Results tagged “achievements”

With 9 men, and a big stick.

Last night the Ravens made their first foray back into Naxx in about a month (having held the raid IDs since we cleared the four wings) and promptly spanked Saphiron (for the loss of two characters, one of whom was me .. oops!).

 Kel Thuzand proved a bit tougher and we bounced a few times. We were getting closer though and despite one of our number having to drop out, we carried out trying, and on the fourth or fifth attempt (having finally sussed the spacing, target priority and add-pickups) we managed to down Kel and "complete" Naxx.

As it happens, I still have two bosses to do (in the Construct quarter) to be fully complete, but hopefully those'll be attained when we next come back to the floating citadel - I suspect the next few weeks will be The Eye, Onyxia and our first steps into Ulduar!

Brewfest is here again, and Ironforge (and Origimar) are full of drunk characters weaving their way around invading dark iron dwarves and scoffing pretzels and sausages while wearing leaderhosen or dirndals.

As ever there are a host of achievements and having reached a grand total of 190 Brewfest Tokens yesterday Andro logged on this morning to take her total to 200 so she could buy the last thing she needed - membership of Brew of the Year club - earning her the title of Brewmaster.

Gaining the Brewfest meta-achievement was the last thing she needed for the "What a Long, Strange Road it's been"... meta-achievemnt (i.e. completing all the achievements for all the major festivals). The reward for this is much sought after: a Violet Proto-drake (a 310%-speed mount) which means Andro can join that club who "accidentally" go AFK on the landing platform in Dalaran to desmonstrate the size of their 'mounts.'

Despite the bugs I mentioned the other day, Children's week went pretty smoothly - the reviled "School of Hard KNocks" achievements went fairlty well for me on Thursday Night/Friday evening though one of my associates had to do dozens of WSG to get the achievements, and another found themselves in a 90-minute marathon match.

By the middle of Friday evening I'd done the BGs, scoffed sweets in the child's presence and done various daily chores. I'd also managed the non-meta "Veteran Nanny" achievement by aquiring the third of the Shattrath orphan pets (my sixth overall!)

All that remained was a visit to King Ymiron in Utgarde Pinnacle. Some of my guildies joined pugs for this bit (and in some cases  wiped a lot!) but I waited until sunday evening where we did a 40-minute speed run (well, it was normal mode) that saw only one person die (a rogue to Skadi's whirlwind). Cue much celebrating by the newly-dubbed "Matron Andromache" than generally involved hopping over Ymiron's body (as I'd been turned into a rabbit by Probenae, our rogue, hence the rather bunny-like version of me on the left.

No, this isn't a QQ about "School of Hard Knocks" (I managed to do 3 of the four PVP tasks before bed last night, including the EotS one that had me worried; just WSG to go. In fact, some of the horde helped me do the AB achievement by waiting patiently for me to assault the mine flag as they saw I had an orphan with me) but rather "Daily Chores" and "Home Alone".

"Daily Chores" isn't recognising daily tasks (or wasn't last night at least) and "Home Alone" isn't sticking - I've had the achievement twice, but it then seems to forget it. Given there's only a week in which to do the achievements there's not a lot of wiggle room and  I'm hoping Blizzard fix this ASAP - it's been suggested that it may work correctly after the 2am quest reset, but if that's the case then its sloppy programming to allow the achievement to be attempted several hours before it will actually work (and Home Alone doesn't have that excuse). If my "Hard Knocks" completes haven't stuck I'll be seriously pissed ...

On the plus side, I got Storm Capper and Storm Glory while in EotS and Veteran Nanny (not part of the Children's Week meta)

The delayed noblegarden is uppon us. Eggs and bunnies. Collect eggs and eat their contents or trade them in for goodies. Sounds simple doesn't it. So why was it one of the most painful events to do?

Most of the items needed for achievements can be bought for chocolates or via drops (the latter being somewhat erratic - I got 3-4 of some items and none of a couple of others ... until just after I'd bought them), so that's not the difficulty. My problem as a mage lies in getting upwards of 250 chocolates (100 for one of the achievements, 100 for the polymorph tome and another 50 for the one item I was missing) when half the server is after the same thing and either camping the spawns or running round like bunnies on speed (using the Egg Rush power). During the day the villages were mobbed, so I'd suggest hunting early in the morning or late at night, or leaving it until later in the week when things are quieter (check the calendar for the end date which overlaps with the start of Children's Week).

Most of the achievements were fairly easy to do. The only ones that proved troublesome were Shake Your Bunny Maker  (as some mods interfere with the targetting, there's a 5-minute cooldown on use, and finding females of some races is challenging), Hard Boiled (which is easy enough to do with a friend if you have a blossoming branch but a bit more challenging if you're solo - after being turned into a rabbit I hearthed to Cenarion Hold in silithus and hopped from there). Not that Getting Dressed for the occasion and Sunday's Finest are nice to get, but they're not part of the Noblegarden meta-achievement.

Now next weekend sees the arrival of Childrens week, most of whose achievements are straightforward though some of the BG-related ones are likely to be a major (if not impossible) challenge ...

Last night the Ravens finally downed Maexxna, clearing the Arachnid Quarter of Naxx. Huzzah!

At 10:50 last night, almost exactly 2 months (to the minute) after entering Northrend, Andro completed her Loremaster of Northrend achievement and with it the Loremaster meta-achievement. It's been a fun journey and is a natural corollary to my tendency to explore and try to follow the story - but good to see some recognition for those of us not raiding or taking part in battlegrounds.

For the most part its been an adjunct to Andro's wandering through the world - only at a couple of points have I gone out of my way to do things for the achievement (and that principally for the Loremaster of Kalimdor, which took several weeks of faffing to complete, done partially before Wrath but finished over the Christmas holidays).

The main bugbear of Kalimdor (and to a lesser extent Eastern Kingdoms) was the fact that the "quests completed" list was on a continent basis (as opposed to Outland and Northrend where its by zone) so working out what you've missed is a swine (and there's not much overage in Kalimdor, hence them changing the number of quests needed in 3.0.8). Finding them all was a 3-stage process: Hit all the main quest hubs (with "low level quest" flagging on), which got me to about 670/730, a general wander round of areas I'd largely missed when I did the zones (mainly the lowe level ones) which got me to about 700/730, and then a trawl of wowhead for the remainder (many of which are drop-started). In stark contrast I completed Eastern Kingdoms pretty much just going from quest to quest and was a grand total of 1 quest short of completing Outland when the achievement system activated.

In Northrend, most of the zones are straightforward with sufficient quests to do the achievements without too much hassle (and for the most part soloable). Zul Drak was the main exception, with if memory servers, only 101 quests in total (of 100 needed) several of which are quite tough and/or involve groups. Icecrown was the other annoyance, needing a rather substantial 140 quests to complete and with a rather large number of group only quests. While Andro was able to solo some of the 3-mans (or to 2-3 man some of the 5-man quests) completing this bit of the achievement requires grouping - she got to about 125 completes before needing to group up, and even after hitting 140 has a decent stack of group quests (with their often very nice rewards) to complete.

I have to give Kudos to blizz for a very engaging storyline that draws you in and pulls you along. It was a rollercoaster (and one that isn't yet done) with some high drama, low humor and outright scary moments.

So what's next? Two things reallty: advancing professions (which means gathering mats) and getting kitted up for doing higher level instances. That'll involve a number of rep grinds (and boy, are there a shed load of dailies in Northrend, particularly in Sholazar, Storm Peaks and Icecrown), some of which are already underway (Andro's Exalted with 2 factions already and honored/revered with the rest). Annoyingly, the faction she really, really wants to grind is the only one that can really only be done via wearing the tabard in level 80 instances - the Kirin Tor (I don't count the 150 rep points from the cooking daily). Given many of the other factions have half a dozen or more dailies each, this strikes me as rather odd (or I'm missing something ...)

Having a two weeks off work for the Christmas holidays has been an interesting experience. The first week was a lot of traditional family stuff, but the second has seen a lot of WoW play and some noteable milestones for Andro.

She began the holiday season having just hit 80 and achieved her Seeker (3000 quest) achievement and pottered about for several days getting the various Winter Veil quests sorted - they were amazingly mobbed in the first few days but very quiet when my associates Buliwyf and Vhail ran through them. Andro completed (I think) her Winter Veil pet collection (thanks to the fact they're BoE and could be traded between alts) and also picked up the tailoring pattern she was missing (the hordeside green one) in a late night run into Ogrimmar. The BG quest was problematic as there weren't many horde going into the BGs (AV kept shutting due to lack of opposition as they were 35 v 5; I did get the Blitz achievement out of it though).

Andro finished off several zones too, notably Storm Peaks, Zul Drak and Sholazar Basin (as well as a last few in Borean Tundra) leavign her just Icecrown in Northrend. More significantly she spent several days combing every last inch of Kalimdor for quests she'd missed as well as researching Wowhead for drop-started quests. She finally got it done after what seemed like an age, meaning that when Icecrown is completed (probably in the next week, group quests permitting) she'll have her Loremaster achievement. Yay!

Several faction grinds progressed nicely too. Having become something of a fishing addict since the launch of Wrath, she wanted the Tuskarr fishing rod and made it to Exalted with them. She also got to Revered with the Sons of Hodir and made good progress with Knights of the Ebon Blade and Argent Crusade.

The Sons advancement allowed Andro to purchase an Ice mammoth for her mount collection, and the quest rewards funded the puchase of several more outland flying mounts. Finally, yesterday, her tailoring reached 425 and she spent a small fortune on materials (okay, only about half what the mammoth cost) and bought a Magnificent Flying Carpet. This was Andro's 50th mount and so she gained the Leading the Cavalry achievement and received an Albino Drake.

Her other collection (pets) also got some loving over the festive season - she hooked Giant Rat in the  Dalaran Sewers and also aquired a Mr Pinchy in Terrokar (though sadly he didn't furnish a pet so that quest continues). Good Progress was also made on Higher Learning, with just one book to get for the set (and the associated pet!).

Some general thoughts:

1) When doing Loremaster, the "low level quests" map option is your friend, but it can still be tricky to find them all. Also, some Kalimdor instance quests count, but others don't. Hard to judge really. Wowhead is your friend in all of this, but having quests completed number for the continent is quite unhelpfil (compared to the Outland/Northrend regionalised ones)

2) When grinding Sons rep, the daily quests are fine and generally straightforward (excluding the damned spear which I've only managed once). It's also worth keeping an eye out for Everfrost Chips which are the Sons' equivalent of Netherweb eggs. They spawn at various points in the valley (and even within the Sons' base) and seem to share nodes with various herbs.

3) Wintergrasp can be fun, and gathering crystalized earth, water, fire and shadow can be profitable (Life is a pain though). Watch out for the horde (usually troll rogue in my experience) ganksters though ...

4) Why oh why is there such an imbalance on specialist cloth crafting. For Spellweave, you go to the Nexus (and point will do) and bob's your uncle. Moonshroud you have to go to the Emerald Dragonshrine, but again pretty safe. For Ebencloth (which Andro wants for the hit gear) you have to go to a cave deep underneath Icecrown citadel (which can be a pain to find the first time) and have to fight a number of mobs (okay, not a challenge at 80, but more of an issue for low levels and pretty much impossible without a flying mount).

UPDATE: From the notes posted yesterday, it looks like this is changing in 3.0.8, with all the Northrend specialist cloths being created at locales in Dragonblight

5) There's enough dailies to drown a battleship; a guildee was asking about a Northrend equivalent of the Shattered Sun for grinding cash, but across the Sons of Hodir, Eben Blade, Kalu'ak, Frostborne, Argent Crusade, Wyrmcrest and Sholazar factions (Frenzyheart in my case) there's an abundance to choose from. The Daily-within-a-daily (and the timed bonus element) of the Argent Crusade dailies in Zul Drak were notable.

6) The sense of narrative in Wrath is stunning. Every zone has its storylines that build to a conclusion, and many threads cross zones. I really liked the way phasing gives you a sense of influencing the world, whether its the Wrathgate, opening up Dun Niffelheim or building/capturing bases for the Alliance in Icecrown. There's an epic feel to the whole thing (even if Blizzard do seem fond of repeating some of the ideas). For the most part is solo-friendlly too. There are a fair number of group quests, but only occasionally does that gate your progress.

7) Blizzard still retain their sense of humour and love of pop culture in-jokes:

Having hovered at 78 for a few days, the combination of Violet  Hold runs and completing group quests in Dragonblight propelled Andro towards the level cap and a few hours of wandering round the Storm Peaks on Friday morning (I had a few hours to kill before heading off to a wedding) saw her ding 80 almost exactly a month after entering Northrend (12 November-12 December).

Having bought around 9 new spells/levels of spells upon hitting 80, she was effectively bankrupted by the dozen she had to buy at 80 too ... though at least now she makes bucketloads of money from quests (due to the XP>Money conversion). In fact, it wasn't far before she hit the next milestone - the 3000 quest achievement (though her "completed quests" figure was 3100+ ... go figure). Cue lots of fun exploring and working though the fun (and narativey strong) Storm Peaks!