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The OverAchiever: Reconsidering achievements and raids
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we engage in a miniature retrospective. Two weeks ago, we published The OverAchiever: Why Icecrown was less fun than Sunwell. It's definitely become one of the more controversial OA topics I've written about and attracted a lot of discussion, neither of which I had really anticipated. Some people agreed with me, some didn't -- but either way, the comment thread is a very interesting read. While I hadn't been intending to revisit the topic so soon, I lost internet access after Hurricane Irene strolled through my area and had an extra week to mull over the points people had raised. The conclusion (perhaps erroneous) I've reached is that, if anything, the issue is more complicated than we all guessed, as the normal/achievement/heroic split may also point to a deeper systemic problem with the 10-man and 25-man model, too.
The OverAchiever: Why Icecrown was less fun than Sunwell
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we contemplate the effect wrought by raid achievements. Achievements as a whole are great for World of Warcraft; they ask you to look at the game a bit differently, to create challenges for yourself, and to get involved with zones and stories that you might otherwise ignore. Unfortunately, they can also spur players and guilds to approach raid content in a way that's not necessarily fulfilling for all concerned. Since Wrath of the Lich King, I've slowly gotten the sense that raiding as a whole is much less rewarding than it used to be, and this is a sentiment that's been echoed by a number of other players. Unfortunately, achievements -- originally intended to add another means of accomplishment to raids -- may well be among the causes. EDIT: This article resulted in a lot of discussion, and the subject was revisited two weeks later. You'll find it here, at OverAchiever: Reconsidering achievements and raids.
