Icecrown Citadel: The Frozen Halls Looming over the stark wastes of Northrend, Icecrown Citadel awaits those who would see the Lich King and his Scourge brought low and the threat they pose wiped from the face of Azeroth. The heroes who venture within will face some of the greatest horrors yet seen. But before you burst into the front gate of the citadel, an alternate means of entry beckons. Journey through three separate wings of the new five-player dungeon, Icecrown Citadel: The Frozen Halls, and follow Jaina Proudmoore or Sylvanas Windrunner into the Lich King’s domain.
We are now a week into this year’s Hallow’s End holiday event and I still don’t have a squashling pet on Amradorn, or any of my other toons for that matter. I’ve seen it drop once, from a Headless Horseman kill, and I lost the role.
I knew going into the event that it would be filled with anxiety and frustration since the Sinister Calling achievement, and specifically the Squashling Pet, are all that I need in order to complete the “What a long Strange Trip” achievement and earn the Violet Proto Drake mount which is a 310% speed mount.
An achievement like “What a long strange trip”, is sort of like running a marathon. It’s tough and grueling. Sometimes during it you might wonder if your going to be able to finish but you keep running toward that ultimate goal and reward.
I can’t help but give Blizzard credit for at least giving us multiple ways of obtaining the pet. The problem is that they are all tied to a random number generator. So succeeding or failing at this achievement isn’t about skill, effort, or dedication to the game, it’s about simple luck, and so far the last week has shown me that I have no luck.
I know, it’s just game, and I shouldn’t get myself all worked up over some lousy pixels on my computer screen, but I worked hard over the last year to get all of these achievements done for this mount. I’ve ran through all the hoops, PVP’ed even though I hate it, I’ve done everything that was asked of me to get this mount for Amradorn. It’s like running that marathon, getting in sight of the finish line, only to get tripped up by some callous bystander and seeing the guy you had been struggling neck and neck with for the last few hundred yards break through the tape instead of you.
UPDATE:
Thanks to several guildies I now have a Squashling and my mount. WOOOOOT!!!!!!!
Since the addition of experience gains in battlegrounds I’ve been spending a lot of my game time in Alteric Valley. For anyone that knows me and my stance on PVP this should come as a bit of a surprise. I hate PVP. I hate it with a passion. But frankly I just can’t pass up the rate of xp that I am gaining for my alts by doing this. Not only that, once they are all max level, I will have all those quests that I skipped available to do for gold and gear. This could really set me up well for the up coming Cataclysm expansion that Blizzard announced at Blizcon.
A side effect of all of this however is that I am quickly learning about the tactics of Alteric Valley. What to do and what not to do to win and I’ve gotten pretty good at recognizing when we are going to loose. I’ve also learned some about what I would call the “Lemming Mentality” of Human nature.
The worst thing that can happen in AV is for either side to start “Turtleing”, otherwise known as a stalemate or the World War I syndrome, where both sides are basically locked into a perpetual battle at one of the bottle neck points of the zone. As a Horde player this tends to be on the road just north of Icewing Bunker or on the bridge going into the Alliance base. Get stuck at either of these points and your pretty much stuck in a game that will only end when one sides recourses hit 0. While that can be a viable tactic it’s a generally slow tactic and for those grinding honor or xp it is not a very appetizing tactic.
Amradorn is the Guild Leader and founder of the World of Warcraft Guild Foederati that was founded on January 31st, 2005. He has been playing WoW since December 2004 and Amradorn is the first and main toon. Although Am is an altaholic and has toons spread across two accounts.
