Irvine (CA) – While World of Warcraft is the biggest MMORPG on the market, many players are a bit tired of the traditional hack and slash grind.  Furthermore, life at level 70 can be a bit boring at times – sure you can get money and gear, but there really isn't that much difference between having 5000 gold or 100,000 gold, especially when you already own everything else.  Now Blizzard Entertainment has announced the addition of achievements to the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King Expansion.

Like achievements in the console world, players will be awarded with titles, gear and bragging rights for doing everything from getting a hair cut (yes, it’s true), giving ten hugs to killing fantastic numbers of enemies in player-versus-player combat.  More than 500 individual achievements will be available in world exploration, player-versus-environment, player-versus-player and professions.  A custom animation and sound will accompany each achievement earned and in-game pets, special clothing and titles will also be awarded.  According to Blizzard, these rewards will be “purely cosmetic” and won’t affect actual gameplay.

The new action bar will include a button that will bring up the achievements window.  Achievements will show up much like quests and will display the name, description, completion date and progress bar.  In addition, you can look at other players’ achievements by right-clicking their portrait.  Yes, it’s just another way to compare how much time you waste compared to others.
 
The Wrath of the Lich King expansion is currently in alpha testing stages and presumably will be released later this year, but Blizzard hasn’t given an official date just yet.  This will be the second expansion pack for World of Warcraft and the first one, The Burning Crusade, sold millions of copies in the first day of release.

As a longtime World of Warcraft player, it's very interesting seeing the game morph into something a bit more console-like.  PvP battle is now heavily weighted towards quick arena combat (unless it's a bunch of paladins and druids fighting each other).  Achievements will now make the game seem more like Halo or Resistance Fall of Man.

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