Saying goodbye to the old world

This world has come to an end. For the last few weeks I’ve loosened my mental ties to the game as I’ve known it until now. Every thing I’ve done has had an aura of “last time”. Last time in Karazhan. Last time running Black Morass. Last daily quest at Sunwell Island (but I must admit that was so long time ago that I don’t remember it and didn’t realize it was the last time when I did it.)

Tonight was the last time I would log on before the expansion and it was time to say farewell.

I had planned a little ceremony on my own on beforehand. I wanted to bake a Delicious Chocolate Cake. Then I would go to a dark coast somewhere, lit a fire and sit there, contemplating life under a starry sky, enjoying the fireworks and my momentary happiness.

It sounded silly when I shared my plans to a guildie of mine. “I know it’s pointless, I said excusing myself.”. “It doesn’t give me anything, not even an achievement.”

“It IS an achievement to make a chocolate cake”, he replied. Oh well. But that wasn’t my main reason for doing it. I only wanted to bring this part of the game to an end, turning my back to it, open and enthusiastic for all the new stuff awaiting us a few hours from now.

So I filled my bag with ingredients. (By the way, I wonder how that cake tastes. Eggs and flour are normal ingredients, but who would put flowers into a chocolate cake? And where is the cacao?)

I made sure I had mats to make a fire in my bags – this was one of the few times when making your own fire felt more appropriate than using one of the free ones in Ironforge.

And after having a look at the event in the Stormwind harbor I went on this last sentimental trip on my own. My choice fell on deserted coast of Darkshore, at Mist’s Edge.. And I it all turned out exactly as I had planned it. I lit my fire, I baked my chocolate cake on it and when it had cooled down a little so I wouldn’t burn my mouth, I ate it.

As I watched the scenery in the sky, I thought about the 1 year and 9 months I’ve been playing. Snapshots flew through my head.

My first time entering Ironforge, chocked to find such a huge city in the middle of the wilderness.

My first time in Zul Farrak, enjoying the mighty scene on the stairs.

I recalled how I slowly, painstakingly learned how to play my mage. All those endless corpse runs. All those “oh shit”-moments, pulling too many mobs or hitting the wrong button.

I remembered dinging 70 and realizing that the game was far from finished – in fact it was now that it started. I thought about my first stumbling steps in Karazhan, at a time when Moroes was HARD to conquer and nothing in that instance was a joke. A long journey had started, ending at the death of Illidan Stormrage.

It all came back to me as I sat there on the ground, watching the cliffs in the water and beyond there the unknown void. I heard the voices of all those wonderful people I’ve met, and the guilds I’ve loved and yet left, when my path turned in another direction. I remembered the hysterical laughter on TS after a ridiculous wipe in UBRS when a bunch of level 70s managed to hatch all the eggs at once. I remembered the insane hunt for The Suneater for a friend of mine. I remembered the first kill of Archimonde in the end of September, such a relief after all those wipes.

I thought about my present guild and the future that lies ahead of us. Our development the last few months has been amazing and I think it would take a lot more than a robbery of our guild bank to stop us. And I thought that I’ve been very fortunate. When I ding 80 I don’t have to face the hassle of going on guild hunt. I’ve already got my home and family in the game. I get my little piece of chocolate cake every time I log in.

1 year and 9 months, how quickly haven’t they passed? WoW has certainly given me a headache, trying to manage the delicate balance with real life and getting some sort of understanding and acceptance from people around me. Sometimes I wish I had never stumbled upon it. Life would have been easier and there would have been fewer conflicts around.

But it has also given me a ton of entertainment and even some insights about group psychology, management and about myself. Not to speak of all the people I've got to know. It has become a part of who I am, like it or not.

The fireworks lit up the sky and I smiled to myself.

Goodbye old world! Hello new world!

I can’t wait to see what awaits us on the other side of the ocean.

Are we swallowing the roast beef too quickly?

Once upon a time I knew a very spoiled Yorkshire terrier called “Pyret”, which roughly translates to “The Creep”. This dog didn’t settle for ordinary dog food. That was way below his dignity. He ate what his masters ate. (Here I want to point out that I wasn’t his master, so don’t blame me for his lack of proper dog training.)

Now there was one dish in the world that the creep loved more than anything else: cold roast beef cut in thin slices. He was treated with this a minimum two times a year: for Christmas and on his birthday. (And sometimes in between as well, his owners felt sorry for him whenever they had a party, why shouldn’t he be treated with goodies when everyone else was?)

I never grew tired of watching him as he was served this roast beef. They never cared about cutting it – they gave whole slices to him, which he somehow managed to swallow in one part, without chewing even once. It was gone quicker than a mage can blink. There’s no way that he could have felt any taste at all from it and many times he ended up coughing, all but choking, since he had eaten it too quickly.

When the meat was gone he always stared at his owners, unhappily, in distrust, as if he couldn’t understand where it had gone.

I can’t help thinking about “The Creep” these days as I read the WoW blogs and forums and listen to the conversation in the guild chat. Many players seem to have managed to make real life arrangements so that they can have a few days off this week. They’re planning to get a kick start levelling their mains and they’re loading up on the three necessary Cs to keep them going non stop: Coffee, Coke and Candy.

Will they enjoy it? Oh yes, definitely. I’m sure they will, in the same way as The Creep enjoyed his roast beef meals in his own peculiar manner. If possible I’d gladly join them in the power levelling instead of chewing the new content more slowly, in small chunks, as I’m forced to do, by circumstances.

But I can’t help smiling a bit at the whole phenomena. We rush like maniacs to get to 80 asap. Then we start conquering the new raid instances the quicker the better. When that is done the game will suddenly feel empty and we’ll start growing bored. Soon we’ll see the whining posts where players accuse Blizzard of not providing enough of new exciting content.

We’ll show the same facial expressions as the spoiled Yorkshire terrier – disapproving and slightly confused, wondering where that yummy roast beef, the new and shiny content, went all in a sudden.

Don’t let the bad guys win

Today I’m writing a sad post.

Originally I had planned to publish a silly little post about why I hesitate every time I have to kill a yellow mob, being a bit of a pacifist. That post will have to wait a few days. Something came up that made it feel pretty irrelevant, something that upset me so much that I couldn’t possibly write about anything else. I had to get it off my heart.

The account of one of the officers, main tanks and sometimes RL in my guild was hacked yesterday. The guild bank was emptied instantly, of course. The thief didn’t only steal tons of HoDs, gems, recipes, consumables and gold. He took every tine little piece, including bandages. But the robbing of guild bank isn’t what bothers me – after all I know Blizzard will give us at least the items back.

What makes me so upset is that this guy didn’t only manage to hack the account of this skilled, highly respected and in every possible way awesome player. He hasn’t just stolen every piece of item from a bunch of characters, played since the start of the game and equipped accordingly. What is much worse is that he hacked himself into the heart of this player, killing his desire to play the game anymore.

Our officer wrote a heartbreaking farewell post on our guild forums, where he wished the guild good luck on our further adventures in WotLK, declaring that he won’t be a part of it.

“Yes Blizzard would be able to recover some bits and bobs, but they won't be able to get back the collection of items I've had since the game began. Worse then that it feels like you've had your own house robbed. Having been through that as well, all I can say is that the only thing you want to do is move out to somewhere that feels more secure and hasn't been invaded.”

I can totally understand his reaction and I sympathize with him deeply. I’ve never been robbed myself either in real life or in the game, but probably I’d say the same. Being hacked is to be invaded, abused. The feeling that someone has been walking around pretending to be you… it must be awful and take a long time to get over, if you ever can. Still I can’t stop hoping that his claiming that he’ll leave the game is written in a state of chock and that he’ll reconsider it.

If he sticks to his decision and leaves, it’s a way of giving up. I see a glimpse of a dark future of the game, like a Mad Max movie, where Earth is ruled by evil biker gangs. Is that what will happen? Will all the decent players leave and only gold sellers and hackers will be left to boil in their own stew?

I don’t want to see that future. I still carry my dream about this fantasy world where we grow friendships and have fun together. And I sincerely hope that my hacked officer will be a part of it.

Don’t let the bad guys win.

Planning for the Midnight release

Where will you be at midnight the 12th/13th of November? Will you be queuing outside a game shop in order to tear your box out of the hands of the retailer?

I will. Not that it really make any sense. I’m not having vacation the next day, so it’s out the question that I could spend the whole night installing the game and then launching myself into the Brand New Laggy Exciting World. At the most I’ll have a cup of coffee and START the project to install the game. But I don’t expect to make it work and to be able to enter the new version until the following weekend.

A ritual
So what’s the big deal? Why can’t I wait until the regular opening hours during daytime?

I think it’s because it’s a part of a ritual. By attending the release the event becomes more real to us. It’s a clear marker in time and space that this actually is happening to us.

And for all of us who haven’t been able to attend any Blizzcon event in US or Europe, it’s a chance to see a bunch of other crazy creatures that have fallen in love with this game – to feel the fellowship, to share the feeling of excitement and expectations.

It’s exactly the same thing that made me and my daughter go out and queue outside a bookshop for the midnight release of one of the Harry Potter books. Of course we didn’t expect the shop to run out of books the following day – that would have been plain stupid. The book stores are far to goblin minded to let that happen. But that hour we spent outside the shop was something of a party. Candles burning everywhere, plenty of girls dressed up as witches. As time went by we found ourselves speaking not only to ourselves, but sharing thoughts about the books with strangers. Because in those situations we don’t feel like strangers anymore, we’re more like sisters and brothers.

I wonder what kind of people will show up at the event in the town where I live. Will I be the oldest one? Will people even consider the fact that I may buy the game for myself and not for my children? Or maybe I’m the one who’s prejudiced. There may as well be bunches of middle aged people, what do I know.

Discretly staring
Since I’m going to the shop on my own, I expect spending most of my time in the queue discretely staring at other people, trying to listen to their conversations. Above all I’ll try to figure out what class they play. Can you tell it from their exterior? Maybe. I’m pretty short myself, so I don’t think anyone would be surprised if they found out I’m a gnome. So what else? Is it likely that a slim, tall person is playing nightelf? And how would you then expect the horde characters to look in real life? Hm. No probably there isn’t any evidence supporting a people-look-like-their-character-theory.

Wouldn’t it be cool if everyone going to the shop could carry a little sign, telling what race and class you’re playing, and maybe even server name? Is it possible that there are more players in the town where I live who’re playing at my server? This could be the one and only chance to find out.

Meet WoW Bloggers
There are a few WoW bloggers who have announced where they’re buying to buy their copy of the game, inviting readers who want to see them to come to the same shop and say hi.

• Lassirra at The Hunters Mark will be in South Burlington Vermont (I guess it’s the US)
• You can see Big Red Kitty in Orlando.
• And Big Bear Butt in a place called Maplewood (I’m sorry to say but I have no idea where that is located, though it’s a beautiful name of a place).

I can’t compare myself in any way at all to those awesome, respected bloggers. Still I can’t refrain from mentioning where I will be, in case that there actually is any of my Swedish readers who happen to live close to where I live (which is extremely unlikely). So if you want to see the real life Larísa, come to the GameStop store in Uppsala. I know they’re planning some opening event in Stockholm, but that’s 70 kilometres away and I can’t bother to go there.

To everyone else I send you a warnning for this night. I guess our friends in Australia won’t be too bad off, since spring is about to arrive. But in Northern Europe we can expect to be freezing. Dress accordingly! I wish I could set up a temporary outpost of The Pink Pigtail Inn, providing a fire and some nice hot brew to keep up the spirits. Be assured I'll do it in my thoughts.

Epic drops come with a good story

What makes a drop epic?

Is it the purple colour? Certainly not, especially these days when “purple rain” has got a new meaning.

Is it the extraordinary stats? Well it could be, but it depends on where in the life cycle of a game you are. A year ago a huge increase of gear stats would have felt epic, but now with the expansion around the corner we all know that it doesn’t mean much. The epics we loot now will be replaced if not on Day 1, at least somewhere along the road to 80.

No, what really makes a drop epic is the coolness of the item. It can be rare, like Ashes of Al’ar, the mount that drops from Kael’thas Sunstrider in TK. It can be have a look that sticks out from the crowd and is easy to recognize, like the Warglaives of Azzinoth, dropping from Illidan. (If you ever meet a rogue carrying two of those you’ll notice them, I promise.)

But epicness can also be invisible; the item can carry a story, be a part of the Warcraft lore. And if you ask me, I love this aspect of epic drops most of all. There’s nothing that beats a good story.

The story of an epic skull
Now, for the first time in the game as far as I know, I’ve achieved a truly epic item. It happened a few nights ago, when we killed Illidan once again and The Skull of Gul’dan dropped.

If you haven’t heard about this skull I’ll tell you a little more about it. According to Wowwiki it’s the same skull as Illidan is carrying in the cinematic opening movie of The Burning Crusade.

To make the story short, the skull originates from a warlock named “Gul’Dan”. Still containing a part of the warlock’s soul, it was used as a sort of totem, to evoke demonic powers, by which you could open portals and corrupt forests.

Finally the skull came into the hands of Illidan Stormrage and he “consumed” its powers (hm… how comes that “eating brains” comes into my mind?). That’s how he became half nightelf, half demon. Since this event, the power of the skull is “weakened”, but it isn’t entirely useless.

Thanks to those powers Larísa from now on, without fearing to be turned into a half demon, can tap the power of the skull every now and then, meaning that her spell haste rating increases by 175 for 20 sec.

Spending my dkp
Knowing about the existence of the skull (and the staff of Illidan, which also is cool - it looks like a vacuumcleaner with a beast in the end), I had saved dkp for a long time. In the beginning it was saving by default – my dkp simply wasn’t enough to compete with the veterans of the guild for any kind of loot.

But the last few weeks I’ve been deliberately passing on some nice bracers, backs and off hands and a bunch of T6 parts. In fact I haven’t had an upgrade for months. Not until now in the shivering last few minutes of TBC, in one of the few remaining raids before we’ll turn our backs to BT forever.

I could have saved my dkp for WotLK. But when it came to a decision I chose not to. I was prepared to give everything I had to get this skull into my hand. Not because it was an upgrade – it wasn’t impressive at all, according to Rawr, the tool I use to evaluate gear. But I wanted it badly since it came with a story.

A souvenir from TBC
To make things even better it turned out that my dkp didn’t only get me the skull this night, but also a T6 chest and T6 gloves. But even if these items are great upgrades, they can’t compete in any way. The skull became my perfect ending of TBC, my souvenir and trophy, summing up all of my adventures.

Even if I may have to replace it sooner than I want to, I know I’ll always carry it hidden in my backpack as a reminder of the long journey I’ve done, from being a totally confused newbie to raiding the end boss of BT and as a reminder about the rich lore there is in the game if you only care enough to look for it.

The only thing I regret is that trinkets aren’t visible. How cool wouldn’t it be if Larísa could take out the skull from her pocket, whenever tapping it for powers? Well, you can’t have everything, can you?

Some final thoughts about epics

Finalizing this post I realize that I failed to mention the most important aspect of epic drops. Of course the epic drops I appreciate most are connected to epic memories. Things you get from a guild first kill of a boss carry stories of their own, even though they're not in the annuals of the Warcraft lore.

But I still think that Blizzard should develop the stories about items a bit further. It would certainly add some epic coolness to them. There are many casual players who never will be able to get items such as the skull. Wouldn't it be nice if there were interesting stories about the things you can get from ordinary instance runs and the more advanced quests?

Kungen and I - living in different worlds

Finally I’ve seen Kungen, the guild leader and main tank of the world famous raiding guild Nihilum. Not in real life, I’m afraid, even though we live in the same country. Nor in the game – he plays horde on another server and even if I was a bloodelf mage at his realm, the likeliness that we’d ever meet is infinitely small.

But I’ve seen him - in an interview in the latest issue of a Swedish Magazine called “World of Warcraft”.

Knowing that most of you don’t understand Swedish and probably never will get hold of this magazine, I thought I’d give you a few snapshots from it, together with my reflections.

Clean, fit and well cut young men

What first caught my attention in the article was the picture of Kungen and another veteran Swedish player in Nihilum, a druid named Marilyn. These two young men - staring into the camera, with a dark, riven sky in the background and some glimpses from the Stockholm archipelago in the background – are about as far as you can come from the stereotype of a gamer.

They look clean, fit, well cut and extremely well shaved (have they any facial hair growth at all?). They’re dressed in black and not knowing anything about fashion I think they’re at least not totally out of date in their clothing.

From the look in their eyes you can tell they’re serious and pretty focused. There isn’t the remotest sign of a smile, as a matter of fact it’s hard to believe that they ever laugh, judging from the pictures. They could easily pass for pop stars, singing sad lyrics and putting the hearts of teenage girls on fire.

So this is how they look, Kungen and Marilyn, or Thomas and Gustav as they’re called in real life. But what about the rest, what is behind the looks?

The article gives glimpses from their lives. What strikes me most is their uncompromising hunger for wins. They’re competitive in every fibre of their bodies. Now discussing the expansion they’re like horses waiting restlessly for the start to go. They’re full of confidence, claiming they’ve never been so prepared, convinced that they’ll win the race against the few other raiding guilds in the world that can compete with them.

They’re very cocky and I fall for it, even though I know it’s probably a part of a very conscious, smart myth building around them. They want to stay the icons they are to the WoW community as much as we want them to remain The Stars.

Same but different
What is it that makes us so spellbound? How come that there are thousands and thousands of players are looking at what they do, standing in queue at conventions for autographs, following their raids online whenever they come up? I think it’s got to do with the fact that we somehow can identify with them. And yet not.

It’s a mixed feeling; we’re playing the same game in one sense, while living in totally different universes in another.We’re obviously doing the same instances when you think about it. There was a first time to take down the Prince for Nihilum too. They too have been messing around with the things that are supposed to be passed from player to player at Lady Vashj. The difference is in the timeline. I killed Illidan for the first time the other day – they did it on the 5th of June last year. And in the meanwhile the instances have been nerfed heavily, not only in the last patch, but many times before.

Of course we’ve got completely different conditions while doing those instances. When Nihilum entered BT it was an empty sheet. They stepped out into the unknown and they figured out the fights and the strategies. When I enter the same instances I get it all served in dozens of strategy guides and how-to-kill-movies. I can read it, learn it and copy it the best I can and that’s how raiding looks to 99 percent of the raiders. Boring, if you would ask Kungen. What he really enjoys in the game is the analysis, solving the riddle that every new boss presents.

Theoretically it would be possible for a guild to agree about not reading forums, websites or watching movies before a new boss fight in order to recreate the Nihilum sort of challenge, to figure it out on their own. But in practice I think it would pretty hard to stick to it.

Little time played
Something that surprised me in the interview was the low amount of playing time. Thomas says that he currently doesn’t spend more than four hours a week in the game, clearing Sunwell once a week in a couple of hours, and then logging in just for a few minutes per night the rest of the week. I understand that this interview was made a while ago, during low season, waiting for the expansion. Probably their activity has already increased, as the release is coming closer. But still. How do they get their necessary supply of consumables and gold for one thing? I’m wondering.

Maybe they have some fans helping them out? In the interview they talk about how they fought to get the world first kill at AQ40 and how the whole server helped them to farm to make it possible. And that was way back, before they reached the height of their fame where they are now.

I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case, that there are fans or even groupies helping them out. Things seem to be insane at the Magtheridon server. Every time Kungen logs in he has some 40 people following him around, according to the interview. It must look pretty weird when he does his errands. I picture it like that scene in the Monty Python movie Life of Brian, with the growing number of followers joining him on his wanderings.

The Nihilum effect
I come to think of something I saw, not in the magazine, but on the Blizzard Forums. It seems as if the Nihilum effect has turned Magtheridon into a very special server. The ratio Horde-Alliance was about 90/10 if I remember it right. On a PvP server. I can only imagine what a nightmare it must be to be alliance under those circumstances. I’m not surprised that most of the Alliance guilds have left the server. A few remaining players are making posts with desperate cries for help, urging Blizzard to do something about it. But so far they seem clueless how to handle it.

I must say I can’t quite get it. What are all those players rolling new chars at that server thinking? Do they seriously believe that Nihilum will advertise for new guild members in the guild recruitment channel and that their chances to get in will be higher if they’re already at the server? Do they expect to end up pugging with Nihilum, showing up their skills in order to end up as members? Wake up!

Not that I don’t admire them myself. I really do, as much as anyone else. Reading this interview was inspiring. I love the attitude, the winner instinct they show.

Would I want to be a part of their team? It’s hard to say. The question is so out of the blue. You could as well ask me if I'd like to be a part of the Olympic athletic running team of Jamaica. I don’t have the talent, I don’t have the skill, the life situation or the requirements it would take.

The proud father
Playing four hours a week doesn’t sound very demanding, but soon they’ll start another rush, first to 80 and then to conquer the raid instances before anyone else does it. The article tells the story about how Thomas prepared for the release of TBC, stacking up with crisps, soft drinks and fast food to last several days. He became first horde player in the world to reach 70. (Now the competition is harder, so he doesn’t seem all convinced that he’ll be world first.)

Gustav tells about how he’s been warning his girl friend and other relatives that he’s soon about to start another period of progression, with all that comes with it.

Nowadays though, his family seems to be much more understanding than it used to be when he was living at home and found it hard to explain what he was doing and what it meant. There's a touching story about Gustav and his father. Gustav was live commenting a raid of Nihilum at Blizzcon, standing on a stage in front of an audience of 7 000 people. His father watched it online and cried out of pride of his son. He had finally come to realize that he's outstanding in what he’s doing.

Rumours and speculations
What about the rumours then? There have been all sorts of speculations flying around about the guild, suggesting everything from bribes to connection to Nazis. Of course nothing about this is mentioned in the interview, but shouldn’t I be more careful before I start to write admiring rants about those players? Maybe they’re hiding some dark secrets?

Well, to be honest, your innkeeper Larísa is a somewhat naïve lady who insists of assuming that people are good natured until there’s very convincing evidence of the opposite. There’s a saying that “There’s no smoke without fire”, meaning that rumours don’t come out of nothing. I really hate that expression since it’s a lie. There’s a lot of smoke without fire going around in the world, smoke that comes out of people being envious, greedy or plain stupid.

As far as I can tell, Kungen (meaning “The King” in Swedish) and his knights are inspiring examples with an outstanding fighting spirit. We’re living in different worlds, but I too can strive for my own goals, even though it’s in a smaller scale.

Part two upcoming

This is what I wanted to share with you from the interview with Nihilum. I loved the reading. Normally the magazine that published it is rubbish, containing nothing but screenshots, nonsense articles and stupidities like poorly written instance guides which you can find better for free on Bosskillers. I think it's amazing they find anyone willing to pay for it.

But this interview was interesting to this curious gnome and you can bet I’ll try to get my hands on the next issue as well so I can read the next half of the interview, when Kungen and Marilyn will share their reflections on the TBC raiding and the upcoming expansion.

Suggested: Achievement set for WoW bloggers

“Bloggers should create our own set of Achievements”, Loronar wrote in recent comment at The Pink Pigtail Inn.

What a great idea! I thought and started to ponder a bit upon it. Why couldn’t we put up some goals for ourselves – serious and challenging as well as easy and silly ones? It could be about quantity as well as quality and impact.

We could also find up a few titles of our own. The fresh blogger could call himself “The Noticed” after getting his first comment from an unknown reader ever (an epic moment in the life of any blogger, trust me). After you’ve become established and made your first personal appearance in Twisted Nether Blogcast you could proudly introduce yourself as “The Twisted” And if you’ve managed to get noticed and get some link love from Matticus, you’re obviously “The Matticized”.

Here are a few more ideas, some of them connected with titles:

• Get a link in the blogroll from one other blog
• Get a link in the blogroll from 25 other blogs (Title: “The Linked”)
• Get a blogpost cited by WoW-Insider
• Get a request from WoW-Insider to become one of their regular column writers (Title: “The Star Reporter”)
• Get 10, 100 and 1 000 subscribers to your blog feed (yourself not being one of them). (Title at 1 000: “The Bestseller”)
• Make a suggestion at Blog Azeroth which is elected as the Shared topic of the Week
• Write 10 Blog Azeroth Shared topic posts (Title: “The Shared”)
• Get your blog listed at Twisted Nether Wiki.
• Write one post in each of the following genres: List, Angry rant/opinion, Diary/personal, Educational, Humour/Silly. (Title: “The All-rounder”)
• Write a guest post at five other blogs. (Title: “The Generous”)
• Write a blog post in the form of a poem. (Write 10 poetry blogposts and you get the title: "The Poet".)
• Get 1 000 comments on your blog.
• Get 10 negative comments from one single post. (Title: “The Provocative”)
• Go over to self hosting and get a web address of your own. (Title: “The Independent”)
• Write 100, 200, 500 blogposts (Title at 500: "The Chatterbox")
• Get 10, 100, 1 000 unique visitors a day (Title at 1 000: “The Adored”)
• Celebrate 6 months, 1 year and 2 years as a WoW blogger. (2 years gives the title: “The Immortal”)
• Get an invitation to attend Blizzcon for free as a media representative. (Title: "The Bribed" (nooo, just kidding :))
• Get an invitation to participate in a panel at Blizzcon as an expert commenter (Title: “The Blizzed”)
• Appear at the bloggroll of Blessing of Kings. (Title: “The Blessed”)

Further ideas
Have you any further suggestions for blogger achievements? Feel free to share your ideas in a comment! Perhaps we should award certain points to different achievements. And at 1 000 points you get a special greeting and applauses in Twisted Nether Blogcast?

We could also set up a set of achievements to be kept at the Blog Azeroth forum, as a source of inspiration and motivation for any blogger who feel that they’re running empty?

The idea came from Loronar. I’ve developed it a bit further. Now it’s time to turn over the baton to the next runner.