Breakfast Topic: Achievements that should have been

The advent of achievements changed the game of WoW in many ways. Not only do they provide recognition for time and devotion put into the game, such as the Loremaster or Justicar achievements, but in Wrath content and beyond, they can actually change players' approaches to game encounters. Consider the meta achievements for the Wrath raids. Who would have actually tried downing Sartharion with all three drakes alive if there had been no reward? Achievements prompt us to try more daring or difficult strategies for boss fights, do crazy or counterintuitive things in PvP combat, or run headlong into live mine fields. They also allow Blizzard developers to work in hard modes for certain bosses, giving them a scaling difficulty that provides accessibility for casual players and challenge for the hardcore.
So what about the vanilla and BC encounters? With a few notable exceptions, classic and Burning Crusade content has not received the achievement treatment.
If achievements had been part of WoW from the beginning, what would they have been like? Which crazy boss strategies deserved their own achievements in classic and BC encounters? Have you ever done something awesome in older content and thought, "Man, that should have been an achievement"?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Guest Posts
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 news





Reader Comments (Page 9 of 9)
Morrigann Feb 2nd 2011 1:02AM
We really need some more lore based achievements (and i dont mean quest "loremaster"). By implementing the achievements, blizzard can encourage their casual audience to engage in the story of WoW. Killing bosses is a great way to do this. meeting certain NPCs around azeroth could be another. Such as "Find Malfurion Stormrage in Hyjal and listen to his story", or something like that. It's a shame how many people just play the game, oblivious of the story of the world they are playing in.
unbourne Feb 2nd 2011 4:53AM
I was doing a random heroic the other day as a tank in blood spec change slighly for pvp for a group. I had some cata blues and greens but mostly old heroic wotlk gear. Anyway when i joined there where no complaint this time and only 3 wips. when we got to Lord Walden in shadowfang keep we got him to 40% health before the rest of the group died for not moving after 10 minuts and almost died 4 times i killed him when i was at 12k left i think they should make an achivment for being last man standing killing a boss like in arena for 5v5 or an achivment for low gear
sorry for long story and bad spelling im only 14 and english is not my first languege
Zenith Feb 2nd 2011 5:31AM
For some boss that does a suicide type attack in the last phase(think baron geddon, but interruptable):
Silence! I keel you!
Warp factor nine - kill Cho'gall with 9/23 raid members having full corruption
Roidrage Feb 2nd 2011 6:15AM
Japanese tourist
Take a screen shot of every stormwind guard
Australian tourist
Visit every city in Azaroth without using a mount
English tourist.
Get drunk in every pub in Azeroth