Friday, July 18, 2008

My Alternative Achievements Window

The blogs are flooding over with news about the arrival of the Beta and the WoW community seems to be bouncing around in exaltation, just like popcorn. So far most seem to be concerned about the new talent trees, especially for paladins and other classes which seem to go through some pretty radical changes. The change list for mages is saddening short so far, and quite disappointing, it mostly seems like nerfs to me, at a first glance. So I’m not so excited about that.

But what really made me smile and cheer on the other hand was the new achievement reward system. What a brilliant idea! It’s nice, motivating and player-friendly for players at all levels, with all different kind of styles and conditions for their playing. Even players with very limited time, who maybe get their sessions cut into small pieces due to the needs of small children or other circumstances, can find fun things to strive for, to get the feeling of accomplishment, that until now mostly has been rewarded through levelling, raiding and ranking in the PvP system (to simplify it a lot).

What made me even happier about it was the playfulness of it. Like that you proudly could have it recorded that you have given out ten hugs, that you’ve got yourself a new haircut or fallen from a great height. Cheers for that! Though I may admit at the same time that I’m a little bit concerned about those lines:

Every time you earn a new achievement, your accomplishment is announced to your guild and everyone in your immediate vicinity -- and the custom achievement animation and sound effect are unmistakable.

Seriously, with 500 achievements around, and many of them not so hard to complete, don’t you think it will become a bit annoying after a while?

So far they’ve only given us a few teasers when it comes to what achievements that will be rewarded. But my imagination is already at full work. I couldn’t help thinking about some truly epic achievements we’ll probably never see in the official achievement window. Here are a few ideas for Larísa's Alternative Achievements Window:

  • Sticking to the end and completing a PUG, lasting a minimum of 6 hours. During the run you must have faced at least 10 wipes and used up three different tanks/healers who’ve all left the group in anger and frustration.
  • Setting up your 10th Karazhan raid for your guild, preparing for it and turning up in time, full of hope and energy, even though the 9 first runs all have been cancelled because of lack of players.
  • Volunteering as a mentor for an obvious newbie player who seems a bit lost, giving them free lessons about talent choices, spell rotation, gear and other basics.
  • Staying around in a guild in crises, giving the officers a hand and helping to rebuild it, in stead of just jumping the ship like everyone else, giving the guild another chance for at least one month.

Feel free to complete the list with further suggestions! I'll make it a list and turn it over to Blizzard (at least if I'm let into the Beta).

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm so all over achievements. This is going to be so bad for me since I'm an overachiever. >.<

I'm getting overwhelmed by all this Beta stuff. So this is what it was like when BC beta came out.

krizzlybear said...

I personally love the achievement concept. I also like your ideas, but I like off-beat types of achievements, where you have to literally torture yoursef.

- Level up a weapon from 0 to 400 on deeprun tram rats (remember kids, weapon skill is increased at level 80)
- kite the elite dragon outside the caverns of time all the way to auberdine
- Stay in combat for 2 hours straight. This can be done by pulling a new mob right before the first mob dies.
- successfully make a table/soulwell/etc, or summon someone to a meeting stone without using a second or third person to help you.

stuff like that.

Anonymous said...

Wonderful ideas Krizzlybear!

I love that kind of achievments, stuff that Blizzard never intended us to do. Like wall-climbing the cathedral in SW. Making your way into places you're not supposed to se. Breaking into the other fractions major city in an unexpected way. Doing stuff that isn't exactly illegal, but still far from the scripted paths that we normally wander.

I'll make it a special section for it on the list! So keep the ideas coming!

@loronar: I agree totally. Unless I'll be picked as a beta tester, I think I'll refrain from writing that much about the Beta. It sorts of overwhelms me and there are others who probably will know a lot more about it than I do.
But this achievment thing I just had to comment on!

Anonymous said...

I got one after tonights dismal Kara run....

A pugger that stays in the raid (not just DC's) after the Curator... "Ohh my tier token didn't drop.. time to DC"

I haven't looked at them yet, but I guess things like top dps/heals without dying in an instance

Anyway.. had it for tonight.. time for bed...

Green Armadillo said...

I haven't gotten the chance to look over the new info yet either, I just hope they have stuck to their guns about having achievements be cosmetic rewards rather than required gameplay. I will probably complete massive numbers of them anyway, but I saw what LOTRO did to their deed system, and let's just say that "kill orcs" becomes less and less impressive as the number of orcs jumps from 100 to 200 to 500. Once you start tying game stats that you cannot get by any other means to these things, life gets rather unpleasent.

Anonymous said...

I would love some achievement out of game.
Something like if you make something WoWrealted (fan art, costume, anything!) and send a picture/copy of it to Blizzard, then they would give you a code with a ingame mail which you use at some NPC (much like the WWI pet codes) and get the achievement.

Anonymous said...

Tård, you just gave me an idea! Isn't keeping a WoW blog of decent quality an achievement well worth rewarding?

I think we deserve a special pet as a little sign of appreciation from Blizzard!

Darkhorse said...

+1 free pets for bloggers !

Sounds like I'm going to have to re-run every instance in the game now to get my boss kills up!

I like the idea of achievements. The closest thing now I guess is reputation, and I have to say im super jealous of those players who seem to have exalted with every faction under the sun.... Looking your way Tuan :P

Anonymous said...

Zupa, you support my Free Pet for Bloggers idea? Great! Let's start a movement! We won't shut up until they give them to us... or.. no... perhaps that wouldn't work.

Better go on strike. Blizzard won't get a single blog post to promote their game until the pet's in our bags.