Posts with tag achievement

OK, we all know I'm all for raiding accessibility. I've posted multiple times about how progressively making raids easier doesn't invalidate the accomplishments of those who went before, and about how it's all about letting people get to see content as time progresses. And I still intellectually believe that. Intellectually.

I hate to admit it, however, but my heart doesn't always fall in line with my head, and the recent change to Glory of the Dragon Soul Raider is one of those. You'll notice that the screenshot of the achievement above has removed the requirements of having to have killed heroic Spine and Madness of Deathwing, two fights I had to push my face through in order to get the mount.

This is where I turn into a hypocrite, I guess, because I don't like this at all. Not even a little bit. Especially with recent news that Blizzard is going to make the mounts off of heroic Ragnaros and Deathwing harder to attain in Mists of Pandaria. So you're making the drop mounts harder to get but the achievement mounts easier? And frankly, taking heroic Spine off of this achievement doesn't just make it kind of easier, either; it makes it massively easier.

At this point, my heart and my head are in full-out war over this. Like I said, intellectually I support the progressive reduction in difficulty as a good compromise that lets people see more content while it keeps progression moving forward.

Like just about every Blizzard fanboy these days, I have been playing a lot of Diablo III. And while playing it, I have indeed been looking to complete achievements whenever I can. A lot of Diablo achievements are similar to WoW achievements, but one category Diablo III has that WoW doesn't is class achievements.

This is understandable. There are a lot of reasons WoW doesn't have class achievements. It's harder to level multiple characters and get them all. It's harder to implement flashy achievements that could force you to put a group at a disadvantage. People could focus on gaining achievement points rather than winning a battle. That said, I still think there's some merit to the idea.

One of the best reasons to have class achievements, I think, is as a possible teaching tool. There's still not a really solid, in-game way of teaching you how to play your class, but a few achievements that rewarded you for using certain skills in certain ways might just be a good start. Sure, you could just cheese them anyway, but if you tried to get them legitimately, you could very well find yourself learning how to play along the way. This week, we'll brainstorm a few death knight achievements and see how they could help a lot of people play the class better.

Completionists have lots of ways to obsess with the advent of achievements, especially those who simply must complete every quest -- the fastidious Loremasters of Azeroth. The really hardcore Loremasters have used mods to help them track what quests they have or haven't completed, but now Blizzard is giving them a new leg up when questing in Pandaria.

It was a little easier to keep track of your progress in Cataclysm's largely linear zones, but Pandaria's zones offer you more freedom in what you're completing and when. To that end, the world map now shows you nearby quests on the world map. It isn't zone-wide, but it does work in a fairly large radius around you, so if you're flying or riding around and check your map periodically, you can see any unclaimed and available quests.

It's worth noting that Pandaria's Loremaster achievements are based on quest lines completed, not an actual number of quests, but this should definitely help you track down each story to add that tick to your achievement.

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It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!

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At this point, I'd recommend to everyone still working on these achievements that you save up your artifacts and turn them all in during one Faire, in order to ensure credit. For the goblins among us, however, this means it's still a good gold-making opportunity, so check out our guide to profiting off the Darkmoon Faire.

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This year's unique Winter Veil gift is the Gaudy Winter Veil Sweater. You can wear this lovely sweater while caroling in enemy cities in order to earn this year's unique achievement: A-Caroling We Will Go. If you don't get this Feat of Strength by the second of January, then you will have received an ugly holiday sweater for nothing. (Well, almost nothing. You still get the Gaudy Winter Veil Sweater achievement, but that's not as exciting.)

So the It came from the Blog family of guilds will be singing our hearts out (probably literally) in enemy cities this Friday night for our Caroling Carnage event.

• When: Friday, Dec. 30 at 11 p.m. EST (8 p.m. PST, 9 p.m. server)
• Where: Meet under the tree in Orgrimmar on Zangarmarsh (US-PvE-H)
• Who: Any level Horde character, the higher the better.
• How: Ask anyone in It came from the Blog for an invite to the guild, if you are not in our family of guilds already.

Warning: As our delightful singing will take place in enemy cities, we will not be welcomed as cheerfully as carolers are in shelters and assisted living facilities. There will be death -- our death -- and lots of it ... hence, Caroling Carnage.

If you decide to make a death knight in order to join us, please make sure you are welcomed into the Horde before the beginning of the event.

For one night, don't wait in those long Raid Finder or space opera queues. Instead, join us for some dangerous singing while wearing fashionably questionable clothing.

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Please join us on Zangarmarsh (US-PvE-H) in It came from the Blog. All members can invite, so /whisper Roblinator or any online member. You are all welcome as long as you play by our simple rules -- basically, don't be a funsucker! Visit the guild FAQ for more details.

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Tons of new achievements have been added to the PTR for the upcoming patch 4.2, including the Molten Front and the Regrowth achievements. Blizzard has stated that a bunch of the encounters in the new daily hubs will be directly linked to "raid-type" damage dodging and healing, so it is nice to see achievements for some of those feats.

Some of the achievements hint at some awesome characters showing up in unexpected places, like Have... Have We Met?, potentially getting Mankrik, Thassarian, Linken, and more on the front lines in Hyjal and the Firelands. Also, pet collectors are going to jump for joy, as collecting 100, 125 and 150 pets now rewards players with pet biscuits for 100 and 125, and a new pet, Nuts, at the 150 mark.

We've been hopping around Razor Hill, but now we're taking our fluffy tails off to Un'Goro crater. Join us in game on Zangarmarsh (US-PvE) or by watching the stream above and participating in the chat after the break.

Update: The stream is now over. You can watch our hop (which includes bunny lemmings) by clicking on the image above.

Join us this Saturday for the Hop to Hard Boiled! As the title implies, we'll be hopping to Un'Goro Crater together for the achievement.

• When: Saturday, April 30, at 5:30 p.m. EDT (2:30 p.m. PDT, 3:30 server time) for the pre-event mixer and 6 p.m. EDT for the Hop
• Where: Meet at Razor Hill on Zangarmarsh (US-PvE-H)
• Who: This is an all-level event, but you'll be hoppier happier if you are higher level.
• How: Ask any It came from the Blog member for an invite, if you are not already in one of our guilds.

We will be meeting in Razor Hill to mingle and fight over eggs, and then setting off cross continent, braving dangers and probably getting pretty soggy.

Anyone from the Alliance is welcome to join us on the hop. You can meet us at Honor Stand, where unfortunately, we'll have to kill your soldiers to protect our lowbies -- but hopefully, you'll forgive us. Otherwise, there is no reason why we can't forget our factions for the day and travel together to lay eggs side by side to celebrate this extremely silly holiday.

I'll be streaming this as usual, and all instructions will be given in our event chat as well as over the stream. Please join us one way or another.

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Please join us on Zangarmarsh (US-PvE-H) in It came from the Blog. All guild members can invite, so /whisper Roblinator or any online member. You are all welcome as long as you play by our simple rules -- basically, don't be a funsucker! Visit the guild FAQ for more details.

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This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the AOL guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages.

Face it, we all love our titles. Some of us have a specific favorite that we just love to show off, a title that boldly displays our personality and our achievements at a glance. If you have Chef before your name, people will know you're a great cook. If you have Loremaster before your name, people will know you are passionate about lore (or quests).

And then there are the few of us who are passionate about titles themselves. Just like avid collectors try and collect as many pets as they can (and get a nice pet once they reach a certain number, a pet that tells everyone that you enjoy collecting pets) and mount collectors acquire as many mounts as they can, there are a few of us who collect titles. For us, displaying one title -- no matter how prestigious it is (Death's Demise, anyone?) -- simply isn't enough. How are we title collectors suppose to display our love of titles?

There in fact used to be a mod that would automatically cycle through whatever titles you told it to, but Blizzard killed it for some reason. I was hoping it was because they were adding the title collector titles, but alas ...

You can probably tell where I'm going with this: I think Blizzard should put in a title for having X number of titles. Maybe something like "Lord / Lady [Name]." How about adding a new tier to certain titles? The Seeker title requries completion of 3,000 quests -- but with Cataclysm, there are far more quests than that. So maybe add another tier of it, say ... 5,000 quests. Make the title "Knowledge-Seeker [Name]."

If you could create a title, what would it be, and how would one go about acquiring it?

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There are a number of achievements associated with fishing in WoW, and that's a large reason why the profession is so popular (despite its faults). Some of the achievements are predictably harder to get than others. Take, for instance, the new-for-Cataclysm achievement The Oceanographer, which we covered a few weeks ago in our weekly achievement column. It requires two fish that are only available during different times of the year; you can't catch Raw Summer Bass in the fall and winter, and you can't catch Winter Squid in the spring and summer. As such, the achievement was totally off limits.

For all you achievement-hungry anglers, there's good news: Today, March 21, is the official start of spring, and Raw Summer Bass are once again available to be caught. That means you can finally complete The Oceanographer achievement, provided you've already fished up a Winter Squid. Raw Summer Bass can be fished up in a number of coastal areas, including Tanaris, Blasted Lands, Swamp of Sorrows, and even off Jaguero Isle in The Cape of Stranglethorn.

If you're interested in The Oceanographer and haven't fished up a Winter Squid yet ... well, you might want to sit down, because El's Extreme Angling has got some bad news for you: You won't be able to fish them up again until Sept. 21.

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Working on achievements? The Overachiever is here to help! Count on us for advice on Azeroth's holidays and special events, including new achievements, how to get 310% flight speed with achievement mounts, and Cataclysm reputation factions and achievements.

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Tensions on the forums have been pretty high since Blizzard made a change to the achievement that awarded players the title The Exalted without announcing it beforehand. Bashiok hit the forums tonight to address said drama, saying that while the community managers were disappointed that the saga resulted in so many forum code of conduct violations, they did have a long talk with the designers, who agreed to change the achievement back to its original form. In other words, if you qualified for The Exalted before 4.0.6 (40 exalted reputations), you'll soon be awarded your title again.

Right now, the devs are unsure as to whether the change can be applied with a hotfix, but they're going to attempt one and see if it sticks. If a patch is necessary, they'll let us know. There's some additional interesting information in the blue post, including the technical reasons why Blizzard couldn't grandfather the title to those who achieved it prior to 4.0.6. Full text is after the cut.

This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages.

World of Wacraft has a lot of major milestones, many of which are punctuated by achievements, cool titles or flashy mounts. When I first started thinking of this subject, I assumed reaching level 80 would be my proudest WoW moment, considering it was the first time I reached max level. I started playing WoW during The Burning Crusade and leveled very slowly, spending way too much time in PvP, which didn't reward experience at the time. I took a couple of breaks and didn't hit max level until the early months of Wrath of the Lich King. But in retrospect, I recalled my thought when I reached 80: "Okay, now the real game begins." My next thought was that the moments that my guild first cleared Naxx-25 or Yogg Saron or the Lich King might be the pinnacle of pride for me in WoW.

Then I realized the truth. The moment when I probably felt the best about my WoW self was when I finally matched (and eventually beat) the gear of my best friend who plays and could beat him in duels. I'd watched this rogue friend, from BC to Wrath, stealth around and slay countless foes in battlegrounds, arena, and world PvP. I'd seen him win 2 of 3 duels against the very best-geared rogue on our server, and I could beat him. That was awesome. Plus, a bit of friend vs. friend gloating didn't hurt the ego.

Has there been a point where you thought to yourself, "I have arrived ... at awesomeness"? What achievement or event is your proudest WoW moment?

Thanksgiving (or the United States version thereof) is quickly approaching, and with it comes the in-game Pilgrim's Bounty event. Now, I didn't actually finishing Pilgrim's Bounty last year. This is mostly because I was visiting my family for the entire week of Thanksgiving, so I was only playing on my laptop, and my laptop is sufficiently low-tech that it does not run WoW all that well. Also, I was totally spending most of my time with my family. This month, though, I'm going to be in town with access to my usual gaming rig, so I'll have more than enough time and ability to finish up the achievements.

That said, I'm still deciding whether or not I'll actually take the time to do them. After all, none of the Pilgrim's Bounty achievements are needed for What a Long, Strange Trip. I mean, an extra turkey pet is sort of cool, but otherwise, there's not really much of a profit to them. Also, some of the achievements seem downright annoying. Turkey Lurkey? Do I really need to run around looking for all these dumb rogues? Why so arbitrary? And what about the Turkinator? Do I really need to run around a newbie zone like a chicken with my head cut off trying to target critters more quickly than the other 100 people doing it? What does that accomplish?

Then I think about some of the other holidays. It's not like I haven't had to run around Dalaran looking for random class and race combinations before, and it's not like I haven't run around the newbie zones doing silly, inconsequential stuff before either. So why is Pilgrim's Bounty bringing out the achievement cynic in me? I like to think I've been doing achievements because they're interesting and fun, but what if they've been about the carrot and stick all along? Now that there's no reward I'm really interested in, am I finally seeing achievements for what they are, or am I just being a grinch a month early?

What do you think? Do you do achievements for fun, or are you pretty sure you'd leave them alone if they weren't rewarding you with shiny stuff?

Patch 12984, the latest Cataclysm beta build, just crash landed across the net, and MMO-Champion is mining out the latest changes. Included in the changes are a bunch of new or tweaked guild achievements. Here are some examples:

• Realm First! Nefarian First guild on the realm to defeat Nefarian in Blackwing Descent on heroic difficulty while in a guild group.
• United Nations Raise 55 reputations to exalted. Reward: Dark Phoenix Hatchling.
• You've Been Iced Figure it out.

Perhaps the readers can actually help explain to me what "you've been iced" means. I wasn't aware there were bros in Azeroth yet, but I guess after all those popped collars on the priest tier 10, it was bound to happen.

Hit the jump for the full list from MMO-Champion.