I am the Loremaster

Well, of course I left this one until last. Here I am getting my final achievement for TAFTCITD, with Our Glorious Leader, Organics.

At least I aint chicken

I love how Blizzard has put some fan service into the game. BRK got this, Phaelia got this, and, of course, the immortal Ben Schultz gets this:

Big thanks to guildie Cheeks and friend of the guild Crimsonblade for their help with this one.

Works hard for a living

Colcothar the Pilgrim. What a pain. Throughout the week I managed to shoot various rogues but I had 2 left - Troll and Dwarf. Troll was simple enough - I went to Durotar and shouted for someone. Dwarf was a little tougher. I eventually created a trial account and created a Dwarf rogue on that. Cheating? I call it initiative.

Loving and giving

Halls of Lightning is bigger than I suspected, but very pretty. I did it on heroic, but it counted for WotLK dungeons, as I have already done WotLK Heroic. I also got Timely Death and Shatter Resistant.

The final stretch

So, another day, another heroic, and another achievement (or two).


In other news, version 2 of Loremaster is up. You can now get a list of quests to complete for your Loremaster achievements! Check it out, the link is on the right.

Loremaster (the easy one)

I ran out of time tonight, and the heroic was Oculus (no chance getting a group for that), so I had to go for a fallback that I was hoping to save - Loremaster of Eastern Kingdoms.



The reason I ran out of time is quite interesting though - I was working on Loremaster (the addon). I want to be able to show a checklist of quests to complete but my coding ability is limited, so I wanted to piggyback on EveryQuest to do it. I have requested that the author add support but I'm not getting any joy, so I'm going to have to do something myself. I tried writing some code to show a similar window but realised I would need a lot more data than I currently am putting in to get that - I would basically be duplicating EveryQuest, something I wish to avoid. My next idea was to write a filter for EQ, but I realised that would still require the author to add it to his code.

However, I have a new idea. I am 90% sure it will work. If it does, there should be a new version of Loremaster in the next few days. Possibly after TAFTCITD is complete. Watch this space.

I'm so tired

Exalted Champion of Sen'jin. On to the next.

Argent Crusade - done.

Going to go to bed now cos I don't feel quite the ticket. Plus I'm tired of running around Azshara. Official worst zone ever.

Hurrah for made-up holidays

Take your pick today. I got all the Pilgrim's Bounty achievements apart from Turkey Lurkey. Some 'enterprising' Rogues are charging serious cash to let you shoot them, so I think it will be a case of making a trial account and creating some rogues to do this one. FYI, Darnassus appears to be the unfriendliest Alliance city.

Dragon me down (sorry)

I completed a few achievements today, but the one that counts for TAFTCITD is 25 Dungeon or Raid Emblems. I also got VH (heroic) and Defenseless. I apologise for the pictures, I also got some nice loot into the bargain.

But it's so beautiful!

Forgot to post this yesterday, but I completed the last of my 'easy' achievements yesterday - Second That Emotion. The rest all require a group or a fair bit of time or money or luck to finish.

A real man makes his own

Got a bit lucky today. As I was doing the Zul'Drak dailies for Argent Crusade rep, the inestimable SilverDragon popped up and I was able to kill this fella for Northern Exposure.

Ow, right in the wallet

And I only had to buy 320 Frostweave to do it. Ouch.

IoC? OIC.

Isle of Conquest is actually really cool. It's like WG, but far more understandable and much quicker. And I broke down the doors of the Alliance fortress with a Siege Engine - super awesome.

EDIT:Picasa was down for maintenance last night but here is the pic now:


I also got (Exalted) Champion of the Undercity - just two to go.

All we have to do now / Is take these lies and make them true somehow

Nice easy one for tonight - Freedom of the Horde. Couldn't be bothered to do any more.

Also spent a fair bit of time working on Loremaster  of Kalimdor. It's getting expensive as I'm currently doing The T0.5 questline - pricy.

Neither up nor down

So, 15 days in, and still going strong. Storm Capper was much easier than I expected, not having done EotS for a while. So that's all but one of the BGs done, and I only need a win on the last one.

Owning the Basin

This one was another I was a little concerned about. Having done the easy ones, I wasn't sure which one I could get. The Assassin requires 5 kills at all bases - fortunately not all by me.

If you've done the Basin, you'll know sometimes the battle ranges all over the map, sometimes just one or two bases constantly change hands. I was fortunate on my second go today that I got one of the former kind. Course, this is about the tenth time I've run it over the course of this challenge, so I'm glad this one's done.

On another note, Loremaster of Kalimdor may be harder than I thought - I still need about 70 quests and ones that count are spread all over the place. I think I'll try and cut them down tomorrow. I have tons available for Eastern Kingdoms though - I feel these still need some balance, but I doubt this will be changed before Cataclysm now.

Plus, I also completed Zul'Aman today, with the worst group ever. Basically, we were just boosting a 72 and his mates through. Ugh.

Twofer

Thanks to my guild leader and a friend, I finally got Loremaster of Northrend and, as a bonus, The Bread Winner. That one doesn't count, as I already had a General achievement, so I didn't waste it.

Organics was telling me his ambition is to get The Insane title, which is just mad. I can't see me ever doing it, but it's quite an ambition. I haven't seen anyone with that title, and it wouldn't surprise me if nobody on the server has it yet. Good luck to you!

They Love Me In That...Chapel

After 3 days of working towards it, I finally got Exalted with the Dawn. It wasn't hard, but it was tedious. 2 more reps to go, and while Argent Crusade should be okay, I also need to get one of the BC reps up, and I'm not really close on any of them :/

I got skills, they're multiplyin'

I got Skills to Pay the Bills. Just. Too tired now. I'll write about it tomorrow.

EDIT: I didn't get Skills to Pay the Bills at all of course - I got Working Day and Night. I was very tired.

Lame

I was going to do AD rep tonight, but after a couple of Strat runs I realised it was going to take a bit longer than I thought. Unfortunately, it was past my bedtime so I had to take my emergency option - I completed Well Read. I feel dirty and stupid.

That'll learn me

Should have logged in before I left for work this morning. If I had, I wouldn't have been faced with this at lunchtime:

Polish your own helm

After months of slogging away at Hodir rep, I finally realize that I could have just bought a bunch of rep items on the AH and saved myself the trouble. Never mind, it's done now. And it got me to 10 Exalted Reputations, so tomorrow I can start work on my AD rep as previously discussed.

Thank Jeebus that I won't have to bother with that on my alts as the enchants are becoming BoA soon.

Easy does it

Warsong Gulch Perfection was easier than I could have hoped - first time out we got a lovely easy win. Thanks, Alliance friends! On the downside, a little ally /spat on me when I took the boat from Theramore (I was doing this quest on my way to Loremaster). Not pleasant.

Any port in a storm

Okay, so it's not the one I was looking for, but I'll take it. I had a bit of time today so I thought I'd go for one of the harder ones - AV or AB. I was hoping to get Alterac Blitz or Everything Counts from AV but this happened and I took it. I didn't even see it, I just happened to be in the area. So a bit of a cheap one, but I have to take what I can get.



There aren't really any cheap ones like this in AB so I'm just going to have to plug away and hope I get one of the tougher ones there. My best shot is probably Arathi Basin Assassin.

Could someone please tell me WTF is going on?

In comparison to the other BGs, I find Wintergrasp baffling. There's so much going on, with so many people, that I get completely confused. To be honest, I'm the same with AV. We won, but I don't think I had much to do with it. Along the way, I got

• Destruction Derby
• Leaning Tower
• Wintergrasp Victory

Good for steak, not such a good idea with chicken

I knocked out one of the ones I was concerned about tonight - Medium Rare. I flew around spawn points for an hour - I covered Shadowmoon, Terrokar, Hellfire, Zangarmarsh and Nagrand before finding this fellow in Blade's Edge. The Northrend rares will probably be harder as they are more likely to be camped. Still, a good win for tonight.

Making it harder. Harder!

To make this a real challenge, I have decided that each achievement must be from a different category or subcategory in the achievement pane. Discounting Wotlk raids (lame gear), arena (ditto, although I may find someone else willing to try it for giggles) and feats of strength (no easy ones I can do - however, I am hoping for a 5th anniversary achievement, or a mount drop from the Baron while running Strat for Argent Dawn rep), plus the two exploration ones where I have 100% already, that leaves exactly 30. So the challenge now is the snappy TAFTCITD - thirty achievements from thirty categories in thirty days.

So far I have done the following:
World Events - Dead Man's Party
Player vs. Player > Strand of the Ancients - Strand of the Ancients Victory
Dungeons & Raids > The Burning Crusade - The Slave Pens
Quests > The Burning Crusade - Bombs Away

This means more preparation. For instance, the only classic reputation with an achievement that I am anywhere close to is The Argent Dawn, but getting that first will also get me 10 Exalted Reputations, which is the achievement I want to get for the Reputation category. So I need to get a different one first, which will get me the 10, then get The Argent Dawn another day.

Additionally, there are some that require a good deal of luck. There is only one achievement I don't have in Exploration > Outland, which is the quite-hard-to-get Medium Rare. I have a similar problem with Exploration > Northrend, where I have to get Northern Exposure.

So far, all the ones I've done have been pretty simple. I'm going to have to step up my game if I'm going to do this.

Bombs Away!

Bombs Away is very easy if you have two things.

• An epic flyer
• The excellent Overachiever addon, which amongst its many features, gives you an on-screen timer for timed achievements. I finished this one with less than a second to spare.

Preparation is key

So, up until midnight again, but I am well prepared for tomorrow - all but one book for Well Read has been read. So, after reading the last book tomorrow I can prepare further for more achievements.

Blog Lord

Sorry, lame title. This lunchtime, I completed The Slave Pens. You'll notice I didn't say Heroic, because I'm that bad that even Heroic 70 dungeons are far beyond me solo.

Doing it at lunchtime gives me some time tonight to plan my attack a bit better. I have a few ideas, we'll see if I can put them into practice.

I may have bitten off more than I can chew

So Achievements. Some of them are hard. It's after midnight but I'm still claiming victory for the day as I succeeded just before. Plus it's still Monday in WoW time. Plus...shut up.

So, I queued for Strand of the Ancients. Being the daily, I assumed turnover would be high. Turns out that this late in the day it is not. While I was waiting I went into WSG and got hammered, so no joy there. Also tried to do both the Outland daily achievement, Fires over Skettis and Bomb them again, and crapped out there too. Finally I though I'd try The Underbog and got the Strand invite halfway through.

Strand is a fun BG - if you haven't tried it it's a beachhead assault. We were defending first then attacking. We won with about 30 seconds to spare. Along the way, I picked up the following achievements:

• Ancient Protector
• Drop it now!
• Strand of the Ancients Victory

I probably should have bugged out after the first one and saved the rest but that seemed cheap so I'm adding that as another rule - no quitting BGs or dungeons just because I got my achievement for the day.

I'm going to have to think this through a little more - 28 more days of that isn't going to work.

NaBloPoMo Fail

So, read about National Blog Posting Month the day after it started, and so failed immediately. However, it's given me an idea.

I didn't manage to post an entry yesterday, but I did get an achievement - Dead Man's Party - so that got me thinking.

For the month of November, I am going to attempt to get a different achievement every day. 'But Jaffa, that's cake!', you might be thinking. And you, good looking reader would be correct, except that there are a few other considerations to take into account.

• I've done a lot of easy ones already - no exploring a different zone each day to get through this.
• Multiples done on the same day won't count.
• I won't count heroic and normal dungeon completion separately. Other achivements in the same dungeon might count though.
• I'm scared of grouping.
• I have awful gear, so raids are probably out of the question.
• 3.3 hasn't hit yet, and estimates put it near the end of the month, if not December, so no easy LFD or LFR achievements either (probably).
• As I have mentioned, I don't play that much, so I have to plan this a bit around the times I do get to play.

So it's a bit of a challenge, I think.

It's cruel to keep them in such a small pond

So there I was, happily fishing up coins in Dalaran for The Coin Master, when this happened.

A bunch of sharks and Angry Kvaldir* just spawned in the fountain. Now, for all I know, this is a common occurrence. but I think I'd have heard about it by now.

*I know they were angry because it said so in their names. I don't know what about.

Jubilee for 3.3

The biggest improvement for me is the API addition that will enable people to see which quests they have done. This will update mods like the superb EveryQuest to only show incomplete quests, which in turn will make completing the Loremaster achievements that much easier. Hopefully Kandarz will also add Loremaster support to EveryQuest to make it even easier.

Also, loving the idea of the new dungeon system. So many good things there - not least that it should make it far easier to get groups for non-80 dungeons and raids for achievements.

Things we'd like to see

There are quite a few things that would make the WoW experience more pleasant for me, and you, lucky reader, get to find out what they are.

• Per-account storage. Why must I use the cumbersome mail system or have all my alts in the same guild to be able to share the wealth? I have a full batch of alts with different tradeskills and it would be useful to be able to share stuff more easily. Course, my guild comprises my main, my alts and no-one else, so I just use the guild bank, but I'd rather not have to do this. This could be done in conjunction with 
• Guild / Account housing. Natch.
• More BoA stuff. Love the Cold Weather Flying book and, next patch, Hodir enchants. Some bits of the game are fun. Grinding rep, even by doing quests with mildly salacious names, is not so much.
• More collectibles turned into currency or similar items. We no longer have mounts, pets or marks of honor cluttering up our banks, lets have the same with tabards, for example. If you don't mind. And trade goods - my bank is full of them. Can't cloth stack a bit bigger?

I might think of a few more things later.

EDIT: Forgot my main thing!

• WTB section in the AH. Imagine how much better it would be if, instead of yelling out that you WTB something and possibly getting ripped off, you can post what you want and a max price, and others can offer to sell their wares, lowest price wins. I would extend this to craftable items to reduce LFW spam. People could post a request and a price and crafters will accept or not at that price. Accepting the commission will automatically make the product, so the crafter would need to have the mats before accepting.

Hallowed Be My Name!

Finally, after a week and a half of killing the Horseman and putting out his fires, I finally got the Sinster Squashling from a Treat Bag. So ignore my last post :)

From WU

Desperately seeking the Sinister Squashling

As I understand it, achievements are a way of measuring your progress in WoW, whatever type of player you are. Some are very easy, some are very hard, some are more or less completely random. I therefore have no problem with achievements like Sinister Calling, which require not one but two random drops, which you can only get a limited number of times a day (very limited if you have things like a job and a partner and, basically a life) for a limited period. I do have a bit of a problem with it counting for What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been though. It just seems unnecessarily arbitrary.I have been killing the Horseman and putting out fires every day, and getting Treat Bags as often as I can. However, the little pumpkin still eludes me. I have just a few days left before having to wait another year to get this, and failing will really bother me. Fingers crossed, but I'm not hopeful.