achievement-guide
Latest
Guide to the Midsummer Fire Festival 2014
The Midsummer Fire Festival will run from Saturday, June 21 to Saturday, July 5 this year. As always, check your ingame calendar to determine the exact start and stop times for your server. While there aren't actually a lot of achievements associated with the Festival (the meta consists of only six), three of them require serious travel time, and one also requires a set of dangerous trips to enemy capitals. For the trouble, Alliance players are awarded the Flame Warden title, and Horde players Flame Keeper. If you're starting from scratch, this is definitely one of the more work-intensive holidays necessary for the completion of What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been. However, even a fresh character can afford to get all the rewards from holiday vendors if you're diligent about hitting all the holiday's fires, quests, and dailies. The basics of the holiday involve "honoring" or "desecrating" a series of fires across Azeroth and Outland. For convenience, we've listed all of the fires on each continent in a specific direction so you can reach them as efficiently as possible.
Get started collecting titles in WoW
In World of Warcraft's current content lull, you may find yourself wondering what to do once you finally hit level 90. You can, of course, quest, raid, or PvP to your heart's content, but what do you do when you get tired of running the same dungeons and battlegrounds? While you could -- and many do -- wander off to explore other games, a common answer to slow content times in WoW is to pick up collecting. While collecting isn't a primary game element, the game is full of things to collect -- and some of them even have achievements to be earned or special in-game collection interfaces. Sound like an interesting use of your WoW downtime? We're going to start off with some of our favorite time-consuming achievements -- all with cool titles to adorn your character -- that will definitely help you fill up the hours while waiting for Warlords of Draenor. And, of course, you get to customize your character with some awesome titles to boot.
Guide to Children's Week 2014
In the aggregate, Children's Week is one of the most entertaining annual holidays. Dragging a small child with you around Azeroth's grand vistas and dangerous places is surprisingly fun ("I want to go to the Dark Portal." "Sure, why not?"), and it's a fairly immersive reminder that the planet's constant wars have almost certainly left a large population of orphans for each faction to rear. Also, getting a pet or the aptly-named Curmudgeon's Payoff is pretty cool too. But. (You knew the "but" was coming.) Unfortunately for all of you poor sods who still don't have School of Hard Knocks, that achievement still exists. I hated it so much that it was the sole remaining achievement between me and What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been for a year. With account-wide achievements, you no longer have to do it on multiple characters (and the whole system was worth it if for no other reason than that), but you'll still need it on one. Sorry, folks. Anyway, Children's Week 2014 runs from April 28 to May 4, and, as always, the achievements and the meta For The Children are part of the year-long What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been.
To all the squirrels I've loved for achievement points
World of Warcraft certainly has a dizzying array of achievements in all shapes and sizes, covering quests, raids, and PvP. But some of the best achievements are the ones shuffled innocently away in the General section. You know, the ones that don't really fall into any category at all -- they simply involve general topics of interest. Things like mount or tabard collecting, getting a haircut, sampling different types of food and drink, or leveling several different classes to 90. Or, in one frankly bizarre case, chasing down dozens upon dozens of fuzzy little critters and hugging the daylights out of the little buggers. Azeroth is just full of critters wandering around -- some are collectable as Battle Pets, some are not. But while you're waiting for Warlords to come out, it might be time to dust off that Achievement pane and take a look at completing some of the more ... unique of Azeroth's general achievements.
Love is in the air starts today
Love is in the air, everywhere I look around... And it's certainly kicking off in all the major capital cities of Azeroth and Outland today. If you want a Peddlefeet pet or to kick Apothecary Hummel and his cronies out of Shadowfang Keep yet again, now's the time. Love is in the air 2014 runs from February 10 to February 24. The official Blizzard post makes no mention of any updates for 2014, so as far as we can tell no additional love has been added to this holiday. We can confirm that the drops have not been upgraded and are still ilvl 480. That being the case, burgeoning lovers can check out 2013's Overachiever guide to all the achievements, pets, items and more that the holiday brings to players. And if you want to get your love on in the real world, check out this weekend's guide to making heart-shaped candy! This is another of those fun holidays that sends you off a'hunting for the race-class combinations that elude the average player in order to shower them with rose petals for Fistful of Love. If you're one of the rarer race-class combinations, you can often peddle your services by agreeing to be showered with rose petals outside a faction capital. It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it. But the most important thing, in my book, is to kill the three apothecaries on every character, every day, just for a chance at the Big Love Rocket from the heart-shaped box the bosses drop. I've got 14 90s. This year it's mine.
Flameseeker Chronicles: How to get your Halloween on in Guild Wars 2
It's the most wonderful time of the year. Halloween has returned to Guild Wars 2, and ArenaNet has introduced a new member of Mad King Thorn's family to cause mayhem all around Tyria. While this year's Blood and Madness event isn't quite as involved as last year's Shadow of the Mad King, there's still lots to do and some new rewards to earn. It helps that the content will be hanging around GW2 until November 11th, giving us quite a bit of time to soak in the jack-o'-lantern-lit atmosphere and get sick on candy -- not that any of us would do that (much). You've also got plenty of opportunity to finish up the storyline and the associated achievements, but it's probably more fun to get it done while it's fresh. With that in mind, I've written up a guide to help you chase off that whiny Thorn kid before the trick-or-treaters come knocking.
Guide to the Midsummer Fire Festival 2013
The Midsummer Fire Festival will run from Friday, June 21 to Friday, July 5 this year. As always, check your ingame calendar to determine the exact start and stop times for your server. While there aren't actually a lot of achievements associated with the Festival (the meta consists of only six), three of them require serious travel time, and one also requires a set of dangerous trips to enemy capitals. For the trouble, Alliance players are awarded the Flame Warden title, and Horde players Flame Keeper. If you're starting from scratch, this is definitely one of the more work-intensive holidays necessary for the completion of What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been. However, even a fresh character can afford to get all the rewards from holiday vendors if you're diligent about hitting all the holiday's fires, quests, and dailies. The basics of the holiday involve "honoring" or "desecrating" a series of fires across Azeroth and Outland. For convenience, we've listed all of the fires on each continent in a specific direction so you can reach them as efficiently as possible. This year, Blizzard has updated the holiday boss' loot list with ilevel 480 cloaks and weapons and added a set of fires to Pandaria, but there aren't that many; you'll only have an additional 7 fires to honor and one to desecrate on the continent.
Patch 5.3 PTR: Collectors' achievements galore
Wowhead's Perculia has been as busy as ever cataloging the new achievements currently on the patch 5.3 PTR, putting together a comprehensive guide over at Wowhead. Do head over to check that out, but we're going to pull some of the more exciting ones out, with a focus on pets and mounts. WoW Insider also recently covered the new Gorgeous title, which comes from completing all the achievements in the new battleground, Deepwind Gorge. First up, for completing Raiding with Leashes II: Attunement Edition, collecting all 10 of the new pets which have been dropped into the old raids listed on the achievement, players are awarded yet another pet, Tito's Basket! In the same vein of pet-related achievements awarding yet more pets, the Brutal Pet Brawler achievement awards a Stunted Direhorn. Lastly, in the pet battles category, there's an achievement called The Longest Day, which, when you look at the tooltip, you'll realise is aptly named. Carrying out that mammoth task will award you a Marked Flawless Battle Stone, which can be used to boost any pet to Rare quality. What's more, mount collectors rejoice, because there's a new benchmark, 200 mounts, for which Mount Parade awards yet another mount, the Armored Dragonhawk, in blue for the Alliance and a fetching red for the Horde.
The OverAchiever: Guide to Children's Week 2013
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, the children are our future, and oh, how we hate them. In the aggregate, Children's Week is one of the most entertaining annual holidays. Dragging a small child with you around Azeroth's grand vistas and dangerous places is surprisingly fun ("I want to go to the Dark Portal." "Sure, why not?"), and it's a fairly immersive reminder that the planet's constant wars have almost certainly left a large population of orphans for each faction to rear. Also, getting a pet or the aptly-named Curmudgeon's Payoff is pretty cool too. But. (You knew the "but" was coming.) Unfortunately for all of you poor sods who still don't have School of Hard Knocks, that achievement still exists. I hated it so much that it was the sole remaining achievement between me and What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been for a year. With account-wide achievements, you no longer have to do it on multiple characters (and the whole system was worth it if for no other reason than that), but you'll still need it on one. Sorry, folks. Anyway, Children's Week 2013 runs from April 29 to May 6, and, as always, the achievements and the meta For The Children are part of the year-long What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been.
The OverAchiever: Time zones, battle pets, and an achievement you probably don't know about
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, Allison desperately wishes to return to the days of "server time." Confession: This article was originally going to be about achievements you could get from unexpected places, because I thought it would be cool to run a column on the areas you pass by a lot without necessarily realizing there are points there for the taking. I'd worked all the way up to Wanderers, Dreamers, and You, which I've been meaning to do for a while but never got around to ... and then I hit a giant road block. Why? This achievement was one of those unintentionally affected by changes in patch 5.1 that altered event times for a lot of servers. Most players will probably remember when the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza disappeared for a few months while Blizzard tried to figure out a way to square it with Cross-Realm Zones. The Fishing Extravaganza returned alongside a new system that standardized most event times across servers in an effort to simplify what was happening and when. The Wanderer's Festival was one of the affected events. After spending hours trying to track down and confirm the event time schedule for servers across the European, North American, and Oceanic servers, I decided it probably merits an article all to itself because the Wowhead thread is a giant rat's nest of conflicting and outdated information. Also, it's not enough to be there while the festival is actually happening, and if you don't get there early, you probably won't have a shot at a battle pet you can't get anywhere else. I am not too proud to admit I need help with this one.
Noblegarden 2013 has begun
This is a friendly neighborhood reminder from your local WoW Insider team that Noblegarden 2013 is underway. In fact it began yesterday, March 31st, and will run through the week until April 6th. This year looks to be pretty much the same as the last and there are no new updates to speak of, so if you've done it before, there's probably not a lot of incentive to do it again. However, a number of Noblegarden achievements are necessary for What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been, so if you're still working on your Violet Protodrake, don't miss out! In addition, battle pet collectors might be interested in the Spring Rabbit, if you haven't gotten it yet. For those of you who are working on Nobelgarden achievements or items, WoW Insider's got you covered with our OverAchiever guide. Check it out, and happy spring!
The OverAchiever: Guide to Noblegarden 2013
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, bunnies take over the world. Time to get sick on candy again, folks! That seems to be a running theme with WoW holidays. Noblegarden will run this year from Monday, April 1 until Monday, April 8. As always, check your server's in-game calendar for the exact start and stop times. If you've never done Noblegarden before, or only done its pre-2009 version, be aware that Noble Gardener (the holiday's meta) is part of the year-long What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been achievement. Last year, the Swift Springstrider was added to holiday vendors at the fairly steep cost of 500 Noblegarden chocolate. This year, we haven't seen anything new datamined, but Noblegarden did hit the patch 5.2 PTR in mid-February, so you never know.
The OverAchiever: The game's 13 vanished titles
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we rue the lack of High Poobah among the game's honorifics. An interesting question in the Tanking forum about a month back spurred an article for readers here about which title they find most reassuring on a fellow player. The discussion that ensued was a reminder that you can't get some of the more popular picks anymore, and just why they meant -- and continue to mean -- something in the first place. Sad to say, these titles are no longer accessible, unless you manage to find some far-flung server at the end of the universe where no one's bothered to kill Sartharion at all.
Guildox ranks achievements and titles
GuildOx just launched a new feature on their website: Popular Achievements and Popular Titles Rankings. This feature does exactly what it says on the tin -- provides information on the game's most popular achievements and titles. This feature makes really interesting reading, and GuildOx have gone to some length to ensure the data is accurate, saying that they have used their Character Database and filtered out alts using their alt detection. WoW Insider could spend all day drawing interesting conclusions from the database, for example, the highest ranked holiday achievement title is The Hallowed, so that could mean the requirements make it the easiest to get, or that people just really love Hallow's End. In a similar vein, more players have the Arathi Basin Victory achievement and the Alterac Valley Victory achievement than have the Warsong Gulch Victory one. Why is that? Of course, this feature can't answer that question, but it's fun to speculate! And while you're over at GuildOx, don't forget to check out their popular mounts and pets databases -- see where yours rank!
Guide to Love is in the Air 2013
Love is in the Air returns this year from Sunday, Feb. 10 through Saturday, Feb. 23. As always, check your game calendar for your server's specific start and end times. After many tweaks over the years, the holiday's become one of the less annoying and RNG-riddled outings from the What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been meta. However, last year's version added a pretty grind-intensive mount to the holiday rewards, so if you're starting fresh and want the meta and the mount, be prepared for a lot of work. Before you ask -- yep, it's required if you're still on the warpath for your Violet Proto-Drake. The finished holiday meta will also reward the title the Love Fool. If you're completely new to Love Is In the Air, you'll probably want to read our FAQ on the holiday. Otherwise, we'll be dealing with the holiday achievements here. There are only two optional ones if you're going for the meta, so I've listed all the ones you'll need first.
The OverAchiever: Guide to Lunar Festival 2013 achievements
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, the Fed-Ex quest from hell. This year, the Lunar Festival runs from Sunday, Jan. 27 to Saturday, Feb. 9. (As always, check your game calendar for specific start and stop times for your server.) On a very important note, this year cuts the length of the holiday from three to two weeks, so if you're a new player or you're starting a fresh character, you won't have as much time as you usually do to get everything done. I think Blizzard limited it so as not to clash with Love Is In the Air, which begins Sunday, Feb. 10. If you're new to the Lunar Festival, the holiday mostly revolves around involve talking to a number of elders in order to honor them, receiving Coins of Ancestry in return, and then using the coins to purchase holiday items, including clothing and pets. The To Honor One's Elders meta-achievement is also a requirement for What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been, so if you're still after a Violet Proto-Drake, make sure you get this done. The Lunar Festival is definitely not one of Azeroth's more difficult holidays, but it's time-consuming if you need all the NPCs. However, it's also a good time to do other travel-intensive achievements like World Explorer.
Holiday replayability and the Fed-Ex quests from hell
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, get off our lawn. One of the things I think about while revising and updating the holiday guides is that the audience for them is doomed to get smaller over time. It's reasonable to expect that, because people don't need the guides after they finish doing the events on characters they care about, and there's generally a few years between Blizzard's major updates. However, with the introduction of account-wide achievements, pets, and mounts, the replayability of holidays has probably suffered a bit. That doesn't mean that the content's not enjoyable, just that each successive character derives less reward from it. This is a particularly acute problem with the approaching Lunar Festival and how one element gets a lot more onerous as the game continues to expand.
Discover wealth and achievements with the Riches of Pandaria
Who doesn't like free gold? You'd be silly not to nab what's out there for the taking -- and there's far more for the taking in Pandaria than you'd think. Wowhead just finished up a guide for the Riches of Pandaria, which explores free gold and the achievements associated with said bounty with easy to follow maps and instructions for discovering all that Pandaria has to offer. Scattered throughout Pandaria are objects called Treasure of Pandaria. Collecting these items will nab you a progressive series of achievements ultimately ending with the Riches of Pandaria. These Treasures of Pandaria are small, clickable items that you can find hiding in various places around each zone. Each object vendors for free gold -- up to 100g, free and waiting for you to just grab it and sell it. Lest you think this is a task best saved for level 90, you should also note that these items grant a chunk of experience when they are found as well. Whether you're leveling through Pandaria for the first time, or simply on the lookout for free gold and more achievement points, Wowhead's guide is an excellent starting point to hunting down all the precious items that have been scattered across the continent. Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
The OverAchiever: Guide to Winter Veil 2012
'Tis the season! Winter Veil 2012 runs from Saturday, Dec. 15 through Tuesday, Jan. 2 this year. As with most of the WoW holidays, the Merrymaker meta is required for What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been. Those of you who are still on the lookout for your Violet Proto-Drakes will want to keep an eye out for any achievements you still need. Even if you don't want or don't need any achievements, Winter Veil also gives you the opportunity to turn your mount into a reindeer, become a snowman with a unique dance animation, and get noncombat pets and unique holiday items. This is also the only time of year where pets like Father Winter's Helper won't disappear with an excuse over how busy they are making toys, so if you want to run around for an extended time with gnomes dressed in Santa outfits, seize the day. As always, I'll be up as the holiday goes live to make necessary additions or corrections to the guide, but we're not anticipating any major changes to Winter Veil this year.
The OverAchiever: Guide to Pilgrim's Bounty 2012
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we advise you to stay away from the bathroom scale. While Pilgrim's Bounty isn't part of the meta What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been, a lot of players still find it one of most helpful yearly events. Yes, you can rack up some points with the Pilgrim meta and get a plump turkey pet, but the holiday has an absolutely unbeatable side benefit -- it's an incredibly fast, easy, and cheap way to level cooking to 350. Pilgrim's Bounty is tailor-made for anyone who wants to get cooking leveled on a bunch of alts, or anyone who never got around to doing it on his or her main. As with Hallow's End, there's an additional benefit for all those of us slaving away on Mists of Pandaria reputation grinds: The Spirit of Sharing from the feast tables grants an additional 10% to reputation gains. As far as we know, the holiday hasn't changed from previous incarnations, but as always, I'll be around as it goes live to update or clarify any portion of this guide. This year, Pilgrim's Bounty runs from Sunday, Nov. 18 through Saturday, Nov. 24.
