Does gold-making prowess merit achievements?
The recent discussion surrounding Blizzard's chosen method of proliferating Brawler's Guild invitations via the Black Market Auction House, as well as the controversy surrounding the recently removed realm first Brawler's Guild achievement has got me thinking.
Some commenters on the various pieces we produced on this topic here at WoW Insider asked if it should not be the case that gold making aficionados have something to show for their skills. It seemed to me, and I doubt I was wholly alone in this opinion, that an achievement such as the now-defunct realm first win five brawls in a row was the wrong choice for an achievement linked with gold. A PvE combat achievement associated with gold only because of the necessity to buy entry into the guild was just not closely linked enough to gold-making to be valid.
But gold-makers already have shiny things to show off in return for their skills! They have the Grand Expedition Yak, and perhaps the new Jewelcrafting mounts, though some of them appear to be dropping down in price.
Do the auction house denizens really need more than that? Well, for a second, think about all the other meta-games within WoW. PvP? Packed with achievements. PvE? Much the same. Pet battles? Same again. Exploration, too, and achievement-hunting goes without saying! Perhaps the only other area of the game that lacks achievements is role-playing, and that is terribly hard to quantify.
Could there be role-play achievements, as an aside? Perhaps something what like the pacifist tauren druid Irenic did might deserve something that could be considered a roleplay achievement.
But gold-making is quantifiable. It can be measured. It's already measured by the game with achievements for looting certain quantities of gold. But that's not the same as making gold via your own cunning and skill on the auction house. Should that be worthy of achievements?
Why shouldn't gold-making warrant achievements? There is an element of luck to it, certainly, if a player is fortunate enough to win or obtain a drop that sells for a great deal of gold, that could diminish the worth of an achievement for earning gold on the auction house. But then, unless a player were consistently lucky time and time again, which could happen, that would be a tiny percentage of players. And has nobody ever got an achievement in PvP or PvE thanks to little more than happy chance?
Some might assert that gold-making requires less skill, less knowledge, less gameplay ability than PvP, PvE or even pet battles. But gold-making is a form of combat. Knowing your market might be the same as knowing a raid, knowing, your opponents in PvP. A skilled gold-maker will know what to sell, when to sell it, what to buy and how to convert it into a profit. There's a reason why I sit at around 70,000 gold and don't write Gold Capped for WoW Insider. I'm just not as skilled or committed as Basil!
So, if I have convinced you that there might be the slightest possibility this is a worthwhile idea, then what might the achievements be? They'd need to avoid exploitation as far as possible, but prominent gold-makers Elvine and Xsinthis who replied to my twitter speculation had some great ideas. An achievement for reaching the gold cap of 999,999g, 99s, 99c for the first time, for example. Or an achievement for a single sale or purchase on the auction house over a certain amount. Perhaps being gold-capped on five characters, or ten, simultaneously. It should be noted that none of us has any idea if this is possible within Blizzard's systems, but we can dream! Maybe earning a certain amount purely from auction-house sales would be good, too. Perhaps a title such as Moneybags or Big Spender.
What do you think? Do gold-makers deserve achievements? Or is it enough that they can buy yaks and panthers and epics on the auction house?
