More on Achievements

As if you couldn't tell by now, I just cannot wait for the achievements to get here. It'll give me something to do every day to kill time until Wrath comes out. I already anticipating having a large lead over most other players due to my compulsiveness. But there's a lot of great achievements still to go. At last count, there's 850 achievements. I should probably re-install the beta to see how close I am now, but here are some that I hope to work on before Wrath is released:

• Cenarion War Hippogryph - Just 1600g and it's mine. Of course, I think it's less with my exalted status. But this will also help with my collecting of mounts in the expansion.
  
• Champion of the Naaru - This weekend I completed the Shattered Halls quest and I still have the Arcatraz quest to go. Hopefully I can bang that out and get Mag down before the patch hits to get the title.
  
• Did Somebody Order a Knuckle Sandwich? - Raise your unarmed skill to 400 - I can get started on this now. Just have to find some poor animals to beat on.
  
• Exploration Achievements - I've already tried to go back and explore most of the older areas, but I should just quickly browse through my map and have the world explored before the patch comes out.
  
• Gurubashi Arena Grand Master - probably need to do this early in the morning, but getting the Arena Grand Master trinket should be pretty fun.
  
• Master Angler of Stranglethorn - it's been a while since I tried to win the Booty Bay fishing quest, but I'll have to take it up again and see if I can win. I've been close a few times, but have never won.
  
• My Sack is "Gigantique" - Just 1200g for this achievement.
  
• Old Ironjaw - guess I need start fishng in Ironforge.
  
• Twenty-Five Tabards - Hmm, no space to start collecting these now, but once the patch hits, I can go grab these since my pets will free up bag space. Also, once you buy it, you get credit for it and can sell it back.
  
• The Burning Crusader - Raise Honor Hold, Sha'tar, Lower City, Cenarion Expedition and Keepers of Time to exalted. I'm close, but still have a ways to go. I just need to get some groups going for these.
  
• The Key Master - I probably have most, if not all of these keys, but might be missing one I can go back and obtain prior to the patch.

I'm sure there's others, but these are some I can focus on before the patch hits.

I Just Can't Wait

So the currently accepted timeline has the major patch coming out mid-October and Wrath is scheduled for November 13. This next major patch will introduce quite a few changes, including pet and mount "stables." And while browsing the new achievements and blue posts on the forums, I saw a post that references a unique mount if you have a certain number of mounts collected. At the current time, I don't have free bag space to go and start collecting these mounts - my pets take up that space. But with the patch, my pets will go away and mounts will be stabled. All I will have to do is go around finding them.

Since I'm already exalted with 22 factions, that means I can get the following mounts:

• Great Blue Elekk, Great Green Elekk, Great Purple Elekk, Brown Elekk, Gray Elekk, Purple Elekk
  
• Cobalt Riding and War Talbuk, Silver Riding and War Talbuk, Tan Riding and War Talbuk, White Riding and War Talbuk
  
• Swift Frostsaber, Swift Mistsaber, Swift Stormsaber, Spotted Frostsaber, Striped Frostaber, Striped Nightsaber
  
• Winterspring Frostsaber
  
• Swift Brewfest Ram, Brewfest Ram
  
• Swift Brown Ram, Swift Gray Ram, Swift White Ram, Brown Ram, Gray Ram, White Ram
  
• Swift Brown Steed, Swift Palomino, Swift White Steed, Brown Hose Bridle, Chestnut Mare Bridle, Pinto Bridle
  
• Swift Green Mechanostrider, Swift White Mechanostrider, Swift Yellow Mechanostrider, Blue Mechanostrider, Green Mechanostrider, Red Mechanostrider, Unpainted Mechanostrider
  
• Blue Riding Nether Ray, Green Riding Nether Ray, Purple Riding Nether Ray, Red Riding Nether Ray, Silver Riding Nether Ray
  
• Azure Netherwing Drake, Cobalt Netherwing Drake, Onyx Netherwing Drake, Purple Netherwing Drake, Veridian Netherwing Dake, Violet Netherwing Drake
  
• Swift Blue Gryphon, Swift Green Gryphon, Swift Purple Gryphon, Swift Red Gryphon, Ebon Gryphon, Golden Gryphon, Snowy Gryphon
  
• Plus any Battleground Mounts I might grind.
  
• Plus the Zhevra refer-a-friend mount I plan on getting soon.

So that's a total of 60 plus any battleground mounts and the zhevra. I wonder what the number of mounts will need to be for the special mount? 60? 70? It's a lot of money to go buy all those mounts up, but something I'd definitely love to do once I have the space.

Plus, being able to possibly create a macro to summon a random land or flying mount would be amazing.

The Return to Zul'Aman

Last night, the Gold Team assembled and led by Eleazarjr and Vetarra as our fearless tanks, we quickly took down two timed bosses and just barely missed the third. This time though, we went in the order you need to go in for four timed bosses so we're making progress. We took down Akil'zon easily then went and one-shot Nalorakk. After that we ran out of time on our way to Jan'Alai who we one shot as well. After switching out Eleazarjr for Aracely, we one shot Halazzi and proceeded to the Hex Lord. Unfortunately, we ran into some issues here - bad breaks of sheeps and banishes, poor timing of spells cast by the Hex Lord and just other little things that you just can't help (and many little things that need to be fixed as well).

But we did manage to get him down and he dropped two completely worthless items for our group. A plate healing item (our tank pally had left, and I doubt he'll ever go healing) and a druid staff (which neither druid really wanted, but it was forced upon Dylana). With such a great loot table and many great items that could be put to use - including the amazing Hood of Hexxing and Hex Shrunken Head.

We eventually moved on to Zul'jin and got to his last phase a couple of times, but once again, we had some people there who had not seen the fight and it took us a long time to get the eagle phase down. We made progress and hopefully we can get most of the group together tonight to take another shot at clearing Zul'Aman finally.

Other than that, Tockett ventured into Karazhan last week and has been doing Shattered Sun dailies every day when time permits. He's up to 25 badges and with another Karazhan run, he will be able to buy a new offhand weapon and then must start saving for a new main hand. Tiddlywinks created him an amazing cloak - Vengeance Wrap which received a Bright Crimson Spinel and Greater Agility. Tockett is now working on getting Leatherworking to 375 as he has two epic patterns to enjoy at that level and two Heart of Darkness ready to use in his bank.

And so it goes...

As mentioned earlier today, I wasn't a fan of the "Race to 80" achievements. And apparently Blizzard figured out it wasn't a good idea as well.

We've decided to remove the titles for the Realm First Feats of Strength that are associated with reaching level 80. We've also removed the titles associated with the Realm First Feats of Strength associated with gaining 450 skill in the professions and secondary skill. Lastly, we've removed the title associated with Realm First to accomplish the Northrend Vanguard achievement.

Realm First boss kill achievements will still grant a title.

As a side note, Beta characters will retain their titles or end up displaying a broken title. This won't carry over to the live realms but it is merely a symptom of removing these titles from the game. If we were to do another wipe of the achievement system, the Beta titles would go away.

Hex Lord Vanquished!

Last night, in a triumphant return to Zul'Aman, the Gold Team was able to obtain the third timed chest for the first time ever (with 2 minutes to spare) and we then went on to kill the dreaded Hex Lord Malacrass! Congratulations to my good friend Dylana who won the Tiny Voodoo Mask and Mercreus who got his Trollbane. I also obtained these Footpads of Madness which I'm still unsure about. I love my Boots of Blasting, but another 25 haste could get my Fireball down to 2.7 seconds potentially.

I also just discovered that last night I was running the whole night with the wrong pair of gloves on. My Spellfire Gloves were sitting in my bank the whole night, basically gimping my damage by 7% and also putting me under the hit cap, resulting in another damage loss. I did enjoy running last night with my two pieces of Tier 4. Sporting the Collar of the Aldor and Pauldrons of the Aldor allowed me to cast straight through any bird interruptions on Akil'zon and also during the spirit bolts on Malacrass. And while the tooltip mentions just uninterruptable fireballs, it seemed like my scorches were going off without interruptions as well. So next time in (a.k.a. tonight), I'll be going in with the correct gloves and my two pieces of Tier 4.

So we've finally got another boss off of our Gold Team list and Zul'jin is the last left. On our very first attempt, we got to the lynx stage - which I thought was quite good since 7 of us were seeing him for the first time. Our best attempt was our last (of probably 4 or 5) where we once again made it to the lynx stage with 7 or so people up, but we lost our priest early in the stage and without the group heals, we were done. But it was a great learning experience and I hope we can get him down soon.

I still a bit skeptical that we can get the bear mounts, but we are now able to get three timed chests which is a great advancement. We also are doing much better on Akil'zon which is great progress for us. We are able to hatch one whole side each time eggs are hatched which greatly cuts down on time required to kill him.

On a side note, I have added another pet to my collection, however, I think my screenshots were not properly kept over the past few sessions, so until I can get screenshots, I am not announcing him here.

Achievements, Part II

Rohan shared his thoughts on the subject already, but I thought I'd chime in as well. I absolutely hate the "World First" feats. At least they're not achievements, but I don't think anyone should be rewarded for these feats.

First gnome to 80? Who cares. First tailor to 425? Whoop-de-do. First player on the server to 80? Way to prove you can either a) take a week off work or b) take a week off school or even worse, c) share your account with others and power level.

If I see anyone running around sporting one of the "server first" titles, I'll just laugh a little on the inside. All the other achievements I have no problem with. Exalted with the Timbermaw? Sure, it takes time (a lot of time), but you can do a little here, a little there, but it doesn't take a week of straight playing.

Also, what does happen if someone gets seriously injured from sleep deprivation or too many energy drinks? I have an energy drink here or there, and when seeing the latest Batman film, I drank too many in a short period of time and I swear I thought my heart was going to explode (why I still continue to drink even a single one is a mystery...). So what does happen if someone drinks too many, goes into cardiac arrest, and dies - while trying to accomplish a feat that Blizzard set up in game? Could they be sued? Maybe. They are officially sanctioning the race to 80. They are saying - go for it - we know you'll play 24x7, but we don't care. You want to be the server first, congrats.

I doubt they'll change their mind about this, but in my opinion, it's probably one of the stupidest things they've done in a while. Let's hope they do go back and realize the mistake they've made.

Achievements

Earlier today, Matticus talked about achievements that will soon occupy my time. As of press time, there are 694 listed achievements and I look forward to completing as many as I can. I have no more reputations to grind (though I have a few left I can complete through some instance runs) and I only have one pet left to grind (that damn Emerald Whelp will probably never be mine), and there's just not much to do these days.

I've been spending much of my time helping out my friendly backstabber, Tockett (yes, I couldn't get Tiddlywinks.com, but I did get Tockett.com). Tockett was the first of us gnomes to reach level 60 and also was able to obtain the rank of Knight Captain back in the day. He also heavily raided ZG, MC, and AQ20. Oh, the good ol' days. So while there's not much to do with Tiddly, Tockett is going strong. However, once he reaches 70, I fear there will be little left. What's the point of gearing up as it will all be obsolete in a few scant months?

Back to achievements though, some are insane...

40 Exalted Factions - I'm at 22...could probably hit 25 to 26 if I tried, there will be some added in the expansion, but 40!? Dang! Luckily I'm already past the levels of 10, 15 & 20.

100,000 Honorable Kills - Wow...I've got 2,200. I plan on getting up to maybe 5,000 by the time the expansion comes out as I want to stockpile some honor points so I can get some nice honor rewards at level 80. So maybe I'll stay on defense more in AV rather than going to the front like I enjoy.

Complete 3,000 Quests - I love this one. I'm pretty sure I'm already over half way there as grinding all my faction reps (including the Goblin reputations) has had me go all over to quest. Add in the fact that I plan on exploring more locations prior to Wrath, I should probably focus on picking up any quests I see. Luckily, they are thinking about adding in grey ? so we can more easily find quests we have not completed. In fact, I did two quests last night from the Area 52 wanted board. Nice to have that section clear.

Master of Alterac Valley - This one should be fun! Some of the individual achievements within this grouping seem tough, but it will be a challenge. I'm not sure how you can assault & defend a graveyard and assault & defend a tower in the same game.

Shop Smart, Shop Pet...Smart - Already done! (Obtain 50 pets) Yay, pet skunk, here I come.

World Explorer - I've been working on this one already. I hope to have every place explored. Sometimes though, there's areas on a map that you don't know you haven't explored as they aren't "shaded" on the world map. Not quite sure how they'll handle that.

My Sack is "Gigantique" - Great, I have to spend 1200g on a bag. Guess I should buy it soon so I can actually get some usage out of my 1200g...

Twenty-Five Tabards - If only I had room to start collecting them now, I would. But once I can stable my pets in Wrath, I will have room to collect tabards and since I'm exalted with 22 factions and have some unique tabards as well, 25 should be no problem.

Skills to Pay the Bills - Easy! I'm already 375 of fishing, cooking, and first aid. No problem to level them come Wrath.

The Cake Is Not A Lie - HAHA. Love it. Need to go bake me a cake. Already have the recipe.

The Diplomat - Reach exalted with Timbermaw, Kurenai & Sporeggar. Done and done!

The Justicar - Wow, this will be tough. Granted, I would love to get those three reputations to exalted as it is, but AB and WSG are just so painful to grind. I think I just need to put more time into them during their respective weekends. Plus I can rack up some HKs while doing so.

Well Read - This should be tons of fun. I've read a few, but there's a lot more I have to go find.

Enjoying the Spirit of Competition!

Well, the "Competitions" started today and I was off to the battlegrounds. I teamed up with some guildmates and we headed into Alterac Valley. After losing the first game due to our team's inability to hold the Relief Hut, my party and I decided we'd take that first rather than Iceblood Tower. So the next two games, we quickly went down, capped the hut, took the towers, and with that we were able to quickly win both games. After the second game, I got my Competitor's Tabard and after the third game, I got my Spirit of Competition. This is my 72nd pet and here's a picture of me with the tabard and the pet as I farm Dreaming Whelps as I look for a Tiny Emerald Whelp.