If you're a gamer, you're probably familiar with "achievement" systems, where you get a little virtual badge every time you complete a game goal, like finish a level, or some arbitrary task the developer happened to think of, like collect all the pink-colored guns in the game. The Xbox Live Gamerscore system is basically the grandfather of all achievement systems.

It's so common it's sort of an inside joke among gamers.

World of Warcraft picked up on the system soon enough, once they realized the potential. You see, plenty of people were already hooked on WoW because of the sense of accomplishment -- gaining levels, killing bosses, getting fancy weapons and armor -- from just playing the game content as it was designed. The thing is, there were players on either side of that bell curve (super hardcore or super casual) that weren't quite as hooked as they could be.



This is the ideal, you see.

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Enter the achievement system. Achievements can be handed out for the stupidest things, like reaching level 10 or logging on during WoW's 4th anniversary. This makes people feel like they've accomplished something even if they'll never set foot in a dungeon or kill a boss.

On the other end of the spectrum, the overachievers who kill every boss in the game within a month of its introduction now have new challenges in the form of completely arbitrary conditions under which to kill the boss. It'd be like after a football team wins the Super Bowl, asking them to try and win the Super Bowl again, but this time with one hand tied behind their backs and everyone on the team wearing a Bavarian alpine hat.



And you can't let the hat fall off.

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So some achievements are meaningless, and some achievements are insanely difficult. The developers thought it would be funny to make some that were both. Like these.