Moar Achievements: Children’s Week 2012

This is a re-write of the previous year’s guide.  There are no changes to the holiday from last year, but I’ve updated the format of the post.  There is only one new thing to consider: account wide pets. I highly recommend checking your toons to see which characters have which pets and targeting any pets you don’t already have.  You can also get different pets on different toons to try and collect all of them.

To get For the Children you need to get the following achievements:

• Home Alone – Hearthstone with your Orphan out
• Daily Chores – Do 5 daily quests with your Orphan out
• School of Hard Knocks – complete four specicific BG goals with your Orphan out
• Bad Example – Eat 7 specific types of nice stuff with your Orphan out
• Aw, Isn’t it Cute? – Obtain a Children’s Week pet
• Hail to the King, Baby – Kill King Ymiron in Utgarde Pinnacle with your Orphan out

You need to be at least level 78 to complete this meta achievement.

There are a few bonus achievements and items:

• Veteran Nanny – Acquire Egbert’s Egg, Sleepy Willy and Elekk Training Collar on one character. This will take 3 years.  I suspect this will vanish in MoP, but there is no way you can speed this up so unless you already have two of the pets on one toon, you’ll just have to lose this one.
• There are quite a few pets available.  You can get a maximum of three within one Children’s Week.  Each year you can work on another pet, apart from the Northrend pets – you can only ever get one of these.
  • One from the Stormwind/Orgrimmar orphan quests. (Whiskers the Rat, Mr Wiggles, Speedy, Scooter the Snail)
  • One from the Shattrath orphan quests. (Peanut, Egbert, Willy, Legs)
  • One from the Northrend orphan quests. (Curious Oracle Hatchling/Curious Wolvar Hatchling)

Don’t forget to have your Orphan out when you do ALL of these achievements. 

Now one of these achievements is a nightmare.  I would recommend doing these achievements as follows.

1. Follow the Children’s Week questline to obtain a pet.  Use your Hearthstone while travelling about. Buy some of Tigule and Foror’s Strawberry Flavoured Ice Cream while you are in Stormwind or Orgrimmar. It can be found on the Candy Vendor near the Cooking daily in Stormwind and from the Snack-O-Matic in Horde Zepplins.  [Completed: Aw, Isn't it Cute? and Home Alone, plus 1/7 Bad Example]  You also now have a pet out of this holiday, if nothing else.
2. Time to bite the bullet and go for the hard one.    I could describe it all but I think that Cynwise has already done so far better than I could so check out his guide.  Console yourself with the thought that even if you NEVER PvP you can turn the Honor points you will earn into Justice Points, or use them towards the Honor mounts if you’re a mount collector.  It won’t be enough consolation for the hell that is this achievement, but there you go.  If you are aiming for the meta this is the one you need to focus on because its by far the hardest to get. [Completed: School of Hard Knocks]
3. Once back in town do any five daily quests during the week.  The Fishing/Cooking ones are ridiculously easy and will count. [Completed: Daily Chores]
4. Now its off to Northrend.  Travel to Howling Fjord with a friend or two to complete Utgarde Pinnacle.  You may well be able to solo this.  If not, you should only need one friend.  [Completed: Hail to the King, Baby]
5. Carry on to Dalaran where you can buy a Red Velvet Cupcake, Dalaran Brownie, Dalaran Donut and Lovely Cake from Aimee outside of one of the banks.  Eat them all. [5/7 Bad Example]
6. You now need to either do some cooking or visit the AH for Tasty Cupcake and Delicious Chocolate Cake.  There is an achievement to make the Delicious Chocolate Cake so bake it if you can.  The recipe comes from the rewards for the Outland or Dalaran Cooking dailies.  The Tasty Cupcake recipe is a random Northrend drop.  Both can be found on the AH. [Completed: Bad Example]

If you think Ji Firepaw didn’t need to be changed, you are the problem

This is a very angry post.  It is not a rant, because rant implies that you are angry about nothing.  I am angry about something very important.

For this history behind this take a look at the WoW Insider article.  I’m going to start assuming you’ve read it or the original complaint thread.

My own reaction
I played a panda through the section in question on the beta realms.  I’m just going to document my reaction here.  Very simply I thought: OMG what a creep, never rolling a Horde panda ever.

Now that was my reaction as a long term WoW player.   I immediately decided not to play any part of the game that would bring me into contact with Ji Firepaw.  Imagine if I was a new player? I would have stopped playing right there and then.  No, thats not an exaggeration.

Why games should not reflect real life
Back when I was at University I used to go to this club (this was while I was studying in the US and hence it was NOT a reflection on the University itself at all).  The club had what I called the ‘creepy guys’.  There was one guy who would sidle up behind women, grab them from behind, and start dancing with them.  For some reason I can never fathom, most of those women didn’t respond with an elbow to the stomach.  I sure as hell responded that way.  Despite that, he came back and tried again later!  I wasn’t targeted due to any stunning good looks – I was targeted because I was seemingly unattached.  I went to the club with friends, and not a partner.  Ji Firepaw went straight into the category with the creepy guys.

Now in real life I had two choices.  I could stop going to the club, stop having fun with friends.  It was the only club in town.  Or I could deal with the creepy guys as and when needed.  They eventually got the message.  But WoW is not real life.  I could never ‘deal with’ Ji Firepaw.  A sexist NPC is always a sexist NPC.  I can’t do the in game equivalent of chasing him off.  I am forced to be a passive recipient of his sexism if I want to play the game.

Other reasons the line needed to go
There are a dozen other reasons for this change quite aside from those I’ve already discussed:

• That kind of comment is against Blizzard’s own Terms and Conditions.  If a player made that comment to another player and a complaint was raised, it would be dealt with as a harassment complaint.  And Ji is making this comment to EVERY SINGLE FEMALE TOON HE ENCOUNTERS.  It makes it very hard for Blizzard to police its playerbase if its doing something it tries to police in the game itself.
• Discrimination against women is illegal in many countries.  No matter how small the chance, one lawsuit would do irreparable damage to Blizzard’s reputation and would be seized on by the kind of right wing anti-gaming facists who would ban Harry Potter and the Teletubbies.  Unfortunately, that faction is well represented in US politics (which is where it would hit Blizzard hardest).
• The line was particularly ill thought out because it comes from a faction leader in the first few minutes of playing.  New players may well see this as part of their very first encounter with WoW.  It doesn’t really make a great impression.

What this ‘debate’ has taught me
Another argument against the change is that this is making ‘a mountain out of a mole-hill’.  However, if its so insignificant why do players feel the need to argue so strongly against the change?  The feminists who asked for the change do NOT feel its insignificant.  But the defenders will claim it is insignificant in one breath, before writing an epic about why it NEEDS to stay the same.  The only reason I can think of for this is that somehow having Blizzard’s NPCs espouse their own ideals gave them some feeling of validation.  Some game developers, instead of attempting to be inclusive, actively rejected female gamers for a very long time.  In a capitalist society you would think that attempts would have been made earlier to tap the market that female gamers represented – it wasn’t.  So gaming remained a place where sexism could thrive.  Now Blizzard has rejected sexism and that means it is rejecting these people.

Eight years ago I wrote my MA thesis about sexism and gaming.  The fact that this line even made it as far as the beta just goes to show very little has changed.  I was extremely disappointed in Blizzard when they wrote that.  They should be having a serious think about how that line was ever allowed to appear.

And the biggest reason of all why feminism is still relevant and why gaming is a battleground
Just as this ‘debate’ was calming down I read this post detailing the double standards for women who post controversial material on the internet.  And as I read it I got mad.  Because I don’t want my daughter to grow up in this world.  She is going to grow up in a time when the internet is a part of her everyday life.  Why should she have to be exposed to this kind of rubbish?

If you don’t think the Ji Firepaw line should have been changed, I don’t give a damn what you think.  Because you are the problem.  Because every little bit of sexist crap should be stamped out.  It doesn’t enhance the game by making it more immersive.  It only serves to validate your own vile attitudes and they is why you are defending it.  Think carefully about your daughters or your sisters.  Would you want some random stranger to say that to them? Someone who might be in a position of power over them?  Would you like guys to sleaze over them and have no recourse to defend themselves?  If you think thats fine, then you are the problem.  If you don’t then why do you think thats okay in a computer game?

Moar Achievements: Noblegarden 2012

Welcome to Noblegarden.  This is one of the easier achievements and you can farm the lot in a morning.  Well you could if the Springstrider didn’t need 500!!! chocolates.  Farming that many in one go will drive you mad.  Make sure you have some chocolate handy while doing this as the constant references to chocolate will make you crave chocolate.  Just sayin’.

To get the Noble Gardener achievement you need to get the following:

• I Found One! – Find a Brightly Coloured Egg
• Desert Rose – Use Spring Robes to plant a flower in the listed places
• Hard Boiled – Lay an egg in Un’Goro Crater’s Golakka Hot Springs
• Noble Garden – Hide a Noblegarden Egg in Stormwind/Silvermoon
• Chocoholic – Eat 100 Noblegarden Chocolates
• Blushing Bride – Kiss someone wearing an Elegant Dress while wearing a White Tuxedo Shirt and Black Tuxedo Pants
• Spring Fling – Matchmake your Spring Rabbit in the four starter towns
• Shake Your Bunny Maker – Put rabbit ears on female toons of each race.

There are a few bonus achievements and items:

• Chocolate Lover – Eat 25 Chocolates
• Sunday’s Finest – Discover the White Tuxedo Shirt and Black Tuxedo Pants by opening Brighly Coloured Eggs.
• Dressed for the Occasion -  Discover the Elegant Dress by opening Brighly Coloured Eggs.
• Spring Rabbit – this drops from eggs or costs 100 chocolates and is needed for the meta
• Springstrider – this costs 500 chocolates and is Bind on Pickup (and so not for farming and selling as per recent holidays)

How you do it

1. Head off to the faction specific starter town of your choice and start the grand egg hunt.  On Alliance I always go to Azure Watch and on Horde I prefer Falconwing Square.  I know where the eggs are in these towns.  But any of these towns will do.  Start collecting eggs.  Lots and lots of eggs.  You need at least 115 and up to 915 chocolates to complete these achievements and get the mount.  You should get I Found One! at the first egg.  You should complete the quest to get the Noblegarden Basket (10 chocolates).  Equip this so you can collect eggs faster as it will give you a movement speed boost. [Cost so far: 10 chocolates]
2. Keep collecting eggs until you have 100 chocolates.   Now eat them. Mmmm tasty.  You should get Chocolate Lover and Chocoholic.  [Cost so far: 110 chocolates)]
3. You will need some items for some of the above achievements.  Below is a list of the items and how much they cost.  Most, if not all of these items also have a chance of dropping randomly from an egg.  This is why you do Chocoholic first.  Keep collecting eggs until you can afford all of the items.  If you get any drops, collect less chocolates.
   1. Spring Robes (50 chocolates)
   2. Spring Rabbit (100 chocolates)
   3. White Tuxedo Shirt (25 chocolates – you need these to drop to get Sunday’s Finest, they are NOT soulbound)
   4. Black Tuxedo Pants (25 chocolates – you need these to drop to get Sunday’s Finest , they are NOT soulbound)
   5. Spring Flowers (50 chocolates)
   6. Elegant Dress (50 chocolates – optional as you don’t need it yourself and you need this to drop for Dressed for the Occasion) [Cost so far: 110 chocolates + up to 250 for required drops + 50 for an optional drop = 110-410]
4. You will need to buy a Noblegarden Egg and place it in Stormwind/Silvermoon for 5 chocolates to get Noble Garden as this item does not drop. [Cost so far 115-415 chocolates]
5. Remember I mentioned you don’t need the Elegant Dress yourself? You need to find someone else who has it.  If you have one and you are going AFK its a nice thing to put this on.  For your own achievement you need to wear the White Tuxedo Shirt and the Black Tuxedo Pants and /kiss someone wearing an Elegant Dress to get Blushing Bride.
6. You now need to do some travelling.  Hit all the places listed in Desert Rose and use your robes.  Also visit the remaining faction specific starter towns to matchmake your Spring Rabbit for Spring Fling.  This second part does need other people to be around which is fairly easy early in the festival.  Later on you may need to find a friend to help you with this.
7. There are two ways of doing Hard Boiled.  The easiest is to travel to Golakka Hot Springs in Un’Goro with a friend and turn each other into rabbits once you get there.  You can get the Blossoming Branch item for this from the daily quest available in the egg collecting towns and it only uses broken shells so no extra chocolates.  The achievement can take a while to activate sometimes, I seem to recall.  The solo version takes some planning:
   1. Put your hearthstone in Silithus (you can stone and keep the costume – you cannot fly, mount or use a portal)
   2. Make your way to an egg collection location and keep collecting eggs until you get randomly turned into a rabbit.
   3. Stone to Silithus.
   4. Run to Golakka Hot Springs in Un’goro without fighting anything.
8. Spring Flowers puts bunny ears on another character for Shake Your Bunny Maker.  Finding a female of each race isn’t too hard, though there are inevitably a couple of challenges in the other faction.  Unlike other achievements in this vein, you can’t get a friend to make a level 1 toon.  A few tips for this one are:
   1. Visit Cataclysm base areas via the portals.  The Temple of Earth and the entry point to Mount Hyjal are good as you can take a portal back.
   2. There are still people in Dalaran.  So a trip there is worth it.
   3. PvP.  Tol Barad and Battlegrounds might have what you need.
   4. Sit outside Orgrimmar/Stormwind and watch for the PvPers.
   5. Roll one of those free accounts and create an opposite faction toon.  Type /who RACE and see who is around and where they are.  Stalk them.
9. Finally, you can farm the chocolates for the Swift Springstrider – all 500 of them! [Cost so far: 115-915 chocolates]

Moar Achievements: Mountain O’ Mounts Action Plan 58-100 (the harder part)

So now you’re sitting on 57 mounts and maybe a few more. Heres where it starts to get a little tricker. I’m going to suggest some further mounts, and then a pool of mounts from which you can draw your final selection.

Things to know about Mountain O’ Mounts

• Class mounts don’t count
• Profession mounts do count
• You don’t need to be Exalted with your own faction
• This is an Alliance list – but all mounts have a Horde equivalent

What you are going to need

• Cash! At least 16829 gold according to the list I chose, though you could replace some of these mounts with cheaper options if you were willing to farm for longer/can do more achievements/have rare mounts. This assumes no discounts so you will spend less with faction discounts and the guild saving.
• Time – you will need to farm reputations at some point, and there are quite a few mounts to be had from dailies too. You also can’t do all the dailies every day.
• A level 85 toon (I include Tol Barad mounts here, hence the requirement – you could do this achievement at a lower level, but you would need more of the alternative mounts).
• 2175 Justice Points
• 14000 Honor Points
• At least Artisan Riding. You can gain Master Riding by doing the holiday meta if you wish. None of these mounts require Master Riding to use.

The mounts

The following mount groupings aren’t an order in which to do them – you will want to run several of these in parallel.

58. Silver Riding Talbuk – 70 gold + Exalted with the Kurenai
59. Cobalt Riding Talbuk – 70 gold + Exalted with the Kurenai
60. Tan Riding Talbuk – 70 gold + Exalted with the Kurenai
61. White Riding Talbuk – 70 gold + Exalted with the Kurenai
62. Silver War Talbuk – 100 gold + Exalted with the Kurenai
63. Cobalt War Talbuk – 100 gold + Exalted with the Kurenai
64. Tan War Talbuk – 100 gold + Exalted with the Kurenai
65. White War Talbuk – 100 gold + Exalted with the Kurenai

The gold cost here is relatively small, but farming Kurenai rep will take a while. The best way to do this is to complete all the quests in Nagrand and then kill ogres/cultists in Nagrand. Lots of them. Keep killing them until you hit Exalted. You can hand in the warbeads that drop from ogres for Kurenai rep too, or you can keep them for Consortium rep if you are achievement hunting in general.
Cost so far: 1609 gold + 2175 Justice Points + 12000 Honor Points

66. Azure Netherwing Drake – 200 gold + Exalted with the Netherwing
67. Cobalt Netherwing Drake – 200 gold + Exalted with the Netherwing
68. Onyx Netherwing Drake – 200 gold + Exalted with the Netherwing
69. Purple Netherwing Drake – 200 gold + Exalted with the Netherwing
70. Veridian Netherwing Drake – 200 gold + Exalted with the Netherwing
71. Violet Netherwing Drake – 200 gold + Exalted with the Netherwing

Netherwing rep is somewhat time consuming to get. First you need to complete all the quests in Shadowmoon Valley that relate to the Netherwing. Then there are dailies. The number of dailies you can do increases as your reputation increases. Finally, you can farm the rare spawn eggs and hand in as many of these as you can find a day. They are located all over the Netherwing daily area and in the fortress to the north. Once you are Exalted you will be given a quest to go to Shattrath where you can select one of the drakes. You then go back to Shadowmoon Valley where you can buy the rest.
Cost so far: 2809 gold + 2175 Justice Points + 12000 Honor Points

72. Blue Riding Nether Ray – 200 gold + Exalted with the Sha’tari Skyguard
73. Green Riding Nether Ray – 200 gold + Exalted with the Sha’tari Skyguard
74. Purple Riding Nether Ray – 200 gold + Exalted with the Sha’tari Skyguard
75. Red Riding Nether Ray – 200 gold + Exalted with the Sha’tari Skyguard
76. Silver Riding Nether Ray – 200 gold + Exalted with the Sha’tari Skyguard

Skyguard rep comes from dailies and other actions in the Skettis area, plus a daily in the Ogri’la area. You can also kill Skettis Arakkoa. I’d recommend just focusing on the Skettis area in Terokkar Forest. Do the dailies there and collect Shadow Dust, which you can hand in to get an Elixir of Shadows. This allows you to see undead arakkoa too. Kill these and get 10 scrolls of ressurection, which you can use to summon named arakkoa. Four of these drop unique items which you can hand in to get an item to summon Terokk, who you kill. Each of these gives reputation and it gives a little structure to what is basically kill all the things rep grind.
Cost so far: 3609 gold + 2175 Justice Points + 12000 Honor Points

77. Winterspring Frostsaber – complete 20 dailies

Visit Frostsaber Rock in Winterspring to start these quests. You will get a baby frostsaber to care for and have to feed and play with him via 20 daily quests. When you have 20 whiskers, hand them in and he’ll be all grown up.
Cost so far: 3609 gold + 2175 Justice Points + 12000 Honor Points

Choices, or the REALLY HARD part
Now we start to get into optional mounts. You need to pick 23 mounts from those below. It comes down to cash versus time spent and your own preference about which to go with.

Swift Grey Steed – 500 gold + 5 Champion’s Seals
Swift Moonsaber – 500 gold + 5 Champion’s Seals
Swift Violet Ram – 500 gold + 5 Champion’s Seals
Turbostrider – 500 gold + 5 Champion’s Seals
Great Read Elekk – 500 gold + 5 Champion’s Seals
Argent Warhorse – 100 Champion’s Seals
Darnassian Nightsaber – 100 Champion’s Seals
Exodar Elekk – 100 Champion’s Seals
Gnomeregon Mechanostrider – 100 Champion’s Seals
Ironforge Ram – 100 Champion’s Seals
Quel’dorai Steed – 100 Champion’s Seals
Stormwind Steed – 100 Champion’s Seals
Silver Covenant Hippogryph – 150 Champion’s Seals
Argent Hippogryph – 150 Champion’s Seals

These come from the Argent Tournament dailies area. It will take a while to get to the point where you can collect and purchase these, but you will get a lot of achievements along the way and you can also access more mounts and some pets. If you are starting from scratch there are also a lot of achievements to be had by doing these dailies. These are a classic example of time versus cash. It will only take a couple of days to farm the seals for those needing only 5 and some cash, or you can save money by farming a lot more. I intend to use these to fill out the last mounts I need.

Drake of the West Wind – 200 Tol Barad Commendations
Spectral Steed – 165 Tol Barad Commendations

You get these by doing Tol Barad dailies. You need to be Exalted with Baradin’s Wardens too, but by the time you have that many commendations you will be close if not already there. You can do the base camp dailies once a day, plus the dailies in Tol Barad itself while your faction holds it. You also get three for the weekly Tol Barad win quest. There are three sets of rotating dailies which will be different every time you win Tol Barad so in theory you can do all three sets in a day. You also get commendations for the weekly win Tol Barad quest. I intend to farm one of these.

Darkmoon Dancing Bear – 180 Darkmoon Tokens
Swift Forest Strider – 180 Darkmoon Tokens

Collect tokens by doing the quests at the Darkmoon Faire. You can get up to 145 tokens per Darkmoon Faire so you could do it in three Faire’s but most likely it will take 4. I intend to farm one of these.

Cenarion War Hippogryph – 2000 gold + Exalted with Cenarion Expedition

CE rep isn’t too bad to get. Complete quests in Zangamarsh and Borean Tundra, and run lots of Steamvaults. You can get Coilfang Armament drops to speed it up.

Flameward Hippogryph – The Molton Front Offensive completed

This will take doing dailies for a few weeks, but you will make quite a bit of cash doing these as they are current and the mount is particularly nice looking. You can also get access to some pets and lots of achievements.

Stormpike Battle Charger – 2000 Honor Points + Exalted with Stormpike

Best option for your Honor mounts is to wait for Alterac Valley weekend and farm the lot. You get far more HP for AV than any other weekend. Also do the quests from the AV entrance area to get further Stormpike reputation. Its not too bad and you can farm gear and mounts while you do it. I might skip this. I depends if an AV weekend comes up before I get 100 mounts and what else I am doing that weekend.

Ice Mammoth – 1000 gold + Exalted with Sons of Hodir

Sons of Hodir rep comes from quests and dailies in Storm Peaks. You can also hand in Relics of Ulduar from killing mobs in the Storm Peaks. Finally, and best of all, you can get Sons of Hodir Commendations which give 500 rep for just 16 Justice Points! There are two mounts, but the other one costs 10000 gold! You get an achievement for each mount.

Armored Brown Bear – 750 gold
Golden King – 1500 gold + Guild level 25
Armored Snowy Gryphon – 2000 gold
Red Drake – 2000 gold

These are splash the cash mounts. You could replace these with other mounts and save some gold. There are other more expensive mounts available if you have LOTS of cash. I have the bear and will likely buy the guild mount at least.

Fossilized Raptor – Archaology
Ultramarine Qiraji Battle Tank – Archaeology

The Raptor isn’t that rare. The Battle Tank is very rare. It all depends on how much Archaeology you are willing to do!

Tyrael’s Charger – Annual Pass
Celestial Steed – Blizzard Store
Winged Guardian – Blizzard Store

If you want to part with some cash, these mounts can be yours. The Annual Pass mount actually won’t cost you any extra if you intend to play for the next year anyway.

Swift Lovebird – Love is in the Air (holiday tokens)
Swift Springstrider – Noblegarden (holiday tokens)
Big Love Rocket – Love is in the Air (drop – very rare)
Swift Brewfest Ram – Brewfest (drop – rare)
Great Brewfest Kodo – Brewfest (drop – rare)
Headless Horseman’s Mount – Hallow’s End (drop – very rare)
Violet Proto-Drake – What a Long Strange Trip its Been

These can be used to supplement other mounts if the holiday itself is on. The token based mounts are not hard to get and are very efficient forms of mount collection. The Violet Proto-Drake takes a whole year, but does give you Master riding for free. And a LOT of achievement points.

Red Proto Drake – Glory of the Hero
Ironbound Proto-Drake – Glory of the Ulduar Hero 10
Bloodbathed Frostbrood Vanquisher – Glory of the ICC Hero 10
Icebound Frostbrood Vanquisher – Glory of the ICC Hero 25
Rusted Proto-Drake – Glory of the Uldaur Hero 25
Amani Battle Bear – ZA Timed Run
Black War Bear – For the Alliance!
Corrupted Firehawk – Glory of the Firelands Raider
Drake of the East Wind – Glory of the Cataclysm Raider
Twilight Harbinger – Glory of the Dragon Soul Raider
Volcanic Stone Drake – Glory of the Cataclysm Hero
Dark Phoenix – 3000 gold + Guild Glory of the Cataclysm Raider
Vicious War Steed – Veteran of the Alliance

These mounts come from achievements. Its possible you may have some of these already.

I’m not going to list them all, but there are also the rare mounts. I don’t believe any of these are worth actively farming. With one exception. If you are exalted with The Oracles you may as well farm the Green Proto-Drake which comes from the egg. I say this because even if you never get it, you should get the pets and you can sell duplicate pets to pay for other mounts. Its never going to be a waste of time.

From this list I intend to use:

78. Red Proto-Drake
79. Ironbound Proto-Drake
80. Bloodbathed Frostbrood Vanquisher
81. Green Proto-Drake
82. Violet Proto-Drake
83. Swift Lovebird
84. Swift Springstrider (I will farm this next week)
85. Tyrael’s Charger (I was going to play WoW for a year and pay for D3 so this is a bonus)
86. Fossilised Raptor
87. Armored Brown Bear
88. Flameward Hippogryph
89. Cenarion War Hippogryph
90. Swift Violet Ram
91. Ironforge Ram
92. Darkmoon Dancing Bear
93. Ice Mammoth
94. Drake of the West Wind
95. Swift Moonsaber
96. Swift Grey Steed
97. Turbostrider
98. Great Red Elekk
99. Golden King
100. ???

I haven’t decided what the last mount will be. It depends on how long other things take and what opportunities are available. I might treat myself to a Mekgineer’s Chopper …

Moar Achievements: Mountain O’ Mounts Action Plan 1-57 (the easy part)

The good news is that there are a lot of mounts in game now that you can use to get the Mountain O’ Mounts achievement (100 mounts).  The bad news is that mount collecting is expensive!  This is my Mountain O’ Mounts action plan, plus some optional extra mounts you could use towards your collection.

Things to know about Mountain O’ Mounts

• Class mounts don’t count
• Profession mounts do count
• You don’t need to be Exalted with your own faction
• This is an Alliance list – but all mounts have a Horde equivalent

 What you are going to need

• Cash!  At least 16829 gold according to my action plan, though you could replace some of these mounts with cheaper options if you were willing to farm for longer/can do more achievements/have rare mounts. This assumes no discounts so you will spend lest with faction discounts and the guild saving.
• Time – you will need to farm reputations at some point, and there are quite a few mounts to be had from dailies too.  You also can’t do all the dailies every day.
• A level 85 toon (I include Tol Barad mounts here, hence the requirement – you could do this achievement at a lower level, but you would need more of the alternative mounts).
• 2175 Justice Points
• 14000 Honor points
• At least Artisan Riding.  You can gain Master Riding by doing the holiday meta if you wish.  None of these mounts require Master Riding to use.

The mounts

1. Abyssal Seahorse – Vashj’ir quest

Just go to Vashj’ir and follow the quest line and you will get this mount for free and quite quickly.

2. Black Stallion – 1 gold + Exalted with Stormwind
3. Brown Horse -  1 gold + Exalted with Stormwind
4. Chestnut Mare -  1 gold + Exalted with Stormwind
5. Pinto -  1 gold + Exalted with Stormwind
6. Swift Brown Steed -  10 gold + Exalted with Stormwind
7. Swift Palamino -  10 gold + Exalted with Stormwind
8. Swift White Steed -  10 gold + Exalted with Stormwind

You can become Exalted with Stormwind by buying a Stormwind Tabard and wearing it while in any instance, including low level ones. You will get reputation for every mob killed. The mounts are all available from the stables within Stormwind.
Cost so far: 34 gold

9. Blue Mechanostrider –  1 gold + Exalted with Gnomeregan
10. Green Mechanostrider –  1 gold + Exalted with Gnomeregan
11. Red Mechanostrider –  1 gold + Exalted with Gnomeregan
12. Unpainted Mechanostrider –  1 gold + Exalted with Gnomeregan
13. Swift Green Mechanostrider –  10 gold + Exalted with Gnomeregan
14. Swift White Mechanostrider –  10 gold + Exalted with Gnomeregan
15. Swift Yellow Mechanostrider –  10 gold + Exalted with Gnomeregan

You can become Exalted with Gnomeregan by buying a Gnomeregan Tabard and wearing it while in any instance, including low level ones. You will get reputation for every mob killed. The mounts are all available just outside Kharanos.
Cost so far: 68 gold

16. Brown Elekk –  1 gold + Exalted with Exodar
17. Grey Elekk –  1 gold + Exalted with Exodar
18. Purple Elekk –  1 gold + Exalted with Exodar
19. Great Blue Elekk –  10 gold + Exalted with Exodar
20. Great Green Elekk –  10 gold + Exalted with Exodar
21. Great Purple Elekk –  10 gold + Exalted with Exodar

You can become Exalted with Exodar by buying an Exodar Tabard and wearing it while in any instance, including low level ones. You will get reputation for every mob killed. The mounts are all available just outside the Exodar.
Cost so far: 101 gold

22. Brown Ram –  1 gold + Exalted with Ironforge
23. Grey Ram –  1 gold + Exalted with Ironforge
24. White Ram –  1 gold + Exalted with Ironforge
25. Swift Brown Ram –  10 gold + Exalted with Ironforge
26. Swift Grey Ram –  10 gold + Exalted with Ironforge
27. Swift White Ram –  10 gold + Exalted with Ironforge

You can become Exalted with Ironforge by buying an Ironforge Tabard and wearing it while in any instance, including low level ones. You will get reputation for every mob killed. The mounts are all available from the Amberstill Ranch in Dun Morogh.
Cost so far: 134 gold

28. Spotted Frostsaber – 1 gold + Exalted with Darnassus
29. Striped Dawnsaber – 1 gold + Exalted with Darnassus
30. Striped Frostsaber – 1 gold + Exalted with Darnassus
31. Striped Nightsaber – 1 gold + Exalted with Darnassus
32. Swift Frostsaber – 10 gold + Exalted with Darnassus
33. Swift Mistsaber – 10 gold + Exalted with Darnassus
34. Swift Stormsaber – 10 gold + Exalted with Darnassus

You can become Exalted with Darnassus by buying a Darnassus Tabard and wearing it while in any instance, including low level ones. You will get reputation for every mob killed. The mounts are all available from Darnassus.
Cost so far: 168 gold

35. Mountain Horse – 1 gold + Exalted with Gilneas
36. Swift Mountain Horse – 10 gold + Exalted with Gilneas

You can become Exalted with Gilneas by buying a Gilneas Tabard and wearing it while in any instance, including low level ones. You will get reputation for every mob killed. The mounts are all available from Darnassus (from the Gilnean area).
Cost so far: 179 gold

37. Ebon Gryphon – 50 gold
38. Golden Gryphon – 50 gold
39. Snowy Gryphon – 50 gold
40. Swift Blue Gryphon – 100 gold
41. Swift Green Gryphon – 100 gold
42. Swift Purple Gryphon – 100 gold
43. Swift Red Gryphon – 100 gold

All of these mounts can be brought in Stormwind from the vendor near the flight master.
Cost so far: 729 gold

44. Brown Riding Camel – 100 gold + Exalted with Ramkahen
45. Tan Riding Camel – 100 gold + Exalted with Ramkahen

You can become Exalted with Ramkahen through quests in Uldum.  You can also buy a Ramkahen Tabard from the Quartermaster in Uldum and wear it in at least Cataclysm level instances.  You will get reputation for every mob killed.  The mounts can be brought from the same Quartermaster.
Cost so far: 929 gold

46. Wooly Mammoth – 2175 Justice Points
Cost so far: 929 gold + 2175 Justice Points

47. Black War Elekk – 2000 Honor Points
48. Black War Mammoth – 2000 Honor Points
49. Black War Ram – 2000 Honor Points
50. Black War Tiger – 2000 Honor Points
52.  Black Battlestrider – 2000 Honor Points
53. Black War Steed – 2000 Honor Points

Yes I know mount number 51 is missing.
Cost so far: 929 gold + 2175 Justice Points + 12000 Honor Points

51. Albino Drake – you get this for having 50 mounts! Congratulations.

Cost so far: 929 gold + 2175 Justice Points + 12000 Honor Points

54. Bronze Drake – Heroic Culling of Stratholme

The Bronze Drake is a guarenteed drop as long as you get to the boss in time.  You just have to win the roll.  If you take a buddy or two with you it should be easy to get it.
Cost so far: 929 gold + 2175 Justice Points + 12000 Honor Points

55. Blue Qiraji Battle Tank
56. Green Qiraji Battle Tank
57. Yellow Qiraji Battle Tank

These all drop from AQ40.  If you get a couple of people and run through this, you will get drops.  In fact, if you PuG this you will still likely get them as the drop like candy for the most part.  You can only use them in Ahn’Qiraj but they still count towards your meta.
Cost so far: 929 gold + 2175 Justice Points + 12000 Honor Points

Morrighan’s Mists of Pandaria Crib Sheet

Everything you actually need to know about the upcoming expansion:

• The beta will start Soon (TM).
• The expansion will be released When Its Ready (TM).
• AoE loot has been stolen from SWTOR, to much applause.
• LFR looting system in a nutshell:  Boss dies and you have a random chance to get loot that is completely unrelated to anyone else’s chance to get loot.  If the boss has loot for your current spec, and regardless of whether or not you already have said loot.  Items brought from factions will enable to you get another shot at loot on a boss of your choice.
• It will take a long time to get to exalted with factions, apparently.  And the previous point assures me you will actually try.
• PokeWoW is still coming …
• … and so is Farmville
• There will be lots more daily quests.  Lots.
• There will be lots of jokes involving beer.  Think of MoP as the Brewfest expansion.
• Garrosh is a war criminal and you will bring him to justice (assuming Russia and China don’t veto you of course).
• Hidden Gem: As well as Scenarios, there will be something called Proving Grounds.  Target dummy + lore + solo instance + achievements = Proving Grounds.  More achievements you can solo are good.
• There will be three raids with 14 bosses between them at launch.  There will also be two world bosses.
• There are two new battlegrounds.  This time, they are actually new and not a new map with an old mechanic.  Neither of them are DotA.
• The “intention” is for a raid tier to last 4 months with another content patch halfway through. If you have expressive eyebrows, please now raise them skeptically.
• Valor points won’t buy gear.  They will allow you to upgrade your current gear by increasing its ilevel and stats.  So when your next tier has a lousy bonus/makes you look like a giant banana, you can skip it.
• There will be a Glyph that reduces the cast time of your Hearthstone while Divine Shield is active.  Bubble-hearth is back!

Link Love: More new blogs

So I added 5 new blogs to my blog roll the other day.  And now I find I can add 5 more.  Some of these are newer bloggers, but I’m also giving some Link Love to the amazing site that is MMO Melting Pot, who try to bring together the WoW blogging community by giving exposure to new bloggers and tying together discussions that take place across the blogosphere.  Hugh from MMO Melting Pot posted a comment on last week’s blog that reminded me I hadn’t added it, though I have followed the site for some time and appreciate what it does.  Then I realised I hadn’t linked Blog Azeroth either!  This site gives bloggers a forum to discuss things and bring together ideas.

So, without further ado:

1. MMO Melting Pot
2. Blog Azeroth
3. Apple Cider Mage
4. Bravetank
5. Zwingli’s Blog

I’m currently putting together a Moar Achievements guide for Mountain O’ Mounts (probably in two parts as its quite long) and I intend to add some good SWTOR blogs to my reader and then my blogroll.

Link love, or a slacker updates her blogroll

I’ve added some new links to my blog roll.  Check them out!

• Spellbound
• Need More Rage
• Psynister’s Notebook
• Mana Obscura
• Armageddon’s Coming

Sub-text: I’ve finally been sorting out my feed reader and am linking some great blogs I’ve been reading for a while but dismally failed to add to my blogroll.  Expect more to come, infrequently and randomly.

A day of achievements

Darkmoon Faire arrived and I started working on a few achievements on Morrighan (my Achievements Toon).  First I took a little ride:

Then I discovered that Blizzard have screwed up and reset the Darkmoon Faire achievements for the drops AGAIN.  So I decided to spend the gold and just get them.  I had quite a few of the items, including A Treatise on Strategy, an Ornate Hilt and a Monstrous Egg and I used all three before I discovered the reset.  So I spent about 2k gold getting this:

Then, this evening, I hopped onto Brynna (my current Raiding Toon) and we went to Dragon Soul with two bosses left.  First we managed to take out Spine, and my addon took this cool picture:

Then, just to top off the day, I got this:

All in all, a good day!

People don’t like to be wrong

This is one of those posts that started as a comment.  Then, when I realised it was getting a bit out of hand, I decided to make it a post.

So BBB wrote an excellent post defending his ongoing love of WoW against those people who seem to not just be burnt out on WoW, but feel the need to be aggressive about it.  Its not enough that they stopped playing.  Everyone else must agree with them.  I think the reason so many people rage against those who are happily still playing WoW is twofold.

A question of polish
Firstly, no other MMO has quite managed to be the all-things-to-all-players game that WoW is.  Others have certainly been strong in different areas – Star Wars blows WoW questing out of the water for me.  But people expect more from new MMOs than any has managed to give thus far.  If you look at other industries, when someone comes up with a good enough idea, everyone runs with it.  But that doesn’t seem to happen in MMO design.  Something for budding game developers to think about.

I play and enjoy Star Wars but I’m constantly baffled as to why it has failed to learn many of the lessons that WoW learned before it was even conceived of.  It takes FOREVER to travel between planets and its not even a ‘get on a flight point and go get a coffee’ forever.  Its a ‘run here, click here, run there, click that, choose this, run here, click this, run there, click this’ marathon.  Who thought that was a good idea?  Blizzard didn’t, because they changed it already.  Remember when it took 15 minutes to fly from Stormwind to Ironforge?  I do.  At first, Blizzard did that intentionally.  They wanted to create a sense of time in the world.  But ultimately, they realized that for many players it was just a waste of playing time.  Imagine trying to do Love is in the Air back then?  Every time Star Wars sends me back to the Imperial Intelligence HQ I want to slap a designer.  Not only do I have to go through the run-click marathon, but theres no direct flight point from the Starport to HQ so I have to run through the damn city too.  This doesn’t ‘enhance my sense of being in a world’.  I am not IN that world.  I am at my desk, wasting time RUNNING that I could be spending doing lots of more exciting things.  There are plenty of things Star Wars doesn’t show – why can’t travel time be implied?

So was there a point? Yes.  People don’t like to be wrong.  Some people have burnt out on WoW, but can’t find another game that has that special something.  They want the feeling back that they had when they first played WoW.  But no game has quite managed to achieve a similar level of polish given the way games have evolved.  In part I think this is because when WoW first came out, it was all about the levelling experience.  However, for new MMOs, people care about the end game too, because they know thats where they are going to spend most of their time.  SWTOR has focused on the levelling with the intention of adding the end game later, but has found that people are judging it on the end game it doesn’t yet have.  If a player has left WoW for another MMO, they want to feel that was the right choice.  But if you read the forums for a game like SWTOR, its just an endless raging whine.  And the reviews have been mixed.  And players like me, who play the game, also write about our criticisms of the game.  So, in the face of that negativity, they respond by making themselves right in their head.  If they are right, everyone who stayed with WoW must be wrong.  So you get the hate.

It’s not me, its you
Secondly, I think people like to blame the game for things they don’t want to accept about themselves.  WoW has NOT changed dramatically over the years.  Its been tweaked a lot.  There have been 40 man raids, 25 man raids, 10 player raids, LFR, LFD, heroic modes, hard modes, battlegrounds, rated battlegrounds, quest hubs, daily quest hubs, holiday quest hubs – variations on a few themes.  Its great at keeping itself up to date, but it still works on the same basic principles it had in vanilla.  The social dynamic has changed, but not as much as people think.  What does change, are the players.  People change over time.  They do different things, have different interests, make different friends, get educated, get jobs, find relationships.  Sometimes, people change so much that they lose that connection.  They play too much and run out of things to do, they play too little and lose the social connections that make the game fun, they play with the wrong people and end up feeling the whole game is full of jerks.

But, going back to what I said before, they still value that special feeling they got when they first played a game.  They still value that connection.   If the special feeling has gone it means one of two things – they’ve changed, or the game has changed.  For WoW, it mostly means they’ve changed.  But I don’t think most people think of themselves as changing beings.  So they blame the game.  And if the game has changed so much they don’t like it, why do other people still love it?  And then we’re back to the right/wrong thing I described above.  People don’t want to be wrong.  If the game has changed so much they don’t like it any more, and they are right, the people who do still like it are wrong.

I wholeheartedly agree with BBB whey he tells these people to just sod off.  I know WoW is not perfect.  I don’t like the current raid difficulty model as I think it panders too much to the elite few, though I do think LFR is a great solution to some of this.  I think LFR loot should be made non-tradeable and non-sellable to wipe out the current horrendous issues with people rolling on loot they already have to trade and sell.  If they had to type ‘delete’ for every piece of ninja’d loot it would soon get boring.  RBGs are largely inaccessible to people who might enjoy them, but don’t know enough fellow PvPers and are part of PvE guilds.Achievement systems make it hard to change toons even when you want to.  Its not a perfect game.  No game is perfect for everyone all of the time.  But I still like it.  And I am right to keep playing a game I enjoy.  If you don’t enjoy it, thats fine.  But your need to feel you are right does not make me wrong!  There are whole blogs I’ve read that now seem to dedicate themselves to insisting that WoW is broken and people who play it are all stupid suckers who are being robbed of their money by the corporate monster that is Blizzard.  You are looking to the wrong people to validate your decisions.  Look to the new people you are playing with who agree with you and you will find validation there without needed to harass a bear.

And thats why I didn’t end up writing this as a comment …