Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Achievements... on whom?

The advent of achievements has changed game play for many people. Gone are the humbug burnout issues. People are on and feverishly attempting to do as many achievements as they possibly can!

Don't get me wrong, this is good. Keeps you interested in the game until they can release the expansion. Makes you go see old content you may never have seen (like myself with the old world raids), makes you go do things you otherwise may have not done - like level secondary professions!

For people with one or maybe two main characters... this is heaven! For people with alts, especially if we honestly don't have a 'favorite' alt... this is a horrible pickle.

Who do we get the achievements on? Some of them, anyone can do. Some of them you get just by playing the game.

But who do you have go after the 50 mounts? The rare spawns? The 'can probably only complete this with one character... this year.'?

Do I take Kikidas, Kathe? What about Kiljara or Kvasira? Kava and Kiya? My two newbs, Karika and Karitei? WHO?! I like to play them all.

So I looked at who had what... Kathe has some achievements that I probably won't get anywhere else, like the Champion of the Naaru achievement. Spirit of Competition (a few others have that, as well). But Kava and Kiljara actually have more pets. Kiya is the only one who has fishing and cooking leveled. Kikidas went and got the Jenkins achievement the other night.

Do I really want to 'explore' every nook and cranny of the entire world on EVERYONE? Oy.

Do I really want to complete every old world dungeon on EVERYONE? Granted, shouldn't take long, but still.

So I have decided to split the tasks. Kvasira is my PvP/Hallowed achiever. Kathe and Kikidas will be my old world/new world dungeon/raid achiever. Kiljara and Kava will be my pet achievers and possibly mount with Kava since she has access to horses. Likewise, Kathe may also be a mount achiever, since she has access to the Talbuks. Kiya will be my cooking/fishing achiever.

The rest will come along, as the events happen or as the achievements come rolling across.

Boon has it easier. By far and away Boon has the most 'stuff', and he enjoys that character, by far and away, the most of them all. Which is not to say that he doesn't enjoy his other characters, but Boon is his go-to guy. So Boon will be achieving EVERYTHING.

This is fun.

Oh, there's a really nice spot for the 'Going Down?' achievement, though it requires either Scryer neutrality or a flying mount to get to. You jump from it, and voila! Achievement gained. And you're still alive. Bonus. It's hard to explain, but it's the ledge that's to the left from the Scryer elevator, if you're facing the elevator. Run and jump and success will be yours!

That or get a friendly paladin to help you out. No fair. Pally bubbles work, but Levitate and Slow Fall do not? I cry foul!

3 comments:

  1. I think the devs did the drop thing in hopes of making us Ret Paladins useful for something by giving people Bubbles for the "Going Down" achievement. And then they gave us DPS, maybe a little too much DPS for some peoples liking... those silly devs :P

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  2. I think the achievement thing is a great idea for Blizzard, in that it is essentially a completely separate quest system that exposes itself for the purpose of bragging rights. Just like quests, you can do a lot of it solo, but some of it only with groups, and some of it only during events.

    Unfortunately the number rating is almost entirely a function of time spent pursuing achievements, which hews too close to farming for my taste. But, one of the biggest weaknesses of the quest system is that there is no good way to see which quests I've finished in any organized easy manner. The achievement system lets me get a sense of accomplishment from finishing tasks that I am interested in. The fact that achievements don't disappear when I have finished them -- I like that part a lot.

    For Blizzard's part it is basically a massively leveraged buyout of all the existing content, with the intent of reoffering the same product to the same people to buy all over again. GENIUS. Guess their idea is, if you are bored playing wow, you haven't finished enough achievements.

    Anyway, I don't think you should worry too much about the alt thing -- there is very little chance that Nesh will catch up to any one of your alts in achievements!!

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  3. I highly doubt that, Nesh! You probably beat out Keyami?

    And Dradis... pally bubbles = love, everyone knows this!

    Someone else suggested frost armor (iirc) for mages, since it will also reduce damage taken.

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