Posted by iTZKooPA on Monday, May 4th, 2009 - 47 Comments
Tags: children's week, children's week achievements, egbert, fear of achievements, non-combat pets, ruining battlegrounds, school of hard knocks, sleeping willy, Vanity pets
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.
Related Posts: The High Inquisitor: Where Are All the Kids?, This Week on Project Lore: Taking a Break in Orgrimmar, This Week: Days of Knight and Karazhan, Poll: How Should We Show Trash?, Project Lore Karazhan Week 2 Wrap Up,
By riff on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 10:33 am
took me over 6 alterac valley games just to complete 1/4 of the hard knocks achievement.
/pistol to head
By Tinkee on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 10:33 am
Your very right. I completed all the achievements and got the title within the first day. But never have I seen such bad language in a BG. Especially AV. I mean a whole raid going for the exact same thing.
If you still haven’t got the BG’s achievement with your children out. Tip: Do it late at night or early in the morning when less players are online fighting for the same thing.
By Salima on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 10:35 am
first!!!
i hate that bg achievement
it will be the death of me
By Kagitaar on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 10:43 am
@ Tinkee
While waiting until late helps with most selfish-type achievements, in this case it would probably make it harder due to having fewer BGs up. AV will still likely be full of people who just want the achievement, it will just take an hour for the queue to fill to the point when the battle can actually start.
The only one that I had any real trouble with was that AV one, just due to so few targets.
By Joenips on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 10:45 am
I hated this achievement for a long time…being a rogue it was hard because when you went into stealth your orphan was just chilling there basically tell the other faction you were close by. I attempted all bg for awhile before completing this. But once I got one done it was a short time before i finished them all.
AB- I was running by the blacksmiths when i noticed the horde had captured it and once they did they ran away. So i snuck up call out my orphan and captured it.
AV- First one off the break and was leading the enitre alliance on the run off the horde towers. I completely over ran the first tower to easily capture the 2nd tower with no one else trying to fight me for the achievement.
EoS- This one bugged me for a while. Yes I was one of those campers in the middle. The first time i got the flag we had no towers so I was quickly finished off by the horde. Luckly one game a horde druid grab the flag and ran over by one of our towers where I then killed him and grabbed the flag for an easy caputre. Also i got Storm Glory and Storm Capper in the process :).
WSG- Was my last one to go into. Many of times we got the flag to drop and I was never able to click it. And once again I got lucky. The horde grabbed it and ran down the tunnel while all his friends stayed in the flag room as me and a lock i think chased him down killed him and i grabbed the return quickly /afk to get out of the bg.
By Sylvester on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 10:49 am
Man was i annoyed when i forgot to have my orphan out in Eots and Wsg when i capped/returned the flags..
By Cozmus on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 10:54 am
Two terrible world events in a row that have been exploited by the dull at heart to make gameplay miserable for most.
First egg camping, now this. I am almost completely turned off by the holiday events now.
By Alayea on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 10:58 am
I managed to get all of the achievements for Children’s Week on the day it started. But do I ever have hatred for the achievement “School of Hard Knocks”. It took me about 5 to 6-ish WSG bgs alone to return to the flag with my orphan. Don’t even get me started on the other battlegrounds…
Blizzard, I have just one thing to say: Remove the stupid, pvp-ruining achievement from the requirements!
By Wonocva on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 11:09 am
PvP achievements for holidays are probably the worst thing that I’ve seen, even moreso than some of the difficult PvP achievements that you can get whenever you want.
In Warsong, I somehow got lucky and found a group of people willing to share the flag returns so we could get the achievement. But I did notice that the game, for Horde anyways, had turned into basically 9 out of 10 players on defense and one player on offense. Sure, we never really lost our flag that much, until the Alliance ganged up on us, but we weren’t DOING anything.
In Arathi Basin, I got lucky because I popped in and ran to an alliance-controlled Mine. Luckily their were a few left so everyone was fighting. I helped out of course, I’m not a complete jerk, but once it was over, I made a bull rush for the flag and managed to assault it before the other two.
In Alterac Valley, I got lucky enough to run towards one of the Alliance bunkers right off the bat and capture it, as a Warlock passed over it and went to attack a NPC, but then backtracked in the middle of my assault.
And finally, in EotS, a friend helped me out and we both managed to capture the flag and get it to a base. Mine was nerve-racking, however, as once I captured it, a handful of mages, warriors, and rogues were on my ass slowing me down anyway they could. Thank god for healers who are not selfish, I’ll tell you that much.
So while I did manage to get all the achievements by concentrating on them, I didn’t get sucked into the idioticness of the whole situation in the BG. Not only did I contribute to helping others get their own achievements, but I also stayed after completing each and finished the BG until the end. Yes, I even HELPED try to win the BG. Shocking, I know.
There’s a fine line between wanting the achievement and JUST wanting the achievement. Luckily, although I’m an achievement whore myself, I don’t lose sight of whatever else is going on while I go for the achievement.
By Josh on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 11:15 am
Ive been on a bit of a pvp kick lately and this ended it. I too was going for the achievement and once i got it, i haven’t been in a BG since. I will not even think of doing a BG again until this is over. Everyone in my battlegroup was either trying to prevent people from getting the achievements or helping the other faction get theirs. Good thing there’s still wintergrasp.
By Laeltis on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 11:17 am
It was the only achievement that took me freaking 5 hours to do. My dad had come up after trying to hide from my rage and use of four letter words, asking if I got it so that he could give me a “grats, son”. AV was the WORST EVER. With only two towers that count, you had only two chances unless you let them recap, which rarely happened with the people who were actually doing AV for honor. WSG, AB, and EoTS was simple… ish. I agree with everyone else that this one was a bit rediculous.
As I said on the post for Noblegarden World Event, did anyone catch the bug for the *Daily Chores* Achievement for this holiday? It said “five consecutive days” but all you had to do was 5 dailies with your orphan out.
Anyway… great post. Thanks for the work you put into all this. It’s great.
____________________________________________
Ambassador Laeltis
Illidan (US)
Relentless
By DrPruz on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 11:40 am
Did anyone else come across these die-hard PvPers running the the EotS flag then taking off with it demanding that those center campers go get towers. Had to be the most irritatign part about it. In all reality, it would have been easier for them to just let the Achievement junkies get it and get out.
By Kagitaar on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 11:55 am
@ Laeltis
The Daily Chores one isn’t bugged, they changed the mechanics to make it non-ridiculous and forgot to change the text.
By Kalgorn on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Here’s my short and overall all opinion of PvP. Dunno how to make it any more clear and shorter than this.
It Sucks
Stay away from it
By Ombrenoire on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
I hate PvP. Hate it with a passion. It’s not that I’m not any good at it, it’s that I don’t understand the point of it in a server that is RP or normal. If you want to bash the brains out of other players, go to a PvP or PvE server.
That being said, PvP achievements for holidays should be removed. Those of us who don’t PvP miss out on the meta because of it.
By Littleraven on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
the 2 hardest for me were AV and EotS…..
AV i got on i wanna say my 4th try? maybe 6th idk lol
EotS took me almost a full day due to people not realizing that to get the achievement we kinda need to have at least 1 of the towers lol….there were many a game where alliance owned the middle but that meant nothing because horde had all 4 towers lol
i didnt see a problem with the achievement at all because its not like you are forced to do it….a guy in my guild was pissed and his logic was clouded because of that and he was talking about how “this is BS, they shouldnt make you PvP because its unnessesary, and everyone actually HAS to do dungeons”
i wanted to argue with him on that because some people dont do dungeons at ALL and only PvP…but whatever =P
By Dyra on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
I wanna be a Matron…… :’(. I have tried and tried and tried, but cycling through the battlegrounds one after another and not getting any of the 4 achievements has grated on my nerves so much, I can’t go into then anymore without thumping my desk in utter frustration as my ’sure-fire’ cap is destroyed by the alliance or shamelessly stolen by a fellow hordie. Please Blizz leave the PvP to the PvPers. Besides how does taking an orphaned child into a war-zone help celebrate their holiday?
Answers on the back of a stamp please.
By bahldoan on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
the achievement imo is really stupid. all it has done is make the pvp players pissed at the non-pvp players and it has made the non-pvper’s lives hell trying to get a dang flag in a bg. If i was blizz i would have made a different achievement to get the title with.
By Snaggly on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
@Ombrenoire - A normal server is a PVE one.
By batmunkh on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
This sort of thing happens a lot in BG’s when various Achievements are at stake. It seems to be a pattern that happens. Is it frustrating? oh hell yes. Is there a solution?
When holiday achievements take to the BG’s I schedule Guild premade runs to take care of it, rather than trusting a pug to complete the BG and help you get you’re achievement.
As a premade we never lose against pug BG’s and we generally get the achievements we need. So if you’re guild is having problems with the holiday achievements schedule a day to run a guild premade through some BG’s should solve the problem.
Note: this will not solve the problem if- everyone in your guild never ever steps foot in a BG hardly ever. While working as a team helps a lot being a little experienced in BG’s and pvp is ideal. If you know the Achievement is going to be in a BG then preparing might help. If your guild is full of pvp haters then maybe look into asking another pvp oriented guild to help. Hope that helps others in the future avoid the frustration.
By Kalcifer on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
as a person who has the wrong gear and experience and has a habit of getting excited too much and running straight at the nearest paladin (i’m a lock so any running at stuff is bad. i blame being being Scottish and having seen Braveheart.) i know that i am never going to do this one. it’s impossible to do those things anyway while in a normal BG let alone with a child and with a hundred people trying to do it. I am just not going to try and see if it gets changed or nerfed in the future. There’s always next year anyway.
By Raknor on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
Did the all my first try, thought it would be more difficult, but it was fairly easy.
By CappyG on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
The problem I see with the Battlegrounds based achievements is that PVEers and PVPers are elitist in their own ways. If both sides could come down off of their high horses for a little while, both would get some benefit out of these events. PVEers would get some BG experiences that would help them be better players, and get the achievements they want. PVPers would get some fresh blood into BG games, get through the events with a lot less grief, and get some nice easy honor accumulation.
By Laeltis on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
@Kagitaar
Interesting point. Blizz has been known to do things in the past like this; they’re human. Did you find this out on a forum post or in a Patch Note that I overlooked? hmm..
@CappyG
Interesting also… Never thought about it that way.
By Zerth on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
I got AV achievment my 2nd try, but AB killed me… remember to check if your orphan is out and you may keep whatever hair you have on your head.
I pray for anyone without crusader aura or some other speed boost on their mount.
By Tinkee on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Back @ Kagitaar
Depends what battlegroup your in though.
Was just trying to help though!
Best Regards
By churchill on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
“school of hard knocks” is the worst holiday achievement since a mask for all occasions
By Slyfanitor on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
Less than 2 hours and I did and I dont even like PvP that much
By Alayea on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
@churchill
*shudders at the memory*
By Dieoxide on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Hmm, Fizzcrank didn’t really have that problem, they just continued sucking. That achievement was so simple and I would of had Patron in the first day if I didn’t realize you could do “Daily Chores” in one day … which Blizz will prolly fix, but I will yell at them if they take my title away.
By pixiestixy on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
I haven’t been able to even start on this world event, and pretty much have decided against it for now, at least until I’m level 80. We’ll see if it’s tweaked at all for next year, I guess.
But I have heard some neat stories from RL friends about cross-faction cooperation in the BG from both sides hoping to get the achievement. I don’t know if that’s necessarily Blizzard’s intentions since you should have to actually DO something to get an achievement. But it still makes for interesting stories.
By Valentinex on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Aww. I can see why people are getting so frustrated over it, but when you’re playing with 5 other guildies all on vent it becomes a whole different story. The BG “grinds”, so to speak, was actually quite fun, wracking up all the kills, capping flags/returning them, and just hearing over vent how my GM Metamorphed and slammed Immo Aura up to see people barbecue around him (aaaand the girly laugh that comes with it).
Personally, had I tried to do that on my own I would’ve been bald by now, what with the hair-tearingly frustrated anger you build up. However, making a premade with your guildies can get the job done somewhat faster and you can have a bit more fun (as well as the extra honor you get with it ;))
Remember: It’s always more fun when your friends are coming along as well.
By Sean on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
Put it like this; I’ve given up on “What a Long Strange Trip It’s Been”.
By Cotytto on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
Didn’t bother and I’m not going to.Got the pets and left it at that.
Enough people have complained they will likely remove it from the meta.And if they don’t it’s just one more achievement I’ll never complete.
I haven’t managed one single holiday title yet and I’m not going to intentionally bust my balls getting this one.
I gave up on What a Long Strange Trip It’s Been during the Brewfest debacle.
Screw them and the horse they rode in on.
By mrbbobg on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
i got most of the hard knocks done except two wsg and AV. i’m not a pvp person at all, and i was not looking forward to this at all. there was one nice person who asked if anyone needed to cap a flag in Eots so that one was easy and thanx to him i forgot his name any ways after 7 AV’s later screw it i give up everyone was gettin pissy and i just couldn’t take it all the kids cussin and talkin crap grow up. any ways yes Blizzard needs to get rid of the pvp achieves. and to everyone who got all gratz on there part
By mrbbobg on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
lol oh ya the pets were the only thing that made everything better
By Bonedancer on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 11:59 pm
It took around 20 AV for my Assault to Tower
Thx to that I have now lots of AV Marks for PVP mounts
By Jason on Tuesday, May 5th, 2009 at 12:15 am
I hate PVP with a passion unmatch by anything in this world. I was dreading it for the longest time and it was pretty much like I expected
WSG was easy, first try. We had a undead warlock come in and take the flag over and over and drop it for the alliance to take it back.
EOTS was worse, there were a few try where I didn’t really know what to do. Finaly we got in one time and were vastly overpowering the horde in there and I was able to get it
AB took a few trying aswell. I did it right a few times and nothing, in the end I think I got it by just rushing the first flag.
AV was a horrorshow. I was swearing and crazy over that one. SO many times I got so close thanks to nice horde oly to miss it befor of jerk alliance! Three different time I was in ans a horde was taking and giving back the towers and I messed it. Once beacuse the BG ended to soon with so many people waiting, once because of a group off alliance comeing in and killing the horde helping. The third time was was the worst. Bloodelf was taking it and giving it back, I was one the last there, but a human warlock came and won’t let the horde help me. Everytime the Bloodelf came in he would attack him and drive him off. And, bless his heart, the elf kept trying! I beg and pleaded with the human to just let him in ONE more time to let me get it, but he won’t.
But I was finally able to get it, and so far I”m still on my way to getting the drake
By Rumproastt on Tuesday, May 5th, 2009 at 2:31 am
I spent all day doing battlegrounds, which I hate and still only have 1/4 of the achievement. Ruin pvpers refuse to let us non-pvpers get our achievements and get out of their precious playgrounds. I formerly liked doing EOTS and AB when I just felt the need to kill Allies but now it’ll be a cold day in Burning Steppes when I go back again.
By Mvprat on Tuesday, May 5th, 2009 at 3:52 am
I got lucky on all my BG trips with this event AV came into the battle late rode down to the tower went up and three horde were camping the flag i pulled my orphan out walked in waved, saluted and they let me cap the flag i then gave it back to them (less than 100 renforcements left on ally they lost anyways). AB did the out the gate stables boogie first one there. WSG horde came in and just kept picking up the flag and dropping it for all to get the achivement i then did the same for them. EoTs horde 4 capped us, everyone cried and whined that blizz hates the alliance i ran out picked up the flag walked to a base and the other 1 person that was still going for it just turned it over cap and done. Honestly Blizz needs to make the pvp stuff for world events world pvp keep it out of the BG’s on that note i’m WAY looking forward to Midsummer Fire Festival!
-Mvprat
-Commander Tsunami Ysera
-Always looking for great players
-http://tsunamiysera.guildomatic.com <–apply here!
By Jim on Tuesday, May 5th, 2009 at 7:01 am
I love this achievement. I don’t understand the controversy. You have to fight in BGs for a week and do what you’re supposed to do in BGs anyway, cap flags.
By MissDestiny on Tuesday, May 5th, 2009 at 8:37 am
I suppose I understand the point of the whole BG thing for this achievement was to get people to work together, but getting 11 million users to do that is kind of difficult. We did a spur of the moment guild group for WSG, but only got 8 people, which should have been okay, but the other two people who joined were invariably hardcore PvP douchebags. We’d explain what we were doing, but they refused to cooperate. Only three of the 8 got the achievement. AB was a little better, but everyone was frustrated after WSG and we kind of gave up.
Overall, I HATE Bgs, but I really want the Long Strange Trip mount and I’ve put a lot of work into doing everything else, so I sucked it up. I personally found AB to be easy. The others were just luck (WSG early in the morning, people willing to cooperate in EotS and I did AV during WG so no one was there).
Beyond the usual complaints, because the line for the BGs was so bad on Sunday, everytime it would start to port you in, you would get DCed. I got back at Blizz by spamming them with tickets. I have since returned 10 poor Customer Service surveys (sorry Blizz, deleting your cache, WTF and interface will not solve every problem!).
Oh yeah, and I also slapped, punched, yelled at and spit on my orphan.
By moophobia on Tuesday, May 5th, 2009 at 9:55 am
As a hard core pvp-er, I purposefully ran to the towers in AV first to keep all the achievement whores from getting it first. The problem in BGs has been, that once the achievement goers have gotten what they needed, they jump the BG, thus making it difficult to win with a constant stream of new people coming into and out of the BG. I try like hell in every BG to ruin the achievement seekers. Most world achievements don’t mess with world events in PVE, but the hard knocks crap ruins every BG.
By 5oren on Tuesday, May 5th, 2009 at 10:29 am
It’s a horrible achievement to get, i i fail to see why blizzard would implement anoying pvp activity to to be one of the needed achivement. They should really put it under the “Player vs Player” achievemt page instead. Or lose it intirely. Anyway, i maneged to get the hard knock achievement in 4-6 hours, but a mate of mine got it in 2. Being a better player than me, he’d still had a consideralbel amount of luck to get it that fast.
Anyway, forgive my english, and forgive me for my pissed off attitude, dear ProjectLore devotes.
By Conchuir on Wednesday, May 6th, 2009 at 2:53 am
i got mine (thank god that’s over) there are raiders… there are pvpers, there are achievement hounds, but i myself am a lore guy. Blizz’s writers do a good job of mixing other medias in with enough original stuff to make for an epic backstory. that brings me to the topic at hand. other than being unbelievably frustrating, and a huge p.i.t.a. to everyone involved, from a lore p.o.v. it makes no sense. the purpose of children’s week is to mentor the innocent ones whose lives were torn apart by conflict. the “school of hard knocks” is something they would certainly be familiar enough with already. dragging an orphaned child around a BG seems quite counter productive to the lore purpose of this event. for soooo many reasons: swing and a miss, Blizz
By Rhev (Koopa's GM) on Wednesday, May 6th, 2009 at 4:01 am
I did get my achievement btw, but no more BGs till the holiday is over that’s for sure.
By yakface on Wednesday, May 6th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
If anyone is still going for AV or AB, some friends and I found a good way to all score the achievement.
It doesn’t actually mater if you cap the flag in the sense that you are the one who changes its status from belonging to the other faction to contested. It matters solely that you right-click it while it belongs to the other faction, then allow the action to complete. 5 of us did this at once at one AV tower, and we all got the achievement.
Hope it helps.