Achievements are(n’t) a waste of time

There are a lot of varying opinions on this new Achievement system in Warcraft. Personally, I think it’s great.

It gives me something to do other than stand in a major city while I hope to find people to help finish my epic flight quest. I do have two alts I’m paying attention to (a 24 shaman and a 31 hunter) but quest grinding gets boring fast (also, I haven’t logged into them since last Tuesday…) and I’m having fun.

I’m borderline OCD. Back when I was a Guild Officer earlier this year, a system had been created to organize guild member notes. Well, as soon as I caught wind of that everyone was set up. Any variation? Corrected. One of my friends changed a few every so often on purpose, just to piss me off (the bastard) but I’d change it back anyway. That’s how crazy I was. It shouldn’t be too hard to understand, then, that I’m taking time to complete as many achievements as I’m capable of.

Right now I’m working on the world explorer. I finished the “Tricks and Treats of Kalimdor” at the same time as “Explore Kalimdor” last night. I was actually embarrassed when I had to explore Teldrassil… I’m a bad night elf. I’d love to be the first World Explorer, but I won’t be getting the expansion early enough I’m sure.

Speaking of Explorer, that’s another reason why I love this new system. You get rewards for doing silly things. Sure, they’re generally mundane but this is a video game! It’s mundane in and of itself. Titles, tabards, pets, mounts. It’s fantastic.

My guild is also enjoying the guild announce feature. I’m reading how some people are annoyed by it (just turn it off…), but I think it’s great! There’s nothing wrong with letting everyone you’ve done something memorable. It also gets people talking or cheering you on as you complete one part of a larger achievement.

It’s also incredibly overwhelming. I need to redo a ton of old world instances, increase my rep with every faction (a personal goal now with reward), obtain 69 more mounts and 38 more vanity pets, kill all horde major faction leaders (like that’s gonna happen) and a ton more. I may or may not go for the number of quests completed. That’s specific effort, at least exploration or killing lowbie bosses takes minimal brain functions. Who knows, maybe I’ll do it for the gold because those mounts are going to cost me.

I’m a fan of the solo content this provides. I don’t see as much group action as I’d like, so to have stuff to do while I’m on my own is well appreciated.

It’s also really great seeing dead Horde in Stormwind and Darkshore trying to get their achievements taken care of. I think Alliance has it easy when it comes to exploration.

It’s exciting to see people doing the achievements. It’s like giving us losers who aren’t crazy enough, or able, to raid full time something to do to pass the time and enjoy ourselves.

In other news, I do have an epic quality Druid Bear post in the works. It’s been building up since last Wednesday or Thursday. But it’s more work than I expected and taking longer. Maybe I should do installments? Who knows, we’ll see.