I don’t think anything should be changed. I think What a Long Strange Trip It’s Been is great! Sure it’s tough, but it’s great that it forces people to try different aspects of the game – as you pointed out. While there are people complaining about the pvp aspect, I think there might be some who try it and like it. I did soo many battlegrounds and PVP to gear up my bear for Kara. Now my shadow priest has 5 pieces of pvp gear just from incidental honour and badges that I had laying around. I also very happily mind controlled a horde off the cliff in AB and LOVED IT. Those spells are there to be used! I love doing new things with them.

I have the drake on 2 toons and I am proud of myself for sticking it out and not pulling my hair out clicking on eggs or returning the flag in WSG. It can be done!

I disagree with you that Glory of the Hero should get a 310 mount. It’s just not that hard, at least now that ToC gear is available from heroics. Most of the achievements can be gotten incidentally or with a minimum of extra effort along the way, and even the few that are somewhat challenging are significantly easier than even the Naxx and Ulduar metas (which no longer give 310 drakes anyway).

I could see a 310 drake coming from heroics, but you’d need some harder heroic achievements, and to update them as gearing improves. If they’d added the new achievements from Trial of the Champion and the ICC dungeons (and made up better achievements of Pit of Saron and Halls of Reflection; both Pit of Saron ones are things you should be doing anyway, We’re Not Retreating… is a little better, but it’s only one, and it’s not much more of a time pressure than simply staying ahead of the Lich King).

I can also see removing at least some of the dungeon and/or PvP content from What a Long Strange Trip it’s Been (though I’d like a few things, like the Headless Horseman for Hallow’s End and stealing the enemy fires for the Fire Festival, stick around), and adding some more exploration style stuff. But, IMO, non of the dungeon requirements are particularly onerous (though drop rates could be improved for some items, or changed to group loot), and (as I said above) I think Blizzard will do a better job of designing the PvP achievements in Cataclysm.

AV I got lucky and ended up in a game where alliance had skipped (or simply hadn’t guarded) all the towers and charged straight for the horde end boss. I must admit I didn’t give the horde hunter guarding the tower I capped a chance to offer any trades – I noticed his pet was already mostly dead, so sent my pet dashing in to kill it and then the hunter ran away. Fortunately I got the tower cap before he came back with friends :)

And AB just happened to be a really even game with heaps of bases changing hands. One stables defence, *everybody* died with the base neutral and I was the first to get back after respawns.

So just WSG to go :)

I was initially irritated by this achievement, but I’ve actually been reminded that BGs are something I enjoy and have just been neglecting.

I love love love Alterac Valley. I think it’s the closest we can get to feeling like we’re an individual unit in someone’s game of Warcraft III. If you think about it that way, it’s actually kind of a treat.

I would just note that, if you think School of Hard Knocks is bad, you should check out some of the regular pvp achievements in the BGs. Blizzard really is just asking you to stick your toe in the proverbial pvp waters with that one. It is also the one achievement for this holiday that represents any challenge, and you have a week to accomplish it.

I would rather do School of Hard Knocks anyday though than have to compete with other toons in my faction for spawning eggs for the ~200 chocolates or so I needed for Noblegarden again. That’s maddening. At least in a BG, if you get frustrated, you can take it out on someone. :)

I think that about nails it on the head. A lot of people really REALLY want that 310 speed mount – and I know of several who are resentful towards Blizzard for tying those mounts into PVE, PVP, or the Meta Acheive. A 310 speed mount makes a significant difference when farming, and I strongly suspect that with news that the 310 will be trainable, people will relax somewhat. At least I hope so.

Then WALSTIB gets relegated to being something for those who want to complete it, rather than something for those who feel they NEED to complete it.

All that aside, I would love to see an ‘explorer’-esque meta BBB.

Thanks again for the great blog.

Been experiencing first hand how someone is just ganking opposing faction folks who are trying to help people get achievements. Most often in Alterac Valley and WSG.

Although I got School of Hard Knocks done on my mage, I’m still going in there over and over to help out the opposing faction get theirs.

There was a shadow priest in AV yesterday who kept killing the alliance druid who was trying to help us. We asked him to stop, and he was just laughing and getting off on the attention. So what we did was, we decided to not help him when he got attacked – sure enough, that druid came back with 3 friends and pounded him into the flagstones while we all just sat around.

Another disappointing thing I saw was this gnome mage helping out this horde pally get an achievement, as soon as he got his cap, he turned around and killed her. It really got to me… yeah its PVP, but ganking someone who just helped you get your achievement done is really low.

I’m really enjoying PVP, but ganking people who are helping others isn’t PVP, its just a basement dweller feeling powerful for once in their miserable life.