An Achievement Worth The Effort

Good Evening Musers,
In the whirlwind of the week I forgot to post this.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-achievements.xml?r=Fenris&n=Neren

Yes that's right I am now an ELDER!

So you know what you have to do..

Yes that's right. Kneel & Show Respect to your Elder!!! =P

But Seriously, I am very pleased with this achievement compared to the other holiday achievements that have been implemented since Echoes of Doom. First off, you actually have to work to earn this title. There is simply no way around it; if you wanted your name to be Elder X, you were going to have to do some seriously hoofing about Azeroth to meet all the requirements. So when the event started on 1/24 I decided to use the time I had that weekend (which was more than usual since my wife was away on business,) to knock out as many of the requirements as possible. I believe I started at 6:00 am with Omen, then went focused fire on the Elders of Kalimdor, (stopping for dungeons along the way), then Eastern Kingdoms, then Northrend on Monday.

In my opinion, the Major Effort that was required was devilishly designed. Here's what I thought was the highlights.

1.) To actually earn the title you would need to run Heroic Gun'Drak. This meant that you had to be level 80 & geared since the elder was with the Extra Boss in the dungeon.

2.) The Classic Dungeon Elders were all deep in their respective dungeons. While 3.08 has removed some of the slog, you would still need to expect to invest 20-30 minutes per dungeon to find the Elder.

3.) Elders of the Horde \ Elders of the Alliance was very well balanced. Although the event leans towards the Alliance (as the Wickerman event leans towards the Horde,) The placement of the elders effectively balanced out the advantage. For my friends who play Horde, they described the experience as 'Death of a thousand cuts'. For me and my ex-guildies, it was a Gank-Fest from the start, Horde PVP players were waiting ready and excited to see us and prepared to one shot or toons from the get-go.

4.) The Time Requirement meant that only those who were dedicated to getting the title would pursue it. I calculated that just doing the Elders of Kalimdor and not the dungeons on the continent took approx 4 hours. Eastern Kingdoms was about 2hours (but more time spent in dungeons) and Northrend elders took about an hour.

And last but not least...

5.) The players who pursued the title were the cream of the server. People who pursue (or are still pursuing this achievement) are really the dedicated few. It brought pride to my face to see us roaming lands that we had moved past once again

Until Another Day

The Musing Moonkin