Don't get me wrong I like achievements its a fun way to track your progress through the game and they can bring some fun rewards like titles and better mounts etc.
If course they have a downside with the "must link achievement" to do anything crowd. But overall I find them a fun insert into the game and they have encouraged me to do some things in game I probably would have missed just so I could get the achievement.
However as they are a per character thing rather than an account thing they are acting as a brake on something for me.
My druid is well set in the achievements stakes he has done a lot in raids and also completed a lot in Wrath/ BC he has also healed for most of it. For Cataclysm I fancy a change of scene however I really am going to have to just do another role with my druid be it DPS or Tank if I want to retain my achievement record it is going to HAVE to be on my druid as if I reroll on another toon all the achievements and mounts etc are out the window.
At least as a hybrid I have the option to change and as a druid I can change to any form of damage dealer/ tank. For someone such as one of my friends who plays a mage he is stuck as if he wants to go as a tank or healer for the majority of his play time (i.e. raids) in the bin goes the mage and you start afresh.
This got me thinking would it be a bad thing if the majority of achievements were account wide? I know this has been put about a lot on various forums with the main objections being the abuse of it in end game and certain server firsts.
The main objection I have seen is that you could get for example kingslayer on one toon and then rollup with a new toon you don't have a clue on and get invited off the back of it. However this is a bit of a moot point with dual spec anyway as I could link my Starcaller to get into a group as a tank when I have never tanked the fight but no one would know until I totally dropped the ball on the fight by not having a clue what I should do as a tank (my gear is actually good enough by a mile to tank Algy but this is from ICC drops while I have been healing it).
Server firsts could probably be excluded from account wide but to be honest this will affect 0.001% is of the wow population as to quote Highlander "there can only be one!" or well 25 for the raids :).
I doubt it will happen and for me it is only a slight niggle with the system. So I guess for Cataclysm I will be rerolling my druid as probably a tank (I already have a sort of agreement with one of the guild tanks as he fancies rolling healer) I may have to rename the blog at this point though what do you think to I DON'T THINK THE BEAR SWINGS THIS WAY?
Zetter
