100% Achievements for Wrath of the Lich King, a Strict World First!

After a brief night of attempts on Heroic Halion, it became official: Vox Immortalis has become the first 10-man Strict Guild Worldwide to complete all 10-man raiding achievements for the entirety of Wrath of the Lich King, and I must admit, it is an incredibly rewarding feeling!


Admittedly, achievements are very much a divisor among the WoW Community, and this conflict is by no way diminished among the raiding community either. Many people will argue that achievements are pointless exercises and progress is paramount to actual skill, and while I understand that reasoning, I often feel, especially in the raid environment, players that deny themselves the experience and challenge of raid achievements are missing out on a huge chunk of enjoyable and interesting content.

There is also a strong argument for the notion that the reason "progression" is used as the primary measure of skill or accomplishment in the raid community is because it offers a fairly serialized and numerical benchmark, that simplifies the formula as, "12 is greater than 11, therefore 12 is better." While I understand this idea and therefore the reason for this model in high-end raiding, there are certainly many examples of raiding achievements that defy the normal sense of progression (Normal Kill then Heroic Kill = Complete) yet provide a more difficult if not also more interesting challenge.

There is also the idea that the MMO community and specifically raiders, have the notion that a dead boss is a completed boss, and a living boss is still undefeated, and never the twain shall meet. That is to say, many raiders feel that the moment they see that boss die for the first time, it has been conquered and progress is shifted to the next boss in order immediately.

Unfortunately, this ignores the very large and (in my opinion) enjoyable aspect of the raiding game that is achievements. Figuring out and finally defeating The Traitor King was far more rewarding than the first kill of Heroic Anub (even with 50-attempts remaining). Lumberjacked was an extremely interesting puzzle solving quandary at the time and accomplishing Earth, Wind, and Fire was one of the most enjoyable achievements I've had this expansion. Stuff like A Tribute to Dedicated Insanity and Herald of the Titans required extraordinary levels of time and energy to accomplish, but I can say without a doubt or hint of humility that, having accomplished achievements like that when they were relevant content means far more than for one that goes back later down the road.

Ultimately, my point is simply that of course all players are welcome to enjoy the game as they see fit, but having been one of the very few to have worked at and finally achieved everything this expansion has had to offer for a raider, I would strongly encourage players to take a step back as they head into Cataclysm and open their eyes to the challenges that can be found in achievements and other non-progression-based activities.

This isn't to somehow discount the accomplishments of Guilds that solely focus on progression; Vox certainly made every effort with who and what we had, to push progression as much as possible. However, we also chose another, more rare path in conjunction and when December 7th rolls around, we may be one of the few Guilds, if not the only, to lay claim to just such an accomplishment.

With that, let the Cataclysm begin!