Hollow pleasure
So I jumped on WoW last night because I just couldn’t sleep, the question was what to do.
Time Sink
I decided that I wanted to do my first post-patch PvP, but thought I would quickly go grab lolly jars from The Eastern Kingdoms. I had 50% of them, so how long could it take.
Man, what’s time sink. Sure, not hard work, see flight master, fly route, run to inn, grab candy, see flight master. Rinse & repeat.
While on the back of one bird I started thinking how I should be more efficient, maybe go /love some critters while I was out and about in the Eastern Kingdoms.
Then it occurred to me I was blowing 1/2 hour, why make it an hour?
Anyway, one more achievement down.
PvP Achievements
Then off to AV to knock over a couple more in a fun loss (so no Alterac Valley Victory achievement). G.N.E.R.D. Rage and The Grim Reaper complete. Couldn’t get the Make Love Not Warcraft Achievement (which would be appropriate as that is my guild’s name), try as I might when I targeted a enemy and types /love I got not achievement… After the battle was over I realized I was trying to /love critters not /hug enemies… lesson learned… read achievement requirements 1st!
I might have picked up Know Thy Enemy, I know I have Hero of the Stormpike Guard and Freedom of the Alliance but I can’t get That Takes Class until WoLK comes out and there are Death Knights to remove from the face of the earth.
Near the end of the battle I got an invite to teach Azgalor a lesson. I was a bit tired, so I passed on the opportunity.
The insidious nature of these achievements
This morning I realized the insidious nature of these achievements. I would rather /love critters or raid candy jars or clear Deadmines than hit bosses I will never get the opportunity to do again.
I am a bit annoyed that Blizz didn’t keep better stats/records of our past achievements. I realize that so many things I have done in the past aren’t acknowledged, even our Onyxia kill 4 days before patch wasn’t acknowledged.
If more of these things were recorded, I would have more incentive to move forward, as it is now I feel I need to go back and correct Blizz’s oversights.
On a final note, does anyone know of a guide to efficiently raid candy jars? I don’t want to back track in Outlands or Kalimdor, but I have a very sweet tooth.
In exchange for that info, I will give you the links for 3 achievement guides I found on WoWVault.
To All the Squirrels I’ve Loved Before
It’s Happy Hour Somewhere
Tastes Like Chicken
Hey Gnomer, been lurking and reading and have to say i enjoy the blog!
just a quickie, the girlfriend and i did the outlands one while doing our sso dailies in outland. that meant you only really had to deviate a little bit to hit the zangarmarsh and blades edge fps. two birds, one stone!
Have a good one!
-V
The sad thing about the boss achievements is — as they’ve noted in posts — it’s really difficult to know who has completed what bosses. Pre-achievements none of that information was recorded any where. As a result, the only way that they could track those achievements were to look at boss loot tables and quests to see if people had downed the final boss. It sucks, but it really does make sense when you consider it.
Achievements only became popular as a result of other companies that have introduced them (XBox360, for example), and I doubt that anyone ever considered how popular they would be. I think it’s reasonable not to have expected Blizzard to record that information.
Just my thought on the matter!
Hey Veritor, glad you have skulked out of the shadows… I got a nice warm feeling finding another name to the stats. (Can’t believe how touched I was actually… I must be getting soft in my old age… maybe the pounding I received in the Mage wars)
I don’t think I have ever done the Outlands SSO dailies.. but as I want to eventually get the SSO rep past revered, I will take your advice, grab the quests and console myself knowing I am doing something truly productive (as opposed to repairing the house
) while wasting time on HE achievements.
Cynra, yeah I know I am being unkind to Blizz, and they have explained this for months… it just really struck me this morning how I am pushing other stuff aside that might have “new joy” to do silly achievements.
That said.. I am enjoying myself!
One question: why do you bother about archivements at all? They give you nothing!
One question, many answers…
1) I am sort of in a holding pattern.. not fussed about cash right now… have a fair bit in the bank, and everything else can wait until I get back in the new year.
2) I rarely get to do seasonal events, so in particular with H.E. the achievements are a measure of how much I have seen of the event… there is a good chance I will complete most of it, so I will strive for it.
3) As for the rest, best put in the words of an overachieving mate:
“I’m not that anal. I have only really explored every part of Azeroth and the Outlands, have done every quest in the game but a few raid quests, am exalted with nearly all factions, have every cooking recipe but 1 and every Alchemy recipe but 2, besides that I think I’m pretty normal. Well, actually thinking about it maybe I am a tad anal, or nuts. Anyway seeing old world raid dungeons is 1 of the few things I would like to do someday.”
Now I haven’t seen everything he has… but I wouldn’t mind seeing as much as I can.
The MH stuff was never on my radar, so as much as I should consider it a “highlight”, I am sort of giving everything else a higher priority…
But then I am in a funny mood right now… potentially only playing one or two more times before I board the plane (in 2ish weeks).
Initially I was disappointed when I read about the introduction of achievements, I have a xbox 360 and a xbox live a/c and it not a feature that I really care about , so why I asked myself are developers wasting time developing fluff instead of giving us solid content (I also think of the barber in this way …. sry). However I am starting to soften to achievments (just a little).
Despite playing the game since launch I am not a hard core raider, so I never seen high end content from the old world and up until the patch there was little chance of anyone organising a raid to go and do some after all why would you as the gear has been surpassed and it is hard to get 40 like minded individuals who just want to go kill stuff for the sake of a sight seeing trip. This however has now changed with the introduction of achievements within the last 3 days I have seen Onyxia, Blackwing Lair, was in a group to do MC and AQ40 when the servers went down (DAMM u BLIZZ), helped stopped a 100 man ally raid on Thrall (despite being on a PvP server – Ravencrest EU, I have never seen a raid of this size hit a Horde City) and took part in a raid on Darnassus, so all good fun.
The question now is, how is blizz going to keep up the momentum, will they run out of ideas for new achievements or will it be the story of, kill 1000 boars type achievment and will the old world instances/content be abandoned again once the majority on a server have these type of achievments ? Questions, questions, questions, untill we see how the future hold for this new “feature” I will reserve judgement.
Good points Irish (I assume not Dirty Irish that I keep hearing about on Outlandish), I have been enjoying the new life in the Old world, but at what point does it just become a grind fest.
I think it was BBB that had an interesting series of posts on reinventing the old world, and I came across some great ideas at Tobold’s today..
New content in a familiar environment.. hell yeah, leave the space goats at home!