Shared Achievements: Are They a Good Thing?

With all the announcements about shared pets, shared mounts, shared achievements, and shared sharing it has me thinking if it is really a good thing over all.

While I have always liked the idea of account wide achievements I am not sure I am ready to embrace the idea of characters having them all.  Let me explain.

Lets take the what a long strange trip its been meta achievement for example.  Only one of my characters has it.  More than a few others have many parts of it but only one has actually put forward the effort to finish it.  That is my main, my main is who I try to get the achievements on.  Makes sense right?

So when I am on my hunter, I have it.  When I am on my priest, I do not.

What I would have liked to see is achievements put into two numbers, first number meaning this character and second number meaning an over all my characters number.  For example my hunter has 11000 achievement points and my priest had 4000 but my priest has a fair deal of achievements my hunter does not.

So my achievement points should look like this, when displayed.

Hunter 11000/11880
Priest 4000/11880

This would show what that character has, and what all my characters combined have.

The way I am understanding it is that it will show as 11880 on both my hunter and my priest now.

The question is, is that a good thing or not?

I have a feeling that showing it as one definitive number like that takes something away from the concept of achieving something.

If I get an achievement that takes time and effort, like strange trip, on my priest it would feel like I did nothing, because I already have it thanks to the work I did on my hunter some years back.  Sure, I made it on this character as well now, but will it feel the same?  Will I even have the desire to do it again?

It is not like I ever wanted to do that on any of my other characters again anyway.  When I finished it a few years ago I was happy to say I would never have to do it again and I never have.  I've not even attempted it on any other characters.

The one thing that seems to be confusing me the most about it is the recent announcement that reputations will not shared as well.  So if my hunter gets exalted with therazane and gets the achievement all my characters will have the achievement yet I will still need to grind exalted to buy shoulder enchants with each character individually?

I don't get it.  If anything, that is something I would want shared.  Why should I have to grind all my characters to exalted when they all have the achievement for getting to exalted already?

This is one of the huge faults in the shared design of shared achievements.

Like if my main has the achievement for master flying, the 310% one, all my characters will have the achievement for master flying as well.  But they will not have 310% flying.  Who decided these things and do they want to share whatever drugs they are on?

Another thing I don't think I get is the concept that certain things are shared while others are not.  Lets say a part of loremaster needs 14 areas and If I get loremaster on one character in 12 areas and on another in the 2 the first one was missing they are collected for one lump sum of the 14 needed and thus I get the meta achievement.  Yet my honorable kills are not added up so I can have the 100K achievement?  How can you choose to add some things up and ignore others?

I think there is something good about shared achievements.  Some achievements are easier to get on some classes.  Like the moonwell thing with the healer never getting hit.

My priest healer has it because I know how to heal, I know when to heal to get the least aggro, I know how to position myself and I know how to hit fade at the right moments, but none of my other characters have the achievement because I have not been lucky enough to have a healer that knew those things.  I like that achievement being shared. 

For the longest time I had many cataclysm glory achievements on other characters that my hunter was missing and my hunter is my main, so of course I wanted them on my main.  Same goes for T11.  I finished BWD as a tank and a healer but never on my main, a DPS.

My main still does not have shattered world because I have never gone back to do it.  At the beginning of the expansion we were healer light and tank light, so I took one for the team and played those roles instead of on my main.  Now I will get that achievement on my main.  I love shared achievements for that.  I will not longer be upset because I am stuck healing when I would rather be on my main.  I will no longer feel tied to my main because I want the achievements on him most.

But look at the bad things I mentioned, do the good things outweigh the bad ones?

I think they are going about the shared achievements all wrong.  They should do them the way I mentioned before, and share everything, even rep, even valor points collected, even honor kills, everything.

They should display the number as xxxx/xxxxx meaning character points / player points.

So my main, my hunter might not have the achievement for BWD but I, the player, do.  My hunter should not be given the achievement for clearing it, as he did not but I should be able to show people that me, the person behind the characters, does indeed have the achievement.  This way would also give me the incentive to go back and get it on my hunter.  While I, the player have it, that character still does not.

They want to add more to the game yet they don't seem to understand that sharing achievements takes away from the game.  Now if I want something on all characters I have to get it on all characters.  If this goes through, all I have to do it do it once.

Doesn't this effectively remove tons of content from the game?  Doesn't it remove the desire to do things on an alt?  Doesn't it take away the feeling of accomplishment that some people like while they are leveling an alt?

My hunter might not have 100K honorable kills but over all my characters combined might.  So my characters would have their respective achievements they earned, and I, the player, would have the collective total and its associated achievements on my player achievements list.

Shared achievements are a good idea.  Just not a good one as they are planning it.

As they are currently doing it, I do not think they are a good thing.