We Are Legendary

The Achievement and the Controversy
The Achievement We Are Legendary was announced as one of the guild achievements in Cataclysm, it was used as an example for how they want Guild Achievements and some rewards to work. Lead Content Designer Mumper used it as an example in this post, that’s where the trouble started.

The guild rewards you guys are seeing in game are not hooked up yet. Guild rewards have 3 requirements that must be be met before you can use them. First and foremost, they must be unlocked via a guild achievement. Let’s just say, that for example, you need to complete the new guild achievement “We are Legendary” in order to unlock the Dark Phoenix. That achievement requires the guild to gain access to all 6 legendary weapons currently available in the game. (note that all guild achievements start on Cataclysm launch, so anything you have now will not matter, it must be done with your guild after launch)

So, let’s say that your guild get’s this achievement and thereby unlocks the Dark Phoenix on the guild vendor. At this point anyone in the guild can see the item on the vendor, but they will need a specific amount of guild faction to be able to purchase it. In this case, let’s say exalted. Now, once you have the guild faction, you can purchase the item for its gold price. (prices will vary based on the reward)

I am using the Dark Phoenix and the We are Legendary guild achievement as examples here but you should get the idea. Don’t worry, we wont be handing out all the goodies so easily. =)

The key statement of course being that our current endeavors are meaningless in the face of this new system, immediately there was a division amongst players. Few could deny the obvious ramifications – it discouraged guild hopping, etc. But didn’t the guild Reputation system also do that? The fact that our achievements were not retroactive (in this case at least) seemed counter intuitive. There were extremes however, some people were completely on the side of these achievements NOT being retroactive, whereas others felt that Blizzard had again lost their mind. Various blogs fired at the idea after the blue post started circulating on MMO-Champion and other news sites.

Personally, I was confounded. First RealID, now this? But I was also torn, because honestly it just doesn’t make any sense to encourage guilds to farm old content for an achievement when they’ve already got the requisite items…

A Sentiment Blizzard Shares
Today in a bit of PR juggling Blizzard’s Mumper made this post.

We are making a exception for this guild achievement. Any legendary items you have already earned will count.

So Why All the Fuss?
Mumper didn’t really give any apologies or any explanations, but it’s probably safe to assume that his original example was just that: an example. Be it a poorly considered example, it was still that and nothing more. Now, there’s a lot of conspiracy theory possibilities that various chicken littles will consider, but in the end it’s probably better for everyone sanity if we don’t indulge these particular flights of fancy. There’s two reasons why people care so much about this guild achievement, first because they’ve already put work into getting these. Making guilds go back after Cataclysm to farm Legendaries that they already have so that the achievement will actually activate is not engaging gameplay, and it’s really a slap in the face for the people who already worked hard for it. Secondly, there’s the reward Essence of the Underworld.

I feel the need to warn against getting your hopes up however, we’re only in Beta at the moment, and other elements of the original example proved false. So it’s possible the Pheonix will end up tied to a different guild achievement, though current information does point toward it being a reward from the guild vendor and being tied to the We Are Legendary achievement, my advice is cautious optimism.

Conclusion
I like the new mount, I like the new guild features. I’m personally quite glad that Blizzard decided to make our legendaries earned while content was current “count”. Similarly, I think it’s worth mentioning that a player will have to gain reputation with a guild before they have access to the mount, and similarly have enough gold to buy it from the vendor. So, I think there’s already a solid deterrent from guild hopping to get achievements. The only thing to do now is start farming for the remaining pieces for my guild, I got my first Bindings of the Windseeker last night, and I already have Shadowmourne and Sulfuras, Hand of Ragnaros in the bag. That gets us halfway there, so I guess it’s time to revive Retro Raids to finish the remainder. I’m still looking forward to the end of the world, are you?