When good achievements go bad

Before I say anything, I want you to know that I like the implementation of the achievement system. I think it gives players like me a chance to make some accomplishments in the game that we would otherwise be playing just to play.

Obviously we won't get everything, or even close to everything, but it's the fact that we have something to work towards besides just leveling, and many times it doesn't send us too far out of the way to do it.

There is one problem that I ran into, and that's the achievement that rewards you for getting exalted with all the factions.

I ran into this multiple times recently on my shaman as I made my way through Felwood and EPL. The only thing I really wanted to do in Felwood was get Timbermaw Hold to not attack me on sight. The easy way to do this is to do the two quests that have you kill other furbolgs, one at a southern camp and one right by the entrance to Timbermaw Hold.

Normally this area isn't very busy, especially since the rewards for getting exalted were only worth getting when the level cap was 60. Now with the new achievement I ran into lots of 70s running around the area farming rep. This not only made it hard to complete the few quests that I actually needed to do, but turned the furbolg camps into a war zone.

I didn't get messed with too much, but there was one troll hunter that had it in for me. It was mostly 70s from each side fighting, but I got stuck in the crossfire more than a few times.

On top of that, it was very difficult to find mobs because they were being killed so fast, and when you get to the end and only need a few specific mobs, it gets very frustrating.

Moving on to EPL, I saw a lot of Argent Dawn rep farming going on. That zone is much more spread out in terms of where you can find mobs to give you the items you need for rep, but there are certain areas that are more heavily populated, and thats where everyone goes.

It wasn't so much trouble with being ganked, but having to wait for respawns, or having the mob you need be tagged right before you get there and having to look for another one or wait for a respawn.

Probably the most annoying thing I ran into wasn't even about rep. It was in north EPL at the zombie troll temple where you have to kill a specific unique mob for a quest. I made my way through the mobs to get there and find a blood elf paladin farming items. I assume it was some kind of mojo or something that those trolls drop.

Regardless of what it was, she was rounding up groups of trolls and consecrating them down. I had to wait through about 5 respawns of the one mob I needed to kill because she kept tagging him before me, and the respawn was pretty slow.

He never came after me, just acted like I wasn't there, but he probably knew exactly what I was going after and was probably having fun watching me get frustrated but not able to do anything about it.

It's too bad there really isn't any way around this. It's the same with farming any item. There tends to be a certain place that is the best place to get it and everyone goes there, and then they fight over it, especially on PvP.

On a PvE server they can just keep stealing it from you and you can't do anything about it unless they flag for PvP. It's a similar situation on a PvP server if you are much lower level and they don't attack you. Either way it's frustrating, especially when you are there for a quest and you know they're just farming rep.

I guess I'll just have to suck it up and just know that I'm going to be running into this situation more and more now.