WoW Wank in the Making?
Some background info first:

With the release of Wrath of the Lich King, an "achievements" system was added in which you accomplish certain goals (ranging from the very simple like "buy a tabard" to the extremely difficult like "defeat every Northrend raid boss while in a 25-man raid group") and be rewarded for those accomplishments. Some of the rewards are pretty damn appealing, such as collecting 50 mounts, which will reward you with a special dragon mount.

Recently a debate has come up over one of the "meta-achievements", which is a special achievement you earn for earning a bunch of smaller achievements. Still with me? I'll explain. Blizzard has several holiday events in-game that coincide with real life holidays like the Chinese New Year, the Fourth of July, and Christmas. All the holidays have various achievements associated with them, and if, over the course of the year, you complete ALL the required achievements, you get a special meta-achievement called "What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been..." and are rewarded with a special mount.

The meta-achievement in question is related to Brewfest, WoW's version of Oktoberfest. One of the achievements involved to get the meta requires you to have joined the "Brew of the Month Club" (something you could only do DURING Brewfest) and to sample their monthly brews for a year. Now, the Achievements system didn't come out until after Brewfest ended, thus leading many players to believe that requiring "Brew of the Year" to get the Brewfest meta-achievement is unfair, and threads have started in the Suggestions forum asking that it be removed.

Rather than sounding like I'm trying to justfy myself (since I'm in the thick of it, posting as "Alyrr"), I'll just point you guys to the thread and let you have your fun.

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	kookaburra 2009-01-27 07:38 am UTC (link)
	But wait, so is "the year" the actual year, like January-December, and ONLY this year? Or is it fiscal, so you can jump in at any point on the calendar, and as long as you complete all of the quests in a year's time, you get the special mount? /doesn't play any MMORPGBLTBYOB's. (Reply to this)(Thread)

pocketfox
2009-01-27 07:45 am UTC (link)

In terms of the Brewfest achievement, it's sort of a combination: you have to sample the monthly brew every month for a full year (October to September in this case). You can do this in any year, but with strings attached: you could only join the Brew of the Month Club during Brewfest, and after the month is out, you can't buy that month's brew anymore (so if you missed, say, December's brew, you're SOL until next December).

The objections are coming because this means, as it stands now, even if you do every other achievement to get the special mount, you still have to wait until the end of 2010 to get it.

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	kookaburra 2009-01-27 10:52 am UTC (link)
	Ah, OK. I can see where that would be incredibly frustrating. (Reply to this)(Parent)

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