Fomo fomo fomo. The fear of missing out. That’s a big part of what games use to drive engagement these days.
So let’s start by talking about arguably acceptable and normal fomo rewards. Gladiator cosmetics, M+ titles/mounts/portals, etc… These are things that you’re clearly rewarded for doing during a certain time period when the content is available. This makes sense, sure, give that PvPer their next mount/title/whatever for being proving their mettle and slapping the ladder for the 150th season in a row, and if they don’t then that’s on them since it’s abundantly clear that these competition rewards go away from season to season, every time.
However, competition and completion are separate matters, and making a massive completion achievement in the last patch of an expansion while giving no up-front indication of whether it goes away is much different. And unfortunately for players, this is where fomo and completionism have become intertwined, Blizzard only wants players to feel satisfied for handling their massive completion in a given time frame despite the extremely massive undertaking it might be…
What am I talking about? Veilstrider in particular, as well as other overarching completion achievements which I can only assume have gone away based on what I’ve observed since starting WoW.
I started going for Veilstrider towards the end of SL, and as you might guess due to the ridiculous requirements for the achievement, I didn’t complete the requirements before the end of the expansion. Rather it was a few weeks into 10.0.5 that I finished, unknowing of the fact that the achievement was actually removed…(incoming “you had 2 years loool”)
While fomo and time limiting aren’t exclusively bad things in the game, when you tie them together with raw completionism, you’re devaluing old content even more than it already has been by the release of new content. However, if you leave these massive completion achievements in despite the release of new content, each expansion makes the game become more robust, with even more avenues for player engagement and expression aside from the latest content. Initially Blizzard got some praise by players for adding Veilstrider (ex. Thank you for putting in Veilstrider ) but of course they just had to do something silly…
To make an example of now useless content, The Maw. Everyone hated on The Maw for various reasons, so you can assume nobody but completionists and maybe the odd leveler are going there right now. But there’s still content there! Tons of content and lore which people currently have no reason to go through, especially considering how SL appears to be completely forgotten about in DF. But when you see a Maw Walker, you know they suffered through hell in its entirety, and that completion could be a badge of honor whether they finished it today or two years ago.
So while fomo and time limiting are not necessarily bad things, they can be when done wrong, and they sure did Veilstrider dirty by making it unavailable. Therefore, as advised by customer service, I ask for your support for re-adding this achievement for fellow completionists in general, and those in particular who nearly completed the achievement but were deprived due to the requirements being something akin to a time-gated and time-limited ‘Insane in the Membrane’.
TLDR: I want Veilstrider to be added back into the game, raw completionism should not have time limits attached. Further iterations of massive completion achievements should also remain available to players in the future (like the new “the Forbidden” title) so that the content still has more potential value.
If you work hard on 100%-ing old content, you should have something to show for it.
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