Achievements are a system to track, well, your achievements in the game. There is a lot more to that, but to put it simply every time you do something cool in the game you might get an achievement. It might be as simple as reaching level 10 or getting a pet to being the first to kill a raid boss when a new dungeon arrives. The achievements vary greatly, but to understand things we’ll need to start at the beginning.

Achievements begin in the achievement window where they sit dormant until you meet the requirement to earn that achievement. The window is accessible on your system bar (near your bags) and is broken into two tabs. One of them focuses on achievements and the other focuses on statistics. Each achievement has a certain requirement to “unlock” or “earn” it. When you meet the requirement the achievement goes from grayed out to full color and you earn the set amount of points assigned to it. Some achievements even have other rewards, like titles, that you’ll also receive once the achievement is earned.

The points that you earn go to a running total that is a good judgement of how many neat things you’ve done in the game. A lot of achievements are time sinks while others are true badges of honor. Some don’t even award points, but show that you’ve done something amazing within the game. A player with a high score doesn’t necessarily show that he’s done things others haven’t, but does show that it’s someone who has spent a good deal of time in the game.

There are several categories of achievements viewable on the left side of the achievement window. Click them will show what achievements you’ve earned and the achievements that you have left. The categories are as follows:

• General: Achievements in this category are a mixed bag focusing a lot on various things such as levels, reading books, drinking, mounts, looting gold, etc.
• Quests: Focuses on completing difficult quest lines and meeting various total quests completed milestones.
• Exploration: Exploring a map to 100% will unlock an achievement here.
• Player vs. Player: Reaching honorable kill milestones, killing the leaders of the opposing faction, participating in the arenas, and other pvp related activities will unlock achievements here (some even reward mounts).
• Dungeons & Raids: Killing certain bosses in instances, obtaining a certain number of any of the badges of honors, and other instance related activities end up here.
• Professions: Everything professions. Reaching a certain level in a profession to doing profession quests unlock achievements here.
• Reputation: Getting to exalted with various reputations will unlock achievements here. See our reputation guides.
• World Events: See our guide portal for guides to world events, but basically each seasonal event has one or more achievements here.
• Feats of Strength: These are achievements that are considered near impossible to obtain.

The question at this point is why bother? At the current time other players in the game can inspect you and view your achievements while you can do the same to them. By right clicking another player’s portrait you’ll gain access to their achievements. They’ll be able to see your total score along with what you’ve earned. So if you got the world first for a Kel’thuzad kill then they’ll be able to see proof that you’ve done it.

So in summary, the achievement system is designed as a way to help you show the world just what you’ve done in the game and keep track of nearly every neat to amazing thing you do. Keep an eye on this guide while we continue to expand it to include how to get the easy achievements quick and a full list of the achievements and how best to obtain them.