Major Changes Coming to Loremaster: Finish While the Finishing’s Good

With the amount of attention I’ve been giving to my super Loremaster adventure over the past couple of months, one thing I’ve been hugely interested in is how the achievement would change in the Post-Cataclysm world. We knew that the achievement would still be available, but we also knew that the complete overhaul of all the Old World content would likely mean the complete overhaul of the achievement as well.

Now we have some clarity from Zarhym: if you’re mid-way through completing either Loremaster of Kalimdor or Loremaster of Eastern Kingdoms and want the majority of your quest efforts you’ve put in thus far to still count… well, you have not very long to make it so.

Zarhym on Loremaster in Cataclysm

In the wake of Deathwing’s devastation, adventurers will be summoned to embark on new quests from levels 1 to 60 in these transformed territories — and with so much new content to be found on these original two continents, many original quests will no longer be available after the shattering occurs. These quests will automatically be removed from your quest log, while any quests you’ve accepted that still exist in Azeroth will remain in your log.

You may be wondering how the shattering will affect the Loremaster achievements. If you’ve already completed Loremaster of Eastern Kingdoms or Loremaster of Kalimdor, you will not lose your achievements. However, if you’ve made progress toward these achievements without yet completing them, be aware that any quests that are removed from the game will no longer count toward your progress, so you may see your achievement quest counter drop. If you’re close to earning either of these achievements, we strongly suggest you finish them with great haste, as Deathwing’s return is imminent.

In addition, the Loremaster achievements are being redesigned slightly to make them easier to track. Rather than having players complete a huge number of quests throughout a single continent, the criteria will change so that you will instead need to complete a set number of quests in each zone. Once you’ve earned the achievements for each listed zone on a continent, you will then be awarded the Loremaster achievement for that continent. For those who do have Loremaster of Kalimdor or Eastern Kingdoms completed already, you can still go back and get the new achievements for questing in individual zones on those continents.

As many of you are aware, my own venture in Loremaster-dom has hit a couple of snags along the way, but I’m less than two zones away from completing all four major content areas — Northrend went first, then EK, Kalimdor, and finally I’m slowly but surely working my way through Outland.

As I stated from the beginning, my goal is indeed to get the title, but moreso because I wanted to see all the content before it kicks the bucket than for any other reason. By the same reasoning, I’m equally as excited to experience the new quests that will come from the expansion, even if that means the complete wipe of many oldies. /tear.

Another interesting item to note: the new Loremaster of Cataclysm will soon be required to achieve the meta Loremaster achievement. But will this change also come in the Shattering, or after the release of Cataclysm? We’ll see. If I don’t get my butt in gear, I may not be able to get the meta before the expansion! /panic!

Does Deathwing’s imminent return and the possible wiping clean of your quest slate motivate you to push toward Loremaster? Do I even still have any competition from the other Lore Hounds who had once fought alongside me in the hunt for quests?

5 Comments

  1. Well if it really is out tomorrow you only have tonight and a few hour’s to finish it.

    But since it’ll be easier since it’s broken up into too sub zones come cata launch, will it Really be so bad to wait it out?

    Ask yourself that first.

  2. I started on this a few weeks ago. After finally submitting to the “I can haz JP epics!” upgrade process, I was able to solo the remaining 5-man group quests in Zul’Drak and Icecrown on my spriest. That gave me loremaster of Northrend.

    At that point I decided to try for the old world titles as well. I needed 300 quests in EK, 250 in Kal. I started in EK first, got lucky with having the human starter zone and wrapped up by the skin-of-my-teeth in EPL, 5 days later. Kal went quicker, 3 days with plenty of quests left over in Silithus.

    Up until now I haven’t bothered that much with Outlands. I instead spent the remaining time until the shattering farming rep. Thorium brotherhood, those guys in Sillythus and, yes, “They love me in that tunnel!” Hubba hubba. I did that and also completed the “run all old world 5-man” achievement, as well as using the addon “Akkis Recipe List” to locate/farm rare and obscure recipe drops.

  3. Because I have no way of gaining more game time until Christmas at the earliest, AND having only rep grinds to complete just to unlock more quests for Brood of Nozdormu…. I hate kalimdor with a passion… I have exhausted all other quests in the zone outside of raid/rare item drop quests.

    But with Crapaclysm only 2 weeks away, I’m going to have to restart when I only have 20 or so quests remaining for the meta, which pisses me off. So unless some random person discovers my email address and takes pity on me, I’m stuck with having it reset.

  4. I knew these changes would be bad news for some of us, and clarified so very soon before the Shattering. At least you’ll still be able to get the achievement, but that sucks that you have to restart :(

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