Some graphical glitches are creepier than the rest. Not sure whether it’s her lack of eyes or the fact that her entire body seems have been dipped in plaster of Paris. Either way, I know I’d be running in the opposite direction.
Account-wide achievements seem to be semi working in the current Beta build and more than ever I find my feelings on the subject are mixed. When I wrote my original post on the topic, I was torn between liking and disliking but now, I think I’m definitely coming down on the side of dislike.
Pets I’m okay with. It was a necessary evil to get the most of the Pet Battle system, that makes sense. Asking people to level pets individually on a character by character basis would be frustrating and annoying. Everything else, I’m not so comfortable with.
Based on shots like this one, it looks like if you have an achievement somewhere on your account, you will get any relevant titles and mounts handed out on all characters once they reach the level required to use them.
Perhaps I’m a special snowflake but part of the reason I love rolling new characters every so often is that they are blank slates (just like the Student of Chi-ji). You start completely afresh with nothing but come MoP without purchasing a new account, that won’t be true. Instead of trying to pick a first companion pet that I feel suits the character, I’ll have well over a hundred to pick from. The same goes for mounts, already by the time a new character hits lv 80, it will have it’s pick of over a 100 creatures to ride.
Now I’ve swapped mains once or twice across the last seven years so I should be in seventh heaven. My two characters who are Hands of A’dal sit unplayed, my main pet and mount collector who also happens to have a variety of PvE titles as well as the bulk of my achievements is currently the wrong faction. My Hyacinth Macaw and Horseman’s Reins sit on Druids 1 and 3, neither of which get much playtime these days. Finally, my achievements will reflect me, the player yet still I find the whole concept uncomfortable. It’s not because I’m afraid of being stalked, although I believe that these changes will make it a whole lot easier for people to track down other gamers because suddenly your achievements will be one unique fingerprint across all your characters. Hiding on alts, re-naming and server transferring won’t be the safety net they were before. Of course in the case of bad behaviour, that’s a good thing. Way back before server transfers were an option, my old GM said one night that, “all we have in WoW is our reputation” and perhaps account-wide achievements is one way to help bring back that sense of accountability. Yet, I still don’t like it.
All my characters who are high enough level to reach AV are exalted and that’s a rite of passage for me. Just as is saving my <Make Love, not Warcraft> achievement for the stunned corpse of someone I really enjoyed ganking. Inheriting those moments from others takes away some of the fun from achieving achievements in the first place. Of course, it’s probable that you’ll still get the achievement, your new one just taking over from the inherited one but it’s not the same. It’s like the difference between blank notebooks and half filled jotters or buying new clothes versus getting your brother’s cast-offs.
Then there is content. I repeat content on my alts just because there is a blank space in my achievement list. I explore places I know like the back of my hand, flying over old familiar hidey holes, taking screenshots and thinking about all the memories they gave me. I do old favourite quests and farm rep with people who already love me on four other characters. I get out into the world because my achievements aren’t currently shareable and I know plenty others who do the same. Even when there is no new content available, when the game seems stagnant (like now), there is plenty of things to do if you treat all your characters like separate individuals. This change alters that. When your play time is perhaps limited by outside factors and achievements are shared, it makes sense to only do certain things once. Why for example should I run Ulduar again because I’ve got all the titles and both mounts already. If there is nothing I want for transmogrification, there is no reason for me to set foot in there again. No one is ever going to farm the Firelands dailies twice (or at least if they do, that gives a whole new definition to masochism). All these areas which on all the servers I play on (mainly medium to high pop) are currently buzzing with the latest crop of alts will fall silent.
Now this is all fine and dandy, if Blizzard keep new content flowing at a rate where we don’t get stuck for things to do but if they don’t? I can’t help but feel that making achievements account-wide makes the world smaller. I’m one pet off completing the Darkmoon Faire collection, once I’ve grabbed that this week why go back (unless they add new stuff). Don’t get me wrong, I do quite enjoy the games, especially hitting toy Hoggers over the head with a mallet and punting my Gnome out of the cannon but if I don’t need the tickets because my pets and mounts are about to become shared across all my characters.. then it diminishes my need to visit whole chunks of the game. So, we’ll get the new shiny expansion with lots of things to do but then what happens when we come to level the second character through it and the third? When we already have all the achievements to show before a character even leaves the start zone? Doesn’t that take away from the experience.
I know there are benefits and that I will probably benefit more than most. I have been playing a long time and have switched raiding character more than once for my guild and yet, I still dislike the idea. Although I can see one silver lining in the whole concept. Sunday sees the start of everyone’s favourite holiday “Children’s Week”. The week where everyone manages to get annoyed, whether it’s pvpers ranting at achievement hunting under-geared idiots ruining their battlegrounds or everyone else complaining about being targeted by a never ending succession of evil ganking scum whilst trying to get their achievements done. Now if Blizzard intend all achievements and mounts to be shared, well then hopefully by next year, everyone who wants a purple drake will have one on one character or another and Children’s week will be a peaceful and relaxing occasion without the shrieking and whining of previous years. We can but dream!
Filed under: Achievements, Mini Pets, MoP, Practical stuff Tagged: | Account-wide achievements, Achievements, MoP, MoP Beta, Warcraft, WoW
The random musings and occasional whining of a Warcraft playing Harpy, with some lashings of priestly stuff thrown in.
I’ve wanted account-wide collectibles for SO LONG so I can’t say I agree, though I do see where you’re coming from.
Agree on both things.
I’m very much a “I have one sacred main that I want it all on”, which has stopped me from playing alts more. And also I really don’t like getting things on these alts that I don’t have on my main; like random pvp-achievements and so on.
Perhaps a toggle could be good? “This char wants to display only her/his personal achievements”.
I like the idea of a toggle but since Blizzard wouldn’t make the armoury or achievements themselves optional, I think we’re all going to have it whether we like or not.
I think it’s the achievements more than the mounts/spells that bothers me. Right now for example my Monk has all my Feats of Strengths, my Val’anyr and so on. Seeing old things on brand new characters just feels wrong but I see from the forums/chatting to people about it, that the anti group seems a lot smaller than the pro group, so I guess I’m just going to have to come to terms with it.
I feel for the people who farmed the Insane/Loremaster on multiple characters though.
Well said, well said. I am in the same boat as you. For instance, if Argent Tournament becomes account-wide, it won’t hurt my feelings at all. I just can’t bring myself to do that on more than one toon. With that said, however, if my For The Alliance/Horde goes account-wide, well I feel like it has cheapened the accomplishment. It should be something earned, and proudly displayed.
If Blizz does not pick up the pace with content, it will indeed lead to much more boredom while leveling alts.
I’m starting to wonder if the intent is to make people level more than one character. For example, can people become exalted with both the Anglers and the Tillers on one character or is the game design going to be that if you want both sets of rewards, you have to level two characters?
As the beta progresses, it will be interesting to see what new achievements get added and how they work. For example it gives Blizzard the scope to add the sort of achievements we only see as Guild achievements right now as account wide ones. I think Ghostcrawler mentioned “level a Horde and Alliance to 90″, but there could be ones for races/classes as well. Not to mention all the professions.
It would be nice if you can turn it off but I know that won’t happen. Account wide achievements are like all those bought mounts and pets… Every toon has one. Now you would think that’s ok but when you make a level one toon just to check out an area and then want to delete it you can’t coz the mailbox is full of pets. So the pets are annoying if I was wanting a short term thing but a treasure if I was starting a proper alt toon. Maybe I’m just tired and it’s nothing like that at all! But I will say I am starting to agree with Erinyes about cheapening my achievements by making them account wide.
The delete thing really bugs me.
I’m not really into RP but I do see my characters as distinct individuals with personal likes and dislikes. That’s why certain characters farm certain reputations, having everything on every character just doesn’t make sense from that perspective. Plus having done the “Strange long trip” on one character, why ever do it again? Although I love Hallows End, so I guess I’ll always do that one
I would think that new rewards for holidays will include specific items, like the Little Wickerman or Brewfest Keg Pony, rather than “just” learnable pets, which are then character-bound.
Yeah, I don’t like it. I thought I was fine with the pets too but the collection of many of the pets have memories attached to them that are relevant to a certain character so I even have mixed feeling about that. Geez, not a sharer am I?
Really don’t like the acheivement sharing. Probably won’t wear any titles in Mists but I am puzzled that in beta all my titles except one are available in the dropdown. Wonder if they’re getting rid of it.
If it’s a holiday title, they tend not to copy across for practical reasons. I’m missing a load of achievements and titles on the beta.
It was the Insane title, and to make it even worse, someone already had my name, I’m running around the beta with severe personality issues!
Hi
, thanks for the post. Although I can understand people wanting achievements to be a/c bound, I so don’t want this to happen. I’ve just completed my 5th Loremaster and yet again thoroughly enjoyed doing it and was as pleased at the completion for this one as I was for the first one. I choose to go out and about in the world, like you, to get things on my alts and yes I agree completely with your “rite of passage” comment. I will most likely never level another alt because there will be no point. I don’t see why there can;t be an option to turn this off on the battle net a/c page so people can choose whether to opt in or out of a/c bound achievements. For me, they have the potential to be a wow killer and for someone who has played and loved the game since Feb. 2007 that really saddens me. Have a good day, Carole 
I have to admit, I altered my game play the second I read about the possibility of MoP bringing us account wide achievements. I’ve been deliberately pursuing achievements I haven’t already done and ignoring ones which I have but are languishing on characters I no longer play.
I don’t think it’s a wow killer for me (too addicted) but whether I like it or not will come down to how much new content is added, whether there are achievements more like the guild ones for your account, like get one of each profession maxed perhaps.
Not going to lie, this is exactly what I’ve been doing. Achievements have always been something that didn’t seem worth it for me. I have 14 toons level 85 and geared between 385-405 from raiding and a Herald of the Titans toon locked at 80. I’ve switched mains at my guild’s request 7 times since I started playing during BC release and every one of my alts literally have between 5k-7k achievement points from things between BC and current content.
When I looked at all 14 of them- it’s hard to imagine catching up all the old achievements I have on the rest of them so achievements just fell to the wayside. My characters may have always looked semi-noobish because of this, but now I feel like it will show that I’ve completed almost everything in the game just on a wide variety of characters- it will show that I do, in fact, have a max-level toon of every class (and a couple doubles) as well as every profession maxed between them. I’ve actually started (like you said) pursuing the couple achievements I have left- ie: 32 total lich king raid non-metas, 1 cata dungeon achieve).
I understand where people are coming from wanting to treat their characters as individuals but I’m honestly really excited about this change.
[...] Harpy’s Nest considers what it means to achievement minded players if Blizzard make all achievements account wide in the next expansion. “I repeat content on my alts just because there is a blank space in my achievement list. I explore places I know like the back of my hand, flying over old familiar hidey holes, taking screenshots and thinking about all the memories they gave me. I do old favourite quests and farm rep with people who already love me on four other characters. I get out into the world because my achievements aren’t currently shareable and I know plenty others who do the same.” [...]
This was a very interesting read, but I still disagree. As someone who is addicted to leveling alts, having the Insane on all of them will be amazing. Another thing I love, is that it gives people who are obsessed with achievements the option to main switch if they wanted. I’ve always thought things such as Amani War Bears, Vampire Batlings, etc. all being unaccessible to Death Knights was stupid. I really do agree with you in some aspects, but I think I’m still pro-change.
I don’t necessarily agree with achievements being account wide, esp if it’s a kill thing but reward like a mount I don’t see why that can’t be shared. I for one would love to be able to ride my carpet or chopper on my non-tailor/eng main.
I love the fact that pets will be shared though. But grindng all the Argent Tournament pets on Alliance for my Horde main certainly wasn’t fun. I’m really glad I have them all though.
The other day I did see that freaky looking student in your top pic and I even took a shot to post later but I never did… she was kind of mesmerizing in a blinding sort of way.
Very mesmerizing. I got dced the first two times I tried to get closer to her, although that might have been co-incidence
[...] achievements a blessing or a curse? In it, she references a post from a few days ago called Account-wide achievements and an end to blank slates by Harpy’s Nest. Both are good reads, and written way better than this post, which is just [...]
Thanks for posting this reflection. I’ve been interested in how this will be implemented ever since I first heard about it.
Also, sorry if I’ve missed this, but I have a question:
Does the AWA system increase the number of achievement points each toon has, or is it purely a matter of inherited achievement being highlighted when you’re level appropriate, but no points allocated until that specific toon obtains the achievement? If it’s the latter there will still be the sense a toon hasn’t earned the achievement until they get the points, wouldn’t it?
If you had say 4 characters at 85, 3 brand new alts and your main. All four characters would have the same number of achievement points.
When you go into closer detail it says which character earned those points but as a total, all have the same.
I also tried getting the falling achievement on my Monk to replace the inherited version. I jumped from the same place I got it on my Priest but I didn’t get an achievement at all. I know the system isn’t finished yet but I’m starting to think the first time you get an achievement on your account will be the last.
Although when I tried on a different beta character, this time it got the achievement replacing the inherited one so try 1 could have been a bug. Wish Blizzard would hurry up and write their blog post explaining what’s intended and what’s just bugs.
Also my baby Panda (lv 48) has achievements you need lv 86 to obtain. Not sure if this is deliberate or that it’s just the rewards you need to be the relevant level to get.
Ah ok, so the value of points is cumulative. I also wonder the effect will be on meta-achievements. For instance if you get most of the achievements on one toon and the remaining ones on another, will it could as a meta-achievement on everyone. If Blizz is saying they don’t want as much differentiation between toons (as they seem to be) I wouldn’t be surprised.
Anyway thanks very much for the info
As someone who can’t even imagine wanting to get an achievement the second time, I truly welcome this change. My main is the one character I play to raid on, pvp on, and get achievements on. The seven other 85s I have are just there when I feel like playing that class for a bit, or healing instead or tanking, just to change this up. Every time I get a unique achieve on an alt it annoys me. Worse yet, I’ve had the “luck” to get the horseman’s reins twice on an alt, and some other extremely rare mounts on other alts. At the very least I want my main to get the ‘Feat of strength’ associated with the mounts, but it would be super cool to have the mounts as well (My main has 110 mounts right now, the alt with the 2 horseman mounts has 4.)
The only concern I have about this feature is from the privacy standpoint. I do NOT want someone to be able to tell which character earned that achievement unless it’s that character. For example if my priest earned ‘Bastion of Twilight’ and my DK is linking the achievement in trade, I do not want the whole world to know that this is the same person playing two characters. That would be seriously bad. Same thing with someone inspecting your armory. I do not want people to know which characters are mine, unless they are guildies. So that is a major concern I do have.
As for the rest, I welcome BoA achievements, mounts and pets.
I feel your horseman pain. I ran it on an alt druid just for fun because people wanted to make party up. 1 kill, one mount. Grrrrrr!
On the other hand, I suppose I’m ever so slightly grumpy because I passed on both the original Amani Warbear (hated the look it/noise it made and never intended riding it) and the Ashes of A’lar (Druid who always used flight form) more than once.
The privacy aspect bothers me too. I’ve been semi stalked in WoW already (I say “semi” because his heart wasn’t really in it) and I wonder if it will be possible to make a programme to parse armoury data with the aim of figuring out which characters belong on which account. I think doing it manually would deter even the creepiest but then you never know. It makes me nervous to know that it’s a possibility.
[...] Nest has encountered account-wide achievements on the beta, and she’s got a few concerns about them. And honestly, I hadn’t really thought about any of these things until I read her [...]
I suddenly realised what this could mean for the kind of “honorable kills”- and “valor points earned”-achievements! Ooooh, hoping! Couldn’t reply to your reply up there, but yes, that blogpost by Blizzard will be a very interesting read. Implementation on armory and in-game. All very exciting really! I hope they make it “right”.
Depending on how Blizzard handle this, it could be a deal maker for me.
Right now on the Beta, all my characters have the 50k hk achievement but there’s no adding up going on, although that might be because things like hks don’t transfer properly to the test servers. However, on live across my account, I have around 300 000 hks.
If they go down the addition route, i.e. each hk on an account gets added up and we can work towards 500 000 or even 1 000 000 hk achievements, then I think I’d be semi happier with the system. They could have the kind of achievements we see in guilds too, fish up 20 000 fish, pick x amounts of herbs.
@Nathanyel
I hope they do something like that, even if it’s just add recolours every so often. For example, I’d like an orange feline familiar.
Right now the Brewfest Keg pony is showing up on the mini pet list although that could be a bug.
That’s because of that item’s type/subtype, not every “companion” or “mount” is learnable
On live yes. We don’t however know if the design philosophy for items like the Bloodsail Admiral hat and it’s parrot or the Brewfest Keg pony is changing.
Given the effort Blizzard are putting into the pet battles, it’s perfectly possibly that these “mini pets” will be separated from their items.
@Mike Bogle
“For instance if you get most of the achievements on one toon and the remaining ones on another, will it could as a meta-achievement on everyone.”
I believe I read something from one of the blues (possibly GC) saying that was the intended design. Can’t remember I read it though. Will have a look for the link later.
So it was true, there are ppl who complain about anything, even if it has nearly no effect.
If you want to do loremaster more than once, do so, why do you need a golden frame in achievements window to do it? You enjoy doing loremaster, those Qs or do you enjoy the sound when you get the achievement??
Also, even if it’s lv1, it is still YOU playing, means YOU have done those 3000 quests, not the lv1, it has name on it what char it did…
I did Loremaster back before cata, do I get compensation for that? No. Do I even want some compensation? No, I did it just cause it was fun. Not because i got 10 achie points.
And yet here you are, complaining about others complaining. Just as you are entitled to your opinion, so is everyone else and as with most things, those opinions span a massive spectrum. Do I think account wide achievements are game breaking, no but it’s clear that some others do.
I also think that the stalking aspect is one that many people haven’t considered and as someone who has been a victim of it in-game and knows others who have suffered far more from it than I did, I wouldn’t call it “complaining about” nothing.
It’s not mandatory for me to like every change that Blizzard introduce and it’s not mandatory for me or anyone else to stay quiet about the things we dislike. In fact the world would be a really boring place if no one ever stood up and said “I dislike this and here’s why”.
I can only speak for myself but I like the separation of characters. I have always had alts my guild didn’t know about. I have always had a back story for each character which influenced the achievements they sought. Therefore this change for me and obviously a few others brings with it a downside.
On a practical note, it makes tracking achievement progress far harder than it currently is. For me, it’s not about achievement points and unless I’m pvping I don’t actually have sound on so it’s not about the boing either. To me the best achievements are the ones you get by accident and this being shared, takes away some of that enjoyment.
Yes, there is a good side for me at least. I will get pets and mounts I’d almost forgotten I had. The whole world (or at least the inspecting brigade) will know I have legendaries!
Bottom line, we’re talking about a game beta, which is all about testing and discussing the positive and negative changes that you encounter as well as spotting bugs, some of the former will involve talking about stuff that some other people think is awesome and others think is awful.
Also, your first line could be considered a little harsh as those in favour of account wide achievements are losing nothing but those against (some more than others) are having an entire play style removed from them.
I’m personally looking forward to it because of the fact that I’ve tended to only play one character at the expense of all others because of achievements. If I was trying for an achievement I wanted it to be on my main. I can see some of your concerns, especially the privacy aspect, but for me I will appreciate it. If they make it so when you view the achievement you can see the toon your earned it on, but not when others view it that will allay some of the privacy concerns but unfortunately not all of them.
One thing I like about it that I hadn’t really thought about is that some of the rare drop mounts it will make easier to get because you can farm them every reset on multiple chars if you want to spend the time.
[...] on current reports on the upcoming expansion (Wow Insider, 30 April 2012); (Harpy’s Nest, 27 April 2012) to World of Warcraft, Mists of Pandaria, all this is going to change. No longer will each [...]