There’s been a lot of commentary regarding the Children’s Week achievements, and I don’t have much to add. I didn’t complete the meta-achievement, and the one achievement that prevented me from doing so was “School of Hard Knocks”. Unlike a lot of people, I already have incomplete World Event achievements, so that Proto-Drake is never going to be mine. Thus I didn’t even try to complete this one.

This particular PVP requirement was always going to bring out the worst in people. There are stories of people co-operating to get it done, and other stories of people deliberately setting out to kill anyone with an orphan out on the Battlegrounds. Personally, I have no idea how the Battlegrounds work, I don’t know where to go or what to do to “cap” or return a flag, and I wasn’t going to start now. One very kind Guildie who knows more about PVP than I do did very kindly offer to run me through the Battlegrounds and “show me the ropes”, but now that my playtime is more limited I have far more things I’d rather be doing with my online time. But the offer was very much appreciated

Perhaps my lack of Merrymaker title allowed me to be a little more relaxed about this one. I felt hugely frustrated at Christmas-time when I did fail to achieve the title. The main cause of frustration was the PVP element, which I did try for. So I do sympathise with all those who tried and failed for this one.

I do think, however, that if Blizzard were to remove the requirement for School of Hard Knocks it would make this World Event achievement trivially easy. Nothing else in here was difficult or time consuming, unlike the others. It could all be completed within a few hours. I suppose I am lucky in that I am a member of a guild that runs instances quite a lot, and I managed to join an Utgarde Pinnacle group that blasted through on Normal mode just to get the achievement. I’m sure some people found that one as difficult as I find the PVP.

I will still like Blizzard to find some way of making some of these achievements not require PVP. I’ll reiterate again the suggestion made by Renata on the World of Warcast podcast – how about making it a requirement to complete all but one of the achievements, allowing those who don’t want to PVP to skip the PVP one, and those who can’t PVE to skip the instance one? It seems that Blizzard are trying to make the World Event achievements span the whole range of WoW content, and there are a lot of players who do not want to experience that whole range!

(Yes, I’ve still got that funny “fading” problem with my screenshots.)

When I returned to Dalaran I noticed that I had new mail, and when I looked in the nearest mailbox I found this:

Look at the title of this blog! Read about why I am a permanently lost Druid! And see why I rolled around laughing when I read this mail.

My friends already know who to ask for directions. And it’s not me!

It’s a pretty tabard though

My thoughts on this world event:

I managed to do all of it solo, apart from the Bouquet of Ebon Roses, which I managed to duo with my husband’s level 80 Warlock. I liked that there was nothing required that needed a full group, or more. I enjoy logging on and just noodling around on my own for a bit

The PVP element was entirely achieveable, although I doubt people liked me joining an Arathi Basin fight, running for the Blacksmith, pitying my Fool and then AFK-ing out. I still don’t like that there is a mandatory PVP element to all these meta-achievements, and I think it breeds bad PVP behaviour, like mine.

Everything was very random – I spent the whole weekend logging in once every hour to see if I could get the items I needed. Thankfully I did (well, apart from the pet), but I’m sure there are frustrated people out there that didn’t.

It needed a lot of bag space, and I ended up with a whole load of leftover stuff. I did think about leaving it in the bank for next year, but last night I came to my senses and just deleted it all!

On the whole I enjoyed the event. Children’t Week next, and having had a peek ahead at the achievements for that I am not looking forward to it. It’ll be the PVP requirements that I don’t do, I’m sure.

Following the “Merrymaker” disappointment, I’m trying not to get too obsessed with completing all the World Event achievements, but I do feel that the Lunar festival is a very druid-oriented festival, and I think it’s appropriate that I, as a druid, bear the Elder title. I also think it plays to our strengths, with a lot of the achievements being made a lot easier by our ability to sneak. I hate PvP, but will quite happily sneak in and out of the Horde capital cities when the need arises

By the time I’d finished, it was almost bedtime, so I thought I’d head down into the Dalaran sewers and waste one lure trying to fish for the rat pet down there. I’ve been levelling my fishing in the sewers – I find it helps to have another goal, as well as trying to the pet. I’ve lost track of how long I’ve spent down there, but I’ve managed to get my fishing up to 440 so far, so it’s been quite a while. Anyway, with only 48s left on my lure I was amazed to see the thing I’ve been chasing for so long – yes, my very own giant rat pet.

I went to bed a happy druid last night

I did most of them, including shelling out the gold for an epic flying mount, having discovered that I needed one to complete the Ogrila achievement. However, it was the requirement for a PvP achievment that was the show stopper for me. I don’t like PvP. I forced myself into two Battlegrounds to get my “Spirit of Competition” pet. I ran two or three to complete my “The Hallowed” title. But 50 honor kills in a gnome costume? When being a gnome seems to make you the number one target to the opposition? And you lose the effect on death and either have to AFK out and twiddle your thumbs for 15 minutes before trying again, or have to complete the battleground without it counting towards your achievement at all. It’s a waste of my time. And it’s not fun. So I didn’t do it.

I also never got the Santa hat, so missed out on another achievement there. I’ve had no time to run any instances recently anyway, and I didn’t want to bug my Guild to run The Nexus for me to get the hat. I’d rather do stuff I can achieve on my own, without having to ask for help.

I also never dressed as a snowman and danced in Dalaran. But I do have my disguise kit, as does my husband, so I could get that one any time I wanted.

Renata on the World of Warcast podcast came up with a great idea. She suggested the seasonal achievements should grant the title if you gain a subset of the required achievements. So, if for example there are 15 achievements in total for Winter’s Veil, completing any 13 should give you the title. I think this is a great idea. It means if you really don’t want to PvP, or don’t satisfy the requirements for a couple of the achievements, you can still gain yourself the title. I’d really like to see that implemented, because it looks like Blizzard have put a PvP requirement in all the seasonal collections, and they don’t seem to get any easier.