The best of WoW.com: May 2009
by Allison Robert 
Dec 24th 2009 at 2:00PM
Disappointment with the patch 3.1 game world: A lot of our staffers pointed to Alex's article as a good pinpoint on why patch 3.1 didn't feel like it was really moving the expansion forward.
Children's Week ruins battlegrounds: I hated School of Hard Knocks because I thought it was a poorly-designed achievement spurring irresponsible play. Zach hated it because it's also guaranteed to wreck battlegrounds for the length of the holiday.
Noblegarden: Sexy or Sexist?: Women are still vastly outnumbered by men in the MMO market, and Robin wonders whether this achievement going live was the right call.
Raid Rx: 10 clutch healing or tanking abilities: One of the most significant changes between Wrath and BC tanking has been the frequent appearance of tank-gibbing mechanics that demand the use of a cooldown. Matt Low takes you through the array of options available to you and how each option works.
WRUP: Live long and Ulduar edition: Star Trek comes out. Editors log onto empty staffers' chat that weekend and type, "Where the hell is everyone?"
The PvP trinket is mandatory: Sad but true. As Zach observes, if you're serious about PvP, you need to get that trinket first.
Solving the mathematical tangles of Arpen: Blizzard had gone live with the actual formula used to calculate the armor penetration cap a few weeks earlier in an effort to straighten out the theorycrafting mess of the stat. Here, we take another look.
Failoc-alypse bursts onto the scene: Blizzard springs a new game on people waiting in the online queue for BlizzCon tickets. Small consolation to the people who watch 20,000 tickets vanish in minutes, but funny consolation nonetheless.
WoW Moviewatch Special: 7 movies you should know: A rundown on 7 influential machinima films that showcases the genre's incredibly divergent styles.
15 Minutes of Fame: Boubouille proves an MMO Champion: Almost everyone in the WoW community online depends on the incredible amount of work Boubouille puts into MMO Champion, but nobody really knew much about him until Lisa's interview.
Twitter Time: 10 words or less: Sacco posed a challenge to our followers on Twitter -- send him a WoW-related story in 10 words or less. I loved the resulting collection, and in particular the entry submitted by The CorruptOne: "An undead priest heals the shivering child's soul. Death smiles."
Completion rates on Wrath heroics: Flyv crunches some numbers and confirms what people had suspected for a while -- most players hate Oculus.
The woes of block: Block, since the removal of the crushing blow, has been a stat in search of relevance.
Should arena rankings be determined by class?: Is it possible to make arena a bit fairer by, as GC says, "grading on a curve?"
New druid form art in patch 3.2: New Tauren and Night Elf bear forms were debuted within 48 hours of each other, thanks to an accidental leak of the latter that we jumped on. Allison cries.
2009's drawing to a close, and we're wrapping up the most interesting articles we've published all year, one day at a time. Join us every day for the next twelve days with this year's best of WoW.com!Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Features
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Viper007Bond Dec 24th 2009 2:10PM
That picture is hilarious.
Choline Dec 24th 2009 2:33PM
Oh, I remember the Noblegarden controversy. I laughed it off, personally, and got really irate when people wouldn't stop talking about it.
I love bunny ears! :3
Al Dec 24th 2009 3:17PM
If you became irate, then you didn't laugh it off.
Especially if you became irate that people had a different perspective on it then you.
Thander Dec 24th 2009 3:16PM
I felt the same about 3.1. Mainly because I'm a pretty casual player. Really the only thing it added for me was a few daily quests. While fun, there wasn't much reason to care about doing the quests. Whether I did them or not, it didn't help any "war effort".
Also, the rewards were largely useless for a "main" character. I had already gotten ilevel 200 weapon and offhand from early raiding and heroic badges. I was already exalted with all the horde factions. So I could buy some small pets and mounts, flavor stuff but not useful.
So I took a break from the game and came back just before 3.3 came out =)
IvanP91 Dec 24th 2009 3:24PM
Uh lady, two of your kids are really fu**ed up. O.o
Choline Dec 24th 2009 3:28PM
Perhaps I wasn't clear:
I laughed off the acheivement itself.
I became irate when the complaining started.
The points that were brought up in the discussion were valid and made for great food-for-thought. People frothing at the mouth because of a dispellable two-minute buff... that was a little extreme.
Choline Dec 24th 2009 3:30PM
Agh, that was meant to go to Al.
Still learning this comments system.
pietrex Dec 24th 2009 4:28PM
I've actually somehow managed to miss the interview with Boubouille. o_O But I've enjoyed reading it even now. And I remember my Ulduar excitement back then... Now I can't stand this instance.
Velaxis Dec 24th 2009 10:45PM
As regards the pvp aspects of certain seasonal event achievements, it's as much of a pain for those into completing the achieves (I'm talking about pve enthusiasts who don't touch bgs much) as it is for veteran bg players having to put up with those pve people. Trust me, the pve crowd wouldn't do it if they didn't have to. If you want to complete all the seasonals, you have no choice but to do some pvp, no matter how much you might suck at it, lack the gear, and so on.
Look at it from this angle: any pvp enthusiast can complete all the seasonal achievements easily. They might have to venture into a dungeon or two, but it's hardly a trial - at worst it might bore them. You don't have to be an expert to join a pug and kill a boss. But for pvp noobs, sticking on a gnome costume (as is required for Winter Veil) and dying before you even get one kill of your required fifty is just... well, not fun. You can either afk out of the bg and wait 15 mins to try again, or spend a lot of time completing the bg to go in again with a new costume. It's a lot of time spent on an aspect of the game you might not like. Pve people aren't geared for it; they have no resilience gear because they don't play bgs regularly. They are just a liability to their team, and I don't blame the regulars for being annoyed about it. But pvp players in their top gear can easily coast through any pve requirements for the world event metas.
I presume Blizz are trying to make it that the seasonals encompass all aspects of the game, but it is a bit skewed, in my opinion. I personally don't mind the ones where you have to sneak into the opposing faction areas to fulfil a task - that's just edgy and fun - but the bg ones, in particular Winterveil, make me want to tear my hair out. Cut us some slack, Blizz. Put Winter Wondervolt machines in the bgs themselves or something. Then the pve players can get their achievements over, and the pvp veterans can breathe a sigh of relief because we're gone. :)
Dan Dec 25th 2009 9:17AM
I never really understood why everyone got so up in arms about these achievements "ruining BGs" and being "too hard for casuals/PvEers." I'm 100% all about PvE. Glory of the Raider 25, Glory of the Ulduar Raider 25, Algalon, ToGC, so on and so forth. I don't even have the "win a ranked arena match at 80" achievement, no pvp gear at all, etc.
Getting 50 kills (its not killing blows) with the gnome costume took a whole half hour for me. All you have to do is join an AV, wait a few minutes for a choke point to form for either side, head out there, and play support. Stand over to the side and use ranged skills, stand in the back and heal/dispel/whatever. The range for you to get an HK is *huge*. You'll probably rack up at least 20 before you die, at which time you can either start fighting for real (AV isnt exactly the pinnacle of pvp) or AFK out to make room for someone possibly interested in pvping. Even the School of Hard Knocks required little to no actual pvp combat. None of them require you to tap and *defend* a flag, you just have to tap it. Be the first out of the gate in AB and be the guy who caps the Stables/Farm, half the team runs past it anyway. Run past everyone and tap a far tower in AV, you don't have to kill a single thing. Capping a flag in EotS consists of finding a winning round for your side, and just sit at the flag while someone else runs it, as soon as it pops you click it and spend 30 seconds running to cap it (when I did it people were also very accommodating of letting people cap for the achievement). The only mildly difficult one was WSG, and you dont even have to be the guy who kills the flag carrier, just the one who clicks it first.
I'm really not saying this to brag, but these achievements *arent* that difficult for even casual players and people who don't pvp if they just drop the indignant rage for a minute, breathe, and plan out how they're going to go about getting them. Or even *gasp*, ask some friends for help.
hdtv2000 Dec 28th 2009 1:22AM
@Dan
Granted "With a Little Helper From My Friends" was fairly easy on my Mage. I could see it being tougher on other classes that don't have a lot of range abilities or classes that seem to be targeted more frequently, like healers, whether they are healing or not. "School of Hard Knocks" on the other hand was a nightmare, and I didn't complete it.
You say you "don't even have the 'win a ranked arena match at 80' achievement." I don't even know how to form an arena team. I haven't been interested in arena so I have no reason to find out information about it. On the other hand, the knowledge that you present about how to do the Children's Week achievement doesn't sound like you are a BG "noob".
Most of the people that complained about how hard it was most likely were in the same position that I was. I had only taken my Mage into a couple battlegrounds. I couldn't even tell you what the battlegrounds were at the time, much less have any idea what "type" of battleground it was, CTF, assault and defend, what have you. I don't like to go into something not having at least a little prior knowledge about how to not suck. Unfortunately, with the little time I had to try and get that achievement I went into the battlegrounds and tried my best, but it's very frustrating when you don't know anything about the battleground. I didn't have the slightest clue what the best way to complete each subsection of the achievement.
The worst part is that Blizzard said they implemented these achievements in order to get participation in all elements of the game, which is understandable, but the achievements didn't cause people who normally don't do PVP to seamlessly join the battlegrounds and help toward accomplishing a worthy goal for their side or something like that. For the most part group PVE achievements don't cause mass amounts of people to screw up others enjoyment of the game by doing something contrary to the normal goal. For instance, the achievements that require you to do something in enemy capital cities most people would just go for the "For the Alliance/For the Horde" achievement at the same time.