BGs: Winning a higher percentage of the time than your faction normally does in each BG. Roughly half the population will have this, but keeping it might motivate people who are close to work a bit harder.

This one is different from other achievements in that you can lose it. I'm not sure how that would work. It would also be exploited by someone like me. I don't ever play BGs, so I could go in once with a good premade group and win once. I would always have the achievement.

Similar "losable", competitive achievements would also be fun. Completing the most non-repeatable quests on your server. Healed the most for your class/faction/server in WSG/BT/WC/Whatever. (Hey, I'd love to get that for mages in a AV, but this would probably cause people like me to play poorly.)

Still very sellable. I don't know why Blizzard can't do something like my old idea for bear mount "credit".

Since some people would invite a "scrub" into their ZA instance for just Halazzi when selling bears, I was thinking of ways Blizzard could reward people with mounts that would make it very hard to sell. What if each boss dropped an item that was a reagent to creating a larger item (similar to the Edge of Madness, you could get the Talon of Akil'zon, Fang of Nalorakk, etc.). That larger item would start a quest that gave the bear mount. The smaller items would expire in 15 minutes outside of Zul'aman, so you would have to be present for 4 boss kills in rapid succession in order to get your bear. Each boss could drop just one of their item, so whoever wins the roll for the first item would just collect the other 3 pieces and use the item to start a quest and receive their mount.

Similarly, you could have an item that is dropped by each boss in Hyjal and BT. Each Hyjal item would come together to make a Hyjal token, and each BT item would come together to make a BT token. When either the Hyjal or BT tokens are used, you get a quest to get the other one, similar to the quest for Thunderfury Bindings. Hyjal's token would expire in say, 5 hours out of Hyjal, and BT's token would expire in 2.5 hours outside of BT. That way, you can't clear BT through Council, then go clear Hyjal through Azgalor, then go back and kill Illidan and Archimonde and finish your achievement.

On firsts: I did notice that they are tracking number of wipes to some bosses. How about this: on a server first kill, everyone in that guild within X% number of the max number of deaths to that boss gets the achievement?

edit: for example, Joe MT has wiped to M'uru 300 times and has been there for every attempt. Let's say X is 40%. So, Bob Tree Druid, who's been splitting time with the other tree in the guild - he has 150 deaths to M'uru recorded. When Guild Awesome gets its server first kill, Joe MT gets the achievement, Bob Tree gets the achievement, but Little Timmy Casual who is a friend/family member of the guild doesn't.

edit2: hm, this is probably complicated by the fact that some of those people may not be online at the time

Currently, this would still exclude people like tanks 2, 3 and 4 on your roster for kills like Archimonde, who will not be in for any of the learning attempts, although they were indeed instrumental in getting your guild to Archimonde in the first place.

Personally, I think including group 6-8 would be the best bet. Yes, people might be tempted to sell slots, but I think this will be pretty rare. First, you'd be diluting your own accomplishments. Second, you'd be letting people observe your strategies, assignments, portals of discovery*, etc. Not that big of a deal for the 50th guild to kill a boss perhaps, with guides and videos being posted. But certainly a big deal when it's a server-first.

"A man of genius makes no mistakes; his errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery." - James Joyce

Where would this achievement be possible, arenas/world pvp? I know in BGs people autorelease, I cannot recall the mechanics for the other two environments though.

You don't auto-release by default. Some people might use mods to auto-release, but it's not the base functionality in BGs.

In fact one of the original points to stealing enemy insignia's is to prevent them from corpse-running. If you don't loot the insignia, there's nothing to force them to release.

I agree with this. Any guild capable of scoring a "Server First" isn't going to sell this accomplishment. As you said, the practice, if it does happen would be extremely rare assuming Blizzard gives players the ability to award this accomplishment outside of actually being there. If my guild got this accomplishment, I'd be pissed off if we decided to sell it.

With that said, I think that if implemented, "Server First" accomplishments should be awarded to anybody present for the first kill who is eligible for loot. I also think that the raid leader should be able to loot "Scrolls of Accomplishment" equal to 20% of the amount of players required for the kill (10 man = 2 scrolls, 25 man = 5 scrolls) to be dispersed or destroyed as the raid leader sees fit.

Scroll of Accomplishment sounds interesting. We all know that even if 25 people make the kill the work is done by 30-35. A five charge scroll would probably go down well, but sounds like it would be tricky to code.

Incase anyone missed it, Penny Arcade's strip is about achievements today.

That's a neat idea, but what if there was six people that truly deserved the accomplishment but weren't present for the kill? Would you want to be the person to pick the five that would get the achievement and tell the sixth too bad? Or if you only used four the next day you can be sure you would see in trade chat: WTS Sever first achievement kill!

As Hamlet said, most proposing fixes are missing the main point. Any system that awards the server first achievement is either going to be too restrictive, AKA not awarding the achievement to everyone that deserves it, or not restrictive enough, AKA leaving space to sell or exploit in some way somehow. There is no way to have a machine pick the right number of people to award in a situation like this with the number of variables present.

A server first achievement is a very unique one, in that you can't repeat it and more then one person is getting it at once. There are only three other single go achievements: First to 80 for your server/class which is a purely solo endeavor, obtaining the bug mount, and obtaining an Atiesh. And with the last two the guild already decided to give the item solely to that person, the achievement just follows.

Regarding server first Achievements, I don't think a perfect solution can be found. So maybe we should decide which alternative is worse.

Option 1: Someone who deserves the Achievement doesn't get it.
Option 2: Someone who doesn't deserve the Achievement gets it.

Which option is the worse outcome, and to be avoided. Personally, I think Option 1 is less desirable. I'd suggest just giving the Achievement to everyone in the guilds who are in the server first. Maybe you'll end up tagging some extra people, but that's better than leaving someone out who contributed.

One easy way to solve this would just be to have two separate tabs, one for "Personal Achievements" and one for "Guild Achievements".

The Guild achievements tab could have the 'Server First Kill of Arthas', 'Have a guild bank containing more than 100k Gold', 'Loot 100 Sunmotes', type achievements. You could even have the GM have some sort of guild control setting such that only players of XXX rank and above get to display the Guild's achievement page if you wanted to restrict it to just being shown on raiders and not on alts/non-raiders/whoever.

If you leave the guild or the guild disbands then those achievements are lost.

If this is the case, the server/guild achievements should be listed online somewhere, maybe in the armory with the S1/2/3 Gladiator lists that they have. Bleeding Hollow is a server that has been plagued by free server transfers, for lack of a better word. All of our BWL first kills went to guilds that transferred to Mug'thol, while most of our AQ/Naxx firsts went to guilds that transferred to Cho'gall, such as Death Wish (formerly Serious Business of BH). If what you said happened, when looking at Bleeding Hollow you'd see a server with no first kills pre-BC, no Scarab Lords (both players are now on Cho'gall), no Atiesh staves (except one completed post-BC and one transfer in).

However, I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard for Blizzard to implement a system similar to WoWJutsu's insignia system.

The likelihood that they will give a server first achievement to anyone not actually in the kill is pretty much zero. Because the point is, that character achieved it. I know we all want things to be as fair as possible, and while it sucks to be the person not there, the person asked to sit, or whatnot, it's pretty much the price you pay in order to even be in a guild that gets server firsts. Now I like the idea of making a guild achievement that states the guild got the server first. But the simple existence of character server firsts will mean that guild server firsts will be more widely known than they are now, so having that in game would be better than nothing insofar as the guild is concerned.

The flat out reality is, as much as the other people contributed, as important as they are, they weren't there, and they didn't do it. Nothing will change that. Everything else is far too subjective as to if they deserved it or not. You wouldn't want to start debating whether the person who died 10 seconds into the pull and spent the whole fight watching from the floor deserves the achievement. Some things are best being as objective as possible. Quite frankly, my concern is that Blizzard will get so freaked out by threads like this where everyone wants to spread the wealth and decide they can't make enough people happy that they just don't implement it at all. A simple achievement, given to the 5, 10, or 25 characters present for a kill, is the only realistic way it will and should ever be done.

Sydane, wouldn't Blizzard easily be able to check the servers for the first recorded kill of X boss on Y server, and see that players A, B, and C were in the instance at the current time? I know they check something like that already when handling loot disputes where players aren't able to get their items, so it shouldn't be too hard to look that up.

But I think the point is that a lot of people, myself included, would prefer to see it not implemented at all. Between those two options, that is--I'm not ruling out the possibility of an idea that would satisfy me, but I haven't seen one yet. I would argue that it's not a big loss, since it's not exactly in the spirit of what achievements should be about. And the downside is significant--potential intra-guild conflict. Much like loot, but at least loot is something that has a purpose. (and imagine if a Warglaive-like item dropped and you also had the knowledge that it would never drop again--would you want to be the GM in charge of that?)


EDIT: Also, I should point out that while it seems a bit presumptuous for a bunch of people to debate the intricacies of a server-first achievement when the great majority will likely never be in the running for one, the issue is with the underlying philosophy. I'd be happier when (as hopefully will happen with a more final achievement list) there's more evidence that they're properly taking into account the potential effect of the existence of each achievement on the gameplay experience of the players who might be trying to get it.

The difference here is a matter of control. If you miss the night, it's not the game's fault. If you're sitting on Archimonde because you're the second warrior in the guild, or the paladin tank, it's the game's fault. I don't think it's fair to deny people a once-in-a-server's-lifetime achievement because of inequitable forces in the game. I do think it's fine to deny them the same achievement due to inequitable forces outside the game.

And I get that you _could_ conceivably get a server first on Archimonde using the same group setup as you did for the first four bosses (I'm using Archimonde here but there are certainly many other bosses it would also apply to). However, I think that would be very, very unlikely, and I would go as far as to say that the current state of the game requires raid-stacking for progression kills.

As to Sydane, I'd rather Blizzard left it off completely rather than implemented it unfairly. We already have issues with our tanks being bummed because they're only allowed in for Kalecgos in Sunwell and are asked to sit for Brutallus and Felmyst as we get those under control. We're currently #2 on our server and it would be really weak for them to not even have a shot at an achievement while they were so critical in us advancing to even have a go at a server first. I'm hoping Blizzard fixes the tank stacking/unstacking to a large degree in WotLK, but I think that making the encounters interesting translates to a large degree to stacking classes, and that will continue on come the expansion, so this won't be less of an issue then.

The problem is, there's no definition of fair that is "fair enough." How many extra? 5? 10? 25? Clearly encounter design needs to be changed some in order to reduce the number of people being asked to sit (and they are obviously working on this). Plenty of guilds now have a policy that they don't rotate people, they don't ask people to sit, and they make due with what they have. To them, it "isn't fair" that people game the system for first kills by stacking groups. But life isn't fair, we don't want life to be fair, and the harsh reality is, the 25 people that pulled off the execution needed to down the boss did it, not the 5 on standby. One would hope that if you're in a guild of server firsts, you would try to distribute kills so that people get in on some if they missed out on others. But that's a guild management issue, not a game issue.

It isn't Blizzard's job to compensate for the fact that guilds are larger than 25 people. It takes 25 people to down a boss. Those 25 people achieved the goal. Those people not there won't get loot, won't get rep, and won't get kill credit. Does it seem likely that they would get achievement credit? How silly would it be to have an achievement page that had zero kills of a boss and yet had credit for the first kill?

Quite frankly, I wouldn't want the achievement if I wasn't in on the kill. If someone asks you how the fight was, and your answer was "well I was actually on standby," does that seem like an achievement? If you want a secondary achievement that says "was in the guild that got xxx server first" then fine, have one of those, but the "server first" achievement should be for the characters that did it. You shouldn't get to carry that title on your other characters, and characters that weren't there shouldn't have it either.

It's a small nitpick, but could we possibly use the more precise term "Feats" to describe the mark on the character sheet people will gain for server firsts, instead of "Achievements?" The difference is small but important: Nobody sees "Server First Malygos: 0/1" on their screen for their character's entire lifespan, and it doesn't contribute to the "Achievement points" pool.

Regarding Achievements in general: Achievements have the potential to be an excellent "teaching language." If you've played Portal, you'll understand what I mean. Portal starts you off with "make a blue portal, walk through it" and, step-by-step, teaches you more and more advanced topics. By building on what you've learned before, it leads you up to really advanced behaviors and then sets you loose. If the Achievements can be tiered in the window, like so:

Do this
|-> Now do this
|----> Now do this

then they can serve as learning experiences for new players. I'll use the First Aid achievements as an example. Right now, we have "Bandage yourself for X amount while all hostile targets are crowd controlled" and "Bandage yourself for X amount while below 10% hp." In addition we have "Bandage X unique players." and "Bandage X unique pets." If we reorder these into a tree, they'll serve much better as a teaching tool. Voila:

"Use a Bandage on yourself." - 0, but unlocks the rest of the tree.
|-> "Use a Bandage on yourself while below X% hp."
|-> "Use a Bandage on yourself, healing at least X, while all hostile targets are crowd controlled."
|-> Hunter and Warlock class-specific: "Bandage your pet."
|-> Other Classes: "Bandage a friendly player, healing X% of their hp."

It may seem that the first Achievement is an unnecessary speed bump to everyone who reads this board, but if my mom (an intelligent woman but not a game player) was to clap eyes on "Bandage yourself for X while all hostile targets are crowd controlled," her eyes would glaze over and she'd just close the Achievement window and go back to meleeing things to death on her Priest. Breaking the Achievements into manageable chunks with clear stepping-stones will keep her and intelligent noobs like her involved. There are all sorts of UI tweaks you could use to keep the Achievement screen un-cluttered; my suggestion would be meta-Achievements that unfold into their trees when clicked. Collapse all the above to "Bandage Master" with its aggregate AP value and you're good to go.

I'm hoping for a split system. Some things work for generic rewards (and I really like tiers instead of just spending points). But a few things should give out special rewards instead of just more points.

I want to show off when I complete something significant. Exploring all of Azeroth and the Outlands should give me something - a title, a non-combat pet, a mount, even a cool looking hat. Just turning in that exploration merit badge shouldn't be a stepping stone to something else - it needs to be a goal with it's own reward. There's just something more fun with major groups of achievements having their own cool reward, and it allows people who only concentrate on a few aspects of the game their own ability to maximize their achievements in that aspect and to display that without telling people to inspect their achievements tab.,

The more I think about it, the more I wonder if server firsts are the right path to take, even if the kinks could be ironed out. I think the game is based around PvE being primarily the co-operative side of the game, and PvP being the competitive side. Making PvE into a competition kind of goes against that. After all, why is the second kill on a server inherently less deserving of an achievement than the first?

Also consider that the second, third, forth and even tenth kill on a large, active server may come before the first on a smaller server (some servers only just recently recorded their first Illidan kills). It really does open it's way up to silly transfer cheese games too. Lost the race to server first? Transfer to another server and get your achievement, griefing the people going for it there. It's not going to be pretty, people get worked up enough over transfer guilds as it is.

If you have recipes that require exalted for both sides?

I'm almost done farming the mats to go Aldor. Maybe I'll hold off though.

Edit : Feel free to delete, I had the idea and posted it without checking new additions to the thread.

On the first kills/boss kills issue.

One of the things that has always frustrated me with WoW is often the guild tag seems more a means to an end(raiding) than a community. Achievements are given to the players and not the guild.

Why not have a separate achievements tab for guilds, with the info on the guild kills(Like Praetorian mentioned 80%> qualify a kill). Similar to the guild page on wowjutsu and the 18 or so icons at the top showing different achievements. A player then gets a page of achievements referencing that and their history(allow users to hide if wanted).

So therefore the EJ guild page will always show the kills they have achieved and what rank it was on the server.

If a player from EJ is a member of the guild during the time that boss X goes down, he or she gets a tag saying: "Player Name was a member of EJ for the slaying of Boss X".

The problem if you see it as one is that all members of a guild get the reference when a kill happens. It does mean that someones casual friend could get the tag, but if they are in the guild, then they could be seen as contributing to the social side of the guild.