Weekend and nothing to do. MeinMMO editor Patrick Freese starts playing World of Warcraft again after a long break. He couldn’t have guessed that a boring achievement in the game would bring him so much joy.
It is Sunday evening. For me, a typical time that I like to spend at the PC. I ordered some food and decided to start World of Warcraft. To complete a few achievements that may grant some titles, mounts, or toys – that’s the light entertainment I can use right now.
I had paused WoW for a while, only logging in sporadically to manage a few auctions. So it was certainly time again for a more serious session. I scrolled through my achievements overview looking for a challenge that would reward me properly. The Field Photographer – that’s my mission! A bit time-consuming, but at least a title as a reward. Let’s go.
Surprisingly, the evening was not as dull as the achievement suggests
This is my mission: For the achievement “Field Photographer,” I need to visit 43 locations with a character of my choice. At each location, I take out my S.E.L.F.I.E. camera and snap a photo. After 43 selfies at 43 places, the achievement is complete, and I earn the title “Field Photographer,” which can then shine next to my character’s name.
To me, this sounds like I will be traveling through the continents for hours, with nothing to do in between. Boring. Travel from one continent to another, take out your flying mount, visit a location, snap a photo, and move on to the next location. Fortunately, at that time, there was a friend online in my guild, whom I met in this guild more than 14 years ago.
I ask if he has already completed the achievement, and he declines. We create a group and meet on Discord. Our journey begins at the quest starting point in Orgrimmar. I am not aware at this point that I will spend the next three and a half hours flying around, filled with nostalgia and good stories.
Chapter 1 – Kalimdor: Our next stop after Orgrimmar is Moonglade. Since my buddy Woife plays a druid, he has a loud advantage here, which he has to rub in my face: “Fly over there. I just use my teleport to Moonglade.” I mount my flying mount and take off. Meanwhile, I prepare a small list of the places we need to visit on the second monitor.
First, we scour Kalimdor. Moonglade, Nordrassil, the Echo Isles, the Twin Colossals, a quick detour to Onyxia’s Lair, where we take down the boss, into the Caverns of Time, to the Terrace of the Makers, to the Hall of Origin, and finally to the legendary Ahn’Qiraj raid, to snap a selfie at the Scarab Wall.
We sweetened the flight time by flying high, roughly aiming for the target location, and then checking how accurately we would hit it. Everything in Kalimdor is relatively close together. In a short time, we completed this chapter.
Chapter 2 – Eastern Kingdoms: We start in the Eastern Kingdoms far to the north and visit the Chapel of Hope’s Light. The gloomy theme in the region doesn’t please either of us, and we are glad when we come over from the gray-brown monotony into the green and visit Herdweiler.
Meanwhile, Woife has given up on flying himself and instead made himself comfortable on the back of my two-person mount. He only dismounts now to snap a photo and then takes his seat again, leaving me to do the flying. This way, I would also like to participate in the achievement.
During the selfie in Herdweiler, he notices something: “Fly over there. There by the tower. Is that a door?” Perplexed by his undefinable “over there,” I pause the flight in mid-air. “That?” I ask. “Yes, there. By the tower, I mean.” Next to us is a small gray tower that has a brown spot at one point. We approach. “That must have been intended as a door and was then discarded. Why else would a tower have a brown spot in that location?” speculates my passenger. We fly on.
After a few photo stops, the Deep Run Tram is on our agenda. A tram that connects the two Alliance cities of Stormwind and Ironforge. Alliance territory. The enemy. We as Horde players should head to the Alliance capital, snap two photos, and then get out. Well then, cheers.
We approach Stormwind and devise the plan “Dive from the sky, straight into the portal to the Deep Run Tram. Pull out the camera and take the selfie, and only AFTER that, check if anyone from the opposing faction wants to kill us.” We are lucky. At that time, this part of the capital was about as well visited as a doctor’s waiting room on a Friday afternoon. We have all the time in the world, quickly take down two guards that try to obstruct our way, and then we’re back in the air.
The next highlight is a visit to the Deadmines. The instance has an incredibly long path to the entrance, and of course we have to take the selfie IN the instance. The way to the entrance must be covered on foot, without a mount. I hear Woife constantly talking about how “beautiful it was back then when you had to beat all mobs here. That was a real task.” He convincingly claims, “The best entrance to an instance EVER.”
Chapter 3 – The (small) Shattered World: After the photo in front of the Dark Portal, we head to the old shattered world. The state that one knows from the first expansion “Burning Crusade.” Memories come up. For me, this was my entry into World of Warcraft. Together, we philosophize about the beautiful areas and the ideas Blizzard had back then. Here we have only three stops, one of which is the capital Shattrath. Woife asks why neither of us had the brilliant idea to choose a mage for the journey. “Oh man, we could have saved so much time. But now I’m not switching anymore. We started this in the team, and we will continue like this,” I explain, and he agrees.
On we go to Northrend.
Chapter 4 – Northrend: “Yes, now we fly to Howling Fjord,” I happily exclaim at the next chapter. “This is my favorite expansion. Not necessarily for the content, but the feeling is so great. WOTLK is nostalgia for me and a cuddly feeling. I like it here,” I continue unsolicited. To my surprise, my passenger is also convinced by at least the Howling Fjord. “The muuuuusic,” he raves. To my shame, I admit that I just disabled the music, but I have wanted to buy the soundtrack for a while now.
I found the soundtrack collection for WoW online a few years ago for a good price. Delivery from the USA was supposed to take two weeks. Three weeks after the shipping confirmation, I inquired about a tracking number. “Unfortunately, we cannot find the package. It’s being canceled. Sorry.” I had cleared a nice spot next to the CD collection of GTA Vice City. Too bad.
We listen to the music and scour all the locations until we stand in front of the Icecrown Citadel. “We need to go in. All the way to the top,” I say. “Are you sure we can’t just reach the tower from the outside?” asks Woife, who then transforms into his flight form and – surprisingly – flies up himself. We land at the top, pull out the camera, snap a photo, and … nothing. No. That doesn’t count. We have to walk through the instance and take down the final boss to then take a photo on his throne.
It is now about twenty past eight. We have been on the way for more than two hours. In between, there was a break for my refreshments and a little round with my dog. Now it’s Woife’s turn, and he wants to make himself something to eat. Afterward, he also has to lie down because he has to get up early on Monday morning. I should finish the rest by myself. He will catch up after work.
We thank each other for the nice evening, and I enter the door to the Icecrown Citadel while my druid friend slowly disappears into the sky.
Chapter 5 – Cataclysm and everything else: On my list, there are still ten locations. Three in the areas of Cataclysm, four with the lovely Pandaren, and three in Draenor. I turn on a stream in the background and fly from place to place. Pull out the camera there, experiment with the filters, and get closer to the big title. Finally, there is only one location left on my map. The instance Auchindoun in Draenor. I fly to the location, enter the instance, and take a final selfie at 9:40 PM. About three and a half hours after the start of the photo marathon in Orgrimmar.
Since I probably won’t use the selfie camera again, I delete the hotkey and icon directly from my action bar.
Here I stand before you. Field photographer. Am I particularly proud of the title? No. Could it have been solved much faster? No question. But without the achievement, I probably wouldn’t have set out with an old friend and relived the beautiful memories.
Do you have similar beautiful memories that you occasionally relive with friends in World of Warcraft or other MMOs?
I had a bad experience when I raided again after a break. My first raid after 9 years shows me what annoys me about it.
