World of Warcraft Achievements

Achievements can show what you like and don't like to do

As I had mentioned previously, as the Warlords of Draenor expansion to World of Warcraft is winding down, I have focusing more on what I want to do.  Over the last several weeks I have done many of them and even though I'm not focused on achievements, they tend to show up there.

• Finished all the cooking and eating and drinking achievements.  Since I had always kept up with cooking, it was really just a matter of fishing up a few fish, buying a few items from the Cataclysm expansion and cooking a few items.  It was nice to get the 'credit' for something I had pretty much already done (and use up a few of the cooked items I had been sending to my lower level toons just in case).
• Finish the 6.2 extension (In Pursuit of Gul'dan) to the Garrison campaign.  I thought this was a really good addition to this expansion to give a max level character a way to experience some of the content without going to dungeons or raids.   The 6.2 quests went pretty quick and weren't quite as good as the earlier quests, but they were good as well.
• Finish exploring the Warlords of Draenor zones.  I only had two areas in Gorgrond and Frostfire Ridge left to do.  You couldn't tell what areas were missing by looking at the Gorgrond map, so I had to look them up.  There were huge areas in Frostfire Ridge that I hadn't visited since it is primarily a Horde zone and so I just starting travelling those areas and when the last one showed up on the map, I had finished the achievements.
• Raise the  Shipyard to Level 3.  I'm not sold on the Shipyard addition, but it wanted at least to give it a chance (hopefully I'll say more about it in another post).

Completing these gave me some other areas I'd like to focus on:

• The Draenor explorer is one of the prerequisites for flying in a subsequent patch.  I had already done all the quests, but I had not done the 'Securing Draenor' achievement which focuses on a daily quest for Apexis crystals that I had decided weren't that interesting.  I figure it'll be ok to try them each once and since there is a Tanaan Juggle version of them that provided oil for my Shipyard and reputation, I figure I'll do each of them at least once as well.
• Another prerequisite for flying will be finding 100 treasures.  I already have the maps for Gorgrond and Shadowmoon Valley and I picked up several of the Gorgrond ones when I was finishing the exploration there and I'll take a tour of Shadowmoon valley soon and then see how many I need and where I'd like to go from there.  I enjoy the scavenger hunt aspect of this.
• I'd still like to get all my building on Kanter to level 3 (now that I've done the Shipyard).  The main one I have neglected is the Pet Menagerie, so I'll probably find a guide and it should be too difficult.

Looking at my achievements you can see some obvious patterns.  I've done most in the exploration, general and profession achievement sections.  Since I have all but one profession at max level, I'd really like to get the last one, but that means leveling up my Deathknight from 80 to 92.  It shouldn't be too bad, but I'll probably wait until the other activities are done.  Because of the tokens, I don't feel to bad keeping my subscription since it's pretty trivial for me to early the gold for the token.

In a unrelated achievement, I also caught up on the main blogs I follow.  For quite a while I had over 200 posts to read and that was somewhat disheartening, but I gradually chipped away and for the last week I've just been reading the previous days posts.  I am hoping this will encourage me to start responding to some of them as well, though I read them on my phone or tablet and I'd really always much rather type on my laptop.

Catching up

My Shipyard

June 2015 was the first time I have gone a month without a post in more than 2 1/2 years (October 2012, I checked).  The good news is that I haven't been idle even though I still don't have a huge motivation to play WoW or any other MMO.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that there were a few things I'd like to get done, but wasn't really sure how many I would do.  Since my last post I have sold a few bags a quite a few stacks of food, but I still have hundreds (and for some over a thousand) of the crafting components and don't know what I will do with them.  I raised First Aid to maximum level just by making healing potions, which was the last of the secondary professions.  I also finished all the simple 'Gluttony' achievements, but I still have five left to do, one cooking and four for eating and drinking things.  They will require going back and buying a few items and doing a little bit of fishing from the Cataclysm zones.  This confirms that Cataclysm was the expansion where I was least motivated, but it should be pretty easy to finish them, so I'd like to do that.

The only one of the other activities I listed as possible that I may still do is build the Pet Menagerie.  I have one level 25 pet and another stone to level another, so it should be pretty easy, I'm just still not sure I have the motivation.

Not on my list, but since it is on the requirements for flying, I have started working on the Draenor explorer achievement.  I had one zone done and two others were trivial so I got those out of the way, leaving only three more zones to explore.  I also have the map for the treasures in Gorgond, so I'll try to do them at the same time (which will also help with another of the required achievements for flying).  However, I don't really care about flying that much, so I'm more likely to complete the achievements since I'll be close enough that it will become I nice goal.

I have my shipyard that came with 6.2 and have started completing the missions there.  Right now I have the Battleship and Submarine and I'm trying to level my ships to epic (? whatever purple is), so I'll be more likely to be successful on other missions.  Each ship gains one ability at rare and another at epic and missions require between 1 and 6 abilities, so I'll be much more likely to be able to complete missions successfully if they are epic.  It sounds like there are ways to collect and swap the abilities, but I don't think I can be bothered. I did enough of the dailies in Tanaan Jungle to finish one of my Shipyard quests but, like Timeless Isle, I don't really care for questing there much.  I believe there is a continuation of the Garrison campaign and I would like to do that.  It the end, 6.2 gave me a new set of things to do which has helped, so I consider it a success for me.

One other accomplish that I'd like to do now is level my Mage to 100 so she can craft the highest level gun for my hunter.  I consider every now and then trying to heal on my priest, but I doubt it'll happen at this point.  I just don't see the reward being worth the risk of random groups on either my hunter or my priest.

I made one purchase during the Steam Summer sale, Banished, when it went down to $5.  I had been playing Civilization V, but, even with the recent expansion purchase, I wasn't very motivated.  Banished is similar but nice because it has simpler goals.  I haven't looked up any help from the internet which I think was a wise decision.  I did see where some people were complaining it was too easy, but I am enjoying learning as I go along.  Hopefully I'll have more time to play it and say more about it soon.

Probably the biggest gains I've made in catching up is against my blog feed.  I've gone from hovering around 20 days behind to 6.  I'm hoping I can catch up and that'll encourage me to comment more since I won't feel like my comments are too dated.