually invest a year of time in the game doing these holiday events which are often grind fest and pain in the ass achievements to do - and yet they need to pvp on top of it... ugh.)
That said:
The best thing that happened for me is that on the DAY 1, the Horde and Alliance WORKED together in the BG to let each other get the achievements. Yes, you heard that right. Instead of simply flat out killing each other, we sat there HELPING each other. It was a sick watching a naked BE pick up the flag and drop it, so one of us could return the flag - then he’d do it again. We did the same for them. And that was simply not the end of it. The same happened in Arathi Basin too. EOS and AV was a little more free for all, but I got my achievements done too.. ^_^ These achievements got done because enough people wanted the achievements on both sides that.
With that said, can you imagine the following days when other people attempted this achievement once every main got theirs on day 1... no one else would care or bother to help others, so that they’re working three times as hard just to compete with anyone else who happens to want to get this done.
There are some people who will claim, “It’s a 310 mount, you should earn it,” but that’s usually because the elite jerks out there only want stuff for themselves. (Investing a year of time (A bloody full year of time) and doing all the stilly and stupid achievement requirements is EARNING IT!)) But sticking this stupid requirement is a slap in the face to all the pvers out there.
Peridan May 4th 2009 11:23AM
I agree with outlier. If rule #1 is don't be a jerk then the one's breaking that rule are those who are there just to get the achievement.
You're supposed to try and win battlegrounds. It's very frustrating to see so many achievement jerks working to make us lose.
Feel free to do your own thing but please don't call people jerks simply because they want to play battlegrounds to win rather than just get some lame achievement.
Lish May 4th 2009 12:38PM
The more you help them get their achievements the sooner they'll be gone from your precious battlegrounds. Otherwise they're just going to keep hopping into the queue until they get what they came for.
jfofla May 4th 2009 12:45PM
Rule #1 was don't be a jerk
artifex May 5th 2009 5:38AM
Outlier:
I didn't have a big problem with PvPers wanting to win and do their usual games, with me trying to fit in where I could. I fully expected to pull my weight.
But I wasn't given the chance for the first few days. Back then, I commented here about how personally offensive some PvPers were, and how they deliberately did things to keep me from getting parts done, to the point where they were damaging the side's chance of winning, more than once. I wasn't imagining it, because they were taunting me by name in battleground chat.
So finally, for two of the battlegrounds, I said screw it, screw the people who don't want me there but want to tell me what to do to help them win, while they are insulting me. And I got those parts done _in_spite_of_ my side.
---
I don't think the achievements were really what was standing in the way of PvPing, the last few days. I think it was PvPers' egos and reactionary stance. And I felt the truth in something important, something that I couldn't internalize as a kid who was picked on for being different: Screw the bullies. I'll never be like them, but I shouldn't want to. I can succeed despite them, and not feel sorry if they get hurt as a result of their own actions.
---
It would have been a lot easier for everyone involved, and the PvPers would have gotten more honor points and badges for winning, had they been willing to let us all function as team players, demanding and reciprocating cooperation. They might even have learned how to be better players by adapting on the fly.
They missed out.