Yay!

So, lets see. Blizzard can track when you got your Feat of Strength achieve. They could also track what guild you were in at the time, if they wanted. Part of me suggests picking the guild at the time, but what if the guild at the time died? And now you're part of a new guild that's working hard(possibly harder?). Why punish people?

@Sage: "Why punish people?"
To avoid what's been suggested earlier: that players will become some sort of freelancers, selling their legendary achievement to guilds for gold. That kind of dealing would go against the intention of guild achievements.

Nah, the fair thing would have been to go with their original idea and get everyone to start again from scratch in Cataclysm.

This? Not fair at all. How about raids like mine which are made up of guild alliances -- our Shadowmourne won't count. How about raids which worked hard for their Ulduar legendary and then split up? Their legendary won't count. How about guilds who have members who are eagerly looking forwards to starting new 10 mans in Cataclysm. Are their legendaries going to count?

This is pretty big time unfair. But in the long run it won't really matter. (I am still annoyed that we worked just as hard as any raid guild for our legendary but we don't count because Blizzard hates alliances though :) )

It's just a poor idea all together if you ask me. The idea behind trying to get guild achievements is understandable but it's a given that there are simply a lot of guilds out there that aren't that stable and most members can't do anything about it.

Nevermind the people like spinks who raid in alliances or have been doing 10 mans in Wrath.

If they really wanted this achievement in they should've introduced it long ago instead of now, where most legendaries are a nothing but another chore in the game to obtain.

I suppose this is mainly an issue for those wishing to complete as many achievements as possible as it remains to be seen what benefit this achievement grants (remember it doesn't actually give the mount, it was just an example).

To comment more directly on the article subject, I'm guessing that they'll just reward the legendary owner's current guild with the status. I'm sure we all remember how poor the implementation of previous achievements was when the system first launched.

I've suspected it ever since they announced them but it's getting more and more clear : the big losers of the guild achievements will be the guild alliances.

For We Are Legendary, I suspect the fairest thing to do would be : when 4.0 is deployed any legendary possessed by the guild is counted, then they're only counted at their creation for the guild of it's creator.

I'm with Spinks on this one.

However, first off let me state that I think the guild achievement system itself has, at best, been poorly conceived. I understand the reasoning for the achievements, i.e., Blizz supporting and encouraging the efforts of guilds; however, I don't think that desire should be based in backward thinking. Rather, it should put all guilds on equal station at the beginning of Cataclysm - sort of like a baseline if you will. Beginning at point *x*, all guilds are equal regardless of how long you have been around. Frankly, I think a clean starting point is the only way to head off arguments from both the new guilds and well-established guilds in terms of achievements. More primary concern, however, is that the whole guild achievement system is going to create a *haves vs. have-nots* kind of class structure on the realms. Granted, it’s all well and good if you are one of the haves, but, it sure does suck if you are one of the have nots. Lastly, I foresee asshattery where guilds will be buying players to get achievements, i.e., I'll pay you 20K gold to leave your current guild and join our guild so we can get some achievement.

TL;DR - all guilds start equal on date of cataclysm, play it forward. Wary of guild achievement system generally.

The problem with not counting older ones is that it hurts guilds who already have them. They have additional players locked out of the quest lines, players who are most likely the more valued players, since guilds tend to give such big investments to their most loyal players. That means spending time getting the items for lower tier players. I'm not suggesting that they're disloyal scum, but they're clearly not the first pick. Second, as I think was pointed out in the first post, this rewards guilds who get it in the easier overleveled runs rather than those who took on serious challenges at the proper level.

I'm not sure how guild alliances are helped or hurt one way or another, since the alliance wouldn't get credit under either system of accounting. The solution to something like that would be formalized alliances, not tinkering with achievements.

I prefer my solution: unexpected implementation of the achievement. This allows current legendaries to be counted without giving time for exploitative trading.

Kleps: Yes, we would far far far prefer to see formalised alliances. But we are deciding what to do in Cataclysm about guilds in any case and would far prefer to start over on a par with everyone else.

This is a bit of a fail. Sure it's a nice bonus if you are lucky enough to fall into the category of people who are going to get rewarded again for doing what you already did for other existing rewards. ie. you are going to get some freebies.

Anyone else, regardless of how hard they worked in the past, has to start over. It's not honestly an issue to find other people to receive legendaries. It's been a hard enough choice as to who gets them as it is.

I also wonder if this is partly intended to keep 25 man guilds grinding old instances since they're getting bored at the moment.

In any case, I feel down. I worked hard in my old 40 man guild to get our legendary items. I don't think it's fair that some people get their old achievements to count and others don't.

: As I commented on your blog, what is fair to one player is unfair to another. There are so many sources of injustices here. What about how you got the legendary? Getting it when the content was new was way harder than doing it overgeared several expansions later. It's unreasonable to me to not give the guilds that both have managed to get the legendaries when they were the current content AND sticking together over the years, inspite of how challenging and almost impossible it is, credit for this.
No matter how you do it, someone will feel disgruntled. Maybe the best thing would have been not to introuduce such an achievement at all since there always will be a conflict around it.

@Chimpeh: Oh I definitely don't hope for that kind of implementation. Think of the bargaining for getting a legendary carrying member to your guild... /shivers

@Edawan: yeah, Blizzard always have had problems to support guild alliencies. I wonder how many of those that will survive with the new raid structure, system for savings, guild fringes etc.

: You and Spinks don't need to worry too badly. He said that the legendary achievement will be the one exception. Not that this will be the principle overall. On the contrary.

: hm... that's interesting. Unannounced achievements. Like they were sneaking it... taking us by surprise... They would have to make sure it wasn't datamined somehow I suppose?

As a long standing guild (formed on Day 1) - I am extremely happy with this change.

We have 2 original thunderfuries still in our guild, including a server first (our Sulfuras weilder isn't guilded anymore, but we did have one); we never crafted an Ateish; we have 3 warglaives; we never saw an Throndil; we have 3 Val'anyrs; we are working on our 4th Shadowmourne.

None of those legendaries should count for us? While I certainly can see Spinks' point, that would have been hugely disapointing for us. I don't think it would be anymore fair for the long standing guilds to be penalized by having to retro-farm legendaries that they already have, all of which are dependant on some seriously nice RNG.

Instead of viewing it like a negative for newer guilds, why not view it as a nice perk for those guilds that have been around forever? The achievement is still achieveable by all guilds - so it's fair in that sense, but I also think it's a nice bonus for those *few* guilds that have stood the test of time. Quite honestly, for guilds that have survived all of the trials and tribulations that keeping a guild together for six years takes, I do not think that puts them at too "unfair" an advantage.

Also as a side note - one of our prot paladins *did* retrofarm a Sulfuras, and for kicks last night we did Sunwell Plateau and a Thron'dil dropped.

We are a guild that is likely to go into the expansion with this guild achivement already in the bank, even if it requires unique legendaries, assuming that the number stays at six. But we EARNED all but one (the bow) of those six Legendaries when they were introduced into the content. With all due respect, I don't think it would be any more "fair" to say "sorry, please go back and farm ancient content even though you already did this years ago when it mattered".