Project Lore

Children's Week is only a few days old and I have already completed what I set out to do.  I have said in the past that I am not a big Achievement person, so what I wanted to accomplish is far less than many other people.  In fact, all I cared about was grabbing the pair of pets for escorting orphans all over Azeroth and Outlands.  After some creative travelling, tiring flights and a bit of hoofing it, I turned in my whistles and snapped up Sleeping Willy and that cute-as-hell Turtle.  I still think Egbert is the best pet ever though. I came across this little gem over on WoWInsider a scant few hours before I completed my mission.  I read the headline and knew that my fear of Achievements was coming true, if just a little.  One of them was ruining the gameplay experience for many players, while frustrating the others to no end.  My GM was actually on both sides of the issue, trying to score the achievement but becoming incredibly frustrated by everyone sitting in their base, hoping to return a flag with their brat out.  He was so irate that his wife had to leave the house to avoid the cursing, anger, frustration and likely the destruction of a perfectly good keyboard.  I can attest to extensive use of the Caps Lock key, and a nice selection of four letter words.  My poor virgin eyes. To elaborate, the way I view the Achievement system is to promote extended play, while enabling players to show off their feats.  In theory, its a very sound addition to any video game.  Instead, this "controversial achievement" has created a firestorm in the Battlegrounds, leading to selfish play and highly unusual experiences.  It wasn't since WSG was first released that I have been in a BG that was so long, unproductive and painful, and I wasn't even going for the achievement!  I queued up solely to experience some of the pain that my GM was lamenting about.  Sadly, all I ended up doing was helping the Horde players with their achievements.  The greenskins allowed me to walk to the flag, unstealthed mind you, and cap it.  At this point I was pummeled by ten angry players and their orphans as they spammed right click to pick-up the flag.  What violence the young minds have been tainted with. How have you found the Battlegrounds recently?  Are they as frustrating as my GM would leave the guild to believe or is he just having bad luck?  Has anyone become desperate enough to try to trade flag caps with the opposing faction?  This is the first time that I have been happy to not care about achievements.  What a terrible time to first experience a BG to boot.

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My second favorite holiday inside Azeroth is finally upon us. While I am not certain where the IRL version of Feast of Winter Veil ranks (“Awesome, more socks!” and the inevitable, “No Grandma, I'm still not married.”), I certainly love Blizzard's version of the holiday season. It's partially because of the fact that Winter Veil isn't tied to a religion, thus leaving no one out. In the end it comes down to presents and food.  I tend to appreciate both.

First and foremost, it seems that last year's gift, the Clockwork Rocket Bot, is just that, only for last year. This Achievement pretty much confirms that, and if that is not enough evidence for you, then how about this one? I hope you are prepared to deal with tons of cars under your feet because another new Achievement is based around Crashin' Thrasin' duels. That, is in turn part of the Winter Veil's arching Achievement for the the Violet Proto-Drake.

Ugg, my hands hurt from all that linking. Hit up MMO-Champion.com for an all-new mini-guide on Winter Veil's Achievements presented by Boubouille. If he doesn't dish the details himself, then rest assured that he links elsewhere.

I will attempt to snag the race car for sure, and continue on my trend of preparing scrumptious meals for my friends. Beyond that, I doubt I will purposely go after anything. That doesn't mean I won't participate though. Players on the Magtheridon server are sure to see insanely high-priced cooking reagents from my Auction House alt, as I attempt to abuse the supply and demand curve. I wouldn't mind unloading this Preserved Holly for a tidy sum either.

I do have a bone to pick with Blizzard though. I am no Achievement nut, but I do have a tendency to try and pick up as many vanity pets as possible. Yet you guys have designed numerous ways to make my collection efforts fruitless, such as forcing me to chose between Egbert and Sleepy Willy. While Egbert obviously won, I was upset that I lost the chance for a personal C'Thun-inspired Broggok mob. It is that reason that I wish for the Achievement nuts to have to make a hard decision as well. How about a Naughty & Nice achievement, 30 Points to those player who get less than 25 HKs over the course of Winter Veil, 25 Points for those with more than 200 HKs. Mmmm, moral choices.

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Vanity pets, non-combat pets, small pets, companions, mini-pets, waste of bag space, whatever you know them as, they are here to stay. I am by no means a collector of the pets, but I know plenty of people who are. Way back in vanilla World of Warcraft, I had a guildie whose goal was to fill up all his bag slots with the buggers and then pull them out one by one during a Molten Core run. But just because I don't collect them doesn't mean I don't enjoy them or strive to achieve a few. This year's Children's Week brought the cutest pet I have seen in the game. Getting a hold of the foul beast meant that I had to spend a few hours running all over Azeroth to get Egbert's Egg. Seeing that little Hawkstrider wig out when you stand idle was well worth the time. Then Blizzard Entertainment got into the Olympic mood and added a Gold Medallion that would summon a small dragon known as the Spirit of Competition. This pet also required a bit of a time commitment. For each PvP battleground a player won, they had a chance to be rewarded with the item. The chance was fairly high, making the non-combat pet a fairly common one on my server. Nevertheless, being a huge fan of the Olympics and dragons, I had to have one. The Worldwide Invitational also had an interesting pet that I was not able to get my hands on, Archangel Tyrael of Diablo II fame. Shortly after people began populating the world with Tyrael – not to mention trying to get him to duel with Diablo – I heard that he wasn't that cool of a pet. In fact, Tyrael has one animations to speak of, crossing his arms. He also responds to /dance, he just won't stop dancing until he is re-summoned. Seeing as my main is a rogue, I don't get to run around with my pets too much. It wasn't until I ran a string of heroics and some Karazhans that I realized the Spirit of Competition doesn't have any animations to speak of either. It just floats there, acting like a Wind Serpent. Lame. So what this means is that the last two semi- to near- exclusive pets have almost no animations, idle or emotes, to speak of. It appears that the newest pets have had far less time put into them than the easily accessible rewards from Children's Week or the dozens of other companions running around. I know vanity pets aren't that big of a deal but these are supposed to be the exclusive ones, they should be the coolest to own. What's up with that Blizzard? Did they finally revolt?

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