I'm all for helping newbies, but do you really think the way to do that is sit with them in practice, for EIGHT HOURS?
Really?
How many of you can you say seriously spent 8 hours, or rather, would ever spend 8 hours again in practice?
wait wait this is an achievement?
right, y'all, case in point:
I made a valiant effort to get my friends in game. the copy I purchased was a four-pack, and when the game went on sale, I spammed the hell out of facebook for people to buy and join me, and even bought a few copies for friends that wouldn't otherwise have bought it but claimed interest in playing. all in all, about ten friends ended up with copies.
Daemacil, Merddyn (who was as active as we were at the time but fairly quickly dropped off the face of the game) and I hosted a practice match, though we were still fairly new to the game ourselves. one practice match. it did last a few hours, but once that was done, most of my friends never picked up the game again, despite my best efforts. the ones that did played with me once or twice more, and I haven't seen them in game since, even when I was still putting up facebook shout-outs to play.
if the interest isn't there, I'm not going to be able to host a practice round. that was my best effort for friends, and I'm tired of fighting to get them on board. I would be more than willing to host a practice match for a new player outside of my friends circle, but...that's just not something that comes up. ever. I may want to and be able to swing some special event for it or some crazy bidness in the future now that this thread has given me an idea for it, when I'm not focused on packing to move, but for now, for the purposes of this thread and what most people in-game are likely to do, I can't imagine it coming up enough times to account for the achievement for the average person.
though there's something to be said about not handing out achievements like candy, and I'm sure the point of this achievement is to actually get people to teach and not to get people to land another achievement, I'd still scale this one back.
I will point out if there are more maps for practice, it would be easier on the eyes if someone wanted to actually work towards this achievement and did try to train people in practice. I'll make a new thread for it...