Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Our legendaries won’t count

We had a little discussion on vent the other night, where we were asking ourselves if the deeds we’ve done in Adrenaline the last two years will be recorded as already completed guild achievements.

I reckoned – or at least hoped –that they would. After all, when the achievement system was introduced for individuals, we got a ton of achievements recorded. Admittedly the game didn’t remember everything we had done. I remember that it felt particularly weird to have to revisit Mechanar, which I farmed so excessively in TBC, just to get it documented that I actually had completed it. But a lot of it was there from the start.

So wouldn’t it be natural if long-time guilds would get credit for our glorious past? I thought it would, but apparently Blizzard thinks differently.

I’m quoting a blue post, referred by MMO-champion:

“Dark Phoenix Mount Reward
[…] First and foremost, they must be unlocked via a guild achievement. Let's just say, that for example, you need to complete the new guild achievement "We are Legendary" in order to unlock the Dark Phoenix. That achievement requires the guild to gain access to all 6 legendary weapons currently available in the game. (note that all guild achievements start on Cataclysm launch, so anything you have now will not matter, it must be done with your guild after launch)”
As with anything related to Cataclysm I suppose that this isn’t set in stone. Maybe it will change before launch. But he does sound worryingly certain about this thing. And it makes me rather disappointed.

So far my guild has managed to get two legendaries – the mace and the axe in Wrath. Oh, and yeah, one alt got an Illidan legendary as we ran a retro raid in BT, although I’m not sure if it was guilded or not, so it might be out of our hands. That warglaive didn’t take a ton of effort, but on the other hand, the mace and axe did. And all this work was for nothing?

I can’t help scratching my head seeing this. Are you serious? Really? I know that Blizzard has good reasons to try to make us go back and relive old content and take away some of the pressure from them to produce new. But isn’t this to push it a little bit too far?

Of course the situation could be that they haven’t got any choice. There might be technical limits that prevent them from tracking historical deeds of a guild. But it seems strange to me. If guild ranking sites can track guild progression automatically, why shouldn’t Blizzard be able to do the same?

We should be half way to “Legendary” as Cataclysm is launched, or at least a third, if there was any justice. As it stands now it appears rather unlikely that we’ll ever get it.

17 comments:

Dwism said...

Depends on the rate of the legendary drops in Cata, does it not?
---
on the other hand, if blizzard wants this achievement to matter at all, it seems fair that guilds are not permitted to start farming old instances for Legendaries now.

Jen said...

That's... odd. So a Shadowmourne won the hard way is worse than a Shadowmourne farmed in gear 3 times better? Ok... I have a feeling this will be changed before launch, it doesn't make any sense.

(But I'm glad they used that example, because I can now show it to a guildie of mine who wanted us to help him farm legendaries before Cataclysm so the guild could have the achievement asap. Right... no ty.)

Everblue said...

It might simply be a misinterpretation. The "clarification" blue post is just the opposite.

I read that post to mean that if you have the item in your guild when Cata hits, then you'll get the achievement (which would mean your guild's earlier legendaries *would* count), but any legendaries you'd previously earned but were no longer in your guild due to people leaving etc, would not count.

Grimmtooth said...

That can't be right. Some of the legendarily can't even be OBTAINED any more. What was that one that dropped in Vanilla WoW? Atiesh? Isn't that one of the six?

(too lazy to wowhead it)

Xaxziminrax II said...

>And all this work was for nothing?

You mean you only acquired the Shadowmourne for the color and achievement points, not because it has amazing stats, high dps, and the PERSONAL accomplishment?

So you shouldn't care if we drop the dps to 5 and remove all it's stats, right? As long as you get your guild rep.

Larísa said...

@Dwism: the blue post says that you should get hold of all six legendaries available in the game to get it. So if that's true it hasn't got anything to do with the droprate in Cata. And I really can't see how it would be unfair to give old guilds some credit for what they've accomplished during the last few years. Do you think that players who'd been around since vanilla should have started with 0 achievements when that system was launched too?

@Jen: Yeah, I think it sounds weird too. Anyway: there's no way in the world that our guild will start to farm another Shadowmourne - neither before, nor after Cataclysm. I really can't see it happening. Guild achievments may be a nice-to-have thing, but there are limits for how much grinding you can stand to grab it.

@Everblue: I haven't been able to find any further posting on this. But yeah, it's puzzling indeed. Noone would be happier than I if this blue poster was wrong. But I think the statement in the quote is pretty clear.

@Grimmtooth: I keep my thumbs they'll change it.

@Xaxziminrax II: of course our main purpose for getting those legendaries had nothing to do with the guild achievements. But in this context - yeah, I think it sucks that we won't get credit for it, especially since we did it the hard way. Obviously it will be easier to farm then when you're overgeared. This policy doesn't make sense to me.

Anonymous said...

The part you quoted says:

That achievement requires the guild to gain access to all 6 legendary weapons currently available in the game.

My guess is not that you have to re-acquire the Legendary, just that you have to have someone in your guild with the Legendary once Cata drops (because I don't think the game keeps track of certain things that would make retroactive guild achievements easy to acquire right now).

Ron said...

I think the main reason is that the only way they can tell if your guild got the legendary is if they are there to "witness" it.

Meaning that they can't tell if the Shadowmourne you guys have at launch day was created by the guild, or if the toon that has it just joined with it already in their inventory.

There are ways to find out, but they require info that blizz may not have been recording at the time.

Grimmtooth said...

So, a little more research.

There are eight legendary weapons, only seven which are "currently available" in the game. Atiesh is no longer attainable.

However, if I remember correctly, Molten Core is going away in CATA. Two of the legendaries, Sulfuras and Thunderfury, require components ONLY found in MC.

There are two Warglaives of Azinoth in BC, as well as Thori'dal.

Wrath has Val'anyr and Shadowmourne.

By my count that leaves us with only five attainable legendaries when Cata rolls around. (seven current minus two that go away with MC, assuming it does).

Tobold said...

I think the problem is that the current holder of the legendary item is not necessarily any more in the guild he gained it with. Thus, this being a guild achievement, if you make the existing legendaries count, you risk rewarding the wrong guild.

Sage said...

Seems like a gimmick to me. It should be based on the history of the guild, basically, did the person gain the item in that guild? Yes? kk, they got the legendary.

Then again, Blizz isn't a public relations master, so maybe we can expect more on this?

Talarian said...

I believe Tobold is correct here. The idea is to not allow people to cheese the achievement by guild hopping with a legendary or two.

There's no way for them to know if that Warglaive came from a guild effort or if someone just transferred into the guild (well, not without some seriously heavy data mining algorithms which I'm sure they'd much rather spend developer hours elsewhere).

It sucks for guilds who spent a lot of time and effort getting their legendaries, but on the other hand, this is a new feature, which they did not forsee way back when legendaries were first introduced to the game. There's no reason for them to add guild achievements at all, or to add a legendary achievement, or anything of the sort. They're adding something for people to do if they so choose.

As an aside, I doubt they'll actually hook up the guild mount to that achievement (as it was used as an example), so I doubt you've much to worry about.

Larísa said...

@Anonymous: that interpretation would be pretty terrible. Imagine how players holding legendaries could walk around making money on selling their presence to guilds...

@Ron: hm... You're in for the technical limits-theory? It could be the case, but still... they record SO much, why not this?

@Grimmtooh: thanks for the clarification!

@Tobold: well, then that achievement would be "lost". As easy as that. I think that a guild that HAS managed to get a legendary and STILL has the player who got it within the guild should be rewarded. Then they're truly legendary imo. Keeping the player is probably the biggest part of the achievement.

@Sage: Yeah, I suspect that the last word isn't said in this.

@Talarian: I honestly think that there will be quite a lot of guilds that will be pretty angry about this if they go on the way they described it. Having to farm all that stuff once again, when you already done it the hard way, if you want the mount? Yak. I hope they'll listen to the protests that will be.

Gevlon said...

You go and farm some old content just to get some phoneix mount that does nothing else than the other mounts? What if your guild never gets that silly achievement? Will it affect your progress?

Larísa said...

No, I think I made it clear that we won't go and farm old content just to get that mount... But I think it's strange that they won't acknowledge that we've already done that.

Khaas said...

It's a bit annoying when you already have most or all of the legendaries to see something like this. It's essentially like saying, "bravo but those don't count because you did it when that content was current".

Anonymous said...

Say I have a legendary. Give me 2000g (or 10000g) and I'll join your guild so you can get that piece of the achievement ticked off. Then for another 2000g I'll join the next guild. And the next. You get the idea.

That is what they want to avoid.