meta-achievement
Latest
Breafast Topic: Winter Veil is here!
I have a secret to share. I'm Greatfather Winter. Nah, just kidding! I don't have the beard long enough to play the part yet. The Feast of Winter Veil is here! Greatfather Winter is chillin' (get it?) out in Ironforge and is waiting to hear what you guys want this holiday. Winter Veil will last from December 15th, 2009 to January 2nd, 2010. The Winter Veil achievements can be done during this time so be sure to get those finished before it's too late. Otherwise, you'll have to wait another full year before you can finish off the year long What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been achievement for a shiny violet protodrake. Not sure where to start? Check out Allison's OverAchiever: Guide to Winter Veil. Sadly, this year there are no Crashin' Thrashin' Racers this year (which makes me one sad panda). I'll cheer myself up by picking up massive amounts of snowballs and chucking them at various Horde players (or guildies) in Dalaran. What's the first thing you plan on doing when Winter Veil starts up?
Patch 3.3 PTR: New and updated achievements on the PTR
There's been a few achievements that have been added in the latest patch 3.3 build. As you can guess, taking down the Lich King has its rewards. If you manage to defeat Arthas in Icecrown Citadel in 10-player heroic mode, you will henceforth earn the title "Bane of the Fallen King." A new faction for you to earn reputation with will be established as well. The Ashen Verdict, if you manage to earn exalted with them, will grant you a title reward that adds "Of the Ashen Verdict." No serious details yet on how to grind out rep, but when I was on the PTR clearing trash to Festergut, I noticed I was gaining Ashen Verdict reputation by killing various mobs. They're similar to the rates players earned rep with when working through Black Temple for the Ashtongue. Arena players have a new title and a Frostwyrm pet to look forward to for season 8. Good luck on earning the Wrathful Gladiator title! The players who are more into battlegrounds will be experiencing change as well. The achievements to gain exalted with Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin, and Alterac Valley factions have been removed from their Meta-Achievements. You'll gain special titles if you manage to reach exalted with the factions at least. Glory of the Hero Meta-Achievement has been slightly changed. The Party's Over achievement which involves killing Prince Taldaram on Heroic with under 5 people is no longer part of that particular meta. Although, personally I don't think it's that difficult to take out that boss with 4 players. Lastly, in case you missed the news earlier, Master Angler of Stranglethorn has been changed. It will be changed to Master Angler of Azeroth instead. You can gain this achievement by winning the Kalu'ak Fishing Derby or the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza. Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to the Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.
Cooking for the holidays
Artwair complains over on the forums that there is cooking required for the What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been achievement (that some of you have done -- grats! -- and others of you are deciding to do in the next year), saying that something as significant as leveling up Cooking all the way shouldn't be required for what is basically an optional achievement. But Kisirani replies with as good an answer as you'll find: the achievement is designed to send you all over the world, including to some professions and abilities that you wouldn't be leveling otherwise. Especially because the achievement is optional, it's not out-of-place to ask for some cooking to happen. And I'll add that cooking is worth leveling anyway -- not only does it get you some nice buffs, let you use up some of the trash collecting in you bags, and hook up your guild or raid with some excellent items, but it's pretty easy to do, especially if you do it with fishing (which is also very useful by itself).While she's at it, Kisirani also provides a nice tease at Pilgrim's Bounty, which isn't a part of the big meta-achievement anyway, but will have some extra recipes to find and cook, as well as a new Thanksgiving-style celebration (two words: "Turkey shooter"). Can't wait to see it.
Zoltan scores over 10,000 achievement points
Zoltan of Aegwynn is the guy who's been sitting on top of the overall achievement point lists for a while, and he's just recently cracked the incredible total of 10,000 points. At the time of this writing, he's finished off a total of 908 out of 931 achievements currently in the game, giving him a total of 10,005 achievement points.The Champion of Ulduar is the one that put him over the top according to his Armory profile, and strangely, he doesn't appear to have any of the Feats of Strength (edit: never mind, I read it wrong -- he's got plenty). He is only missing the two World Event achievements left (Brewmaster and the meta-achievement, neither of which are yet possible), the Sea Turtle achievement, and then a few more Heroic Ulduar endgame points. Given that the 3.2 patch achievements will likely come out before Brewmaster, there's no way yet to clear everything completely, but he's as close as it gets.Very impressive indeed. Zoltan has just one or two people on his heels, and then the numbers drop out to a few hundred below 10,000 (and strangely enough, the top five players are all EU folks). There's no reward for all of those points (and Blizzard has no plans to offer any), but it's quite, as you might say, an achievement.
Noblegarden will apply to What a Long, Strange Trip
So remember last week, when we reported that, to the tune of relieved sighs from Violet Proto-drake seekers everywhere, the Noblegarden achievements wouldn't apply to the What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been meta-holiday achievement? Not so fast, says Bornakk. While the achievements didn't appear in the meta one on the PTR, they will eventually apply. If you want your Violet Proto-drake, you better start getting your egg-searching eyes ready.Sacco actually posted about this in an update on Saturday, but it was overshadowed by the news about the Brewmaster achievement changes, and it's a pretty big deal: we thought we were getting a break on this one, but apparently not. Though it makes sense that all the holidays should be in there (and this explains, of course, why the holiday was extended to a full week), it still is kind of a bummer that we've suddenly got a whole other holiday to do.But Violet Proto-drakes should be tough to get anyway, and we're sure that, as usual, Blizzard will end up removing any achievements that they figure are unfair (or at least that people whine about until Blizzard doesn't want to hear it any more). And there's one more thought to take away from this: considering that all of this Noblegarden talk is going along with the 3.1 PTR, does that mean we'll see Ulduar on the live realms by Easter?
UPDATED: Brew of the Year removed from Brewmaster achievement on PTR
EDIT: Bornakk says that the achievement will be replaced in the meta achievement with one that requires you to simply sign up for the Brew of the Month Club. And for those who doubted my psychic powers: Noblegarden achievements are being added to Long, Strange Trip.Following the pattern of removing achievements that take a while to complete from the holiday meta-achievements, Blizzard yanked Brew of the Year from Brewmaster on the current 3.1 PTR. This means that anyone who was missing it now has yet another fair shake at getting their Violet Proto-Drake for completing all of the other holiday achievements for What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been. I'm pleased that players who missed that one achievement can still have a shot at the big prize, but man, there seems to be an awful lot of meta-achievement caving lately. It just creates the impression that complaining about something will get it changed, and I don't think that's what Blizzard wants players to believe.To be fair, it was physically impossible for Death Knights to get this achievement until sometime in 2010. This is a good change for them and I'm okay with that. And no, I'm not against Blizzard removing unfair achievements from reward-bearing metas. This was also the only achievement which was impossible to complete during the event itself. We'll see if the pattern holds after people miss another impossible-to-miss achievement in the Noblegarden set. Grats to those for whom this achievement change will make a difference, and early props for your purple dragon.
Noblegarden extended to a week on the PTR
Elizabeth's wishes have been answered -- in-game Easter holiday Noblegarden has been extended to a full week according to the calendar on the PTR. That's six more days to run around getting eggs, not to mention doing all of the new Noblegarden achievements being included in the holiday. In the past, Noblegarden hasn't meant that much to players -- the rewards were never that great, and the fact that it was on only one day (a day usually reserved by most celebrating for family dinners away from the game) made it much less active than it could have been. But Blizzard has revamped the holiday, apparently, so be on the lookout for some eggs and bunnies starting on Sunday, April 12th.One quick note for those of you worried about your Violet Proto-drakes: apparently still none of the Nobelgarden quests are included in the meta achievement. So there won't be any Bags of Candy or monthly Brews to get -- just enjoy the festivities.And we'll give a shout-out to Kisirani here as well -- since she took over World Events on the Blizzard team, we've seen some great changes. Despite the issues with the Zombie launch event for Wrath, it was still a ton of fun, and we're pretty sure that she and her team also been behind the popular Brewfest and Hallow's End holidays as well. Excellent work -- we can't wait to see what the new Noblegarden is like.
You may be a Love Fool after all
If you played WoW at all during the Love is in the Air holiday event that ran in early February, then you surely heard the moaning about the meta achievement, Fool For Love, which grants the title, Love Fool. Whether you wanted to celebrate this month or not, anyone seeking to complete their long and strange trip and acquire the coveted Violet Proto-Drake, had to be a Fool For Love.One of the requirements was to complete the achievement, Be Mine, which had players running back to old world capital cities, dousing themselves in smelly concoctions, and begging the guards and citizens not to break their hearts. This gave us one chance per hour at obtaining the elusive Bag of Candies that would allow players ten chances to create, ideally, eight unique candies. The drop rate for the bag was so poor and the holiday so short that people begged Blizzard to improve their chances. While the drop rate for the bag was increased at the last minute, many people who put in a superb effort still did not acquire their title. Blizzard has since crunched the numbers, and some great news was handed down by Zarhym that should put everyone's mind at rest. While the Be Mine achievement is not being removed as a requirement for completion of the meta achievement, instead of needing all eight candies, you will only need to have obtained six!Not only that, but you won't have to wait until next year. As of patch 3.1, all you will need to do is login to be granted your achievement, as well as your title, as long as you had made at least six unique candies. Many players would still like to see that particular achievement removed from the meta entirely, but Blizzard stands firm that the point of What a Long, Strange Trip it's Been and its reward is to be something that only a dedicated few will earn each year. They aren't about to make it too easy.If you missed this requirement, will you be getting your title on patch day, or are you still feeling disgruntled?
An end to Hallow's End
Hallow's End went away today at 4am server time, just as sneakily as it arrived. The end of the Seasonal Event brought to a close about a month of the Scarlet Monastery being just about the most popular instance in the game. Some players ended the event completing the Meta-Achievement while others, like myself, fell short. With a mere twenty-eight minutes to go, I rounded up a bunch of guildies and used up about five summons to try and complete Sinister Calling.While I ended up missing the Hallowed Helm, two Squashling pets dropped out of five tries, which was a pretty good deal for the short time we had. We ran out of time on the last summon... as my guildie completed the quest to call out the Headless Horseman, he was able to utter the challenge but nothing came out from the grave. In fact, as the clock struck precisely at 4pm, the giant pumpkin disappeared, leaving us stupefied.It was a fun Hallow's End event, even if it did get rudely interrupted by zombies. I hope that unlike me, most of you got what you needed from the event. The mount would've been nice, but I suppose there's always next year. By that time, I hope Blizzard will update the encounter for Level 80 with matching new loot. The Headless Horseman has about 12 months to level up.
Breakfast Topic: Last minute tasks for Hallow's End
The Hallow's End event is set to end in a couple of days. During its first years, the event was merely a way to get some moderately useful candy. Last year, the introduction of the Headless Horseman gave away some pretty sweet loot, giving everybody reason to visit the least popular wing of the Scarlet Monastery. Actually, before the Headless Horseman arrived on the scene, quite a lot of players had never even gone into that part of the instance!So anyway, this year Hallowed's End came along with the introduction of Achievements, and a lot of players have gone after the Meta-Achievement Hallowed Be Thy Name. Some people want it for the title, others merely as a component of the Meta-Meta-Achievement that grants a Violet Proto-Drake flying mount. My wife already has the Hallowed title in the bag for her Warlock, and the Squashling was pet number 45 towards getting herself a skunk. I just used the trick or treating to level up my Hunter -- at over 4,350 xp per bucket and the reduced XP requirement, I actually got lots of bubbles in. How about you? Have you been enjoying Hallow's End? The zombie invasion caused a bit of havoc for some people, and I'm sure it led to more than a few aborted Horseman visits, but now that its over, we can all go back to enjoying the Seasonal event in relative peace. What last minute tasks have you yet to accomplish? I know a lot of folks still need those elusive Tooth Picks, while others got really lucky with their treat bags and got the pet and helm. Daniel asked this a few days back, so I'm gonna see how everyone's done so far. With only a couple of days to go, I hope everyone's gotten what they want or need!
