The Elusive achievements

Now this is in no way a complaint of any sort.  It's just one of those things that luck appears to elude me or I just have poor timing.  And if it sounds ranty towards the end, it's just Navizor talking.  It doesn't change anything, I will still do the same things I always do (just after a little break!), I don't think differently of anyone, because I always accept things and people as they are, and I like them the same, no matter what they do or say to me.

Glory of the IceCrown raider (25 man) continues to elude me, and it's just two achievements I need before I get the drake.  Every single time a pug run goes off to do it, I'm either stuck doing something else or I wasn't online.  I remember when 2 of my guildies were doing it in a pug one time, and they got the achievement and that was pretty cool.  I can't remember what I was doing at the time though, but the run was full so I couldn't get in anyway.

Then another week, when I was trying to catch the PuG doing it, I got into the run, only to get called into work.  ARGH!

The next time I saw a Heroic ICC 25 run being advertised, I had just joined the Ulduar 25 man PuG where I was aiming for Alone in the Darkness, which is a difficult achievement to get without a full group.  I was happy to get that, but everyone else in the raid got a zillion other achievements - but I didn't mind, I got what I came for.  BUT, I missed out on the ICC achievements again!

Then recently, Gelina was in a run and I had just started a BG with Falln, and I saw Gel mowing through heroic ICC.  I wanted to come.  I wanted the BG to end.  But I saw the wings going down, including the one that I needed, so I was even more antsy to get out.  I managed to sneak into the next boss kill but missed Princes so I didn't get that wing down.  At least I got heroic Sindragosa down.  I was hoping for a heroic LK kill, but the leader of the group said the DPS wasn't strong enough and switched to normal.  I left at that stage.  You don't need a full group for a 25 man normal LK kill.  So I still need heroic Princes and Heroic Dreamwalker to get my achievement done.  Oh well, it will come.

You may ask, why I don't organise a 25 man ICC LK heroic run?  Well, we did start one before, ages ago, and got two wings down, but we didn't come back for the other two.  Why?  I guess we just didn't have enough time, and now, with no tanks, we are missing a key component.  And I feel a bit selfish, just doing it for my piddly 2 achievements.  I don't want to drag people through it just so I can get my two.  I should be patient and just wait for another PuG.

Aza is usually the one who helps me with these runs.  He tanks for me and I heal and we fill the raid with whatever we can find.  But I can't expect him to keep tanking when that's not his main.  It's not fair to him!  I have never done a full PuG run before of random trade chat people, and I am afraid to becuase they are often a variable I can't control.  People AFK, they DC, they're not ready, they need a summon, they don't know what to do.  If they're my friends or people I know, they will have the patience to sit and listen to me explain.  Random people you pick up from trade, can be more impatient.  They'll go and do something stupid like pull when I'm trying to explain because we're too slow.  The people who already know the fight, get antsy because I have to explain to new people and they get cranky.  The conflicting and opposing forces are enough to do my head in.

If I run something, it's got to be my rules, my way.  And yes, though it is a little selfish because I have my goal I am trying to achieve, and I get my mind set on it, I do it almost to the exclusion of others.  If I stop to do everyone else's achievements along the way, we run out of time and then I've wasted my time, and I feel a bit cheated.  Take for example, when I was running a 25 man Ulduar run but we were aiming for all the NON-mount achievements.  Non mount achievements are harder, because nobody tends to do them because there is no reward such as a mount or a title to be had.  And people get tempted to ask for the mount achievements when you're doing the run.  I just have to be firm and say no, and if people complain, I try to gently remind them that they will get an achievement, just one that not many people go for, so please, come if you're happy to go for them, but don't tell me which achievements to do because I already have that all planned out.  There are other runs which go for the mount achievements, so you can join those any time, but there are no runs which go for the non mount ones, which is why I try so hard to get the others ones.

I do understand.  I mean, the run wouldn't happen if it wasn't for the other people there.  Is it wrong of me to not do what they want to do?  I think I had my solution to that.  I made it very clear from the beginning what we were doing, and that if you didn't like it, you didn't have to come.  That is where most misunderstandings come from, because the ground rules are not set beforehand and people don't know what they're getting into.
However, I do understand people feel a bit cheated if I ignore their achievement when I'm trying to focus on one - that happened in Firelands last week.  People were upset at me because I refused to persist with Rhyolith's Not an Ambiturner, after only 2 goes at it.  I already stated that the reason was because I was really intent on getting to Alysrazor's Do a Barrel Roll - undoubtedly one of the hardest achievements in Firelands.  I wanted to try out a technique to kill it for the achievement, and that was going to take some time.  And wasting time dying on Rhyolith was reducing the time we had for Alysrazor.  Unfortunately, the trick we were going to try didn't work, so it was a waste since we couldn't do it that way, and so we could have tried harder on Rhyolith, but that's looking with the restrospectoscope, I didn't know it would turn out that way!  So that evening, people complained it was a waste of time and they didn't get any achievements and they were all huffy about it.
 
And that is the hard thing.  Do they think I wanted to have an evening wasted?  Do they think I enjoy failing an achievement after all that time trying?  Of course I would have liked to help get the other achievement for everyone else, don't I always try to help everyone else get their other achievements?  But I am not such a martyr that I will help everyone else with something and not at least try to help myself as well.  Working on the achievement I wanted was also beneficial to everyone else because they all needed that achievement too.  Couldn't they see that?  And yes if I helped some people get an achievement that some already had and they got something out of it, but others didn't... it's easier to make everyone the same.  Myself included.

The most hurtful part of it was being told that I didn't want to do that achievement because I already had it.  That if I didn't have that achievement I would have tried harder.  I had to look hard at myself to see if that was true.  Partly, yes.  But that night, it wasn't my goal.  And you can measure the frustration within a raid when you're trying for something that was not the goal for the evening.  People get frustrated, their attention span wanes.  Their will to proceed dies a little.  I knew already that multiple wipes were going to ensue on Alysrazor for an achievement.  Why drain everyone's will persisting on Rhyolith?  There will always be another time I can do it, and if their will is already beaten down in Rhyo, how much of that will be left for Alys?

So, after that, I decided, I don't want to organise any more runs - at least not for a little while.  Sitting in a pug, and just following instructions is just so easy.  I just hope that I can find another ICC run to bum in on.  Maybe this week the stars, moons and planets will align for me.

If not, I at least have Saturday night to look forward to.  Thanks Gutsy for thinking of me!  Fingers crossed I can make it.

Comments

  1. Ok, I am in now way agreeing or disagreeing with you on any of your points, you are self aware and you know when you are being unfair etc and you also know when you are getting a little ranty :D

    But

    With that in mind, I would suggest - you look at starting your own Xrealm raid for this.

    I can think of at least 5 or 6 people I could bring who would be keen to get the ICC mount and I am sure you would find other people willing to come to help out.

    However, that comes with the responsibility of being able to do it weekly until every had their mounts as well. In truth, you would need to start somewhere and let people know that. ie - get yours done since everyone needs them anyway, but perhaps do other easy ones along the way to those bosses.

    I wouldn't mind running it weekly if I knew that I would get my mount by say the third week or something - in fact I did that for my Ulduar mount - I still want my 10 man one, but I ran that with a pUG group who went every week and got as many done as possible.

    There is nothing wrong with doing it for selfish reasons, as long as you can then be selfless once you have yours and continue to offer your time to others.

    Either way, it is something only you can decide on. It's the reason I don't start xrealm things because I worry that each person will piss off once they have what they want with no thought to the others helping them. I always think the worst of people until proven wrong :)

    Good luck with it though and let me know if you decide you try and run something.

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    1. Thanks Dragonray :) trust me, no offence taken, I know my own faults and yes I know I am selfish but I think I am a lot less selfish than other people. But you should know me well enough, that if I commit to help with something, I will commit all the way.

      I was mostly cursing my bad luck with getting into pug ICC, but then it reminded me of how poorly my FL run went, and I thought... gosh I would rather just go archaeology then try organising a run again. I don't mind doing heroic ICC, for some reason Xrealm hadn't even entered my mind, though it should have! Well, I am sure I can drag a few of my guildies out if you drag a few of yours as well and we should be able to polish it off in 2-3 weeks.

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  2. I have a level 85 Belf Prot Paladin, if you need one. Though, I've never tanked ICC before, much less did hard modes. I have a dps spec, but I can't say I know much on how to use it. Just saying, if you need another toon, lemme know.

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    1. Aww thanks Zwingli! I feel bad for having a ranty rant. I blame it on the start of a cold and this constant sneezing and trickly nose and sore throat has made me all Navizor! I will look for you if I get a Xrealm one running :)

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  3. We are actually working on 25 man ICC achieves right now too. The hubby and I don't ever really raid and Sat was the first time we ever attempted 25 man icc. We only managed to miss like 3 achieves, not counting heroic achieves, and are going again this sat for more.

    We are lucky one of our guildies knows all the fights cause we are clueless. Most of the time I feel useless when we try to raid because we just don't do it and are like complete noobs once there having no clue what's going on.

    Ask me how to win a BG and I'm all over it!
    Ask me how to get "Dances with Oozes (25 player)" I'll ask you if you want to dance with my disgusting oozling pet!

    I hope you finally get ur last 2 achieves navi!!!

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    1. I hope you get yours too Pando! I'm glad you get to get the full achieves done, and get a sexy mount (which I am sure I'll see an upcoming post from you about!) and I am sure if I put my mind to it, I will dig up somewhere to do those achieves if I don't organise something on my own :)

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  4. Oh, I hope things look brighter after the stupid cold goes away and you hopefully can manage to get your last two achievements. Yes, I didn't listen and read it!

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  5. Time to start dragging with no guilt Navi...other (women) players I know have no trouble getting other players to do stuff...why should we have any doubts?

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I hope these comments work! Not sure why people can't comment lately, it makes me sad :(