Will Shared Achievements Change How You Play?

The addition of shared achievements come mists can be both a good and a bad thing in my opinion but that is not going to be what this is about even if I mention the good and bad of it.  This is about how we play the game and how shared achievements might change that.

One of the biggest reasons I liked the concept of shared achievements is something like the holiday events.  I know a few people that have done them all on multiple characters but personally I do not have the time nor the desire to do that.  Some of the things for the holiday events I hated doing, some were downright brutal like school of hard knocks when it first came out, it is easier now, but it is still not even close to anything anyone could call fun from a PvP or a PvE standpoint.  So why would I ever want to do that on more than one character?

But even if I like that the achievement is being shared for this, the shared achievements are not going to change the way I play in cases like this because I had absolutely zero intention of ever doing it on any other character again after I finished off my main.  If I did do any of it, it would just be for something to do.

One of the biggest drawbacks to the shared achievements is the fact that is removes a butt load of content from the game.  We are not just talking a little bit here of there, we are talking 100s of hours of play time is being removed from the game.  No longer will I need to go get the achievements from old raids, which is something I love to do, with a new max level character.  What is worse is not the fact that I no longer need to do it, I am no longer capable of doing it because I already have the achievement even if I wanted to do it to get the achievements.  Boo hiss hiss boo.  Taking away things I did for fun like that is not nice blizzard.

I can see me playing the game a lot less because of shared achievements.  Many of the times I go help people with raids or achievements it is on a character that needs the achievements.  Not sure why, but I love seeing the achievements pop up, it is part of the fun for me. 

If none of them need the achievements my desire to go along will be greatly decreased.  Sure, I will still help someone if they need the help, but I will never tag along just for fun so I can get the achievement on an alt.  My alt won't need it.  That means, unless I am actually needed, I won't go.  So it will surely change the amount I play the game, lowering is significantly in the achievement hunting department because once you get it, everyone has it.

Some of that once you get it everyone has it stuff works well for me in places however.  So it is a double edged sword.  My rogue and druid do flag returns, my main, a hunter, does not.  So now I can get those PvP type achievements on my main while not doing them on my main.  For someone like me that likes to hunt achievements this can help my main get something he has not been able to before.  There are some achievements that are just easier to get on some classes.

For a few examples my priest has the moonguard achievement and I have healed that achievement for so many others because doing it because as a disc priest is insanely easy, while my main still does not have it.  My priest was a kingslayer a good three months before my main was.  My shaman healed tunnel vision every time I was in that dungeon with her but on my main I have never been lucky enough to get a healer capable of healing it so my main does not have it.  Those are just a few achievements my hunter will pick up.

How about doing those runs I was talking about.  The old raids for fun.  If I need any achievements on my main I want to run on my main.  Which means if we are short a healer or a tank I get put in the position of taking one for the team and running on a tank or healer and not getting the achievement on my hunter or saying I want to get the achievement so someone else has to switch. 

Neither one of those is fun really.  I am either forced to play something I would rather not or I have to force someone else to play something they would rather not.  I don't know about you, but I think being in that situation sucks.  Now with shared achievements it is no big deal.

It also means when I decide to go achievement hunting I can stack the odds in my favor being I have every class in the game maxed.  I can use the perfect class for getting the achievement.  A worgen feral druid or worgen rogue, lots of speed boosts there, for flag returns in PvP.  My engineer to get ravenholdt exalted because lets face it having that mailbox will make things a lot easier.  My healers to get achievements like tunnel vision or moonguard that depends on healers that I usually have bad luck getting good ones that are good on my hunter.  Or how about a tank based achievement like faster than the speed of light, my tank had it way before anyone else.  Now I just use the character / class / profession that is needed to get the achievement done easier.

So while the achievements being shared did decrease the replayability of the game a great deal as I mentioned before, it does bring a chance to get more achievements for my main.  Both a good and bad thing.  Like I mentioned.

So how will achievement sharing change how I play?

I will raid on multiple characters a lot less because there is no need to get the achievements on each one.  I will no longer do something I've already done, just for something to do.  I will still be a hunter main but will no longer feel tied to it as much as I used to.  No longer will I ever have to face the feeling that it is either help my guild and tank or get the achievements on my main.  I can do both at once basically.

It will also breath some life into my PvP desire.  I like to heal PvP but my hunter can not heal.  So I don't do it at all.  I always hated getting the achievements on my priest when my hunter did not have them so I just didn't do it at all.

Over all I think I will find myself playing a lot less with the loss of achievement hunting on alts but it might see me playing PvP a little more.  Maybe it will even out, maybe it won't.  Only time will tell.

One side effect of this achievement sharing that I am looking forward to seeing is more account wide achievements.  Stuff like class specific achievements.  Defeat this dungeon as a tank, healer and DPS.  Catch 5 enemies in one ring of frost.  Get the killing blow on 5 enemies at the same time with one multi shot.  All things like that.  I am looking forward to the possibility that there could be a lot of new achievements for me to chase on all my characters being I lost the replayability of a lot of my previous achievement hunting.  This is, if they add stuff like that.  I sure hope they do.  I think that would be awesome if they did.