by Allison Robert
2. The Sword in the Skull
World of Warcraft is steeped pretty firmly in the most basic and primal of fantasy tropes, and the epic quest for a magic weapon is something even a newcomer to the genre can recognize. For better or worse, most of the game’s truly exemplary weapons — the legendaries — have been confined to a very small portion of players at the highest tier of the raid game. If you weren’t in a progression-oriented guild at the time when these weapons made a real difference to a raid, you had no shot at Sulfuras, Thunderfury, Atiesh, the Warglaives of Azzinoth, or Thori’dal, just as you’ve got no shot at Val’anyr or Shadowmourne without a fairly competent raiding guild in Wrath. While this achieves the desired effect — the weapon stays rare and a tantalizing goal for anyone who needs an extra shove in the direction of the game’s truly difficult content — the usual process of building a legendary or waiting for one to drop has a mixed effect at best on players.
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by Allison Robert
5. The Coin Master
There are a lot of truly brilliant touches in this game, and I’ve long held the opinion that the coins in the Dalaran fountain constitute some of Blizzard’s best and most creative work. Their existence is equally subtle; the only clue that they’re there at all is tucked away in three fairly high-level fishing achievements. One has the eerie sense that, lore-wise, the population might have walked past the fountain in Dalaran for years without ever realizing that (evincing the sort of self-aware magic that characterizes the Harry Potter universe) it had quietly preserved the wishes of dozens of major and minor players on the world scene.
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by Allison Robert
10. Get to the Choppa!
Engineering has long been the redheaded stepchild of WoW professions, taken only because players were interested in it or (later) because raids needed repair bots. Before Wrath, it had never really played a prominent role in raiding apart from that, which I always thought was a bit sad. It had (and has, I would argue) the potential to be the most interesting and amusing profession due to the wide variety of class abilities its gadgets can mimic, and it was a tad bothersome that it was so expensive and irritating to level with so few returns at the level cap. Engineering was the profession you’d reserve for a pampered alt you’d play for fun; your main wound up taking something, anything else.
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by Allison Robert
15. Well Read
Like its considerably more evil counterpart Higher Learning — not an achievement that’s fun to do if your server doesn’t have a specific chat channel dedicated to it, or if the channel that exists is inactive — Well Read requires you to read a number of books. Unlike Higher Learning, the books you’re looking for never disappear, reappear, spawn dummies or break your heart with a despawn a second before you reach them.
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by Allison Robert
The 25 most entertaining achievements, #25-21
20. Charger/Dreadsteed of Xoroth/Swift Flight Form
I wasn’t sure whether it was right to include these, but finally decided I had to because they’re just so much fun. Class-specific quests and achievements aren’t very common; Blizzard isn’t enthusiastic about pouring developmental time into something that a limited number of players will see. But if you play characters fortunate enough to have big, class-specific moments, they’re always a hoot. Not only do they get you involved in the lore behind your class’ inclusion in the game, but they also get you invested in the result. It’s not for nothing that many paladin, druid and warlock players continue to use their special mounts even as they amass dozens of additional options. OK, I’ll admit that Swift Flight Form will always be convenient as an instant cast, but it’s not my fault that druids are better than everyone else.
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by Allison Robert
In a nutshell, I think these are the achievements that every WoW players should do, if only because they showcase some of Blizzard’s best, most engaging or funniest work.
25. Guru of Drakuru
It’s not like I really need to tell people this, but the Grizzly Hills — Zul’drak story line, Guru of Drakuru, concerning the decline and fall of the Drakkari empire is the stuff of greatness. I’ll be returning to the Zul’drak leg of this in a future column, but the Grizzly Hills portion affords you a glimpse into the mind of a troll named Drakuru who … well, I’m not sure it’s a good idea to spoil the quest line for any of the newer players out there still leveling. Suffice it to say that Drakuru offers you some insight into the Drakkari empire’s many troubles, and that’s not the only thing he knows that you don’t. It’s among the best-executed story lines in Wrath where you belatedly realize that that nice NPC with whom you’ve been chatting has been several steps ahead of you the entire time and that your good intentions helped pave a fine road to hell.
The Wowhead commenter Oroleen nailed it, I think:
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by Allison Robert
This year, the Midsummer Fire Festival will go live at 3:00 am server time , June 21st and will run through 3:00 am Sunday, July 4th. While it doesn’t outwardly appear to be a very time-intensive holiday — the meta, awarding the Flame Warden title to Alliance players and Flame Keeper title to Horde players, consists of only six achievements — three of them will have you trekking all over the world.
We don’t believe that the holiday has changed significantly from its 2009 incarnation (if it has, the information hasn’t become available yet), but there have been a few changes to how you’ll do some of the achievements, and the holiday’s boss, Lord Ahune, also has an updated loot table. Consequently, I’ve updated and expanded our 2009 guide to reflect the changes we’re aware of.
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by Allison Robert
The Violet Hold
Violet Hold is arguably the easiest heroic in Wrath. It’s considerably less punishing than the Burning Crusade heroic on which it was patterned (Black Morass) and the achievements are all pretty easy as well. There’s one that’ll require you to return to VH until you get all of its bosses, but that shouldn’t be an issue if you’re using the dungeon finder, given its propensity for landing one there every other day. The other days, naturally, are all Halls of Stone runs.
Defenseless
Much like Make It Count, this is the kind of achievement you’ll probably get without expending any real effort. There were plenty of fresh ’80s who got it in the weeks after Wrath shipped without even knowing what the defense crystals were, and it’s only gotten easier since.
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by Allison Robert
Today we do everybody’s favorite instance — The Oculus!
Get back here! You know perfectly well they’re bribing us to stay with a goody bag these days.
Experienced Drake Rider
This one’s very straightforward; you just need to convince your group to let you ride one of the dragons you wouldn’t normally take. While you don’t have to use it for the entire dungeon (you only have to be riding it during the final boss encounter), you’re best off taking it at the beginning anyway to familiarize yourself with the controls. All three drakes are pretty simple.
A warning (and I learned this the hard way): you will not get credit for this achievement if you die during the fight. Don’t get brave on any Eregos kill when you’re trying to get this done.
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by Allison Robert
I’d like to spend some time on achievements that are nothing but an absolute joy from beginning to end.
The following is an entirely arbitrary set of five achievements that I personally believe are a hoot.
Into the Wild Blue Yonder
I try to play WoW responsibly, which precludes having it around while I’m working on something else, getting some reading done or when I have an editor breathing down my neck about a deadline (this last one has been somewhat more troublesome since the advent of time stamps on the Armory, but that’s why God invented alts).
But I’ll admit to being possessed of an unhealthy obsession when my main hit 67 in Outland. Back in Burning Crusade, you could only train the expert riding skill (aka the ability to use a flying mount) at level 70 — unless you were a druid. Druids trained Flight Form at level 68 back then, and I wanted to fly more than anything else. Epics? Who cared? Raiding? Feh. Patch day? What’s that?
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