Comments on: Men Do So Like To Collect Things

By: harrumph

harrumph — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 02:02:00 +0000

Dinger — wouldn’t the devil be . . . seitan?

By: malkav11

malkav11 — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 00:34:40 +0000

I think achievements in singleplayer are an excellent metagaming activity, and done properly can really encourage approaches to the game that might not otherwise have been obvious, or, with secret achievements, reward going off the beaten path. I’m not hugely convinced by the 360 Gamerscore bit (though I think having relative weight for achievements is a good thing), but I do wish there were a unified achievement framework like Live for PC games (GfW Live obviously isn’t going to work out in that role.) Steam is the closest thing, but it obviously fails to cover achievements in games like LOTRO, Mass Effect and Sins of a Solar Empire, which aren’t on Steam. And even the games that are, there’s no overarching “achievements” display, just individual game stats.

By: Little Green man

Little Green man — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:48:42 +0000

Personally I don’t mind achievements in singleplayer games as I often don’t bother if they’re too hard, but also because some of them can be quite fun (not collect-um-ups). However, this business with the TF2 unlocks just means 1) People play the game wrong on a seperate server to get the equipment or 2) They nerf their team by playing the game wrong on normal servers. Some of the TF2 achievements are quite smart, but ones like “ubercharge a scout” mean that you are ubercharging one of the least useful players to do it on, when a pyro or soldier would be better, just so you can get that achievement. So that person will not play in the most efficient manner to win, and their team is at a disadvantage. And the fact that this means that idiots who don’t play the game correctly get more, in some cases better, equipment than you just shows it wasn’t thought through.

By: Daz

Daz — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:53:53 +0000

Hmm, in my mind there is a difference between an unlock and an achievment.

Unlocks tend to be linked towards XP (or whatever a developer wants to call them), and I think they’re an entirely separate debate. For me, CoD4 does unlocks exceptionally well, as none of them seemed to be game breaking and I had as much fun and success with the opening weapons as I did with later ones (the G3 in particular encourages an entirely different approach to the game).

Achievments, though? Well I guess they change the way people play but I’m not so impressed with how I play to label the way others play as “wrong” (and this is looking at achievements purely from the point of view of online gaming). The very fact that I can play against the world means there are infinite variations in play style, encouraged by everything from drugs to beer to sexual acts for kills to achievements. I can always just play against friends or in a clan if I want a particular style of play.

In a single player environment, it’s optional. The example of an achievement for jumping out of a plane given above is a prime example – it’s a shit achievement, but so what? It hasn’t negatively affected the game.

By: WCAYPAHWAT

WCAYPAHWAT — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:08:55 +0000

“On the other hand trying to light up 15 zombies with flares made me want to pull my hair out.”

I do this anyway…..to hear them scream.

But anyway, I lost all respect for these so called achievement systems when a friend of mine was playing MoH airborne on 360, and unlocked an achievement for ‘jumping out of the plane’. Yeah….really makes you feel special, like you did something awesome. uh huh.

since then I’ve payed slightly more attention to it, and realized half of them are awarded for things you cant actually avoid doing. seems stupid to me.

By: Mr Pink

Mr Pink — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 12:35:35 +0000

And, the most important point for everybody that I’ll re-iterate for the umpteenth time in this comments thread, is that they are entirely optional. Complaining that you don’t enjoy something you have absolutely no obligation to do is, well, redundant unless you believe that it’s negatively affecting the bits that have you to do.

The problem is though, in multiplayer shooters like TF2, they DO negatively affect the game. Unless you perform these arduous tasks, you will have less equipment to choose from. Also, many servers are blighted by people playing the game “wrong” in order to get achievements.

By: Daz

Daz — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 11:39:35 +0000

Achievements have been the single greatest motivating factor in getting me to play offline modes since, well, the internet didn’t exist. Their integration into the 360 experience has meant that when I’m bored of a games main mode, I go off and play somewhere else. In particular, sandbox gaming benefits from this for me as it gives me something to aim for whilst still playing around.

Sure, a lot of their success is down to their implimentation. Crackdown’s orbs, for instance, are mildly frustrating at first but once I’d attuned my play style to their collection I found myself scanning the environment constantly, and they served to teach me how the architecture of the world worked and then lead me to understand my superhuman jumping abilities.

The Call Of Duty 4 implimentation of achievments is also pretty neat. At first it’s “Kill X number of people with this gun”, then progresses from there to actually encourage careful, skilled play.

And, the most important point for everybody that I’ll re-iterate for the umpteenth time in this comments thread, is that they are entirely optional. Complaining that you don’t enjoy something you have absolutely no obligation to do is, well, redundant unless you believe that it’s negatively affecting the bits that have you to do.

By: Sam

Sam — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 08:44:42 +0000

Andrew Doull: Well, yes – achievements are great when they’re used to point out alternatives you might not have thought of, like the fact that you can kill scouts with the syringe gun (although, actually, so far, I’ve killed… zero scouts as a medic, so make of that what you will). The thing that soured it for people was that you have to kill 50 scouts with a syringe gun to get a toy, which makes it less of a “look, you can do this cool thing, which we made an achievement for” and more “look, you can do this tedious thing, in order to get a toy”…

By: Turin Turambar

Turin Turambar — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 07:18:36 +0000

I don’t like them. Too arbitrary, without real consequences, too “meta”.

By: Alex

Alex — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 04:46:36 +0000

Actually, I’d think achievements are more suited to multiplayer – they might actually highlight some feature from some class you’d have overlooked.

When I played Episode 2 for the first time it was a bit weird having regular pop-ups saying I did something – I’m not big on immersion in the first place (you’re playing a game, you know you’re playing a game, etc), but that was kind of annoying.

By: Andrew Doull

Andrew Doull — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 04:20:17 +0000

RichPowers: I would have agreed with you 100%. Then I had that one game where I healed 12000 odd with one life. I’ll remember that for a while.

I believe the 50 scouts with syringes is to emphasise the fact Medics are one of the better classes at filling the air with scout killing goodness.

By: malkav11

malkav11 — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 03:28:49 +0000

I love badges in the City of X games and the deed system in LOTRO. If I had any intention of playing WoW ever again, this would probably be great.