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The OverAchiever: Guide to Pilgrim's Bounty 2011
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. Today, we're too full to move. For all you dedicated achievement hunters out there, Pilgrim's Bounty is not part of the year-long meta What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been, but that's not to say that the holiday's without its share of charms. While the Pilgrim meta will grant both the Pilgrim title and the plump turkey pet, the holiday has an absolutely unbeatable side benefit -- it's the fastest, easiest, and cheapest way to level cooking to 350. Pilgrim's Bounty is tailor-made for players who want to level cooking on a bunch of alts or anyone who never got around to doing it on his or her main. We haven't seen any new information emerge on Pilgrim's Bounty over the past year, so the holiday probably hasn't changed much from its 2009 and 2010 incarnations. As always, I'll be around as the holiday goes live to update or clarify any portion of this guide. This year, Pilgrim's Bounty runs from Sunday, Nov. 20 through Saturday, Nov. 26.
The OverAchiever: Continuing Littlest Pet Shop
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, nothing will drop for us. This week we return with the second installment of our guide to Littlest Pet Shop. I apologize, folks -- turns out this'll require one more after this. We're going to use today to tackle all of the game's dropped, Argent Tournament, and profession-related pets, so I can give you a choice between grinding your guts off or spending yourself into the poorhouse. Fun! As always, WarcraftPets.com is your best friend here.
The OverAchiever: Guide to Hallow's End 2011
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, that sweet, sweet sugar rush. Hallow's End 2011 begins on Tuesday, Oct. 18 and runs through Monday, Oct. 31 this year. For all those of you still working toward the yearlong meta What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been that grants the Violet Proto-Drake, Hallow's End is one of the required holidays. Completing the required Hallow's End achievements will also award the title the Hallowed. Over the past year, we've seen some new things pop up for the holiday's 2011 incarnation on both the patch 4.1 and 4.2 PTRs. While we're not 100% sure of how the former will show up within the game or what's going on with the possible new holiday currency, we've got a few guesses. I'll be around as the holiday goes live to clarify and update today's guide, but I expect the new stuff will be pretty straightforward. As with our guide to Brewfest, I've arranged the holiday's achievement in the rough order they should be completed, noting which achievements are required for the meta and which aren't. Update on Tuesday, Oct. 18: The holiday has gone live on all realms now, and I've started to update how the new changes affect achievements. Please bear with us!
The OverAchiever: Littlest Pet Shop
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, the bear wants her balloon. The Littlest Pet Shop option was the clear favorite among the choices given in a recent OverAchiever. While we've previously run a guide to Lil' Game Hunter (the 75-pet achievement), we haven't otherwise revisited the topic of noncombat pets in ... wow, more than two years. Suffice it to say that a lot's changed since then. For one, we get balloons now, which is Blizzard's most inspired addition to the stable of in-game pets and something that nearly caused me to wet myself when I first zoned into a heroic with an undead warrior tank running around with a balloon. The sheer incongruity of the game's skulls-a-plenty armor sets combined with a happy little balloon is still something that alternately horrifies and amuses me. When you stop to think about it, there's something a little twisted in going about the daily WoW routine of mass slaughter and mayhem with a balloon bobbing alongside you, but what the hell. Show me another MMORPG where you can have a balloon and annihilate existential threats to the universe. You can't accuse Blizzard of not covering the bases. If you're a hardcore pet collector, I could probably condense this entire guide down to "bookmark WarcraftPets.com and just keep consulting it," but I suspect we can make this column a wee bit more helpful than that. Even if you're not a pet collector, there's one quested pet in here that I highly advise you not to miss.
The OverAchiever: Examining patch 4.3's new achievements
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, all hell breaks loose. Hey folks. The Littlest Pet Shop option was the most popular choice in last week's The OverAchiever: Wrapping up Mountain O' Mounts, but that was before all manner of patch 4.3 goodness was datamined on Tuesday night. I spent the subsequent 24 hours in a caffeine-fueled haze running three characters around the PTR investigating the new achievements for you. I bring tidings of great, albeit currently bugged, joy to you all.
Patch 4.3 PTR: New achievements uncovered
Our friends over at Wowhead have uncovered the first batch of new patch 4.3 achievements, and there are some pretty awesome ones. Most of them refer to either new holiday content (primarily Winter Veil and Midsummer Fire Festival) or the new Darkmoon Faire, although there are a few achievements from the new dungeons. Be warned that the titles and descriptions of these achievements may contain spoilers. Here are a few of my favorites: That's Not Canon! comes from defeating a certain boss in the Caverns of Time in a certain manner. A bit of a thumbed nose at people who don't like all this time travel? Maybe, but the title's hilarious enough that I can't stop chuckling. A-Caroling We Will Go Now this is how you spread Winter Veil cheer. I don't know about you, but I can't wait to don my gaudiest sweater and break some Orcish eardrums. I Was Promised a Pony Looks like our good friend Ghostcrawler got some achievement naming duties this time around. You can't deny it forever, Greg. It's true, and you know it. We are still waiting. Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Look at what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!
The OverAchiever: Wrapping up Mountain O' Mounts
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we find ourselves gleefully counting the inhabitants of our private stables. Greetings, folks. After last week's tour through the 2011 Brewfest, we're going to wrap up our Mountain O' Mounts series today with a few ill-tempered complaints from WoW Insider's resident cheapskate, and then turn to ... well, that part's up to you. I have a lot of different OverAchievers I would like to do, but no particular preference as to which we'll do next. There are several popular series and guides from Wrath of the Lich King that I would like to update -- among others, I'm interested in revisiting evil achievements, entertaining achievements, tabards, and feats of strength -- but we still haven't done Molten Front achievements, and I've been getting a lot of requests to do a Littlest Pet Shop guide since that was added to the game. In the grand tradition of lazy writers everywhere, I'm going to let you pick! %Poll-69243%
Breakfast Topic: What are your plans for Brewfest?
Brewfest 2011 is finally here! It's a magical in-game holiday dedicated to the fine art of getting drunk. There are achievements to be had, special holiday mounts, and Coren Direbrew, a holiday boss with a new-for-2011 loot table filled with i365 trinkets. Better yet, it's an excuse to drink pint after pint after pint! So what if it's not noon yet? It's a holiday -- get off my back. Brewfest 2011 runs from today until Oct. 5, so you have a lot of time to enjoy all the holiday has to offer. (For more on Brewfest, check out Alison's Guide to Brewfest 2011.) What are you planning on getting done in the next two weeks? Are you heading in to Blackrock Depths to take on Direbrew? Or is this just another boring, skippable in-game holiday? Working on achievements? The Overachiever is here to help! Count on us for advice on Azeroth's holidays and special events, including new achievements, how to get 310% flight speed with achievement mounts, and Cataclysm reputation factions and achievements.
Breakfast Topic: Do you participate in Pirates' Day?
Today marks the start (and end!) of one of World of Warcraft's most fleeting in-game holidays, Pirates' Day. It's Blizzard's way of honoring International Talk Like a Pirate Day, a "holiday" celebrated almost exclusively by people who like pictures of cats with misspelled words on them. Are you going to Booty Bay today, even though participating in the holiday isn't required for the What A Long Strange Trip It's Been meta-achievement? (Achievement point junkies can still score 10 points by traveling to Booty Bay and talking to Dread Captain DeMeza.) And do you actually like the holiday, or do you wish it would make like a tree and get outta here? Working on achievements? The Overachiever is here to help! Count on us for advice on Azeroth's holidays and special events, including new achievements, how to get 310% flight speed with achievement mounts, and Cataclysm reputation factions and achievements.
The OverAchiever: Guide to Brewfest 2011 achievements
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we get a little drunk, or maybe a lot. It's that time of year again, folks: time to get smashed with no lasting social repercussions! This year, Brewfest runs from Tuesday, Sept. 20 to Wednesday, Oct. 5 (check your in-game calendar for your server's exact start and end times), and drunken frivolity is the name of the game. The Brewfest meta Brewmaster is required for the year-long What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been, so you'll want to get this done if you're working toward a Violet Proto-Drake (and thus free 310% flight). As with the 2010 version of this guide, I've organized the holiday's achievements in the rough order I feel they should be completed, as one is dependent on having some help from other folks around your server. As with most holidays, there's high participation at the start, which dwindles as folks get their drops and complete achievements, so I prioritize getting Down With The Dark Iron done as quickly as possible. Once that's out of the way, Brewfest achievements aren't generally difficult, though they'll require a little elbow grease if you're starting from scratch. I've included all of the achievements attached to the holiday, but you'll only need six for the meta, and they've been marked as such. As always, I'll be around when the holiday goes live to see if there are any unannounced changes. We don't anticipate any major differences to Brewfest this year, but the holiday boss, Coren Direbrew, does have an updated loot table with ilevel 365 drops.
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.
The Overachiever: You can't get there from here
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we write a somewhat pointless column. I went back and forth over the idea of running an Overachiever on vanished mounts. Really, what's the point? You can't get them anymore, so what's the purpose of running a column on stuff you can't get? But then I thought, it's not like these mounts don't count toward Mountain O' Mounts, and odds are pretty good that a sizable percentage of the reading audience will have at least one. Some of the "disappearing mounts" in WoW disappeared for good reasons. Others were cut for kind of strange reasons.
The OverAchiever: Pet shop and Trading Card Game mounts
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we rediscover the joy of dailies. This week we'll continue our Mountain O' Mounts guide examining rides from the WoW Trading Card Game and pet shop. For all those of you who let your snark flag fly over the sparkle pony ... here's your chance again! Here's the full series if you're just catching up with us: Combining The Ambassador and Mountain O' Mounts Mountain O' Mounts in Outland Mountain O' Mounts in Northrend Mountain O' Mounts in 5-man dungeons Mountain O' Mounts in raids Mountain O' Mounts from achievements Mountain O' Mounts from PVP Mountain O' Mounts from professions Mountain O' Mounts from holidays Mountain O' Mounts in Cataclysm Mountain O' Mounts and the Argent Tournament
The OverAchiever: Mountain O' Mounts and the Argent Tournament
Every Thursday, The OverAchiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we either love jousting or we don't. Due to a slight family emergency I had on Tuesday night, this week we're going to make a quick detour back to our Mountain O' Mounts series in order to cover the Argent Tournament. For a serious achievement hunter, this small, frozen corner of hell is a veritable mecca of pet- and mount-collecting goodness, but you're going to have to work for it. Here is the full series on Mountain O' Mounts if you're just catching up with us: Combining The Ambassador and Mountain O' Mounts Mountain O' Mounts in Outland Mountain O' Mounts in Northrend Mountain O' Mounts in 5-man dungeons Mountain O' Mounts in raids Mountain O' Mounts from achievements Mountain O' Mounts from PVP Mountain O' Mounts from professions Mountain O' Mounts from holidays Mountain O' Mounts in Cataclysm
The OverAchiever: The gold coins of the Dalaran fountain
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we finally get the last damn coin. In response to some questions from last week, yep -- we'll be heading for some Firelands achievements after this (and the conclusion of our Mountain O' Mounts guide), but I did want to finish our series on the Dalaran fountain first. The gold coins are arguably the most interesting of the bunch, or at least they concern most of the more significant lore figures in the World of Warcraft universe. As before, getting all of the coins will grant you A Penny For Your Thoughts, Silver in the City, and There's Gold in That There Fountain, with the completion of all three granting The Coin Master and one more notch toward Accomplished Angler. EDIT: This guide is now finished! You can find the full series here: The OverAchiever: Dalaran's magic fountain The OverAchiever: The silver coins of the Dalaran fountain The OverAchiever: The gold coins of the Dalaran fountain
The OverAchiever: The silver coins of the Dalaran fountain
Every Thursday, The OverAchiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we're still after that last coin from the Eventide fountain. Welcome back, folks. We return this week to the next installment of our miniseries on the Dalaran fountain's magic coins. Getting all of the coins will grant you A Penny For Your Thoughts, Silver in the City, and There's Gold in That There Fountain, with the completion of all three granting The Coin Master and one more notch toward Accomplished Angler. It's really in the set of silver coins that you get a sense for just how dangerous this fountain can actually be. Most of the people who tossed coins into it never saw their wishes come true. Of those who did, most probably wished they never had. Why is this fountain's existence even tolerated by Dalaran's municipal services? Is it considered an historical artifact or something? EDIT: This guide is now finished! You can find the full series here: The OverAchiever: Dalaran's magic fountain The OverAchiever: The silver coins of the Dalaran fountain The OverAchiever: The gold coins of the Dalaran fountain
The OverAchiever: Dalaran's magic fountain
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we detour back to Dalaran with a fishing pole in hand. I'm actually writing this on July 4, so I'm in the mood for a little fun while we're waiting for the dust from patch 4.2 to settle. If you've been around the site before, you've probably seen my worshipful odes to the Dalaran fountain, which I still think was one of the best and most brilliantly eccentric parts of Wrath of the Lich King. (I think archaeology's very similar overall, even if Blizzard's still working out the kinks.) While I took a look at some of the coins almost three years ago during the Wrath beta, it occurred to me recently that we never actually did a guide to them and their importance to WoW's mythology. So here's the deal: You're in a magic city. The city has a magic fountain. Lots of very important, somewhat important, and unimportant people in the world made wishes and tossed coins into the fountain, and the fountain (being magic) remembered them. Some of the wishes are funny, many of them are sad, many are quite thought-provoking, and a few are simply tongue-in-cheek references to the Warcraft universe (Archimonde's is probably the standout here). If you fish all of them up, you'll get A Penny For Your Thoughts, Silver in the City, and There's Gold in That There Fountain, with the completion of all three granting The Coin Master. So if you're going for the fishing meta Accomplished Angler (ha ha! sucker!), you'll need the coins even if you're not interested in the lore behind them. You monster. Warning: If you're still playing your way through The Burning Crusade and Wrath content, there are a lot of lore spoilers in here, so be careful. EDIT: This guide is now finished! You can find the full series here: The OverAchiever: Dalaran's magic fountain The OverAchiever: The silver coins of the Dalaran fountain The OverAchiever: The gold coins of the Dalaran fountain
The OverAchiever: Mountain O' Mounts in Cataclysm
Every Thursday (except this week, you know, Friday), The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, the content is outpacing us somewhat. The problem with doing extended series like our Mountain O' Mounts overview is that Blizzard's pretty good at rendering them obsolete before long. In that vein, there are a few mounts on today's list that weren't in the game back when we started. Unless I pick up the pace, there might wind up being another slew of them. With 200+ mounts already in the game, the possibility of that genuinely frightens me. Warning: There are spoilers past the cut concerning some mounts that will become available in patch 4.2 and how you get them. As always, this is the full series if you're just catching up with us: Combining The Ambassador and Mountain O' Mounts Mountain O' Mounts in Outland Mountain O' Mounts in Northrend Mountain O' Mounts in 5-man dungeons Mountain O' Mounts in raids Mountain O' Mounts from achievements Mountain O' Mounts from PVP Mountain O' Mounts from professions Mountain O' Mounts from holidays
The OverAchiever: Guide to Midsummer Festival 2011 achievements
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we may actually nab that damn pet off the Midsummer boss this year. The Midsummer Fire Festival will run from Tuesday, June 21 to Monday, July 4 this year. While there aren't actually a lot of achievements associated with the Festival -- the meta, which awards the Flame Warden title to Alliance players and Flame Keeper title to Horde players, consists of only six achievements -- three of them require you to put in some serious travel time, and one also requires a set of dangerous trips to enemy capitals. If you're starting from scratch, this is definitely one of the more work-intensive holidays you'll have to clear for What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been. The holiday's unlikely to have changed significantly from its 2009 and 2010 incarnations, but we do know that Lord Ahune (the holiday boss) has an updated loot table with ilevel 353 drops. As you might have guessed, coordinates for Cataclysm-era fires to honor/desecrate have almost certainly changed as well. Consequently, I've expanded our previous guides to reflect the changes we know about. I'll also be updating fire coordinates to reflect Cataclysm zone overhauls once the holiday goes live. EDIT: This article is undergoing revision to make updates to fire coordinates. Please bear with us as we make corrections, and remember: If in doubt, fires are nearly always within a very short walk from a local flight path! And thank you to all of our readers who've written in!
