I was talking earlier about Achievements as a teaching tool. Here are some that I drafted, designed for players under level 20 who will be getting their feet wet for the first time in PvP. They are class-specific. I'm not certain if class-specific Achievements are under consideration, but just in case...

General PvP 1 - 19 Achievements
Mage:
1 - Use your Frost Nova spell to freeze two or more enemy players.
2 - Use your Remove Lesser Curse spell to remove an enemy player's Curse from yourself or a friendly player.
3 - Kill an enemy player while you have another enemy player under the effect of your Polymorph spell.

Priest:
1 - Use your Psychic Scream spell on two or more enemy players.
2 - Use your Dispel Magic spell to remove a harmful magical effect cast by an enemy player from yourself, or a helpful magical effect from an enemy player.
3 - Kill an enemy player while you have another enemy player under the effects of your Psychic Scream spell.

Warlock:
1 - Cast your Searing Pain spell on an enemy player.
2 - Cast a Drain Life spell while shielded by your Voidwalker's Sacrifice ability.
3 - Kill an enemy player while you have another enemy player under the effects of your Fear spell.

Druid:
1 - Use your Faerie Fire spell on an enemy Rogue.
2 - Use your Cure Poison spell to remove an enemy player's poison from yourself or a friendly player.
3 - Cast your Entangling Roots spell on an enemy player who is stunned by your Bash ability.

Rogue:
1 - Use your Evasion ability to dodge 4 attacks in a row from an enemy player.
2 - Use your Kick ability to interrupt a spell cast by an enemy player.
3 - Use your Garrote or Ambush ability on an enemy player afflicted by Sap.

Hunter:
1 - Use your Hunter's Mark spell on an enemy Rogue.
2 - Use your Scare Beast spell on an enemy player in a beast form or an enemy pet.
3 - Strike three enemy players with one use of your Multi-Shot ability.

Shaman:
1 - Use your Purge spell to remove a buff from an enemy player.
2 - Use your Earth Shock spell to interrupt a spell cast by an enemy player.
3 - Use your Cure Poison spell to remove an enemy player's poison from yourself or a friendly player.

Paladin:
1 - Use your Blessing of Freedom spell to free yourself or a friendly player from a movement-impairing effect.
2 - Use your Purify spell to remove an enemy player's disease or poison from yourself or a friendly player.
3 - Use your Hammer of Justice spell to interrupt a spell cast by an enemy player.

Warrior:
1 - Use your Hamstring ability to slow an enemy player's movement speed.
2 - Use your Overpower ability on an enemy player after they dodge one of your attacks.
3 - Use your Shield Bash ability to interrupt a spell cast by an enemy player OR use your Disarm ability on an enemy Rogue or Warrior.

Warsong Gulch 1-19 Achievements
Mage:
1 - Use your Frost Nova spell to freeze an enemy player carrying your team's flag.
2 - Use your Remove Lesser Curse spell to remove a curse from a friendly player while they carry the enemy's flag.

Priest:
1 - Use your Dispel Magic spell to remove a shielding or heal-over-time spell from an enemy player carrying your team's flag.
2 - Use your Power Word: Shield and Renew spells on a friendly player while they carry the enemy's flag.

Warlock:
1 - Cast your Curse of Agony, Corruption, and Immolate spells on an enemy player carrying your team's flag.
2 - Kill an enemy player who is attacking a friendly player carrying the enemy's flag.

Druid:
1 - Use your Entangling Roots spell on an enemy player carrying your team's flag.
2 - Use your Regrowth and Rejuvenation spells on a friendly player who is carrying the enemy's flag.

Rogue:
1 - Kill an enemy player while he is carrying your team's flag.
2 - Kill an enemy player who is attacking a friendly player carrying the enemy's flag.

Hunter:
1 - Use your Wing Clip or Concussive Shot ability on an enemy player carrying your team's flag.
2 - Kill an enemy player who is attacking a friendly player carrying the enemy's flag.

Shaman:
1 - Use your Purge spell to remove a shielding or heal-over-time spell from an enemy player carrying your team's flag.
2 - Cast your Healing Wave spell on a friendly player who is carrying the enemy's flag.

Paladin:
1 - Use your Hammer of Justice spell on an enemy player who is carrying your team's flag.
2 - Cast your Holy Light and Blessing of Freedom spells on a friendly player who is carrying the enemy's flag.

Warrior:
1 - Use your Hamstring ability on an enemy player who is carrying your team's flag.
2 - Use your Demoralizing Shout ability on two or more enemy players attacking a friendly player who is carrying the enemy's flag.

Again, the idea would not be that all of these sit in your Achievements window forever; instead, they could collapse into / expand out from some kind of meta-achievement.

All the "Kill an enemy player who is attacking a friendly player carrying the enemy's flag." abilities will probably be difficult/impossible to implement, but otherwise the idea is solid. To expand this list to two BG abilities per class, probably, specific BG PvP achievements should come after lvl 20, getting three of 10-19 achievements done will be enough fun for new players, along with other general things like 'carry a flag' and 'get a haircut'.

I like the idea that you can teach with achievements. I seem to remember they were going to have a built in threat meter in the expansion. If that is still the case then how about: Never reach number 1 on the threat list of any enemy for an entire instance run.

Well, that made me think about tanking classes. A tank wouldn't want that achievement.

And that got me thinking that there need to be class-specific achievements. Further, it might be nice to have three sets of them, corresponding to the three talent trees, plus a couple of core ones.

So for paladins, the one you mentioned above might be good on the Retribution tree. For the Protection tree, have something along the lines of "participate in an encounter with four other players and at least six enemies, lasting for at least 90 seconds, in which no players but yourself take any damage". That's probably too complicated, but you get the idea. For Holy... not sure... maybe have a ten healing spells that you started casting on an undamaged ally land for their full amounts of healing? A core one... maybe something like using "Divine Intervention" on a rezer when 60% of your group is dead?

Those are probably all too easy to cheese, though. But I like the basic idea.

Some class-based achievements would be good. Rogues could have stuff like:

1 - Keep an enemy player/monster stunned or otherwise incapacitated for 20 seconds.
2 - Kill an enemy player/monster and interrupt 5/10 of their spells.
3 - Sap an enemy player/monster 5/10 levels higher than you by using your Rogue abilities. (Distract/Prepping vanish, but that wouldn't be mentioned in the objective)
4 - You get the idea.

I'm tired so my imagination is lacking right now, but that's just the beginning. Obviously hybrids have more variety in what they can do with these, as Douglas said.

Achievements as teaching tools starts to feel a little too "tutorial level" like to me. Those always seem to end up feeling a bit patronising. If you try to fix that by leaving out the bleeding obvious achievements like "cast your heal spell on a friendly player", it both gets hard to implement and prone to go out of date as spells/talents/tactics change.

Besides, it's supposed to be about achievements. I think that should focus on achieving some end goal, not rewarding the steps one took to get there. The steps to take should be up to the player to work out. In an ideal game world there should be more than one way to skin a cat. For example, if a mob is going after the healer, pulling aggro and kiting it is a good thing to do in order to achieve the real goal (finish the instance), yet it would fail the proposed achievement.

The thing I've noticed moreso with newer content is the NPC chatter, often praising players with high enough reputation. I still get a little kick when the Skyguard praise me as I happen to wander past.

I think Blizzard could expand on this with the achievement system; NPCs could have a small chance to comment about something a person has achieved, perhaps praising them on defeating a boss. I think that would really add to the flavour and atmosphere of the general world.

Good points. Bloodsail is represented with a Feat. Violet Eye/Sands/Ashtongue are currently Feats as well, although I could easily see these being moved to the reputation tab.

All of this seems to be going down the complexity drain. Bluefish's idea was to teach basic class abilities via achievement in very soft tutorialesque manner, without actual separated tutorial. You can't teach complex and advanced concepts like group or individual threat, overhealing and pre-emptive healing like that - a genuine tutorial is needed, and it is not included because WoW is supposed to be 'Easy to learn' (omitting 'hard to master' part). Gently nudging the player to the beneficial use of abilities with which he is showered may improve the quality of play, especially considering that he can forego achievements alltogether and just set pet on agressive and smash Multishot.

These are nice 'advanced' class achievement ideas - we are moving away from telling player 'how' to achieve achievement and challenge his imagination. The question is if Blizzard considered 'tutorialesque' achievements at all.

I really like the split rewards idea, with plateaus of points giving certain rewards, and then specific achievements giving other rewards. Assuming they do add guild specific achievements, I think it would work well for that too. Every boss you kill could be its own achievement worth points, and at certain levels the rewards could be things like an extra guild bank slot, or a small weekly supply of raid consumables sent to the guild leader. Then kill the final boss of a zone itself could offer the specific zone rewards, like the zone wide buffs or others mentioned before.

If the Bloodsail one you're referring to is the Pirate Hat, it's a sissy feat and can be accomplished in under an afternoon. :P Max Honored is where it's at.

(And Max Revered are where the aliens are at)

Edit: Okay, no, I was thinking of this in terms of pure man-hours. The hat alone requires a drop to 0/36k for goblin towns, so I guess that's a little 'out of reach' for normal players. Bloodsail Pirate Hat feat is fine, I guess.

One thing that would be nice would be an achievement for completing the old AQ scepter line for people who missed being able to do it for the bug mount or old title. That is still a pretty long and involved quest chain to do and does require some organizational work to complete even at 70+ (good luck killing Vael solo ). I still think it would be nice for the final reward of that chain to be a different colored bug mount than the opening event one so people who take the time to finish the chain could have a bug they could ride outside of AQ40.

Some Achievements I came up with while going over the already very extensive list in current Beta. Personally I'm most excited about the potential Achievements can bring in the future with Account, Guild maybe even Realm/Battlegroup/Continent based achievements in amory to track all kinds of game accomplishment progress. But I will try to keep suggestions in line with what the current system already offers.

___General
Concerned Geologist
Mail X unique types of Stones to the "Mother Azeroth Society" example: Miscellaneous - Items - World of Warcraft and 1 [Pet Rock]

Generous Librarian
Mail X unique types of tomes or books to the "Public Library Foundation"

Eye donor Gatherer
Mail X unique types of eyes to the "Initiative for Gnomergan Survivors"

These would be for the solo completionists but could just aswell be completed by new characters over the period of leveling from 1-80, there are many similar possible Achievements with useless items (feathers, bones, coins...). All would revolve around researching items, traveling to locations and gathering them or simply mailing it when ever you come across an item you would otherwhise vendor. The new mechanic to use a mailbox and a specific adress as a kind of quest NPC would be to avoid multiple people using the same items for obtaining quick achievements. Some might dislike Achievements that are basically very elaborate quests without real story but it would not be realistic to make actual quests out of collecting gray loot spread over the world. Worse case scenario the Junk tab at the Auction House might actually become useful.

Respect for all living creatures
Receiving an unrequested /hug from a Game Master.

You will respect Authoritah!
Using /spit on a guild member ranked above you. minus 5 Points
(hide this "achievement" and cause some funny controversy)


___Professions
Professional Scavenger
Skin/Herb/Mine 20 creatures in 2 minutes.
(tune it tightly, should not be possible solo)

In the footsteps of the legendary
Fish in twelve nodes while not standing on anything solid.
(don't vendor Elixir of Water Walking)


___Feats of Strength
Victim of ancient deja vu
Completed the quests to obtain 8 out of 9 Tier3 from the original Naxxramas.
(8/9 because the ring was a drop)

Master in insect and old god disposal
Completed the quests to obtain 5 out of 5 Tier2.5 from The Temple of Ahn'Qiraj


___Stats
Deaths, Resurrection by the supernatural
Number of times receiving Resurrection Sickness.
(Very surprised this was missing, surely a Spirit res is more noteworthy than any other)

Tigole pretty clearly said that "quest" Achievements can and will be retroactive, while "kill" Achievements can't.

The interesting thing though is that a lot of bosses have their death as a quest objective...

From Arugal in Shadowfang Keep, to Nefarian, Onyxia and C'Thun, that drop items that begin quests about announcing their deaths to the world, to the Burning Crusade, where every raid dungeon end boss, both 10man and 25man (excluding Kil'Jeaden) has a quest recording it's death.

I realize it would be a great task to track down all these quests (especially at the 1-60 5man dungeons) , but it should be doable and I believe it is something Blizzard should try to do... It would be silly to not have the Killed Onyxia Achievement when I presented her head to Thrall (and still have Onyxia's Blood Talisman in my bank.)

Another way to track boss kills could be items. Someone with Valor Chest should get credit for having killed General Drakkisath, and someone with The Bladefist should get credit for killing Kargath on heroic. I realize it wouldn't be very fair to people that had these items and over the course of the years destroyed/disenchanted them, and that again it would be hard work to link all the items to the respective Achievement, but again, it's doable, and I think worth exploring.

Horde-only.

Alliance Paladins would disagree with you.

This was some pages back, but here goes: "Nethersturm Legion" is a raid alliance on the "Zirkel des Cenarius" server (german RP-PvE) that recently got Kil'jaeden server first. On the automated sites (like wowjutsu and wowprogress) they are listed as "Verdammte Horde" and "Totemwächter", two of the guilds in the alliance. Our server may be the only one with this special situation, though.

The needs of the many outweigh those of the few.

Bottom line is that alliances should know what they are getting into when not under the same banner. It sucks but it really is impossible to handle every situation when it comes to server firsts.

Illidan: Take at least 10 shears.
I think our tank take every shears without purpose and we killed it with zero people alive. Farming at summer can be that fun.

Edit: Only four but still more than total before.

Unless you're using a 100% avoidance tank and you've very, very patient, that sounds like an incredibly frustrating night of sitting around and hoping that the stars align for those 10 shears. No, thanks.

A much more interesting Illidan achievement, in my opinion, would be something like "Use every trap Maiev drops" or "Kill both Flames of Azzinoth within 5 seconds of one another." Rewarding a player for purposely taking the shear and then getting lucky on avoidance streaks - especially over and over - seems like a terrible idea.

I think several of the BG achievements would be better off if they were rewarded to everyone in the BG, even if they seem to be based on individual performance. Like running the flag three times without dying: if everyone is rewarded for one person doing it, the achievement is actually rewarding teamwork and communication, rather than making people throw temper tantrums for not getting the chance, and doing an /afk after the feral druid runs one flag. Running one flag might be better off as a solo achievement, but running 50 flags could be a group one. This could help with a number of things, like running the flag in EotS while holding 4 bases and most defense and capping stuff in AV.

Or simply let them recognise alliances. It's long overdue really. Would be nice to have an alliance chat, alliance bank, etc.