I give up, well I gave up anyway.
Love is in the air was my breaking point, but I have felt similar levels of frustration with other events.
I pity the no-love fool
Events such as this can only be completed and the final achievement gained if you:
- Are desperate and Dateless
- Are married in-game
- You can drop by the PC at the very least every hour on the hour (which ignores the additional 20 minutes each hour required to hit up NPCs)
If you are married in real life (or the equivalent), you are screwed. While in RL this may be a good thing, in-WoW, this is a bad thing.
Time for love
These achievements take time, way to much time.
- You have to be around once per hour to get the big packages.
- You need the time to follow questlines.
- You need the time (and levels) to run instances.
- You need the time to visit multitudes of NPCs.
- You need the time to sit around and mend broken hearts.
I spent 2 nights (well 1.5 before I realized what a waste this was), chasing candy and heartbroken fools before I realized that in the same time I could have gained 2 levels and become exalted with all Alliance factions. My mates were still chasing skirts after 5 nights.
Cruising for a RNG
Need some candy, arrows, rings, roses, the list goes on.
Your tender heart is at the mercy of the cruel cold RNG (Random Number Generator).
Initially this is OK, you can use it all.
However there is a good chance after that 1st visit, that the love junk supplied is no more than junk. As useful as an ex on your first date with a new love.
I don’t need more arrows, I need more rose petals. So do me a favor Blizzard, either remove the unnecessary items from the loot list, or at least put modifiers on the item weights so I am more likely to get those last few items I need.
God forbid if you screw up and use any of the items inappropriately, then it’s back to the unforgiving RNG to pray for a refill.
Now this was frustrating enough for me, but I pity my mates that were hanging on for that last lucky drop of candy or fireworks, yet received everything else, hour on hour, day after day.
Let’s have a quicky, a one night stand
Something needs to change. Rather than being an exciting Valentines event for me, this had the potential to be a home wrecker.
My wife was certainly not happily with me spending our Valentines day (and the days before or after) loitering around the PC. I knew it was worthless attempting to convince her to let me log on every hour for 5 minutes because:
- It would be a lie as it would take longer, and,
- Circling the PC is not good for relationships.
My thought is that rather than having an hourly buff, they have a 20 use buff, so theoretically you could grind out the NPC interactions and go get the big package of love once more.
Likewise, when you become heartbroken, you lose your adored buff, allowing you to get the big Valentines package again, without waiting an hour.
The NPCs and their love approachability should be on a per toon basis, let’s not have players camping NPCs and swooping down on them like mineral nodes to steal them from those fellow players.
Hookers for Valentines
Well if you need to find love somewhere and you are desperate enough, why can’t you buy it?
It’s great that many of the event items were tradeable, but it would have been better if they were AHable. I ended up with a truckload of some items, and very few of the others. I begged and pleaded in /say and /trade, asked my friends etc, but no one came through, so I was screwed.
At that point I was desperate enough to buy a little love on the AH, but unfortunately the moral police were out and I couldn’t procure any love items on the AH, and since I couldn’t find any on street corners, I missed out.
Once in a lifetime love
The frustrating thing about these events is you need to make a decision up front.
- I can and will complete this achievement no matter what the cost, or
- I can’t complete this, or it really isn’t important to me.
You need to make this decision up front, and preferably on the 1st day of the event.
If you don’t, then you will be looking for love for another 12 months, if you ever find it that is.
After wasting a couple of nights on this and sweating a lot in chat, I dragged and dropped all the Love Fool Event items into the space, deleting them forever.
As much as I wanted the achievement (and I did want the achievement), I wasn’t going to chase it at the cost of my real life Valentine.
It appears that Batgirl over at Warcraft and Other HooHa has encountered similar issues with the Lunar Festival.
Gnomer and Out!
I smiled as i saw you running around to knock of this achievement.
if it wasn’t for What A Long, Strange Trip It’s Been and my desire for a violet proto-drake 310% speed i couldn’t care less.
I only ever bothered to do the event bosses in the past.
now they have found a way to suck me in for a year just to prove what a nerd i am.
But I only have 2 and a bit world events to knock of and that baby’s mine.
see you in the skies of northrend (in my dust)
I have several friends who I think will be on the losing end this year on this achievement, even after trying all weekend. I didn’t put in overly much effort to get the achievement, but I did have lots of time at my disposal and didn’t have to worry about ignoring other RL responsibilities much. But I think that this will be the deal breaker for those that were aiming to get the Violet Proto-Drake.
I did get my achievement this Saturday. But, that being said… I’m glad that this holiday is over and I don’t have to worry about Children’s Week until nearly May.
I did get my title after all. I can’t wait to clear my bags from all the junk and forget the whole thing. If the next seasonal achievement will be anything like this I’ll definitly forget about it. It’s really not worth the effort.
After this weekend there will be a lot of broken achievment hearts out there.
@THD: I will find a way to bring you back to earth.. maybe no mana biscuits… ohh you cook better yourself… OK, no Int buffs… ohh you get better yourself… ummm, yeah well, maybe I wont accept your lifeblooms in future… that will teach you!
@ Anea: Yeah that’s one of the things about these holiday achievements… it’s like they have replaced the old “Raid Grind”. No you don’t have to spend all week preparing for the raid… but don’t go to sleep during a special event weekend, or you will miss out!
@Larisa: Grats, no Gnome more deserving! I think I will be skipping the Event achievements in future… I expect by the time I collect the set, I will be the only one playing WoW anyway.
Yeah lots of broken hearts that wont be fixed with a trashy gold ring.
THD brought up a good point (offline) to me before, which was fundamentally;
“Why should you be entitled to the proto drake” without the effort that he is putting in.”
And I think he is right.. the problem with the Achievements, is that they feel like they should be accessible to everyone, not just the hardcore.
Which is funny, because I have never considered that I should be eligible for the 40 or 25 man content… I know it is beyond my reach with my time limits, so I don’t shed a tear.
Then there are the achievements which are so close, yet so far.. so people like me QQ until Blizz gives us the Drake, and Naxx, and the engineering only mounts for our 15 points of Gnome Racial (Yeah well they have to give me the last one!)
I did about half of the achievements. I couldn’t be bothered to do any more than that. Maybe next year I can finish them off.
One thing no-one seems to have mentioned is the sheer amount of bag space all the love junk took up;
endless amounts of sweets, arrows, petals, friendship rings, cards, loyalty pledges, loaves of bread, woodworks, achohol, love fools etc.
Hey Gnomie!
First off: loved the post (though I – just as you – wasn’t wild about the event)! I ended up missing three stupid candies at 4:32 am. That’s when I finally gave up. Stupid achievement system *mumblegrumble*
But on another note: (Sorry that this is not post related, but I was a bit unsure where to put it.)
You’ve been challenged to make a post on your blog! Read about it here:
http://voodooventures.wordpress.com/2009/02/16/a-blog-challenge/
Hope you like it and want to participate
Hugs,
Maiara
i didn’t exactly give up… i just… stopped. i’m not level 80 anyway, so there was no way i would complete all the achievements this year at any rate. i’m content to wait until next year, and i made some good headway this time around. i’m with vlad, though — i think this holiday ate up more bag space than any other so far. i don’t have that kind of room! i was VERY happy to empty out my almost-full bank of all the various bits of junk this holiday required before logging off last night.
I still say I liked this event better before achievements came along.. and when the lovely black dress was a rarity to get ahold of!