An Achievement a Day
By Azuarc.
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Index
- Part 1 (January 1-February 5)
- Part 2 (February 6-March 17)
- Part 3 (March 18-May 6)
- Part 4 (May 7- )
- Part 5
- Part 6
- Part 7
The Very Beginning
I'm writing this post on the last few days of 2008, (and later editing a bit.) I have this idea, and I don't know if it will take off considering I'm only even writing about it on December 26th, but we'll see. The goal is simple - I'm going to get an achievement every day for as many days in a row as I'm able to. It's a challenge to myself, spurred on by my stupid jewelcrafting daily quests that essentially force me to play every day anyhow so I can get the tokens for my recipes.
However, I'm not going to attempt this on my main. I have a limited amount of playtime. I'm a schoolteacher now -- high school math -- and you wouldn't believe how much time that sucks out of your life if you haven't done it yourself. Considering that, I want to make this as easy on myself as possible, and also realistic. My main has over 300 achievements. I would have to spend countless hours leveling up a character from level 1 unless it was a Death Knight, and even then I would still have to slowly go through all of Outland. However, I have just the character for the job...
This is Restandre.
Restandre is my priest that I started on the very first day of retail, and has been on the same server as my hunter throughout. Restandre was also the name of my beta priest, and my cleric in Everquest. However, Restandre hasn't been getting much love. I love playing priest -- it's the only class I can stomach besides hunter -- however I just haven't had that much desire to play her since Burning Crusade came out, and with Lich King here now, I'm honestly amazed I found her at level 70. It seems I scraped together just enough exp to do it, and promptly shelved her again.
However, due to the nature of the character, I've done very little with her. I was playing intensely before Lich King came out, intending to make her into a scribe. Formerly herb/alch, I had run around Swamp of Sorrows and quite a few other low-end zones collecting herbs, and did switch to inscription when 3.0 came out, however I'm really not happy with it and think I probably should have stuck with alchemy. There's very little else of interest that the character has done -- no battlegrounds, minimal questing, no real dungeon runs. To that effect, here is her achievement window:
Achievements as of December 31, 2008
- Can I Keep Him?
- Into the Wild Blue Yonder and 2 prereqs
- Level 70 and 6 prereqs
- 1000 Quests Completed and 4 prereqs (1001 to be specific)
- Mysteries of the Marsh
- To Hellfire and Back
- Hills Like White Elekk
- Explore: Deadwind Pass, Swamp of Sorrows, Moonglade, Un'goro, Desolace, Darkshore, Zangarmarsh (7 total)
- An Honorable Kill (pity, exactly one, too)
- Blackrock Depths
- Hellfire Ramparts
- Professional Grand Master and 3 prereqs (herbalism)
- Grand Master in First Aid and 4 prereqs
- He Knows If You've Been Naughty (added after picture above)
Total of 40
I'm going to set a "New Year's Resolution" to get one achievement on this character every day this year. Between having minimal playtime and not actually regarding this character as my main, I intend to not put heavy amounts of time into this project on a daily basis.
This may be harder or easier than it sounds, depending on your perspective, and especially on how long I actually play. It shouldn't be too hard for me to ride around a zone I haven't explored each day until I've explored them all. It shouldn't be too hard to pick up a number of the World Event achievements as time goes by. It shouldn't be too hard to pick off some of the easier achievements out there, like "5 fish" or "An Honorable Kill." However, once we pass that threshold, it starts to get a good bit more challenging, and I don't know where that will put me.
My goal is to get an achievement a day for every day in 2009. I'll make whatever accomodations I need to if I know I truly will not be able to commit the few minutes on a given day to get some of my emergency achievements I have lying in wait. (I will, for example, stay 1 fish below the fish count achievements for if I can't devote any time that day.) But I will get at least one achievement every day. I'll chronicle my progress here.
Before I begin, I suppose I should also tell you a little bit about me and why I would do this. I have been in a raiding guild for the last 4 years -- not a hardcore raiding guild, but a solid group that were legitimately working on Sunwell when 3.0 hit. However, in September, I took a job as a high school teacher. I'm finding that it takes nearly all my time, and in unpredictable fashions as well. I can't really commit to staying up late enough for the raidtimes my guild keeps, nor do I think I'd be able to consistently make it to that of another guild's if I were to switch. So I'm trying to find something else to give my WoW meaning. I guess you could say I'm going casual. However, this is the reason why I'm definitely going to need a few "log in and back out" achievements at the ready. It's not intentional that I'm playing this way, but due to circumstances I may as well make something of it.
Planning It Out
The most difficult part of this challenge is going to be in carefully managing all the things that need to happen. I'm in a curiously paradoxical situation if I want to get certain achievements -- I have to do low-end zones to get my cooking up (and to do some of the fishing achievements along the way) and to work up my quest count and my reputations. However, most of the achievements that take a fair amount of work will require time spent elsewhere and I should probably start on those as soon as possible. "100 Dalaran Cooking Awards" best summarizes my disposition, since I not only have to get my cooking up fairly quickly, but then I have to commit to doing the cooking quests on a VERY consistent basis.
So if you were to look at the entire body of achievements, here are the general categories of what I'm working toward...
My short-term goals: Get cooking up to a level where I can start doing the Dalaran dailies. Get to level 74 so I can get to Dalaran. (No, I don't want a port.) Get fishing to a point where I can actually use it on random debris-type stuff I encounter.
Mid-term goals: Completing many of the early quests and instances to count toward R&D, rep, and questing achievements Running basic Lich King instances and later heroics. Running occasional battlegrounds Early pet/mount achievements
Long-term goals: The more time-consuming slow-buildup achievements, many of which truly cannot be done in a rapid fashion. (100 Dalaran cooking awards, 100k honorable kills, 1000 daily quests complete) Raiding achievements? Anything involving reputations
Take em as you get em: Exploration World Events Incidental achievements (like Got My Money on My Mind, 2000 quests completed, The Bread Winner, Tastes Like Chicken...)
Total cop-out achievements:
A Shave and a Haircut
Represent
Safe Deposit
Explore Elwynn Forest
I have to keep a close watch on the "incidental" achievements. It was unfortunate that I happened to have gotten 1001 quests prior to starting on this endeavor. There will be many other achievements that I have a feeling will just kind of happen, and I need to make sure that I'm only getting one achievement each day so I'm not wasting anything.
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