Achievements and You

Or maybe Achievements and Me would be better title.

Oft discussed on this blog, primarily regarding an anxiety of what achievements would mean to me prior to the actual delivery of the patch.

And so far, I gotta say...pure win.

Watching 5 Jenkins ding at the same time, w00t

Following a pair of explorers as they move down the east coast of Kalimdor dinging exploration along the way, w00t

Seeing players get a hair cut or loot some gold off a dead boss and reach the 100g mark, w00t

So far, its just been fun. I've felt no "unreasonable" stress to complete achievements, I havent seen any guildies or friends comparing their achievement scores and thusly turning it into yet another unproductive-yet-time-consuming competition.

When passing through a zone, I take a quick look to see how close I am to exploring the area. If there's one or two left, why not go ding them? Takes 2 extra minutes while traveling, but its fun to get it done.

I was running a baby alt through some low level Warrior quest in a bar in Stormwind City. Why not talk to the beer wench and drink a couple of her beverages for the happy hour quest?

/love'in critters as you run around? What's not to like about that?

Two of my favorite daily quests are the Skettis Egg bombing one and the BEM Cannon Ball bombing one. Since I'm doing them regularly anyway, why not try to get them done faster? 2:15 is not a whole hell of a lot of time for those.

I dinged the skettis one yesterday, while riding a broomstick and wearing a pumpkin head dressed as a ghost, no less :-)

The BEM one seems just a drop harder, so I'll have to keep crackin at that one.

Being a person who likes to agonize about things to come, I'm still a little apprehensive of something like the Halloween one.

There's clearly no way I'll accomplish the whole kit and kaboodle in the next week.

I killed the horseman, put out the fires, ate some candy, barfed all over the place. I wore a few of the costumes, visited a handful of inns to trick or treat at. That's more or less where it'll stay, unless I happen to stumble upon another costume or a new inn.

And when the event closes, there will be this little pile of uncompleted tasks.

Just sitting there. For a year. With nothing you can do about it at all. Until next year. Assuming they don't change things up next year, like they did with the changes from 2007 to 2008 in the Brewfest.

That part, the totally unachievable achievements, those still have potential to piss me off.

But for now, I'll cool the aggro off and keep on enjoying them!