Achievements officially announced for Wrath

As we suspected from some hints in the alpha, Wrath of the Lich King will indeed feature achievements. Blizzard just put up a page about them on the Wrath site, including lots of juicy information:

• The system will launch with over 500 achievements, from all corners of the game: exploration, PvE, PvP, professions, and "character development." They promise something for everyone.

• Some achievements will have rewards, but the rewards will be "purely cosmetic and just for fun" (examples are vanity pets, tabards, and titles).

• Additional achievements will come "with each new WoW content update" (which I take to mean "major patch or expansion").

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• Each achievement yields a certain number of achievement points.

• The achievements window includes a log of all achievements completed with the date on which you finished, as well as all the ones you're currently working on.

• Achievements will be able to be tracked like quests can be now.

• Right-clicking another player will let you compare your e-peen achievements with theirs.

• Unlocking a new achievement will play a distinctive animation and sound, and announce the achievement automatically to your guild and anyone in the area.

• Achievements will be visible on the Armory.

• There are three kinds of achievements:

  • Simple achievements, where you just have to complete a goal (like "give 10 hugs")

  • Progressive achievements: if you complete one to collect 10 vanity pets, you can now work on one to collect 25

  • Meta achievements: completing a set of achievements may be, itself, an achievement

• There are also several categories of achievements (with an example for each):

  • PvP ("Win 10 ranked arena matches in a row")

  • Dungeon and Raid (each end boss in each raid and dungeon will be an achievement)

  • Professions (each new tier of profession skill is an achievement)

  • Quests (such as completing a certain number of quests)

  • Events (seasonal events will have their own achievements)

  • World exploration ("explore all of Kalimdor")

  • Reputation ("get Exalted with every faction")

  • General: these are said to "tend toward the whimsical" ("getting a shave and a haircut")

Finally, the page mentions "Feats of Strength," which "represent the past glories of Azeroth." These are worth no points and are not displayed in the normal Achievements interface; they mostly have to do with the old world (old PvP ranks, for instance, or rare mounts). As such, they will be applied retroactively.

Overall this promises to be a pretty cool system, and I am definitely looking forward to it (and hoping it doesn't trigger my obsessive impulses and make me try to collect them all). Still unknown is what the achievement points will be used for: just a fun score? Is this how we'll get access to the vanity rewards, or are they going to be tied to particular achievements? As always, if we find anything out, we'll keep you posted.