If you participate in achievements, then you increase your liberty. If you don’t participate, then you limit it. The achievement system is just like taking tests in school. If you always fail your tests, then you probably don’t have the liberty to go hang out with your friends once your parents find out. If you always pass all of your tests, then you probably have the liberty to do just about anything you want to within reason.

In the game, whoever’s in charge of the group is your parent. If you’ve passed your tests, then they’ll let you know whether or not you’re allowed to go watch a movie in Old Kingdom, play baseball in the Construct Quarter, or throw down a game of chess in Karazhan.

The system helps those who put forth some effort, even if it’s false effort. But it only limits you based on your “parent’s” rules. If they say you can’t go on a raid without getting scoring a 100 on your test (heroic difficulty achievements), then that’s the way it is. You can cheat to get the grade and still be allowed to go, or you can work on achieving that score yourself. If you fail the test, or don’t bother taking it in the first place, then you will never meet the requirement for that party leader. But just like parents, not all party leaders set the same standards. While some might require you to have a certain achievement to join in, others will not.

You already have the freedom you’re looking for, you’re just trying to exorcise it in the wrong place. PuG’s are more like babysitters than parents, rather than knowing that you usually do good on tests but simply bombed the last one, all the babysitter knows is that you failed your test yesterday so you aren’t allowed to go out an play at all today. Your real parents (guild/raid leader) know that you put three weeks worth of study time in on that test that you failed, and they’ll probably let you go out and play a bit even though you didn’t pass.

So to sum up that TL;DR reply there, if you want to run content without having the achievement for it then you either need to find a PuG that is open to everybody (success depends somewhat on the general attitude of your server), or you need to find a guild that’s willing to take you along without having the achievements already.

And I know the analogy up there doesn’t work all that great and could vary greatly between everyone’s own experiences, so if you reply to this part don’t bother trying to point out the flaws as it’s simply there to help illustrate the point.

But after gearing up my alt I finally managed to do 3k on patchwerk in a naxx guildrun and thought I’m finally good enough to pug VoA.

Problem was, this guy wanted the achievement. I did the honest thing – I told him I have it on my main and know the tactics well, but this being an alt I hadn’t had the chance to get it yet. He didn’t respond to me and continued spamming trade channel for more group members.

So I’ve had no choice – I tried the honest route, but people like that kind of force you into sinking that little bit lower into lying to them.

As has been said above – just because you have the achievement doesn’t mean you’re good. Hell, you could be dead the entire fight but if the remaining members get the boss down – so have you effectively.

So I’ve no problem using a fake achievement to get the real one – if they kick me or don’t give me loot, I don’t care, because next time I can link the proper one and all will be fine and dandy!

What I was driving at is that there seems to be a general feeling amongst people who normally would rather not con other players that it’s ok to con other players who ask you to link achievements because it’s a crappy thing to ask. (Certainly on the WoW boards if not here).

My point is if you’re not ok with being a liar then don’t be.

And secondarily if someone else is forming a pug you should probably play by their rules or not join. Scamming them just ultimately means less pug raid leaders because it’s a kinda crappy job anyway that gets even crappier if everyone lies to you on the basis that you’re an ass for trying to actually make something happen as opposed to hanging around Dala bored like everyone else.

Naughty? Obviously.

If you really want to know what achievements people have, then there are websites you can visit, such as pugchecker, that show you what content people have cleared.

Requesting people to link their achievements is useless anyway. Even if somebody links the actual achievement from their own log though doesn’t mean anything. You can get those achievements while being carried through by your other guild members. For all we know, you could have died 3 seconds into the fight and then the rest of the raid pulled you out.

It doesn’t mean you cheated to get the achievement, it just means that you suck while the rest of your guild is good, yet you got credit for their greatness. Achievements are a very poor tool for use in finding out how good/bad a player is or how much skill they do or do not have.

I do sympathise with PUG raid leaders but at the end of the day, I can link my Emalon achievements all day … it still won’t tell you which spec I was in when I killed him