Lo-Quality WoW

Ever since the inclusion of Achievements in WoW, there has been mixed feelings about them. Some people love them, going out of their way to kill turkeys or love a squirrel. Others loathe them, shunning the former group. And if you’ve been reading this blog, you know I’m deep into the former. Soon after their appearance, I was there, jumping from high places and eating all sorts of odd foods, trying to get achievements. Watching this, one of my guildmates immediately referred to me as an “Achievement Whore”, and yes sir, that’s what I am.
Now, there are many reasons why some people go out of their way for achievements. Some need the ego boost of knowing you’ve done all these things that other’s haven’t. Some do it for the new titles or mount or other item that comes with the achievement. Some do it because they feel they “need” to do them in order to show either their devotion or skill of the game. I do them, because for the most part, they’re a formal way of challenging me to do things.

Long before achievements came, I was always doing little things that would give me a slight challenge. Maxing out my professions was one obvious thing. Another, less obvious one, was getting all my weapon skills maximized. I partially did it because I never wanted to be in a situation where I see a great weapon drop but I’m limited because my staff skill was only 3. But I also did it for the challenge. Being a hunter is all about range attacks, you’re built specifically for that. So getting a half dozen different melee weapons skills was a challenge. Toss in thrown weapons, which didn’t work the same as your crossbow or gun, and things got really interesting.

I also decided to challenge myself at level 70 to taming a lvl 2 dragonhawk all the way to 70, which I barely managed to do just before the auto-leveling of pets went into effect. Why? Mainly to see if I could do it. Wasn’t it a pain? At times it was, since pets only got xp when you fought stuff that would usually give you xp, meaning I was essentially without a pet while taking on Clefthoof or other Nagrand denizens.

Why do such things? To see if I could. Just like when you would see if you could hold your breath all the way while traveling through a tunnel or seeing if you could make it to the next block without stepping on any cracks. It was fun, little things you did to make things just a little more interesting. And that’s the way I see achievements. For the most part, they are minor little things that make the game a little more interesting or adding a little more challenge to an encounter. Maybe making you going back and doing all those quests you skipped because they were all low level ones by the time you got them.

Does having a high achievement score mean you’re a better player? Nope. Yes, you have proof that you did the Arachnid Quarter of Naxxramas, but that doesn’t tell me how well you did in there. After all, you could died within the first minute or two of fighting the bosses in there. You could have been in there as a dps while doing less damage than the healers. The achievement is like many other tools and isn’t a definitive answer. It mainly tells me that there’s a chance that I won’t have to explain the fight to you.

So my advice? Have fun doing achievements, but don’t let them stop you from getting things done. While it would be nice to defeat Anomalus without destroying any chaotic rifts, if the rifts are causing you to wipe repeatedly, do it the normal way and try again some other day. Good luck!